yves

Jim, Probably was too late when you posted ... Have a good day. Yves

Yeds it is! But like I said, with hips.

Why didn't I think of that ...

I want to see this and others with me I'm sure.

The client came with a photograph and he said that he wanted "hooks like these but not like them". He let me decide. His were of victorian/chinese/contemporary inspiration. Here is what I came up with. He was happy. The board seems cramped but it was to be 14 inches at the most. Material : flat bar 1/4" x 1/2". And they are with a twist ...

Yes and in 3/4" bars, forged holes are just spectacular.

No wonder they want more!

You are not cheating. You are making yourself a pair of tongs. Essentialy, in another thread, someone, Frosty I believe, said something to the effect that it would be cheating if a client pays you to do a job with traditional techniques, then you MIG it, hide it never say a word and cash the cheque for the traditional job. That would be cheating. And by the way, would also cut me a pair and its ok to MIG ...

Forged holes have something about them that I like. Here are 24 of them : They are nice with the material giving the item something like hips instead of vanishing away. There is elegance in them. They are a signature, a way of saying that a blacksmith made this, they are a statement These are for hinges that will not realy be seen by anyone and if seen, probably unnoticed. But I know.

Jim, Here is a take off from your idea. When you first posted I saw the light. I rarely put anything bigger than one inch in my vise. I have 1-1/8" with this one.

It's in Haïti. And for all practical purposes, they do not have any trees left.

Very elegant, very creative. From the second pic on, I wore a smile on my face. Very inspiring to see something different in something so ordinarily ordinary. Ah! The spit or crossbar on the diamond!

Thank you George. Little do I have to add. I do not forge weld. I have tried forge welding and will try again. Friends have written to me how to do it. I've read and hammered, and thought I had it at times and ... I run around them. I avoid them. Like in avoiding failure! I made a few and I mean a few like in only a few. I ought to attempt one a day. I do not. Sometime, Mark Aspery said that you are a forge welder when you have 1000 welds under your belt and that the ones you drop also count towards the total. I wont tell you where I am with the count. I also remember Steve Sells (I think I'm right) saying a while ago that he did not understand the whole mystery around forge welding as it was done by the apprentice. From then on, It realy annoied me (of course it still does) not to be able to. Now, if I was able to, I think I would be amongst those of you who think that forge welding, as is forging like Frosty has clearly put it, comes at a premium. If the client wants it, AND if the structure of what is being forged demands it, he must pay for it and I must be able to make it. Otherwise, it is quite justified to employ modern techniques. ... Or to run around the problem. I know, I ought to drive to a master blacksmith's shop spend a few days and learn. It is part of the techniques of the trade and I feel I must be able to do it. Just waiting for money to drop and time to lenghten or slow down.

Being 'forge welding challenged' and using collars and tenons and rivets and anything else I can use to run away from forge welding, I am very happy to read what the wise man from Dawlish and the sorcerer from Meadow Lakes have to say. I will concede that I have cheated, or that I feel I have cheated when in a moment of self doubt I used the services of a welder to consolidate collars on a set of four grills I could not forge weld. I would love to be able to forge weld as necessary and maybe more and not have to try to establish how it is not necessary ... I am so far from that! I feel I am highjacking this thread. I do not know how to start a new one with these quotes. Can the highly skilled and dedicated moderators do that? The topic would be "When is it appropriate to forge weld?" or "Do I have to forge weld?"

Frosty, The gap was not an issue. However, you are right. It could have been. Thanks for the comments. Yves

No. Since the large shelf extends 24 inches, everything is bolted through in the wall. I use rivets whenever I can. They were not called for since they would not have contributed to holding the whole thing to the wall. Thanks for looking. Yves

Bending and fish tails, a nice liitle contract. Here is the plan : A very simple little job, Not a challenge realy for the blacksmith. What I like about it from the forge's point of view, is how traditional techniques and products can integrate themselves in very contemporary settings. There was no money for scrolls or other embelishments and there was apparently, no need for them. The whole simple thig is an embelishment in itself. The young man is a film director and works long hours in post production on his computer. He wanted to enjoy the possibility of working standing and gain space in his ofice where space comes at a premium. What I designed was straight forward, inexpensive and did the job ... I think. And this is the kind of job where when you quote a price the client does not run away. And you still make a little, a nice little. Above all, I repeat myself here, what I like about the job is that it puts the blacksmith in the lives of young upcoming people. It makes forging contemporary. The client phoned me more than once to tell me how happy he was and that some of his friends have shown an interest. Here are a few pics. A general view : Here we clearly see the three levels : screen on top, keyboard & mouse on the larger plane and all hard disks on the bottom. The fish tails were forged so that they hold the wood making up the shelf. The shelves are simply inserted and the wood can move with the seasons without cracking.

In a silo. Steel walls, insulation, rather thin. On the right, wood stove for the cold days. Cement floor.

I would be surprised that the link would vanish. It is from the national library of France. This is what they do at Gallica, make old books available. For instance, I'm interested in kitchen implements of Nouvelle-France, they have made available quite a few receipe books from that period. On the other hand, one never kows ...

See Brian Brazeal's hearts. Napkin rings. He sold a lot of them if I remember well.

This is %#@Q?D unfair!!! There is a man around here who has an old-new swage block. He does not use it. He will not sell it. At any price. Now around here these things are very, very rare. And some guys have pyramids of them ... shocked I am. Still, congrats on your find.

New to forging? How much better can one get with the roses? Where are you? Please show a location in your profile.

AND THE WINNER IS ...

Ah but there is a good reason! I think ... To make it short : my woodworking life brought me in contact with the Greene brothers, the architects of Passadena, the authors of the Gamble House (Google this) amongst others (see http://www.usc.edu/dept/architecture/greeneandgreene/). They have and I from them in my wood work, used extensively what the Chinese called the "Cloud Lift". In my forging life, I attempt to replace the scroll effect with the cloud lift effect. This plant support comes from such an effort. This effort is also visible in this grill I am forging for another commission : You might be right about the desirability of "organic" curves. And I tend to agree intellectually with you. However I wish to explore the use of the cloud lift effect in forging. For me it is a way of trying to see what it means to step away from tradition in designing forged objects. I spend a lot of time in traditional design and enjoy every moment of it. I feel I also have to research what it would mean to step away from the accepted design. I dont know if all this makes sense other than to say that I always admired the cloud lift and would like to see it in forgings. And I thank you for the comment which, as usual, gets me thinking.

Thanks Steve. I like to use this technique : it shows the object, even a simple one like this support, was forged. It brings it out of mass production anonymity.