anvil

Mild steel works fine for a froe. What Thomas said about quenching.

I use a pair of large bolt type tongs. the working ends are 2 pieces of 1/4" x1"x1" held on with a countersunk rivit. these swivel. I start from a corner and bolt the screen in place. I use the tongs as a lever and pull the screen tight. I work equally in both directions from the corner. when done, replace bolts with rivits, if that's your form of joinery. I hope this is what you were asking about.

thanks for that. my technique is almost identical to Peter Ross. I've done it like Weigers and found it takes longer and is less precise, but it works as well! 3/4" and smaller is a one heat operation or one heat and a bit of cleanup.

sometimes its easier to trim it a bit. sometimes not. thinking of a closed piece like my tulip, or a square where you close it with a forgeweld. of course you can always trim it and use the welder, do a bit of grinding, then reheat it, hammer it and wire brush it to get rid of the grinder marks and take a good heat to get rid of the mismatched colors. its all choice. however, for me the feeling I get when I forge a complex piece, and the only drop is,,, feeling that little "snick" when it drops into its place is second to none. :). but hey, to each his own. the beauty of a piece of iron comes from the heart.

No problem, and thanks for that. If you get a chance, do check my sources.

Eddie, thanks. Fire away with questions however you want and I will help you out.

I believe the bottom stringer is 20". the top running scrolls and cap are 24". inside to inside of c scrolls to oval is 4". thanks, Frosty. I had a little help on this. a great man in my life asked to be a part of it. he made all the collars. of course I said yes.

should have guessed that. yes, it does pass code.

thanks. it was a great job.

what code is that?

here is a railing I did many moons ago. like all my work, its all done by hammer in hand. no power tools. there was about 80' of rail. the tulip was done from, I believe 1/2" x1". it consists of 5right angle bends and a forge weld. there were 40 some panels. the layout if the tulip was done on my table and all right angles were figured by adding 1/2. the thickness to each side of the bend. when all 40 some were layed out and center punched, I scarfed the ends for a forgeweld. then did the right angles and scrolling. forgeweld was last all 40 were identical. in the 2' sample there are 19 forgeweld which had to be done very close tolerance. sorry for the poor quality pics. they are taken with my smartphone and the orig is been rode hard and put away wet. a special thanks to all who have guided me in our fine craft.

I watched his video and enjoyed it. I've watched him in person and enjoyed it. I heard him talk of a controversy and tried to see what it was. No luck. So I worked my process backwards and still see no controversy. Sorry for not being good at writing. I warned of that in my post. That's why I'm doing this, trying to bring back lost skills. Is that a problem? As far as adding material to a right angle bend, I'll just recommend you look at Francis Whitaker's book and Schwartzkopf's " plane and ornamental forging". Sorta cuts to the chase.

I don't see any controversy. Peter Ross said, as I understood it that material moves away from the centerpunch Mark. his centerpunch marks the inside of the bend. material moves sway from the centerpunch mark. it was confusing to me and sounded like material moves out towards the legs, making them longer. but I don't believe this is what he meant, so stated it moves on the diagonal away from the centerpunch and tried to make it clear this applies to the first piece he demonstrated, not the big piece he finished.

absolutely, one of the best.

however! make sure you know how to do a good collar. there's more than way to do good collars, but way more ways that won't work for more than decoration.

I was shown an example once a while back that convinced me. two half inch square bars with two collars about 4" apart. we hammered on one of the bars to get it to move. took a lot of hammering! convinced me. even on two straight bars in a gate I would not worry. on a railing same thoughts. say 36" railing. I'd put one near the top, one in the middle, one at the bottom and never worry. or two at the top 4" apart, same at bottom and one in the center and worry even less and ya got a cool design as well.

I think I understand your question. sorry, but I can't do pictures at the moment, so will try word pictures, and my wordsmithing needs work! let's say we are using 1/2" square as in the first example in the Peter Ross video. the one he did not finish. think of your perfect butt or miter with two legs running at rt angles to each other. the diagonal of your miter is the diagonal of a 1/2" square. the outside edge is sharp and crisp. this is what we want to end up but with an inside radius not a sharp inside corner. otherwise you will end up with a cold shut. so my example is a bit different than your perfect butt/miter. now take your 1/2" sq bar. heat it and bend it to a tight right angle bend. I use bending forks for better control. now look at the area we defined above. the inside radius is upset. the outside radius is radius'd drawn out, and no longer 1/2" along the diagonal in thickness and the length is shorter than your original diagona on your perfect example we would not need to add any material, but because we have an inside radius, we need to add material to get our example(with inside radius). the greater the inside radius, the more material needs be added. because of the beautiful, large inner radius in the video, Peter Ross started with larger material and thus avoided a major upsetting experience. ;) . so for my "normal" tight inner radius'd right angle bend (like the first example in the video) I add 1/2 the thickness of parent material on both sides of the bend to fill in the needed extra caused by the inner radius, then move it by upsetting and using my cross peen to move it from the inner radius to the outer sharp edge. so to forge to length, I need to add 1/2 the thickness to each side of the bend. do you see the difference between your perfect butt/miter and what I'm doing, and what Peter Ross did to both in the video? two good sources, and most likely way better understood is Francis Whitaker's cookbook. and Schwartzkopf's book. elemental forging? can't remember the name of it.

I don't think there is any controversy. Its a matter of defining terms. There is an inside radius, a square outside corner and two legs. The legs get shorter and the material moves from the inside radius to the outside corner. The legs move inwards and the excess material around the inside radius moves on the diagonal to the apex of the outside square corner. To forge these to length, meaning no material to be cut off the legs and the cross section to be uniform I follow a rather simple formula. let's say I am using 1/2" sq. stock and I want to end up with 10" legs measured from the center of the inside radius. my formula is to add half the thickness of the material to each side of the right angle bend. this is layed out and measured from the center of the inside radius. so I start off with 20-1/2" of 1/2" a square stock. my centerpunch mark is 10-1/4" from each end. the reason I mark the inside radius is because this point does not move wrt the legs or the outside corner. when I forge this, the legs get shorter, the inside radius and surrounding area are upset and the outside edge of the parent stock approaches a right angle. I do not at this time use the flat of my hammer to maintain a 1/2" profile around the diagonal. instead I use the crosspeen and move this material from the inside radius on the diagonal to the apex of the outside right anglecreating my 1/2" profile. I check my measurement from my centerpunch to the outside of each leg as needed. when they hit 10" i dress the forging, check for square and, usually champer the edges, leaving the apex sharp. the whole process takes way less time than it took to detail the process here. so you can see the actual movement of material is from the inside radius on the diagonal and from the outside edge of the parent stock inboard to create the sharp apex. the only difference in this and the Peter Ross video, realizing the video could be a special case as it is not a simple right angle corner, is not using the flat of my hammer on the top surface of the forging and using my crosspeen instead to move material on the diag. if you use the flat of the hammer you are moving material 360 degrees. the crosspeen controls the direction of movement very specifically on the diagonal to the apex. hope this helps.

one more thing, yes it can be twisted cold but you are limited to the amount of twists per inch or it will crack or shear. at a yellow heat you can separate your look from that of the cold work guys and double or triple the amount of twist without cracking,,, no matter what kind of steel you use or how powerful your twister. PLEASE NOTE! this is no critique for how you do your work, just adding info to a problem.

first rule of blacksmithing,,, get it hot. when its yellow its mellow, when its red its dead. a very good Santa Fe smith had this written on all his hoods. serious, here, if you are going to get to an orange, not hot enough, leave it in a few seconds longer, get it yellow, and only do it once.

I don't seem to be able to edit. most important, don't let the pass thru touch the hole or it will deaden the ring.

I use coil spring. I believe the higher carbon steels make a nicer ring than mild steel. I usually break an inch on one side, do a bit of an upset, then slit and drift a hole an eighth or so larger than the parent stock. then bend the legs and pass the bitter end thru the hole. leave it long and either upset it or scroll it to "give it a bit of motion. make sure the top bend is such as to allow the bell to hang plumb and square. this gives your legs 3 different lengths. you can cut either of the projected ends (below hole, and amount passed thru) to tune yer bell. it ain't yer run of the mill dinner bell, catches the eye, creates questions (how'd he do that!?) and is pretty fun to make and absolutely unique! oops, just gave away one of them danged ole trade secretes. ;)

I know this is very doable. consider how a nut or collar is welded to a shaft. do it the same way or your "hole" will grow around the shaft with forging and you will have cold shuts. if after drilling your hole you cut thru longitudinally on one side, then forgeweld, you should have no problem.

try controlling your air flow and raising the temp slower. move some of the charcoal on the top with your poker so you can see the color of your steel or slide it out a bit to quickly do a color check. with practice, you will know the temp by how much time its in the fire and by the color of the heart of your fire.

most important! if you use vinegar on the iron, neutralize it with baking soda. otherwise even the weak acid will cause rust under any other finish you apply.