elementFe

Thanks John- Like any good blacksmith, you just have to think backwards, turning a garden fork into a chunk of thick flat bar.
I do have a small power hammer, and it wouldn't be terribly hard to do, but I think it (as you say) take most of a day for the first one and be a lot of pounding...I think I have better things to do just now!
Makes perfect sense, though, I can see it now.
The time consuming part for me is always the slitting/cutting, and then cleaning it up afterwards so it forges out clean.
This would make a dandy demonstration, though, for a conference, wouldn't it?
AG

I don't know how many tines your fork needs but bigfoot is correct. Good one piece forks are hot cut and opened out. Each tine and the tang are then drawn out to length shaped and tempered.It takes a lot of skill and practice with convenience bends and cutting to accomplish this.

I've been baffled for years on the subject of how the English garden forks are made.
A neighbor with a small market garden has asked me to make a half dozen, and supplied 4340 (if I remember correctly) 1/2"x1/2" stock- I think it can be done, but I'd sure like to know how the big kids do it before I beat my head against the wall- they're advertised as "one piece" without welds, and I just don't get how to get that shape from one piece of anything.
I showed Peter Ross an older example years ago, and he thought that it had been cut from sheet stock and then tines and socket forged piece by piece...this was a many-tined manure fork though...
Help?
Thanks!
Andy G.
Guemes Island, WA

I don't know exactly what you are wanting to end up with so this may not work. Could you drill the holes a 90 degrees then forge the tendons at the angle you need? angled tendons are not nearly as hard to do as drilling angled holes. Set the sloulders at the angle you want on two sides set the inside of tendon to match the sides leave outside of tendon flush. Make a monkey tool that will fit your hardy hole. Heat up your stock stick it in the monkey tool hit other end of bar as you pull the bar over to the neede angle. The bar will upset at the shoulder as the tendon moves to the center of the bar. It all sounds hard to do but is much harder to explain than it is to do. One or two pratice bars and you will be on your way.

Lessons learned:
*You can't necessarily get machine cutters in a small town, even a busy seaport town. Apparently those things come from jobbers, not stores.
*When you DO finally find one, twenty miles away, you can't do accurate, nice looking work with machine tools on a cheapo Grizzly drill press. It's just not that steady or accurate: I'm tempted to post a youtube video of the wobble...it would be nice to dance to, but sucks for steel work.
*There's no substitute for real (read, "expensive") metalworking tools.
Options are to spend another day chasing around looking for a drill press to use, hiring a machine shop and waiting....

Considering that consistency can often hide inaccuracy (as long as the inaccuracy is consistent) perhaps I'll change the layout, punching straight through, and using a hand drill and lots of fluid, torque the hole sideways enough for the bar to pass through on the correct angle. Not what I'd wanted, but there's something to getting the job done.

The big question is, how much slop is acceptable?
*sigh*
...decisions like this are what make me, the C.E.O, worth the big bucks. Perhaps I'll vote myself a multimillion dollar bonus at the end of the quarter.

Large number of holes use a drill jig and a drill bushing, still want to use an end mill. For a few parts then end mill with the part well clamped and a slow feed should work great.

What about cutting the ends of the bars to the correct angle and tapping them to take a screw at 90' to the rails?

I will normally start with a hand drill, center punch where you want to drill, then start drilling straight and gradually angle the drill as it drills till you get to the approx angle you want then move to the drill press to finish.
The end mill will work too, even in a drill press.

welder19

Though i have not done this wouldn't it be possible to drill a little dip just so that the drill wouldn't wonder so much then put it at the angle required and drill it.??

alec

try using an endmill.

Bob

Can anyone out there walk me through the basics of drilling steel on an angle?
Making infill panels for a stairway- it seems no end of obstacles to drilling accurate, consistent holes on about a 34 deg. angle- wish I could just punch em!
My drill press is set for the angle, but getting it to actually drill in the right place without wandering to the side is baffling...
Thanks for any suggestions!
Andy G.

Great stuff, thanks for all the feedback.
It's a bit scary to think of experimenting on a project of this size, but hey, you can always paint, but you only get one chance to try a wax type finish....
We'll see what they have in mind.

Thanks for all the replies.
Yes, I plan to use WROUGHT iron, as in salvaged triple refined wrought iron for this project.
The customer (a fine old church) appreciates handmade work and isn't averse to yearly maintenance- what I'm trying to get a picture of is this: With Wrought iron (pure iron if I can't get enough wrought) can I get away with something that doesn't flake off after a few years? Better to reapply a wax type finish than to have to scrape and repaint every five years- the rest of the structure only needs maintenance in terms of decades, not years, I don't want this to be the weak link.

Hi, everyone, first time poster here.
This is a question that gets kicked around from time to time, but I'm very curious...
I'm looking at a railing job, on an outdoor porch here in the Pacific Northwest, where the customer would like the ultimate in old fashioned work- using wrought iron (real WROUGHT iron) and no electric welds.
There's a lot of very old iron in Europe- how was it coated way back in the Renaissance? Did they have an oil/beeswax treatment that helped it stand up to weather?
I realize that the usual answer is, blast/galv/prime/paint, but that's not what this very choosy customer is after- some yearly maintenance would be much preferable to hiding the texture of the iron.
Thanks for any thoughts!
Andy Gladish
Guemes Island WA USA