first try at a fire poker

[highlander]

survey says: ?

i think the stock i used was too thin, as the hook and point came out way too small. oh well.

[inazuma_x]

nice work i love square profile stuff...do almost everything i can in square stock rather than round...

if the stock is too thin you could jump it up and make it thicker...thats what i do when making tongs and similar things that need to be mostly fairly thin but need a bit more metal in places to facilitate whatever i need to do with it...

[broncstomper]

I like mine to be as lite as i can stand. Looks good for a first try.

[tbarm]

I think it looks great! Good job

[rmcpb]

I wouldn't be complaining about that effort!

[Gary]

It looks very good for a first effort. One way to get more material where you want it is to forge weld the poker end back on itself (faggot weld).First taper the end flat, then weld it back onto the body, now you have a loop, cut the loop and you have two prongs, the size of the parent stock, to draw out to the dimensions you want. Hopefully that was clear.

[craig]

That looks pretty good, what size stock is it made from ?? I just recently made one for the mother in law very similar to that...they wanted it 4 feet long for the fire pit...and since my forge welding skills are very minimal and I didn't have time to mess around with trying, I flattened the poker end of 3/8 stock since I was cutting with hacksaw so it would lose less metal when I cut down the center. I'm not sure if that really saves all that much metal...but if you're splitting with chisel or hardy then you lose next to nothing.

As long and you're not using that hook to drag trees around the yard it should work for what it was made for.
Thanks for sharing !!

[Woodeye]

Often we are our own toughest critics - nice job on the fire poker first attempt and lots of good suggestions here for future improvements.

Woodeye

[ThomasPowers]

Forgewelding the end to itself is a common method of having 2 pieces "full sized" to work with.

I'd shorten the handle and sell that as a wood stove poker; it's just right for one like my front loader!

[moya034]

Good job buddy!