anvil

For me, forge the ends, slit and drift the holes, scroll the ends and turn the scroll. The holes houldn't be a problem but if so its much easier to rectify the holes than repair your curve after punching the holes. Slit and drift is not an option if you scroll first.

A great paint on cold finish is 50/50 linseed oil and turps with a healthy pour of Japan dryer. By the time you finish applying this to say a 10'section of railing,it's dry and ready for another coat. I usually apply 3 coats. it does not crack or flake. you can apply a paste wax over it. inside it lasts forever. Outside it needs maintained.

Way late, but I'd like to add my 2 cents. Eddie Mullins hit it on the mark. For this kind of production and straightening twist a shaping jig is overkill. This description takes way longer than to do the job. Tools: hammer, anvil, post vice, "s" shaped twisting wrench made slightly larger than your "frogs eye", square. Setup: make a layout stick out of flat stock that marks the 4 transitions. First is the length of material you want for the scroll on one end. Next where you want your rt angle bend to be. Third and fourth are where your "frogs eyes" are to be. Lay your marking jig on the edge of your table. Place as many nails against it as your square can reach. Using your table as a straight edge, place one leg of your square along it and across your nails. Make sure to square up the nail heads as well. Mark with chalk all your reference points from your layout stick. Lightly centerpunch these transition points. Forging: mark the length you want your scroll to be on your anvil face. Use the heel as your reference point. Draw out all tapers to this length and make your scroll's. Punch your frogs eyes. Make your right angle bend so the light centerpunch mark is center of the bend. Now to your dilemma Clamp the leg of your hook with the scroll in your post vice. Scroll down and using your mark one eyeball, look down at the scroll and make sure it is plumb. If necessary, tap the vertical leg plumb and square using the jaw lines as your reference points. Now grab your "s" twisting wrench and look down at the frogs eyes. Place the twisting wrench (which nicely fits over yer frogs eye, thus no distortion will happen) over the frogs eye and twist until it is perpendicular tp the line of the jaws. Hot oil and done. 4 heats ~10-15 minutes max. You may have a other problem. That is if your two frogs eyes are not in plane. Correct after making in the same way. Clamp your piece in the post vice with scroll pointing down so that the inboard frogs eye is close th the outside edge of the vice. Twist to match the perspective of the scroll. Clamp this frogs eye so your piece is vertical and the other frogs eye is slightly above the face of your vice and twist into plane. Hope this helps.

If you plan it a bit, a deep etched pattern looks like veins.

Make a leaf.

Annealing and normalizing are not the same. A way to think of the heat treating process is that to reach a fully hardened state, you must start from a fully annealed state. Annealing brings you down to max softness, a ground zero. Hardening does the opposite. If you are not at "ground zero, all else will not apply. All this is my paraphrase from Turley Forge many moons ago. I recently had this verified in a good book called " Metalurgy of steel for bladesmiths and others who heat treat and Forge steel" by John D Verhover. He states that all the data in the stats sheets and phase change charts and graphs are based on a fully annealed piece of steel. I believe the reason that many knife makers have this notion that anneal is not needed or is the same as normalizing is because they tend to start out doing stock removal from steel bought from a supplier. Since all tool steel purchased comes fully annealed, there is no reason to anneal again after stock removal . They can go straight to hardening. Again from Turley Forge, stock removal can stress the steel especially if you remove a lot of material. He recommended annealing anyway. So it is part of my routine. We blacksmiths most often may start with annealed steel but once it's brought up past critical to a forging heat (bright orange to yellow) the structure is changed (at critical) and must be annealed as part of the HT process. A great and simple test to show the importance of annealing over "just normalizing" is to make two simple tools you use a lot. Centerpunch, small cold chisel, scribe are examples in my shop. Just normalize, harden, temper one and anneal, harden, temper the other. Use them equally and see how long it takes to lose yer edge. I've never been much for normalizing as part of my HT process, but all my tool steel drop is air cooled after use to make sure I don't end up with a hardened end that would dull my tools otherwise when used again. I don't use air hardening steels by the way. However I'm reevaluating the importance of "refined grain structure" in my tools. This is the primary importance of normalizing. Even if it makes a "better" product, the difference may not be noticeable for the tooling we do. If we were doing springs for the space shuttle, that might be different. However the time to normalize is minimal. Note! Any differences between what Frank attempted to hammer into my head and what actually got there are my responsibility,,, no one else's.

I use adjustable stands, an "s" hook and a weight. Make sure to level your stands with the face of the anvil, put s hook and weight on your work and voi la, two free hands.

To answer your question, I've made some nice hooks out of lag bolts by upsetting the head forge welding on whatever I need to make the hook.

I've been away for a while and missed Thomas' and Frosty's reply. Got a good chuckle out of them. Glad to see you did try it hot and involved your son in the process!

I find it rather interesting that on this blacksmithing site, and two pages of replies, only 3 suggest hot cutting with forge and anvil.

Jim, can you show more pics of that? I'd like to see it in action

my first PW was 124#. I got it from a horse shoer for $80. he thought it was an 80# anvil. it had a little sway in it and bad edges. around '80 I went to Turley Forge. with his advice I refaced it. my second was a 194#. it was given to me by a lady with a condition. she knew I was a student of Francis Whitaker. the condition was that I tell him his anvil had a good home. when I told him he nodded and never blinked an eye. that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. my first was stolen 10 years ago and I replaced it with one I found at " the blacksmith candy store" on eBay. it is 124# and appeared to have a pitted face and was listed as "no reserve". I bid what I could afford with no expectation of winning. I got it with shipping from Michigan to Colorado for $280. love my PW anvils!

if you use a nut or piece of cutoff material, you must hacksaw a side parallel to the home. this allows the but to wrap around whilst welding. the two hacksaw edges will fw and disappear. if you don't do this, the "hole" will grow bigger, and you are libel to miss your weld. refer to Frank Turley's post above for wrapping and forgewelding. good job and great exercise! looks like you figured out the masses! the math is simple, and will put you right on every time! keep the handwork going 'til you get more experience, then add whatever tools needed. it pays off in spades in the long run.

about everything mentioned above is critical to a good forge weld. I'll add keep your green coal out of the coke around your iron.

I've had two great scores recently. I got a 124# PW for $350 shipped to Durango, Co from Michigan. this was from a well known eBay merchant, sometimes called the blacksmiths candy store. it had a little pitting on the face and sold no reserve. I made a bid fully knowing I wouldn't win. shows to go... I have two old CI table forges. one I put a centaur firepot in, the other had the original firepot & tuyer. the clinker breaker was not original and rode s good half inch low. all the goodies fall out the hole so fire management is a bear. I walked in my local second hand store and found a well used, but not used up complete firepot, tuyre, and clinker breaker. I tried to talk him down from $25, but alas, no luck! it now sits in my old forge,,,perfect fit, and is back to work.

check locally for a blacksmith group. getting together with others can really inspiring, as well as a great way to make new friends.

is this what you had in mind for angled Tenon's? Francis Whitaker preferred a foot to an angled tenon. he felt the sheer was a problem.

mild steel works fine. use a vegetable oil for a hot oil finish. never had any rusty bits, always kept them in the tack room.

I use mild steel. I made this for a friend about 20 years ago.

what frosty said,,, just reinforcing his words. any other way is way too much hassle. happy holidaze.

what makes it really special is that all sheet metal is made from forgewelding RR spikes together and drawing out the sheet.,,,, ;)

as long as you use traditional kerosene, it will work fine. ;)

great job and very creative!

good work!'

very nice. as above. I heat my screws in the forge on a piece of small channel iron so I don't lose them. then either wire brush and finish with hot oil or reforge a bit. keep it up! pretty soon the only shoeing you will be doing is shoeing them away!! been there done that!