RR Spike Challenge

[rthibeau]

Railroad spikes are often mentioned as the material for making basic items at the forge, i.e. the 'ole RR SPike Knife or Tomahawk. How many different things can be made from one spike? And how do they look in reality? So the challenge is to not just list what can be made, but actually make it, photograph it, and share with the rest of us.

[Marc]

A while ago I made these for my wife. I call them railroses. They're just a variation of the "Russian Rose".

--Marc

[JerryCarroll]

Real nice Marc!! I make roses too and can appreciate the work it takes using a spike. Looks like you use the same method I do to close the bottom--makes a better rose

[Marc]

Yeah, what I do is forge the petal section so that the end is wider than the beginning. That makes the outside petals longer. Then, after rolling, I just hold the end of the flower with my pipe tongs and it's pretty easy to neck the bottom of the flower.

[Pault17]

Marc
are your roses all one piece? I have a vision of bending the spike end 90 degrees and spreading/flattening the bent piece really thin, somehow making the petal shapes and then hot-rolling the whole thing.

they are beautiful too!

[Don A]

Marc... how 'bout a Blueprint on the railroses?

Don

[Marc]

Don, I'll think about the Blueprint. Might be fun. But in the meantime...

They are all one piece. I flatten/spread the petals first. Then I neck down the "stem", but I leave a piece of the petal thick, the same size as the stem. It looks like an "L", with the petal piece hanging from the bottom of the "L". That leaves me a thick enough piece to bend straight and then wrap the petals around it.

Maybe I can get to a BP this weekend, but the weather is supposed to clear up. I need to spend some time outside. I'm in NH and it's been pretty wet the past week.

[Jeremiah]

Marc, nice work, and I am curious to see what others can make with rr spikes. My last attempt was to make a door knocker with a leaf spring backplate and a tennoned spike using the eye of the spring as the pivot point, but it ended up in the scrap pile after overworking the spike which eventually broke. Maybe it is time to give it another try

[Michael]

Originally Posted by Marc

Yeah, what I do is forge the petal section so that the end is wider than the beginning. That makes the outside petals longer. Then, after rolling, I just hold the end of the flower with my pipe tongs and it's pretty easy to neck the bottom of the flower.

Hey, after 10 roses I just figured this one out. Making the outer petals wider than the inner ones. I've been doing a faggot weld on the end of my rose rod to give me that width. How do you get that nice rounded shape at the bottom of the outer petals?

[Tyler Murch]

The tomahawk was made from a 9/16" spike, smaller than the normal 5/8" spike. It actually came from a rail road in Alaska that was laid for when they found some gold up there. Excuse the loose and dry knot.