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I Forge Iron

Scroll bender plans?


will52100

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Very true, thing is, I don't know what I need rite now as I've got a few projects in the back of my mind that if I ever get time I'll be working on.  They will need several size scrolls one I get to designing the projects.  That's one reason I was interested in the bender as it looks easy to adjust to different sizes.  Having never used one I'm not so sure now if it's a project worth building.  I can promise you down here there will not be much of a market for that kind of work, maybe a few pieces once in a while, but nothing steady.  So basically it'll be for doing my own projects and once in a while selling a piece or such.  I do have contacts with a sign company so it's possible that it might grow into something more, but it's still a very limited market.  Most people's idea of a fence down here is barb wire.

Last bit of scrolling I did the first one came out great, the next 3 or so not so much and then the rest matched up.  Took me by surprise just how much material goes into scrolls.

Great idea on cold hammering to alleviate stress, hadn't thought of that, but I've got a large air compressor so it would not be an issue to put pneumatic hammer to it, will have to give that a try.

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Now that we have a little better idea of what you want to do, and what your skill level is, we can give better advice. Same general advise would go for knifemaking, leatherwork, or guitar playing.

#1: Get yourself a guru. (No, not that guy. Little 'g'.) Find someone, living and local for preference, dead and/or distant if necessary, whose work you want to emulate. Find out everything you can about how they go about their craft. Visit them if possible, or their installations, and really LOOK at it. Take detailed notes, measurements, photos from every angle. Try to replicate one detail at a time in your own forge.

#2: Take a class. A weekend or a full week will cut years off of the learning curve, and can be tax deductible if you do this sort of thing for a living. Going to a conference demo is almost as good if you camp out in the front row. Again, notes and photos.

#3: Books and the internet. The COSIRA blacksmith books are a free download, and there are several volumes on gates and ornamental iron. The ABANA controlled hand forging segments, and Mark Aspery's books are excellent to allow you to work at your own pace.

#4: The metal: You should already know this from knifemaking, but it bears repeating. The best metal for the purpose costs more, and is worth it! A36 is the $1.00 a pound hamburger of the welding world. Big box store rebar is, believe it or not, even worse. More like dog food. If you are going to the trouble to actually completely forge it,  SAE1018/1020 is much friendlier, especially cold.

I once made a complete garden fence and gates for a friend out of cold bent and welded rebar, because that is what she wanted. Miserable experience.

When she passed unexpectedly, the new homeowners scrapped the whole thing overnight.

 

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Another old blacksmith technique is if you need 12 identical scrolls make 15 and chose the most identical ones the other go for less picky projects...

However if you look at old blacksmithing gates with a large numbers of hand forged scrolls you will notice that if you get up close and carefully check there are not identical; but from a distance they look *perfect*; but the design looks "richer" than a similar one done with machine bent scrolls.

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Thanks for the suggestions, especially the COSIRA blacksmith books, good information there.  I had planned on A36, but now that yo mention it it'd be lots better to go with 1018.  I use 1081 for hawks after a bad experience with A36 popping loose.  Also have some A36 1" square bar that I got for hardy tools and it's more of a diamond shape than square while the 1018 is pretty much square.  I used to work as a welder and at one point the owner was buying bent up scrap metal and below standard grade and it was a PITA to straighten out and use.

Not a bad looking fence, what did you use for the balls on top?  I rarely use rebar for anything other than billet handles, it's like when they re run it at the smelter they don't get it mixed properly and it's got hard and soft spots in it.

I've seen the "tortionator" and liked it, but I don't see myself doing enough to justify building something like that.  Maybe if I start getting a lot of orders, but for now I think you've all convinced me to stick with individual jigs and hot bending.  If I wind up getting large orders I can always expand the tooling.

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2 hours ago, will52100 said:

Not a bad looking fence, what did you use for the balls on top?

King Architectural Metals catalog item.

She fell in love with a divider in a bar, drug me out there to see what it was after a Fab student had botched it all up. It was supposed to look like the Blue Ridge mountains, row upon row of hills. It only took twice as long to fix it as it should have if I had started from scratch. She was a lovely person and a friend of my wife, so I put waaaay too much time and effort into it. 

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Cool story, I was afraid you'd used ball bearings for the balls, that's something a few welding shops down here used to do.  I feel you on putting too much time and effort into something for a friend, I have to stop myself sometimes from going crazy with it.

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