C4 Detonography Leaf Print

[Charlie]

A few weeks ago I had a go at leaf printing with C4 and thought i'd post up the end product as i was amazed!
The basic idea is You get a stainless steel plate about 150mm square and 4-5mm thick. Place on this a leaf of your choice ( I used an apple leaf from a tree i planted when my son was born) and an even layer of C4 about 8mm thick (the compulsory fire extinguisher is handy for rolling it flat) Add a lump on the edge to stick a det in, retire and detonate.
I still cant believe how well it came out. With the power of C4 I thought it would just have vapourised the leaf. The plate was placed on a base of 1" thick steel plate and that was all buckled with 3" scabs coming of the reverse, but every detail of the leaf has imprinted itself in the plate!


Have to add the C4 was lawfully available and stored / transported inline with COER / ADR... The only thing was that there was no storage licence, just purchase and possession..... so we had to use it all or make the long drive back to a HE HT1 store. At 80 / kg makes financial sense to use it.:wink:

 

[Slick]

Amazing. Wish I could have been there to "help".

 

[hangarman]

That's a real work of art. Would love to have a go one day......
Cheers
Gary

 

[SG500]

That's a real work of art. Would love to have a go one day......
Cheers
Gary

I think most people on BOCN would too.
Great stuff Charlie thanks for posting photos.
Dave.

 

[beihan62]

Green with envy,Thanks Charlie,nice one,I too would have thought that the leaf would have been vaporised by the blast,I wonder if it would work the same with other objects,?
Cheers and thanks,
Don,

 

[bdgreen]

Neat!

Reminds me of- "Detonographics"

Det-o-no-graph-y (n)

A technique for creating metal sculpture by detonating a sheet of plastic explosive over a sandwich of a carved image and a metal plate, forcing the metal plate onto the carved image. The resulting base relief is known as a detonograph.
SEE- http://evelynrosenberg.com/artist.php?p=45 ; http://evelynrosenberg.com/pdf/Leonardofull.pdf


Brian

 

[butterfly]

You might have hit on something there, imagine what price tag you could put on that in a top art gallery???
There are people in this world that pay unimaginable prices for items which I would consider much less spectacular than that!!!


regards Kev

 

[kahu1]

Dare i say it ..."IMPRESSIVE" ! :tinysmile_grin_t:

Also a sometimes engineering manufacturing technique, have heard of explosive forming used for some aircraft parts..in the days when it was economical to do.

 

[HAZORD]

This principle is very similar to a manufacturing method called "Explosive Forming" as kahu1 has mentioned. In the case of explosive forming, a female mold was made that the metal was to be forced into. The desired piece of metal is laid over the mouth of the mold, and then a vacuum is drawn into the hollow chamber, so there is no air in the empty cavity to resist the forming. The mold is then placed under water, usually in a tank, and some explosive is suspended over the piece of metal, so it is surrounded by water, so that when it detonates the water below it drives the metal into every crevice of the mold. It was said that even a fingerprint on the mold would be transferred to the formed metal.