jake pogrebinsky

Not exactly an exercise in controlled hand-forging, as you say yourself,but one heck of a challenge. And looks like you've done very respectably indeed-congratulations!Nothing much simple about one of these! That one forged element,the rail finial,is very pleasant-looking,too. Thanks for the photos,great project!

Excellert job,in all respects,man,congratulations! Cute little cabin,for sure-i was wondering at what kinda place would have such interesting joinery,and you've finally posted that overall photo-looks great.Must be a plasure to outfit something like that!

I know what you mean,Beth,it sounds sensible(and really,there're very few to whom it comes easy,for most,like it is for thee and me,it a frustrating struggle). I can't watch videos here,with my band-width,but i just dislike that deep cut. The Extremely Simplified version would be to put them together flat,and after rivetting,turn both bits together 90 deg.in the vise. For the simple,flat-bits tongs,it may even be better-no ruinous indent.

Thank you,Jeremy,that was a great issue of The Hammer Blow!I remember when it came out,and my friend and mentor Phil has brought a copy out to my camp(initially,he turned me onto forging(and has given me a full set of tools),as a homesteading expedient). Well do i remember looking through this very issue,thinking:"This is impossible!!!I'll never get there!HOW did these people get so good at it?!" I'll always remain deeply grateful to all those people,Brian Gilbert in particular,and many whose names i've forgot(but would instantly recognise their ironwork!),as that was practically all that i've known of blacksmithing world,for many years. And now i thank you,JK,most kind of you to re-introduce me to them!

Beth,the dyslexia stalks all of us,equally!There was many a time where I HAD to look at the existing set of tongs to figure it out. I've built them crooked,and i've built them weak,and left-handed,inadvertently,and so heavy that your hernia crawled lifting them... I've screwed tongs up in so many ways that it staggers the imagination! And it IS good to screw up,or at least educational.But,just for the record:The halfs are identical(not mirror).The reigns work good right around 1/2" round stock or so. The way of constructing them that looks like you've chosen does not appear sound.If i'm reading this correctly,someone had figured on "cheating",and using less stock dimention.That part that you're supposed to twist should,really,be drawn out of solid mass.In any case,an indent of such depth would fatally wound and doom a chunk of steel. Really,the smallest waist-ed sort of a place on a tong should equal the reign in section,at the least.But it's atill may not be enough,as proportionately it may still become weak,and thus,fall a victim to flexure soon. I've built(and broken)many sets of tongs,and am here to tell you that you can do it!Find a better design,and make them heavy as you can .And every transition,as gently radiused as possible,for the abrupt trans.is where the stresses concentrate. Is there a set of tongs handy,for to look at,around your place?

Sounds great,Beth,it's a deal then.In 25 years i should be just about getting some idea of how it's done,at the rate that i learn. The plan was to beat each of these into a tri-foil.So the next move was to forge a pendant element next to the existing one.Soon,it was obvious that it won't fly. Even before the questionable weld-seam blew apart,i was having problems trying out this other theory,of turning the pendant to face a 90 deg off.Forging the fuller to accomplish it,rounding it,to avoid visible twist there,have all started changing the geometry on me into an unacceptable,for my future plan,direction. I went ahead and pushed it till it broke,a little destruction testing goes a long way,in learning. One of the things that i thought were particularly harmfull was the vibration.To help with that,i kept on using the box-end tongs,plus a wire-wrap,strictly as a vibration dampener. It SEEMED to've worked.By using higher range of heat,and making SURE that the weld halfs get blended together,i think that i MAY squeak by(if i don't overwork the other parts,which i need to work severely,actually...). One side,then the other: Now,there was still an unbroken part of yesterday's forging.I figured that i may as well try it,before remaking this one as well(making more stock,and re-forging the other piece have taken a couple-three hours,and now it was well into the afternoon...). It held up : But at the base of the element the weld is beginning to come apart: Now,that got me to thinking:"Dang,how DO they do that?I mean,"For realz",like the kids say nowadays!What's the Right way of doing this?" My own thoughts on that is that the weld is made towards the end of all other forging,and the connections between the elements are normally LESS in section/mass then the elements themselves.Those connections are normally round,and end up forming easy,circular shapes. Many times the element itself is forged sideways,to begin with,and takes a turn towards the end of the process. That turn is not the tidiest,but,heck,these are a multiple,repeated element of grate infill,their nature does not require the most of anal finishes. The crucial thing about them,and the like,is that they're a Two-sided deal,visible from both sides. I'm attempting to use the design for a flat,one-sided member,and i want the certain finish.Bevels,facets,some other stuff. It may well be in vain,but i'll try,anyway. The screw-ups make me scramble for fuel.Usually,a drum of charcoal gives me 5-6 hours of forging.But forging,alas,is quite distinct from Welding So i've had to make another drum after work,as well as one before.Else,i may run short tomorrow,a drum a day at the very least is what i seem to go through. Making a barrel of charcoal is not a great deal.It's an hour or two of scurrying,and then not spacing out on shutting it down at some point later. The wood is in Plentious(cool English word )supply,much of it even in necessary short rounds,so that the smithing life is good

Hey,this is what i figured:John does a great job of representing the way things Must Be Done. My role here,sometimes,is to provide a number of examples that show that,indeed,things do need to be done That(the right)Way. Sometimes one needs to learn things more than once,or even twice...Many a thing took me a number of years,and tries,to get through my thick skull(some still bounce off...). I'm in a process of back-pedalling very hard,paying for the lapses of attention and planning,on this one project.It'll soon be over,but meanwhile,i can't change my evil ways too abruptly-it'll not blend with the previously done stages. I must continue to be half-assed about this!(we can do that,we have the technology! ) So,i need to end the project on the theme of a multi-foil,just like it started.For the pendant elements i decided to plagiarise Beth's curtain rod finials (i've coveted them ever since they appeared here a few weeks ago!). As usual,some chain-link stock prep,this ones are hefty,5/8"-11/16" round.They make sq.stock about 9/16"(i don't know why! but it's not 1/2" or 5/8" ). And,check out this funky set of tongs!I found two pair of these,one a bit larger,scavanging for the steam-engine parts in the historic boom-town of Ruby!The rivet is a sq.ring on one side,where the stock passes through...They're great for faggoting long lenghs: A faggot-weld and a subsequent fuller,leaving a presumably welded blob for beating into the pendant. Pendant is formed somewhat,set down from the stock height as well: Now the two legs of the future Multifoil are forged some,their "roots",where they attach to pendant.I've some sinister plans for forging them,but for now it's good that they're tapering evenly,and are reasonably symmetrical. Forging two things together like that is interesting...It Can be done,and Is a useful technique for some situations. The pendant element gets molested by a small ball-pein,looks cool,if you ask me! I've needed two of these,but made them one after another,5/8"-ish stuff doubled,in a charcoal fire,by hand,thinking as i forge...One is plenty.But one right after another still makes for a decent similarity,likeness of elements,it'll do. So,towards finishing the second one,i have some lenght of weld-failure.Nothing drastic,just imperfectly joined edges forged out as a cold-shut. And only NOW,at THIS point,i realise what a MORON i am! For i've known,for a long time now,that one MUST give the pendant element a 90 deg.twist,so as not to be forging vertically into the weld-seam,but forging it skew-weld like!!! Oh,well,it may take me a dozen more times to remember it AFTER i've already pouded it into a wrong configuration!

...." *********** That's a VERY good question.I'd say,for myself,that i'm NEVER satisfied with what's been achieved.That's simply not my job;the person who'll be using the product that i make will do that. Satisfaction is Finite,it is the End of something.Every "finished"(?)piece is the opposite:It's the Beginning(and usually several)! It's the Dynamic nature of creating,versus the Static nature of reaching the goal,and hanging up your spurs. BUT,if the old brain gets all twitchy on me,then i say,sometimes,ok,ok,you whiny-ass brain,you DID do ok,good boy,i'll take you to the store and get you a jug of wiskey to show you that you're loved! But,only the best bottle of $50 or so Single Malt,for the whiskey makers are even the better craftsmen than you'll ever be,and we need to support only the very best ones,no scabs,with their cheap,adulterated stuff,we wouldn't want that in ironwork,would we? So,we'll help keep all the crafts honest! Good job,once again,man!Keep on hammering!

It all sounds great,guys!Beth,i'm so glad that it's working out for you to get with John&Co,we all know how DIFFICULT it is to get away from life,ESPECIALLY for someone at the head of a large family(!),so all kinds of respect to you for working on that!!! If at all practicable,we'd all love so see your notes,or someone's "report" on your folks' thing there.Often,John himself does an EXCELLENT account in the Asssoc. thread,that, i once again,most humbly thank him for.It makes for some most valuable info great to refer to for years on end,while accessible on this site. Bryan,we'll keep on working all this out.It WOULD be very cool to get together around Mark's 108lb(is that right?)hammer.Actually,i missed Tom Clark there once,when he came to install the hammer for Mark(the class was full-up). But we'll also do some stuff together,too,wherever we can. I KNOW how hard it is to make time,Bryan,you shouldn't make it worse by kicking yourself for it.It IS a tough life,tough enough... (I've had a student here yesterday,a 14-year old boy,and after a 2-hour session he wanted to come back again today.I stingily declined(and still feel like a xxxx for it),and set him up with my friend Phil instead,who's more patient,AND a better craftsman anyway,and(all the other excuses...),but once a week is all that i can do now...). And,an emphatical BE XXXXXX TO THEE!!!,to all the institutionalised a...s,who have the time and the resources,ano won't lift a finger to do anything about addressing the NEED of the young for the Hands-On things to do,but keep cutting all the manual ed.type programs instead... Clay,i'd love to rattle on about Mowat,and will try,a bit later,gotto run,all the best to everyone!

The only thing that is strikingly Bad about this is the Photo! (It's the bane of many a museum photos-no top view,so important for the aspiring maker). And,maybe,the lack of any pertinent info,such as:What was Your impression of the process?How did the slitting,drifting,other things of import,go for you?Did you weld in a steel edge? All this is what a body would tend to be guessing at(at least this here body ). LOOKS properly shaped,but it has been ground all over,so it makes it hard to tell.The edge is shaped in a pleasing manner,but is not overly wide. I guess my main question is(though you say that you're happy with it),Did everything go ok for you on this,have you aimed at this exact result,or had to make the best of what you Could do with it? Again,Looks good,but the maker,actually handling,hefting the piece,would know so much more! :)

Wonderful,friends,wonderful and very difficult this path of ours. I believe that i part,the reason that we've been congregating here in this thread,is to escape the over-simplification of the craft. Something that wants to take it down to that least common denominator,buy X-size stock,put a plain twist in it,call it a hook... It's tempting,all right,as the opposite of all that,the getting into the depths of it all,is so Unsettling!!! "On his dreadful joiurney,after the shaman has wondered through the dark forests and over great ranges of mountains,...he reaches an opening in the ground.The most difficult stage of the adventure now begins.The depths of the underworld open before him." Uno Harva,quoted by Joseph Campbell in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces",quoted by me,from the(inimitable)"Watership Down",Richard Adams. Jura,you're right in a way that a challenge Can be constuctive,in a stimulating sort of way.However,challenging oneself very severely can damage much important machinery in one's mind.Best to work within a certain scope of one's skill. Prudence,in everything. I preach prudence for it is the most challenging thing of all for me.This last job proves it once again: Technically,i've fallen Awfully short of the mark(i'll spend a few days smearing the fudge around,forging the fitting base for the whole,in short,finishing the piece.I'll update as it happens). One thing about going way out on the limb of Out-of-Control is the very real potential for physical injury. Regretfully,my whole life i've been very one-sided(right-,),doing everything with my right hand,arm,that whole side of the body.My back's been in the basket for many years now,and i'm working on damaging the rest of this sorry body. Only a few months into the new to me regimen of splitting much wood for charcoaling,on top of forging,i'm still finding the limits of foolhardiness that i can get away with. In short,now i'm getting rid of my working arm(never dealt with this before).But nowadays,the feeling only comes back to it while forging,it's numb the rest of the time(typing is possible,but difficult). If i loose the stupid thing now i'm sunk,i cannot switch sides to save my life(whenever i've seen a welder switch an electrode to the other hand i grew extremely jealous,even has resolved to try to practice being ambidextrous...too late now,i fear). So,yet ANOTHER reason to do things RIGHT.I'll try to design a project that i can maintain the control over,throughout.It'll probably be a simple-ish trivet.Back up,try to find that exact boundary of my skill,worship the Controlled Forging,for It is the idea here,not much honor in loosing control.Plus,this physical debility is most unhandy. Bryan,i'll do my best to try to obtain a set of wheels while in Fairbanks,so that we could get together.We'll be only some tens of miles apart for a couple of months,and it'd be a shame if,like last winter,i'd be stuck in my dysfunction,only getting out to get firewood...(I'll be in a different area,but again 15+ miles off the pavement). Just to entertain you folks,i'll tell of the last winter's driving here:I came to Fbks to watch over a friend's place while they go down south on vacation.It was late November,and it was reasonably cold and wintry,and right then the rainstorm hit. I was driving with a friend one morning,and we've finally come to the paved highway,on the way into town.The road looked either wet,or icy,it was hard to tell,and both of us were too lazy to get out of the truck.The ground was cold,but the traffic,sometimes,can keep the road from freezing,under some conditions. Anyway,we drove on,till we were passing another road coming in from the side,(the one that i'll be living down this winter).I looked up it,and there,short way from the highway,in the middle of that paved road,a guy was ice-skating.Doing this beautiful figure-skating stuff,very gracefull.There was not much to say,obviously,the roads were Not wet... On days like that Fairbanks gets quiet and eery.Everyone's wondering if whatever it was that they had to do in town is worth dying for.And dying is not entirely that remote:Fairbanks is really spread-out,it's about impossible to get stuff done without driving long distances,one needs a car there.And sometimes,on mornings like that,one passes wreck after wreck,people with blanched faces huddling on the side of the road next to a wrecked vehicle,emergency services vehicles abound,sirens in the distance... Living in Fbks i've Detested having to get to work some mornings,taking my life in my hands for a silly excuse such as my job seemed against any common sense. Anyway,it can be tough for Bryan and i to get together,but we should try!The knifemaker's get-togethers at Mark's,is that in any way a regular happening?I'll bring some WI to bribe him,maybe we can use his shop! :)

Frank,thank you so much.As usual,you've taken the time to write a most detailed,technical explanation. Lots of times your description exhausts the subject,and i don't bother writing "thanks",as there's not much more than that left to say,but this time i just want to specifically express my gratitude for your sharing of the knowledge. I'm not surprised to hear of someone working to less then a line with a broadaxe. The word "axe" is decieving,it's actually a plane,that someone has left all the guides off of... :)

Thank you,Judson,for taking the time to show us all this,i really appreciate your thoughtfullness. Will look forward to seeing more of these extremely interesting photos.

John,thank you for your high praise,i'm embarassed,if you'd only known just how far out of control i'd gone on this...But,fortunately,you also bring up all these wonderfully wise points,i'm extremely grateful for all your guidance in all the stages-the planning,the specific advice during the thick of the struggle,and now,in this very important stage of the final analysis-what can be learned from this job?!For that is the ultimate question that the craftsman can ever ask,when the design and the thought is laid against the physical reality,when the rubber actually hits the road.But the recent naive views and thoughts are still fresh in one's mind. There's a silly,old construction site joke about how there are no architects in heaven,because Jesus was a carpenter.There's a lot of truth to that,most architects that i've known were dolts,with a vision of forms that had NO connection to any reality of material.Now that i serve as my own architect,i carry on that schizophrenic struggle all on my own. In the beginning of all this,Beth has posted a photo of that mind-blowing ceiling in the cloisters of the Gloucestershire Cathedral.I was instantly fired by an idea to reflect some of it,if only a very little,in a piece of iron. That quickly fell apart,my "talent" in no wise could stretch to that,and so i went on just along the lines of older English architectural forms in general. Right about then it was that you've posted those photos of detail in your scrap heap.That REALLY makes one think,as basically it is all there:Simple shapes(regular,rectangular section of strap)start aquiring that magical proportions.There's tons of subtle things that go on there,and that scrap pile can,and should,be studied again and again.A few of the things that i noticed were that there were NO radical bends(nor changes in mass).You've said by then that there was no collars.Welding there was minimal,and of the simplest kind,just a gently diverging 2 or 3 at most part patterns.So,how was that effect achieved(as it is certain that a definite unique effect dwells therein)?It must be that it's the shape of those arcs,and their convergence and divergence... Unable to analyse all that intellectually,i had to just go by designing and attempting to forge to that,having to redesign,and try again,and so on till my original plan was in shambles,and i was out there,up the creek without a paddle... I'm going to have to roll back out there in a minute,so for now i'd just say a couple of words about this one particular situation,where the arched deal comes to a sharp inside corner. In your samples it's often achieved by a simple mitered joint.It appears to not even having to be fastened,as the lobed parts comprising it are themselves fastened so securely(i've noticed the abundance of fasteners right off,but was too dumb to interpret it then). To me,such sharp corner said:Faggot-weld(as the true sq.corner is so laborious ).It proved to be dead wrong. Faggoting is not the strongest joint,if much subsequent forming is to be done to it after. Also,that "point" is more often not a point at all,but the IDEA of one.That was one thing that i had to learn by hammering,not being capable of SEEING it in my mind.(I've ended up rivetting the ends to pinch them together,not the ideal solution as the rivets become inaccesible after forming,and any hot-forming also loosens the rivetted joint). I'll be glad to go into this in further detail later,but the overriding moral here is becoming clear,i think.It is something that comes up in about every post ,but i'll reiterate it just one more time: Planning.To an Exact detail.Size of stock,it's exact Form,and the type of Joinery.The Plan needs to be there,and it must be Complete. All in all,there're many details in this that i'm less than proud of.I'll go ahead and finish it,the best i can,and try hard as i can to remember these lessons

Uff...That was tough,the last couple of days.Today,too.Wonder what's up with all that,some childish relapses into not being able to make a sound plan. I had to re-forge everything made yesterday,all riveted,this time,and then i was actually regaining the upper hand with the project.And had a great time through the rivetting,and slitting and drifting mortices. Then everything spun out of control again,while assembling the whole,and by then i've been at it 10 hours,hadn't made fuel for the next day(let alone any chores),it was quitting time. The silly thing did NOT get an upper hand on me afterall,but it did get mighty weasely on rivetting the tenons(of course,i'm a greedy moron,and had way too much sticking out of mortice...too tired to think,which is a sorry excuse,i just can't think ahead at all,allergic to it,see... ) Often,on a grueling day forging,some weird thing plagues my weird mind.Today it was this old Buddhist saying,"And on the day of the great liberation,you will laugh and laugh!" I'm not sure what degree of greatness of liberation i had in mind,maybe it differed throughout the day,but it was a cheerful weird thought,in any case .

Prokopto,hi, As far as finding a thread by someone who's forged one,can't help you,never seen one like that. Nor,have i forged a broad axe myself(yet -i want to,though). I've TALKED about forging one much,for a while with Alan Longmire,over on Don Fogg's forum(you'd have to search for it there,but it was mostly on the goosewing type). Many of the old ones were forged rather crudely,it being an overbuilt kind of an object what with all the weight and area of joinery. The eye was commonly wrapped(the type of wrap where a poll is fullered off to retain it's thickness).My friend has one that was simply made out of two pieces slapped together,you can see the weld-crack going both directions from the eye. The eye was normally symmetrical,for the possibility of re-handling to reverse right/left orientation. Then the eye was commonly skew-welded to a massive chunk forming the blade itself,with all it's mass.The eye piece was lapped onto the bevel-side of blade. Then,in like manner,the steel for the edge was lapped onto the blade.(There's not much point in cleaving the steel into a single-bevel tool).One nice thing about all these lap-welds is possibility of a simple expediency of rivetting the parts together to hold them for welding. So,again,the construction methods were very basic and crude,but the resulting tool was NOT!!! There are some mind-bending,aero-foil-like declinations from plane that are complex,and critical to the tool's performance. (Not too long ago i was contacted by a timber-framer,who asked wether i'd be willing to draw out his worn broadaxe,as it was getting too thick on the edge.He said that it was the best one that he ever used(for no apparent reason,it was just balanced just SO and handled better for it).He sent photos of it taken on a few different angles.The shape was wild,i refused flat out,not sure at all if i'd be able to restore those crazy bends). But,yeah,the WI is fine,of course,and any carbon steel will do,it's not rocket science! Best of luck!

Hey,that's very controlled,and uncomplicated,and practical.The cerrations on the second leaf are sweet,great job!

P.S.Only a couple of hours into the forge-day,i've already broken enough stuff to've entirely negated all the forging done yesterday Time for a quick,python-style,feeding,and re-reading John's sage advice. I'm afraid that my head is so firmly wedged up the deepest,darkest,most unmentionable recess of my physiology that i can't even very well comprehend the details of the proposed move(s). Time to regroup my thoughts,Yogi-like,as i'm having trouble lining up that donor for the brain transfusion that i've been looking for,for so long now.Either that,or make a super-human effort to extricate my head. This latter procedure is known in medicine as the Rectal Encefalectomy,and is accompanied by a loud popping sound,and an Instant solution to All the blacksmithing woes I wonder if i'll ever manage to accomplish it... :blink:

Thank you guys for your wonderful support-all too often i forget to simply say, Thanks! John,you're spot on:I AM way too close,nowhere near enough perspective on the work as a whole.The mistakes that i make now even i should(do)know better. It's NOT an excuse(no such creature at the forge,alas!),but,dammit,i do feel so unpleasantly,and most counter-productively,rushed. My stinking schedule is very pressing,i need to produce,and that's all that there is to it.Period. Otherwise,i'd seriously consider cutting up this project into smallish segments,picking out the ones that are satisfactory,re-forging the ones that are not,and re-assembling it,Using the Information that you've so kindly provided. As it stands,i'll print it out,and paste it into a set of notes for the future. I'd strongly suggest doing something of the sort to anyone,have a set of paper notes,for reference. I'd better get my sorry ass out to the forge now,it's woefully late in the day here(making fuel evey night doesn't help the rushed order of things here,barely leaves time to grub up...).

Thanks,Beth,your encouragement means a Great deal to me.Altogether,everyone here has helped a lot on this,with their kind attention and wise remarks. It's so cool to be working in your company,folks,thanks! :)

And here's why i needed those. I was hoping to get at least a couple of mortices in yesterday,to no longer have to wire the whole together to look at it as a unit,but it was not to be. Maybe today i'll have better luck. I do like where things are going design-wise,just too bad that i failed to match that by quality of execution.So much to be learned,at every juncture!!! So,i've these four braces,each joining the uprights at each end.Two of those are already welded. The tenons that i made yesterday will be rivetted in their mortices,leaving the 3 uprights still unattached. Then,i'll close the two top tenons.That will connect the whole,making it cumbersome to handle. But,it'll leave only the two last brace-ends to attach. That last connection will be rivetted. All this because i don't own a torch set,and have to use the forge to rivet over the tenons,therefore,the whole must fit into the forge,and not be too awkward to handle. All this MUST be done at the planning stage,forseen,and calculated. It's actually easier than it sounds,but paying attention to it is critical,of course!

This thing is really troublesome today...Anyway,the complete parts: Tough day at the forge yesterday.One of these had to be re-made,due to my planning turning out to be inferior,and the plan to do all the welding before much shaping didn't help the matters. The north wind,so atypical for here,was blowing the forge exhaust back in,choking me all day...

Yep,it's ironic how on this particular job,which is my attempt to pay homage to English architectural heritage,i'm loosing control so badly! For it is characteristic of the British ironwork in particular to be meticulous in planning and execution both,with the forging marks cleaned up,et c. The answer is simple-i've stepped too far outside of my experience and capability,have challenged meself too steeply. Now,it's but a Sculpture,that will still hopefully reflect the grace of the lines that went to comprise much of the Gothic period work,and not at all the technical level of the execution... Ah,well,i might as well keep going,chalk all this up to experience,and get it done the best that i can. Next,or sometime soon,i'd like to do a simple,perhaps,English object,but this time do it Right,try to attempt the Planning and the Finish that set the English style apart. Yesterday,i've worked on the next set of bracing for the project.The idea is to suspend the Carpet Beater between the two other uprights independently. So i felt like it needed a second set of bracing,aesthetically,as well,i wanted this to be there. The plan,found and laid down using some lead solder:First the shape,then,by straightening the lead,the exact lenghts. The material: ,then into this: A part forged out and set in, where it'll become the ring,(requiring a couple of quick faggot welds first,to form those sharpish corners):

It helps indeed,John,i'm most grateful for your taking the time to write out such a detailed process.Thanks. I'm afraid that it's too late for this particular job,i'm too far into it at this point.Here's how i ended up with this one joint looking: It's awfull,technically speaking,but is not too different from many other joints of this piece. I'll just finish this one up in a haphazard manner that became my style on this. Nothing to be proud of,but simply a (possible)"save",of much time and fuel. And much learning accomplished. Now i've some more photos from yesterday's forging session,but am having difficulty loading them.May have to wait.

Thanks,John,for the correction!There is,of course,the difference between the punch and the drift,and i've been so half-a**,for so long,as to be using the tools interchangably... Excellent description of the process,and some very elegantly shaped tools(as well as the thought and the logic behind them)!