Quality Ironwork

The metaphysical exploration of the nature of quality was the theme of Robert Pirsig’s novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance  I read the book a couple of times quite a few years ago.  I was intrigued by the notion that being open to using all our potential tools rational and romantic and not being uncomfortable with aspects which can seen contradictory can open creative insights and increase our enjoyment of the world.

I think something in that applies to the design process in ironwork.  Whatever the piece, sculptural or functional, the physics must work and the aesthetic impression must work.  I’ve never done a piece of public art so I wouldn’t know how to approach that.  My work has been making things for my own use and picking the ones I really like and creating versions for others to consider.  Those are the item which stock the gallery.  Additionally, I make things which clients request.  The first part of that equation is coming up with something which appeals to me and working until it also is what works for the client.

Usually when I get a project request from a client I can get to work on it and complete it in a fairly direct progression by working its components into the already flowing stream of work.  Occasionally, a project gets hung up in the first stage - I can’t figure out how to do it in a way which pleases me.  One project I have started on a number of times making progress here and there but have never been able to tie it all together.  I still have all the test pieces, notes, etc.  I don’t want to turn out something which I don’t like even though it might be acceptable to a client.  It is an irrational obstruction and maybe I should let go of it.  I recently read, in Wired Magazine, a quote attributed to Sheryl Sandberg  about obstacles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheryl_Sandberg  She said something like “When you encounter obstacles, and there will be obstacles, make sure they are external.”

I have another fairly large project hung up just because of my inability to clear enough space for it and also because it was designed when I had a regular assistant.  Now it seems much harder.  Not having enough space is an external problem.  Seeming too hard is an internal problem.

Back in the late 60’s or early 70’s, when our boys were young,  I read a book, Parent Effectiveness Training. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gordon_(psychologist)  One of the useful concepts is the necessity of figuring out “Who’s problem is it?”  If I get hung up on the “what I think is quality” side, that’s my problem.  Maybe I should just push on and complete something and see what the client has to say about it.  If they are happy, that’s really more important than me being happy.

I have thought about quality and value a lot lately and I will try and remember some of these ideas each time I return to one of those hung up projects.  Maybe I will have a new perspective and make progress.

How I Use the Coal Fire

I’ve used a number of coal forges but now I only use the side draft one inside my studio.  I’ve used the great bellows, the spiral gear hand crank fan blower and the several lever powered blowers of the same fan design.  They all work and have advantages and disadvantages.

I’m no longer in the business of doing shows so I’m just interested in effeceint use.  When I built my currently forge I placed a Champion electric blower http://www.centaurforge.com/Centaur-115-volt-PB-50-Blower-Variable-Speed-Eligible-for-Free-Shipping-See-Home-Page-for-full-details/productinfo/PB50VS/ outside the building on the porch to keep the noise level down inside and plumbed a nearly silent hand crank blower on the other side right next tot he forge pan.

In everyday use I use the electric blower turned down well below it’s maximum speed and rarely use the hand crank blower at all.  The tuyere is plumbed from both sides, electric and hand crank.  On the hand crank side there is a sliding blast gate.  On the electric side there is a hand wheel screw valve to further choke the maximum airflow.

In our normal work cycle the forge work is well organized and laid out so we go from one item to the next non-stop for two hours.  We discuss how the work will proceed and in the couple of hours we forge there is very little conversation.  Incidentally in the image “Hand Crank Blower” a can of black spray paint can be seen. We use the forge hood to make drawing in soapstone when needed and use the black spray paint as the eraser.

The electric blower runs essentially all the time maintaing a large hot fire.  The intensity of the fire is controlled almost exclusively with the blast gate on the hand crank side.  The only time the blower gets turned off is when we shift to a new project and have to get the new tools and workpieces arranged and when we quit.  Ken packs the fire, turns off the blower and allows a bit off cooling before raking out the fire pot.  This leaves plenty of coke ready for the next day and the clinker is in one solid ring, easy to separate from the coke.

I’ve worked with forges which require flipping the the blower motor switch off when a heat has been taken so that excessive fuel burn is avoided.  The disadvantage is that the heat falls off and to take another heat the blower must be restarted and the heat driven back up.  If the work being done requires some thinking between heats or if the smith is demonstrating and talking the additional time may actually be desirable.  However, if the work is a production run and there are multiple pieces being worked, it is a disadvantage.  Moreover, in my situation where Ken and I are alternating fire tending and forging with every other piece it would be a big waste of time.  We strive to bring each piece out at a orange/yellow high forging heat temperature unless lower world be better.

I didn’t learn to work the fire that way and that’s not what I teach when I have the opportunity but it is the way I do it now.  It’s probably always best to learn a craft the tradition way and modify the techniques so they fit the specific requirements of the shop later.

In a normal two-hour work run we don’t remove clinker until the fire is torn apart when we quit but we do turn the clinker breaker frequently and empty the ash dump a couple of times.  About the only time the quench can gets used is to put out any smoking coal after the fire has been pulled apart with the rake.

I don’t use wet coal on an everyday basis but I probably would if I was doing a lot of forge welding.  Also, a straight poker is the only tool I use to actually control the fire.

Take another heat.

Great Water - Great Bottles

I drink several bottles of water every day as I work in the studio.  I have a mini-refrigerator which I accepted in partial payment for an early commission along with an old Lincoln stick welder.  I eventually sold the welder.  The refrigerator seems to be one of those old appliances which is nearly immortal.  I use it to cool about 20 boltles of water and store an occasional snack.

I started the process by buying a 12-pack of bottled water and as I emptied the bottles, Betty refilled them with our tap water.  We pay attention to water.  Betty’s father was the head engineer at the water treatment plant in our home town for many years.  Red went to work at the plant in his teens.  He was a self-taught mechanical and chemical engineer and worked up to become manager of the operation for many years.  We have moved from where we grew up but we still have the good fortune to live in the town which was voted to have the best tasting drinkling water in the world.  These are some links to verify that fact.

http://travel.cnn.com/worlds-best-drinking-water-232371

http://www.emporiagazette.com/latest_news_and_features/article_0823016e-cf75-11e2-ab6e-0019bb30f31a.html

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/02/24/4083934/emporias-tap-water-no-1-in-taste.html

http://www.drinktap.org/details-page/articleid/833/who-has-the-best-drinking-water.aspx

Well, I digress.  I wanted to get to the point that when I first started buying bottled water, the plastic bottles actually amounted to something.  Over time, they have been engineered into flimsy wisps of a bottle that have an insubstantial feel when grasped and I wonder if they will biodegrade before I have consumed the contents.  I really don’t like that crinkling noise they make as they collapse under even a light grip.

In the quest for a plastic bottle that is an old-timey plastic bottle I went shopping and after getting a general education in how many colors and flavored concoctions are now bottled (when grew up bottled meant in glass), I found a plastic bottle I liked.  It was a flavored water - zero calories - and I selected the black cherry flavor.  After I took apart the four-pack and put the bottles in the mini-fridge for a couple of hours I sampled one.  Great!  Just what I was looking for - not the drink, which was tasty enough, but  the plastic bottle which had some real structural integrity.  I carried the great bottle to the house where Betty will fill it with the world’s best tasting water.  I’ll bet these bottles will last five years or so.

Here is a bit of nostalgia about water from Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDtCa8ZgAk4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_the_Pioneers

How I Make a Blow Poker

The blow poker is an Item I make again and again because they sell well in the gallery.  Most sales are during the log burning season but they sell throughout the year too.

I didn’t know anything about them until a client asked me to make one for a Christmas gift.  The client had been using one for years.  I think she got it while living in England.  She let me use it as a model and I came up with a working version and now it is my favorite fireplace tool and one of my most frequently made products.

This is designed to be a “light-duty” tool and is not meant for moving heavy logs.  It is for moving coals and kindling and starting a roaring fire from a tiny ember.  My standard blow poker is made for indoor fireplace or wood stove use.  If camp fire use is intended a longer and more “heavy-duty” version is made.

There are four elements to the standard construction; the push-pull tip, the collar, the shaft tube and the mouthpiece.

The shaft tube largely determines the weight and stiffness.  I use the smallest tube/pipe I can get for the standard version.  It has in inside diameter of about .25” and I use 26” lengths.  The campfire version uses 3/8” black pipe in about 40” lengths.

A collar is needed on the standard version to join the shaft to the tip.  I cut a 2.5” length of tubing which closely fits the shaft.  I cut two slits or notches on each end of the collar to allow a larger MIG weld bead to be applied.

The Mouthpiece is a 4” piece of pipe or tube with about 1/2” inside diameter.  One end is forged down to fit the shaft and the other end is flared and peened to resemble the typical shape found on wind musical instruments.

The push/pull tip is made from 5.5” of 1/4” square bar.  Tapers are forged on each end and the piece is heated near the middle and bent into a tight hairpin. The bend is forged closed and welded, fire, MIG, TIG, whatever, for about 3/4”  Then it is forged to a flat taper the easy way.

The only somewhat tricky part of the project is getting the poker fitted properly so that it is securely joined while preserving the air exhaust ports.  That is where I found making the top and bottom slits in the collar useful in getting stronger weld attachment. Plenty of weld remains after sanding smooth and there is plenty of open space on each side of the tip for air to exit.

After cleaning up the welds, I forge the shape of the poker arm and the hook arm.  Then the piece is firescaled, tumbled and the finish applied.  The last item is to blow and test the air flow.  The tool is much more effective than a bellows.

When it is ready to take to the Gallery, Betty attaches the price tag with a card explaining how it is used, as a lot of people have never used one.

http://www.persimmonforge.com/

If you can't hold it, you can't hit it

Along the blacksmithing path I’ve picked up a lot of conventional wisdom dropped by other persons.  I think I heard the title phrase from Francis Whitaker, but I’m not certain.  The point is, to do the best work it is necessary to have good control of the workpiece.  Select the tongs which give the best grip.  I know this rule well but recently got a reminder lesson when I was in a hurry drawing out a short piece of 1/4” x 1.5” flat bar the hard way.  The box jaw tongs I picked would hold the bar nicely for working the easy way but when turned sideways there was enough wobble to let the piece flip loose.

I had a flash of feeling foolish which reminded me of the children’s song, “Found a peanut - It was rotten - Ate it anyway”.  I could see right away I didn’t have secure control but continued when I knew better.  This is another example of “good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from poor judgement.”

The hurry-up nature of the work was of my own manufacturing rather than some actual schedule issue so I laid that work aside until I had time to make a couple of pairs of full box tongs which were designed specifically for that stock.  This is going to be a short run of work so I didn’t bother to do a really nice job on the tongs. 

I keep a bucket of tong pair blanks with everything forged except the jaws and they are not riveted but just wired together. They were made at a demonstration over two days several years ago. Originally there were probably 20 pairs but I’m down to about a half dozen now.

I forged the needed box jaws from two pieces of angle and MIG welded them onto the tong blanks with an offset.  I made two pair so I could use one and my assistant, Ken, could use the other.  They are not really pretty but will get the job done.  It seems like I have quite an accumulation of this sort of specialized tongs which have only been used a few times and may never be used again - but you never know.

Scale Blowpipe Followup

This is a simple tool that is helpful in achieving high quality die work.  I wrote some about it on 8/17/2012.  When I make a run of small botanical elements ti be incorporated into sculptural work I often have made specific dies to accomplish that, daylily buds, holly berries, hickory nuts and the like.  When the dies are used in the hydraulic forging press, scale can accumulate in the die cavity.  The iron oxide scale is very hard and will deform the surface of the stock being forged, causing loss of surface detail.

Regularly removing the scale is a necessity for a good result.  The best method I have found is a blowpipe.  It was made from a piece of small diameter tubing about a foot long.  I forged the exhaust end to a even narrower diameter, about 1/8”, and flared the other end to form the mouth piece.  It stays on a peg beside the press so I can quickly grab it and blow the scale out of the die cavity.

This is not so much of a problem when using dies in the power hammer because the bouncing of the dies tends to make them self-cleaning.

Soon, I plan to post how I make the blow poker used for hearth fire management.  It is a very popular item in our gallery especially around the holidays.  I make them it runs of 20 or more at a time.

Blowpipe

Fire scale in die cavities.

Fly Press Handles

My fly press came with a single handle.  It’s the one shown in the foreground of the image “All Three Handles.”  It didn’t take long to start thinking about modifications to bettert suit my specific needs.

First was a grip issue.  The end of the round bar handle rubbed uncomfortably on my palm, so I welded on a steel sphere and eliminated that problem.

Next, I noticed that the handle had a tendency to unscrew from the threaded socket in the wheel, so I welded on a piece of thread rod and added a lock washer.

The single handle never seemed to be in the most convenient of the three sockets, so I added two more handles with slightly different design.  This has worked well for me and I haven’t made any changes in several years.

For one job I did make an adjustable handle that mounted on the handle which was closest to being in the optimal position.  It could be rotated and locked with a T-handle in the perfect spot.  It adds length to the edge-to-center distance and increases leverage too.

The Stand-Alone Dust Pan

From the look of the studio floor, who would ever think I occasionally sweep the floor.  The stand-by-itself dust pan was an idea I came up with to avoid having to bend my stiff back and hold the pan still while I’m trying to push the debris into it.

I attached a length of flat bar to the dust pan handle so that it made the pan work like a tripod base with a tall handle - no bending.  Works great.

There are fancier versions.  This is one example http://www.foodservicewarehouse.com/continental/808/p334657.aspx   My version cost only a couple of bucks.

Washing Welding Gloves

About once each year I gather up all the grimy welding gloves and give them to my wife so she can run them through the washing machine. It seems like as time goes by the insides of the gloves collect the grime which quickly transfers to skin and the washing greatly reduces that nuisance.

The first time washing the cowhide gloves occurred to me I did it as an experiment with rather low expectations.  I had noticed, however, that if they were accidentally left out in the rain they didn’t seem to have any long term damage after drying.

This has worked out just fine.  After washing we hang the gloves overnight then finish them by tumbling in the dryer on "air tumble" without heat.  She also put in some dryer balls.  They look like tennis balls with bumps on the surface.  I made one pair a control without the tumbling and they were much stiffer initially but they soon sofened up when they were put into use.  I have no idea if fabric softener whould help.  I don’t think they make cowhide softener.

Only one glove had the liner work out of the fingers and had to be worked back in place with a small handled ball tool locked in the vise.  When the liner was starting to get back in place I put in my hand and pushed the web area between each finger over the shaft of the tool to finish the job.

I only wear a glove on my left hand most of the time so I have a collection of worn left gloves and “like new” right hand gloves.  I should try to find some left-handed smiths who could use my extras.

I have been using 13” cowhide gloves which is great for welding as it protects the forearm area from MIG splatter burns but it is excessive for general forge work.  I watch for sales and for big lot deals where I can get ten pair or so inexpensively.  I’m looking for some shorter cowhide gloves now.

These gloves aren’t very expensive.  I’d estimate I’ve purchased them for about $3 a pair but I don’t see a reason to discard them until they develop a fatal defect such an an unrepairable hole or shrinkage and hardening from excessive heat.  I grew up in a home where “waste not want not” and “a penny saved is a penny earned” were often repeated phrases.  On the other hand, it’s better to throw away a damaged glove than to get burned.

 First, I push the glove onto the ball to get the lining started down the finger.

Then it's easy to put the glove on and push on the shaft in each web space.

Draw Latch Wedge

This is a quick fix idea or at least a temporary fix idea.  My tumbler has four draw latches which keep the two door leaves securely closed.  The have seen a great deal of use and one was damaged so that eventually the keeper tab over which the spring latch catches broke off.

Three properly functioning latches were enough to get along with until I could drag a welder into the area and weld on a new tab and eventually I’ll do that but right now the area is too crowded.

Then, I started to examine the problem from a new perspective - what would serve mechanically as a temporary fix.  The first thing I tried was passing a loop of wire which would hold the handle down and preventing it from moving up to where it could unlatch.  It didn’t require much force to keep the handle down and the wire worked fine but it was a nuisance to twist and untwist it for each run.

After a couple of days I noticed that it was possible to pass a 1/8” x 1/2” piece of flat bar over the handle and under the throw arm of the latch.  I added a recurve “knock-out” bend at the end and it worked perfectly.  I like the mechanism so well I may never get around to a weld repair.

This first image shown the undamaged keeper tab at the bottom left.

This drawing shows where the keeper broke off where it angles.

This is the 1/8" x 1/2" wedge driven into place.

http://www.persimmonforge.com/

The New Pickling Setup

This week I made a sunflower product and the pieces had a lot of firescale on them.  They are about 16” across and the shape is complicated so I decided that pickling them would be the easiest way to remove the scale.  However, the would not fit into the 5 gallon bucket of hydrochloric acid (muriatic acid) which I have used for years.  I wrote about it in April 2011.  http://persimmonforge.blogspot.com/2011/04/pickling-bucket.html

Thinking it would take less time to make a new pickling setup than clean the pieces by another method I went to the farm and ranch store and bought two weather proof rubber feed tubs.  http://www.miller-mfg.com/page/1/Product-Detail.jsp?groupId=721&prodId=90619

Each is 18 inches in diameter and 8 inch high and holds 6.5 gallons.  I paired them up and drilled 1/4” holes through the three handle areas so that the top could be securely wired in place when I wasn’t using the acid.

I poured the acid from the 5 gallon bucket in and added two more quarts to bring the level up so that the liquid would cover four work pieces at one time - I had twelve to clean.

This setup was on the north porch but now is on my east sidewalk.  I think it is important that this work is done outdoors as the fumes are toxic.

It took less than a hour to clean all the pieces.  I rinsed them well with a garden hose but didn’t do any additional treatment with a neutralizing agent such as baking soda, sodium bicarbonate.  They were very clean and the next day I did the finish work and heated each piece with the torch to dull red then applied the finish after cooling.

http://www.persimmonforge.com/

Bandsaw Gullet Crack Followup

Not long ago I recorded some observations in the Bandsaw Blade Crack Failure post.  Yesterday I replaced a broken blade and took a couple of images to illustrate another point.

When I noticed the saw arm starting to move up and down with each blade rotation I knew a crack had formed.  I tried to get the blade out intact but it snapped all the way in the process.  I laid it on a swage block and marked it with a presto pen to highlight what I wanted to standout.

The image is a poor one but is good enough to record this point - the complete break is several inches away from the weld area.  The other point is that there is a secondary crack on the other side of the weld area a bit further away that the primary failure crack.  Intuition tells me that these are too far away from the weld to be a heat-effect phenomenon but this is a  bimetal blade and that may be a special case.

Frankly, I haven’t paid close enough attention in the past to note whether this is a consistent pattern, but I’m tuned in now and I’ll report what I find.

http://www.persimmonforge.com/

Fly Press Leather Pad Cutter

I make a lot of botanical sculptures mostly of sizes which serve as table displays.  Invariably the heavy base has some undesirable rough areas which could damage a table top.  First, I tried some commercial soft pads with adhesive backs but later moved to making my own pads from cowhide scrap leather.  

Our local farm and ranch supply store usually has a selection of packets of leather scrap.  I look for ones which have flat pieced - preferably black and also long strips, usually dark brown which are good for suspending forged dinner bells.

I cut circles from the flat scrap and fix three pads to each sculpture using black silicone caulk as the adhesive.  I position the pads so they avoid the touchmark areas and make the piece stable.

I I could have found a nice cutter in an antique shop I probably would have picked one up.  This site shows a nice collection.  http://www.antiqbuyer.com/images/ARCHIVE_PICS/archivetools/Leather/leathercuts/leather_cutters.jpg  I think those are designed to be struck with a mallet.

Well, I wasn’t that lucky so I made three versions with similar mechanical design but which cut three different size circles and fit in my fly press.  The smallest makes about 1” circles and the largest cuts about 1.5” circles.  I used SketchUp to draw a rough version of the largest one.  

I start the construction process by cutting a piece of lawnmower blade scrap to make the blades.  A strip an inch wide and about 5” long will make the large size cutter.  I forge a circle over a round mandrel and MIG weld the seam and clean up the inside of the blade so it is smooth and won’t have burrs which tend to grab the leather drops and keep them from ejecting.

The blade edge is made by ordinary grinding, sanding and polishing.  I make a cutout in one side of the blade to allow the ejecting lever room to travel and it might be a good idea to cut another knockout access window in case a real jam occurs.

I make a barrel and axle mechanism with some small pipe and round rod.  The ejection lever tip is heated and bent and polished so the angle is optimal for pushing out the cut pads.  

The top structure begins with the 1” x 1.5” bolt which I use as my standard ram tang.  I’ll grind away the threads at the tangent where I want the locking bolt to seat after I know exactly where that will work best.

The shank is cobbled together so it is appropriately long and strong.  In this case I used a large punch drop and a short piece of 1” round and MIG welded it all together.  I usually just “tack and test” before I do the final welding.

The final piece is the bottom tool which will stop the blade travel.  I tried several materials and settled on a block of very high density polyethylene.  I wanted it to stay in register with the blade so I used the black silicone again to glue on a 7/8” nut which exactly fits the fly press base tang hole.  The poly block is rigid enough to back up the leather so a clean cut can be made in three easy bumps and prevents damage to the blade edge.  The more the system is used the better it all works. Some lubrication inside the blade may help too.

The depth is sufficient to cut three pads before ejecting but it is a little harder and probably doesn’t save time.  I should note that the images show the large cutter with the original 60d nail lever.  I later changed that to 3/8” round rod about 6” long.

There are a lot of blacksmiths around demonstrating how to draw a taper or forge and upset square corner so I tend to concentrate on sharing the odd-ball things that are part of my blacksmithing business.  These leather pads are a little detail that can keep clients happy.


I posted the drawing on 3D Warehouse.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=35e6828e8afa4a3a4ee323db343c418a&prevstart=0

http://www.persimmonforge.com/

The Tumbler Dust Trap

Yesterday, Scott opened the dust trap on the tumbler and we were both surprised to see it dumped a quart of dust and small aggregate which weight about 5 pounds.  Today I sifted out the aggregate and returned it to the tumbler chamber and pitched the dust.

There is a 1” bore leading from the tumbler chamber to the trap on the vacuum chamber.  I did not design it to have a filter which would exclude the smallest size aggregate.  Clearly, this was an oversight on my part.  I fixed that today by installing a prototype steel cage at the inlet.  We’ll see how that works.  

More to follow as I gain some experience witht the design.

Burrs and the Tumbler

I want to make a couple of quick post about my tumbler which may be useful to a new tumbler builder and user.

Thinking about the steel aggregate which I use in the tumbler illustrates a point about dealing with burrs and sharp edges.  I use carbon steel ball bearings and punch drops as the two main types of aggregate.  The bearings are expensive and the punch drops are essentially free.  I use the tumbler as the storage space for the ball bearings and some have probably been in there for years without noticeable change in appearance.  The punch drops initially have a sharp burr edge which seems to disappear after several tumbler run cycles.  Careful inspection reveals that the burr was folded over forming a cold shut.  Actual deburring does not occur.

That doesn’t cause me any significant problem but the same thing can happen on workpieces where the cold shuts can be trouble.  Moreover, it doesn’t take an actual burr to create this problem.  A sharp 90º corner is pounded over into a pair of cold shuts.  To avoid the issue the sharp edge should be removed by sanding or grinding to create a radius.

A little attention to detail can can prevent some annoying defects later.

Hammer, Bump & Squeeze

The most powerful tools in the studio are the power hammers, the hydraulic forging press and the fly press.  Each has a distinctly different way of delivering force which is very helpfull in different circumstances.

I recall Abraham Maslow’s, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument  I became acutely aware the the differences when I really became interested in die making.  

The fly press is a precision instrument which can make detail very well and is easily hand controlled because it is a slow operation.  It’s down side compared to the two other big tools is that it is less powerful.

The hydraulic forging press produces a squeeze without any bounce, but, because it is slow it can’t coin as well as the power hammer.

The power hammer is best for coining but because it has some bounce it is not as easy to control as the other two.

When the only big tool I had was the power hammer every die was designed to work with it.  After I built the forging press I could immediately see I needed to make some changes and move to a progressive die strategy where some preforming mass was done with the press so the coining finish work would be easier on the power hammer.  It has taken a couple of years to get this nearly perfected and it has been very helpful in extending design options.

In almost every project I try to get as far as I can with the power tools before I have to resort to hammer on anvil.  It is in some ways the most intimate and pleasurable phase - the finishing - but it is also the part which is hardest on my old frame.

I’ve often said, “My work determine my tools and my tools determine my work.”  In this circular process my work has evolved to use a lot of dies.  I have perhaps a couple of hundred which I have made to do very specific processes.  I’ve learned a lot how to make these dies as I climbed the learning curve. I’m thinking that I should try to pass on some things I discovered which helped make the process better and easier. Last September, I posted an introduction to the subject.  http://persimmonforge.blogspot.com/2012/09/introduction-to-blacksmithing-dies.html  Now, I’m planning to move on from there with some further details and illustrations.  Probably, it will be somewhat jumbled as I don’t have enough time to get it better organized now.  I’ll try to explarin how each of my power tools related to my die making proceedures.  We’ll see how it works out.

http://www.persimmonforge.com/

Vise Round Stock Clamp

I have gradually modified the morphology of this tool through several versions.  The basic idea is that it is hard to securely clamp a piece of round stock in a post vise because the area of the tangent surfaces of the round stock is small so the workpiece can easily rotate in the plane of the vise jaw faces.

I first encountered this problem when making some small decorative bolts from 1/4” stock.  I had seen a tool made by a more experienced blacksmith which I copied.  It could grip round stock from 1/8” up to about 1/2”.

Later, I made another version dedicated to stock about 1” in diameter but changed the design from a spring type linkage to a continuous loop linkage.

This week, I made an even larger version which I can use for stock up to about 3” and I don’t plan to work anything bigger than that.

This is the way I did it.  There are probably better designs and I look forward to seeing what other smiths have to offer.

I cut 36” of 1/8” x 1/2” flat bar and pulled it into a circle and MIG welded the ends to close the circle.  Then, I heated the rather ugly weld with a torch set to a reducing flame until the weld melted, just right for fusion, and hammered it to a nice finished joint.

Next, I cut two short pieces of angle and lightly tacked them together as shown, to keep them in alignment.  I cut two more short pieces of angle which rest on the tops of the vise jaw.

It’s not very pretty, but it is amazingly effective.  I hang it on the wall right beside the vise.

http://www.persimmonforge.com/