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Torn Steel
Jonathan Prince is fascinated by forms that have had their surfaces interrupted by a break or fracture. Broken surfaces are inherent to the properties of stone - but not of steel. Because of a recent interest in steel fabrication, he has developed a technique that emulates the look of a fractured stone surface in metal - which he refers to as “Torn Steel”.
The process involved in creating this effect is quite involved and employs a number of procedures:
First, stainless steel plates are forged and hammered utilizing blacksmithing techniques to form a base layer - Next, additional stainless steel is applied to the surface using a MIG (Metal Inert Gas) welding procedure. This process actually builds the "torn" architecture forms onto the stainless surface. The next step is to use a TIG Welder (Tungsten Inert Gas) torch to smooth and blend out the stainless steel left from the previous MIG application. When the surfaces are finally formed and the interface between the "Torn Steel" and sculptural form refined, the stainless steel can be smoothed and polished by using a series of abrasives starting with glass bead blasting and following through with a series of successively finer sandpaper grits and polishing pastes - a painstaking procedure but, I believe, worth the extensive time and effort.