Home plate

It's been a long and labor intensive week at school.  All of my time has been dedicated to finishing my clock plates in preparation for final plating and assembly.  After over 20 hours with the sandpaper I finally have results.  The clock plans called for windows to be cut in the plate to showcase the mechanism.  This looks nice, but I liked the heartier and more industrial look of the solid plate and opted to keep it.  To add a nice flare I applied perlage to both sides of each plate which adds a nice three dimensional visual interest to the piece.  The perlage was achieved by chucking an abrasive stick into the drill press and then kissing the material with it in a straight pattern.  It turned out better than I expected and should look very good when plated.

A finished plate. All that is left to do now is apply the nickel electroplating, though maybe I'll price out a gold plating.