Anyone know what's happening from about 1:25 - 1:50? I get the polishing part, but what's with firing it in that weird cradle? What makes it turn blue?

Also---I assume this is a piece of prep for a "card mechanic"? Rather than someone who does magic tricks, it's to make sure that the deck of cards that the mechanic is manipulating is perfectly flat and square?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Turner_(magician)

The cradle I'm not certain, but it's likely some flux holding cage that cleans the surface of any contaminants when heated. (Seems like it's probably a boric acid cleaner judging by the bluing video) The tray holds brass shavings and uses heat to blue the parts. The shavings make it a more even heat treatment for more uniform color than a bare torch or oven can produce. The color he achieves is astounding.
I found this video of him making the bluing tray here....
https://youtu.be/uST7iJgC_gs
And a great video of him explaining the bluing process here....
https://youtu.be/NhjiIPohUyw

The comments suggest it used to be a necessity for all card players before plasticized cards were the norm, because old cards would warp from humidity.
Today, you're correct. They are for card manipulators almost exclusively.

It's beautiful. Any guess how many hours, start to finish to make it?

No clue. That engraving/carving work could be days by itself.

*music

Adding video to channels (Music) - requested by ant.

This other video from the same channel is for a project that took 1,000 hours to complete. Looks to be 2-5x more complex than the card press, but it's a bit hard to guess with 1,000 hours compressed into 12 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU7iKNmQBIs

I was a little disappointed he assembled the finished pieces without wearing cotton gloves.

But really, I thought I was going to skip ahead to shorten the time but I was seduced into not doing that.

the fact that it turned blue when heated makes me think it might have some titanium in it