I had been invited to attend the wedding of one of my nephews, which, apart from making me feel very old, made me realize that I didn't have a cool tie clip. The last time I wore a tie clip, it was one of my work ones and not cool at all. We don't wear ties at work anymore so I had a few obsolete tie clips I could use. The one pictured is actually the second one I made. The first one I put the clip on the wrong side which meant it couldn't clip to the shirt.
It is made from bought components, silver soldered together. There is the clip itself, a very nice vintage clock cog, a propeller and a pair of wings. I removed the clip and spring from the tie clip to stop it being damaged by the heat. The clip is plated but I filed and sanded it off the front to expose the raw brass underneath. I also filed both sides of the cog to make it super clean and flat. To prepare the propeller I used a bench grinder to grind off the back to make it a lower profile and not stick out so far. There's a few different ways you could do the soldering. I used a silver solder paste, which makes it pretty easy. I just applied the paste, assembled the bits on a perforated steel mesh, which I heated from underneath. This works because my torch is huge with excessive heat and the thicker parts(the cog)are underneath. The mesh also stops the flame from blowing away the pieces and melting the propeller.
The colour is done using heat and liver sulphur solution, and then buffing and wire brushing the highlights. The propeller blades are then tweaked so it will spin if you blow on it fairly hard. Quite a few people commented on it and some really liked it.It was so windy that day I almost flew away!
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