Blacksmithing Articles

I imagine that everyone who is interested already knows about this old link.  However, I also recall being told, more than once, not to assume what everyone else knows.  So, here is the link to some great archival information.

http://www.anvilmag.com/smith/smith.htm

An Old Helve Hammer

The details of this story large escape me today but I’ll try to reconstruct it.  The time is shortly before the Seattle ABANA conference.

A person approached me about checking out an old power hammer.  I met him once earlier and he learned I was interested in blacksmithing.  He was wanting to dispose of some things on his property.  I agreed to check out his accumulation including the blacksmithing machine he had described   After inspection I concluded it was not something which I was interested in buying.  It was an intriguing artifact in good condition so it might be valuable in the eyes of the right beholder.  I took a few images of it and said I would take them to the Seattle conference and show them and see if I could find an interested party.

As it turned out I spent those days of the Seattle conference in the University of Washington hospital sick as a poisoned pup and had no opportunity to find a buyer for that helve hammer.

I have been clearing out some computer files and tonight I came across these four images.  I’m guessing that this is apiece of agricultural equipment associated with harvesting.  The hammer and the grinding wheel would be useful in maintaining sharp blades on site.  The belt drive power could have come from either a steam or internal combustion engine.

I’m betting some knowledgeable person will find these images interesting.  I specifically noted the detachable chain.  It is found on a lot of old agricultural equipment and I got personal acquaintance with it when I repaired my Trenton-Fisher vise.  John Deere still supplied it but in a more modern version.

One Way to Make a Wheat Motif

Several months ago a reader asked a question about how I made the wheat shown in an image.  I missed finding that question but it has come up before so this will serve as a generic answer.

First, I have made the wheat motif several different ways at different scales.  The stock material has ranged from 12 gauge black annealed wire up to 9/16” round.  For most of my small wheat sculptures I use 1/4” round rod.

Secondly, I have made wheat in a lot of different ways but I’ll show the most common one which I call the three-fold twist method.

The diameter of stock used will have a great influence on the numbers of spikelets (seeds) in the finished head.  This link shows a head with a total of 18 spikelets.

http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/archive/entomology/ndsucpr/Years/2000/July/20th/psci_22.jpg

The ones I make usually have 16-18.  The length of stock cut will determine how many twists can be made from that size material.  For 1/4” round I’ll figure about 4.5” to 5.5” x four to get the workpiece length.  If you don’t want the heads to come out exactly the same vary the length a bit.

I cut my blanks cold with a hack in the hydraulic press so the ends are tapered. As a rule I’ll probably cut enough to make about 20 heads on a single production run.  A center finder rule is used and I mark the center point with a presto pen.  I heat the center point and bend it 180º and hammer it shut.  Incidentally, I use the torch for most of  this entire project when using small stock.  Note, the images I’m using were taken on different runs so there is some inconsistency in them.

I’ll quickly make a simple bending jig to accommodate the size and length stock being worked to make things go fast.  This facilitates making the second bends of the folding process.

Approximately 24" of 1/4" round and bent 180º at center is placed in the second-bend jig.  This illustration could be misleading as the stem is not ordinarily added until the folds are completed.

The three-fold blank ready to add stem.

Next, I weld the stem to use as a handle.  Sometimes I weld it on the closed loop end and sometimes on the other depending on how I want the finished top of the head to look.  The closed loop free is usual.  In any case the original rod ends must be tacked to their partner to twist properly.

A stem has been welded to capture all four segments.

The second-bend jig and the custom socket wrenches.

The stem end is clamped in the vise and with torch heat the right hand loop is twisted counter clockwise and the left side clockwise.  Usually I work back and forth keeping the twists evenly paired. In an actual seed head the kernels alternate and that can be accomplished by bending the pairs sideways a bit to get a mirror image out of register.  I made a simple socket wrench to make the twist easy.

Twisting with torch heat and keeping twist evenly aligned.

I make sure the twist pairs close tightly against each other by clamping face-side-down in the vise.  The face side is the one with the kernels pointing up and out.

Face side before and after twisting.

I add a length of filler metal such as a nail or 10 gauge black annealed wire or a piece of 3/16” rod.  Anything that will mostly fill the center gap will work.  The goal is to tie the two twist pieces together, prevent MIG splatter from going through to the face side, and add a little center mass.

Clamped in vise back-side-up with filler metal in the center valley.

Filler metal welded to "kernles."

When all the pieces reach this state it is time for the coal forge.  The head is heated and swaged in hydraulic press in a die made for the appropriate stock.

Press swage die for 1/4" round stock wheat.

Next I’ll hand forge the taper of the top and texture it with a handled chisel under the treadle hammer, or on a die in the forging press or on another die in the power hammer.

Tapered top end ready for texturing.

The leaves are usually forged on a power hammer combination forming and texturing die with 1/4” square stock run through on-the-diamond.  I usually work about 30” pieces then hack it into approximately 6” lengths. The finished pieces are run through the tumbler, assembled, brass brushed and coated.

Finished wheat.

I’ve probably sold more of this botanical motif than any of the other ones I make.  This is hard red winter wheat country.

The Bucket Rack

Continuing the theme of opening up workspace and improving the studio organization I’ll write a bit about the bucket rack.  I added this storage space about eight years ago and it has worked out pretty well.

The buckets filled with short steel stock.

The back side faces north.  Forsythia has spread across that side now so they are not as visible today.

Now the buckets are sheltered from wet weather by the trash bag envelope.

There are twenty nine 5-gallon plastic buckets resting in a frame made from 1” square tube.  The buckets lay at about a 30º angle for good visibility of the contents and easy loading and unloading.  In the beginning I used them to store short drops, tool steel, harrow tines, railroad spike and other small items.

As winter approached I put each bucket inside a large trash bag which I could tie shut to keep out rain and snow.

I’ve decided that I no longer need most of what the buckets now hold so I’m going to dispose of those things and use them to store tools and dies which are only used occasionally.  I have a spreadsheet which details the contents of each bucket.  As long as I keep that document current it should be easy to find anything I need.

The Battle For Space

That title sounds like part of the Stars Wars series but it is what I think of as the ongoing struggle to establish room to work.  Ken says that any flat surface is  immediately covered with a pile of something.  I disagree.  The surface doesn’t necessarily have to be perfectly flat.

My friend Herb told me a few months ago that he thought he could calculate the physical dimensions of my body by measuring the clearances between objects in my studio along the paths.  Sadly, he got that right.  It’s not that it was what I wanted but it is what I got when I bit off more than I could chew.

Six months have passed since Herb’s conjecture and I have reclaimed some of that space and opened the area up a bit.  The momentum is in my favor and I am looking forward to a more comfortable space for work and a slower pace of work.

Today Scott came to the studio and volunteered to help me with some projects that are heavier than I can do by myself.  The big one was disassembling the large four-burner gas forge which I am no longer using and getting it out of the forge room.  Five hours later I had more space and that is very much appreciated.

Four burner gas forge.  The top cranks up so the loose bricks can be moved to create the heating space required.

The plumbing has a quick connect fitting to attach to the regulator and 100 pound propane tank.

Today was one of those rare winter days when the temperature rises to an unseasonable high, the sun shines and there isn’t much wind.  I opened the studio doors and we worked inside and out.  After we changed the oil in the tumbler and finished the other projects I walked around outdoors and studied what the wildlife had been doing.  Scott noticed deer tracks leading toward the drip fountain area so I followed them and found they actually led to each persimmon tree.  A few days ago the ground was littered with hundreds of drying and shriveled persimmon fruits.  Today the ground was bare and only deer tracks remained.  The local whitetail population had done some cleaning also.

Quench Tub Leak Repair

Not long after Thanksgiving I opened the studio one morning and was greeted with a flooded floor in the forge room.  It didn’t take long to notice that the quench tub was nearly empty.  The tank is 20” in diameter and 31.5” deep so there was a lot of water loose.

As a digression, I went to Google and did a couple of quick calculations with their handy dandy conversion tools.  First, I figured the volume of the cylindrical tank if full and then converted the cubic inches to gallons.

Calculation of cubic inch volume.

Conversion of cubic inches to gallons.

I had a big pile of old newspapers collected to use as coal fire starter so I scattered those all over the wet area to act as a makeshift sponge.  In a few days all the water was contained and I put the soaked newspapers outside to dry.  I shuffled them off and on until they were dry and I could store them again for their intended use.  

I was in the assembly mode and not the forging mode at that time so I waited until one of my sons came from California to spend Christmas to tackle moving the tub to a position where I could inspect and repair the leak. The drain spigot near the bottom had rusted and failed.  

I cut it away and brushed rust debris from the tank and fabricated a new plug which could be hammered in snug and then wired in place from the outside.  The hole area was sealed with Permatex thread sealant. http://www.permatex.com/products-2/product-categories/thread-compounds/thread-sealants/permatex--pipe-joint-compound-detail

New plug with safety wire.

When it dried I sprayed the inside with Rustoleum Leak Seal.  http://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/stops-rust/leakseal

Since I wasn’t in any hurry I waited about three weeks to fill the tub  to a few inches above the spigot and wait to see what happened.  After another week without any sign of leak I filled it to near the top - the normal level.  A week has passed and the floor is dry.

Full of water and back in business.

Simple S Hook Jig

There a lot of ways to make S hooks and jigs to aid making them.  Last week I was working alone and needed to make some S hooks which were smaller that ones for which I had previously made jigs.  The hooks also needed to be essentially identical.  My older jigs were made so that an assistant could place a clamp while I pulled the curve.

What I needed was a different type jig so it would be easy for me to do both the clamping and the curve pulling processes.  This is the little spring jig I came up with.  

I tested this simple version to make sure it was working  properly to produce  the arc I wanted.  After approving it I added the lifter bar to kick off the hook and make the work go faster.

A pivoting lifter lever was added.

Lifting ejects the hook from the mandrel.

Almost all my vise tools use angle as the tang stock and I add a short piece of flat bar on the bottom edge to catch the underside of the vise jaw so the tool won’t accidentally lift up and dislodge.

In this case I was working with torch heat on 1/4” round rod pieces 4.5” in length.  I used a swage block and forged a “standard” round taper 1.5 “ in length on each end and checked to see all the pieces finished at the same length.  

To form the hooks I held each piece with a pair of vise grips, heated 2” at the end, inserted the taper in the jig and tightened the vise.  My hands were free to pull the curve, loosen the vise and kick out the workpiece.  I pulled one end of each hook and then repeated the process on the other ends.  By moving from one workpiece to the next I didn’t have to handle hot pieces.  The argument against that is I was losing heat which could have been used if I went immediately to forming the bend on the opposite end. It’s always decisions, decisions, decisions.

Snipe Hinges & Cotter Pins

I was using some cotter pins on a project and it occurred to me how similar they are to the snipe hinges I had seen on some American Colonial boxes so I did a little investigation.

Merriam-Webster defines snipe hinge as “an early American Colonial furniture hinge consisting of a pair of half-round iron wires doubled back like cotter pins, linked by the eyes, and clinched into the wood at the sharp outer ends.”

I think of the cotter pin, at least the modern industrial variety,  as being made from half round stock of a single cross sectional dimension - no tapering of the legs.  The snipe hinge has an eye of round stock with the legs being tapered so the tips are easy to bend and clinch.

Modern cotter pin from 1/2 round stock.

Snipe hinge in open position.

Snipe hinge in closed and open positions.

There are a lot of other names for snipe hinges such as Gimmal, cotter key, staple hinge and snipe bill hinge.   Gimmal is said to be derived from the Gemini twins astrological sign. The rather obvious reference to the head and bill of the snipe fowl had actually not occurred to me.  

Wikipedia seems to prefer the term Split Pin for what I think of a cotter pin and states that in British usage cotter pin refers to an altogether different type of fastener. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotter_(pin)

Here is an excellent video in which Andrew Hunter shows how to make snipe hinges and install them. http://www.finewoodworking.com/how-to/video/make-your-own-snipe-hinges.aspx

This site also demonstrates the installation of snipe hinges.

https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/setting-gimmals-you-might-know-them-as-snipe-bills/

This is a link to a diagram showing the 45º angle placement of the pins. http://winterberryfarmprimitivesshopblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/snipe-hinges-what-are-they.html

That was an interesting side trip for me.  I’ll bet the image of a snipe’s head will come to my mind every time I happen to see a cotter pin.  That will be a lot more often that when I see a snipe hinge.

I plan to post my SketchUp drawings on 3D Warehouse.