Gushin A.M., Oleynik I.N.

Donbass State Machinebuilding Academy

CARVING AND ENGRAVING ON FUNDAMENTALLY NEW TEHNOLOGIES

Aspiration to reduce the terms of creation of works of art by mechanization and automation of the protracted hand operations and on the whole expensive treatment of intricate articles, including unique ones, to create new technological equipment for the acceleration of labor intensive preliminary operations of treatment of original articles, including those made of rare materials, resulted in the idea of creation of machine-tools for a carving and engraving on any materials and, above all things, jewels, eliminating the labor intensive handwork of an artist at all stages of rough operations, taking more than 80% of carver’s time to do his work, but at the same time giving a possibility for realization of creative potential of a man on adjustment and interference with the process of making an article at any stage of its production.

It must be agreed with the well-known English researcher of Faberzhe creative work K Spowman who said that “the most gifted modern masters waste their capabilities and talent on the decision of the question how to make more, quicker, and cheaper ”. Sculptors and artists have been working this way for ages.

Analizing the creative heritage of MichelangeloIrving Stown notes what sufferings the great artist felt creating his masterpieces, and no less tormenting his thoughts were when he realized the impossibility of implementing his ideas even working 14 hours a day.

Therefore we shall dwell on the detailes of production technologies of high-quality carved articles made of wood, bone, semiprecious and precious stones, simultaniously estimating the necessity of mechanization of labour-intensive hand operations, especially preliminary made by a sculptor with a great amount of muscular energy.

Preconceived opinion, as though a sculptor or a carver is under an obligation to execute his work with his own hands, took a root in the minds of our contemporaries so deeply, that made them forget the following: neither the temples of India, neither Egyptian sphinxes nor portals of gothic cathedrals, are the fruit of hands of their creators. These are the hands of « marble masons », so-called the craftsmen who incarnated in material the ideas of authors of the works of arts.

One of the stained-glass windows in Shartrsky Cathedral is devoted to the art of carvers on stone, here the author is represented in a laurel wreath - he manages the workers,who treat a sculpture lying on the ground.

In fact creation is an essence of art, and every technology presupposes handicraft, routine. However transition from a unique art, accessible to talented individuals, to mass art, reproduced by technologies, is typical for all of kinds of human activity. Suffice it to remember the typographical and other printing of books. Somehow nobody doubts whether the photocopying of such kind is necessary.

Therefore the offered «three-dimensional xeroxes» are copying machine-tools, to which any material is subjected, will enter our everyday life like the well-known photocopying equipment.

As it is generally known, creating the model of future work of art, sculptors and carvers use clay, plastic, beeswax. It is clear, that any slips, errors on such materials are easily removed and the master can easily achieve the desired result. Further the work is necessary to be executed in material and now the artist has to work very hard.

V. Pikul' describes the process of engraver’s work: «Laval set to work. Engraving replaced a picture in the days of old(before 1812), because it was possible to make a great number of prints from one board. But labour is not easy, it needs unprecedented exactness of gesture and large physical force. A hand leads a chisel on a metal, leaving a furrow on it, one incorrect motion — and all work (sometimes the work of all the life) flies on a rubbish heap. A writer, having written an incorrect word, can cross it out; a painter, having put an incorrect light on the picture can paint it out; an engraver cannot correct anything - a chisel firmly sticks in a metal and all depends on the ability of the engraver».

The ideas of copying treatment have always been and have been realized by different masters in one way or another. For example, after preparatory sketches from which only a small number was saved, Mikelandzhelo passed to making small models from clay or beeswax. Frequently, he did not confined himself to creation of small models, more frequently he made them as the future sculptures of a real size.

B. Chellini in his «Treatise about a sculpture» wrote: «In order to execute a sculpture in marble well... a good master must make a little model, not more than two spans, and then decide in it the pose of figure, dressed or bare... Then it must be increased as much as it will be in marble...».

These words are convincing enough in favour of photocopying machines because acording to the technology offered they, for example, can copy a work of art from wax or plaster model with an accuracy of 0,02 mm with any material not depending on its hardness or other physical-mechanical properties. And if it is indeed a beautiful thing – copy it, give people the beauty!

The innovations offered for realization by this project fall into the category of «know-what» and cover a wide range of application. These technologies are executed at the level of science intensive high-tech, involving the ideas of more than twenty registered inventions which are going to be patented. Thus, the introduction of the newest technologies on mechanization of hand labour intensive operations at creation of exclusive hand-made products is very problematic.

Therefore, the appearance of completely new technologies of mechanization and automation of hand labour intensive operations on treatment of materials with any hardness can substantially influence the balanced market of artistic works made of expensive materials, machine-tools and tools for their treatment.

Work in the area of creation of copying «machine-tools working marble” started in 1970 from creation of fundamentally new designs of drives of technological machines. This area of science was called «mechanotronics », because at that time nobody knew about the works of Japanese researchers, who gave the world the idea of « mechanotronics ». Presently, not claiming the priority, the authors decided to leave the name «mechanotronics », seeing in it small, but distinctive features.

As an object of investigation the linear engine of direct current, in which the armature does not rotate, but accomplishes the reciprocating motion, was chosen. Positive results (patent of the USSR) were obtained in 1972, new tendency in designing «mechanisms», imitating the actions of a man, being discovered at once. With the help of the complex technical innovations it became possible to weigh the hollow mobile armature of the linear electric engine in the magnetic field and make it move on a “magnetic pillow”.

Thus, a «contactless mechanism» was obtained. The efforts are transmitted not by the direct contact of the interacted parts but with the help of the magnetic field created in the clearance between these parts.

On principle new properties of the « contactless mechanism»:

• Practical absence of forces of friction (friction on air of a mobile element);

• High exactness and dynamic characteristics;

• Exceptionally high controllability.

The “mechanisms” of such kind by their character (control of electric current without intermediate elements) are easily connected with computers and allow to solve the problems which cannot be solved by traditional machines. The tracking drives of technological machines have been produced. They increased, in one order and even more, the spead of machine-tool reaction on the changing conditions of working that made it possible to synthesize qualitatievely new methods of cutting metalls and other materials, the accuracy in which is formed beyond the limits of machine-tool kinematics and does not depend on the accuracy of the latter.

Further investigations in this area resulted in the idea of creation of wide class of machines, the behaviour of executive parts of which would adapt to the external environment conditions (largely indefinite).

During the subsequent years on the base of new ideas a number of complex technological problems has been decided, the solution of which is connected with great expenses with application of traditional technique or in general with impossibility of their realization.

At the same time a considerable part of research was devoted to modernization of the existing NC machine-tools with the purpose of giving them new qualities, in particular shifting machines to adaptive mode of operation as well as creation of original designs of devices to connect microcomputers with technological machines.

As a result of long-term experiments, conducted in the Donbas State Machine-building Academy (Kramatorsk, Ukraine), it was succeeded to create on principle new copying-milling-grinding machine-tools, operating automatically on any materials, including single-crystals with hardness 9–9,5 on the Moths scale (separate units of a machine-tool are protected by 12 author’s certificates of the USSR).

Simultaneously with the creation of machine-tools the designes of original tools have been perfected, technologies of carving and engraving on wood (picture.1), bone(picture 6), combination “wood-bone”(picture 7), marble (picture.2), optical glass (picture.3), and also on precious stones (picture.4 – made of leucosapphire), have been developed.

At the same time the work on modernization of vertical-milling machines with NC was going on. The purpose was to expand their technological potentialities, that is to give them new qualities – possibilities of treatment of materials having any physical-mechanical properties without man’s interference with the process of treatment (picture.4, picture.5 are computer graphics on a machine-tool with polishing).

The ideas of modernization of any existing metal-working equipment with numerical control with the purpose of expansion of their technological capabilities in terms of extra-hard and hard-working materials have been realized.

The most perspective for modernization are machine-tools of firm Roland DG (Japan) series of MDX-20/15 – MDX-500, involving all the latest achievements in information technologies, mathematical modeling, computer technique and science on the whole.

Together with 3D scanners, for example, of series of PICZA, LPX-250, LPX-1200(Japan), which can scan objects of a human hair thickness, digitizing all of nuances of initial sample (on these devices it is possible to scan glass and any transparent materials, and as well as plasticine figures, berries and other soft objects with unprecedented precision), it is possible to get automatically mathematical models and programs for NC-machine-tools, and then on the same modernized machine-tools one can get masterpieces made of semiprecious and precious stones.

For the aims of artistic stone treatment the engraving-milling equipment of firm Woodpecker(THE USA), which includes a series of machine-tools from the jewelry working to the giant machine-tools with the area of working 1400х3020 mm is also suitable. Monumental works of art can be machined on this equipment.

Laser engraving machine-tools, for example, of firm Argus (China), together with above-mentioned NC-machines, will allow to create fundamentally new technologies of stone-cutting art, that are beyond the powers of man’s hand. (picture.4 is an example of laser engraving on leucosapphire).

For realization of new ideas of carving and engraving on stone and other materials the machine-tools of firm ShopBot CNC Tools (THE USA), of Mell series after modernization suit perfectly well.

Thus, eliminating labor intensive hand operations at all stages of treatment of articles in material, new technologies give wonderful possibility for realization of creative potential of Master. From now on while creating a future work of art, a carver or a sculptor is to create his model in readily-working material – wax, plasticine, clay, etc.

The technologies developed in the Donbass State Machine-Building Academy open new prospects:

§ creation of unique works of art from materials with any physical-mechanical properties;

§ the offered technologies will allow to release an artist from routine work, leaving him the possibility of creative realization of his ideas;

§ sharp reduction of terms from the origin of an idea to realization of the work of art;

§ diminishing of cost of unique works of art, that will make them accessible for the various strata of society.

Small machine-tools of completely new design can work in the conditions of home workshops and small enterprises, that will provide appearance of additional workplaces, including for socially unprotected levels of population, in particular, invalids, pensioners, students, schoolchildren.

Donbas State Machine-Building Academy is opened for a wide collaboration with the purpose of introduction of «know-how» into the national economy of Ukraine and other countries.

REFERENCES:

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4. И.В. Стешенко и др. Линейный электродвигатель//Авторское свидетельство СССР №SU1427512, Бюл№36, 1988.