Panday

I wouldn't even pretend to touch that job without plans from an engineer and a $1M umbrella insurance policy.

You'd probably be better off making a die from a 12pt deep socket.

Nah, heavy is good. Thats the primary purpose for the hands I make from 1/2" x1".

Left hands are all I make. There's enough right handed people out there as it is.

I thought the same thing.

It's a very modern style process with period tools. Excess length seems to be to keep the power hammer off the weld between the handle and billet. Then the pin forged out enough to be able to strike the steel over the hardy without hitting the shoulder, excess tennon length provides a more stable end to hold while working the end of the pin. I'd imagine these were probably upset in some sort of header and not drawn.

For file work an el cheapo/Horror Freight vise will work fine. Just get a something in the 5-6" range and you'll be good. And while you're there you might want to look at a 4-1/2" angle grinder and flap discs to soften the corners on your new vise jaws. Me, I prefer to just make new jaw faces from appropriately sized hot roll bar stock to prevent galling vs "soft jaw" inserts. But then you're looking at more tools too. (Ruler/tape measure, Hack saw, hammer, center punch, drill, drill bit*s*, counter sink, and a file. Not to mention the vise to hold the jaws while they're being hacked, hammered, drilled and filed.)

Sounds like you're over thinking this. You'll be fine with wax. Don't use an oil finish on anything that might see contact with clothing.

Cool, let us know how it does after a few thousand strikes. I might have missed it but, do you know about what it weighs?

That finished up nice. What did you do for heat treat? Heat treating is pretty much my main reservation for hammer making. I've reforged a couple before (including a diagonal pien I drew out the wrong way) and I usually end up tempering them back too much out of caution.

I concur with Charlotte/Smoothbore. Need to make sure its heated deep too. I'm kind of the poster child for doing stuff the hard way. I've split many heavy truck springs to make chisels/fullers vs waiting to acquire something closer to finished size. Often enough I think one might call it customary for me to do so. Advantage in making thick bars into skinny bars often is, at least IMO, it's the best way to develop hammer control while you're still learning, especially when you're just making chisels/punches. On the other hand, you don't want to burn all the carbon out trying to prove who's tougher either.

That'll do! Now you'll have to make another with the pien the other way too. Did you have an intended purpose for it?

Nick and Thomas seem to be saying the same thing. Did you preheat your anvil? If you're welding thin stuff you can't rest it on the anvil face before you hit it. They have to happen simultaneously, and you have to pick the steel back up between strikes.

Does not appear to have welded. No, you shouldn't be able to pry a weld apart. I'd suspect you burned your flux off. But you definitely have soot/scale in there, so there could be more going on.

Thanks for the replies and compliment. Probably mans greatest tool is the opposable thumb. I spent forever figuring out how to get that into a forged piece. I used to make them flat as has been suggested, but they never looked right, especially when you try to make it "grip" something. The first one of these I made (well the first one that didn't get scrapped) i made for a pen holder. It's easy enough to make the thumb in the same plain as the fingers, but that is not how our hands rest naturally even if it is how we've been trained to view them since our first Thanksgiving in Kindergarten. This could have come out much better all around, I'm decidedly out of practice making these, and probably never did that great of a job to begin with. FWIW, I didn't use a vise to make this. I started making these before I had a decent vise so I had to figure out another way to make it happen. I start with 1/2" x1" and forge a shoulder and make a tang that fits into my pritchel hole. That way after I've marked my fingers I stick it in the pritchel hole to chisel the fingers free and dress the web of the fingers. Only problem is it really flattens the heel of the hand and drives stock into the pritchel hole making it look very square. (This is why there's a fullering mark partway down the "tang".) I do have a leg vise now, I just never mounted it after my last move, and at this point I honestly think I'd have to change some things to do this in a vise. I set down the stock lengthwise and chisel the thumb up from the palm. I got a little over zealous setting this one down so you can see a mark in the palm that shows where I set it down.

IE: French Pattern cross pien. It may move material one way more than the other, but not by much. How you swing will have more of an effect me thinks.

I mentioned making these yesterday in another thread. I made one today to share. I usually get the fingers dressed up a little nicer with a special purpose built swage, but its been a year or so since I've made one and I've either lost or repurposed the tool and forgot. Anyone have tips on how I can clean these up?

I make lots of random stuff. Keychains, pendants, various racks (key, coat, pot, saddle, bridle etc.), shoe hornshorns, back scratchers. Basically anything I can fit in my Gasser. Primarily steel, some aluminum, I'd like to work with some copper/copper alloy but I'm hold off on that until I know what sells well. After making only 4 bottle openers here recently, I have a dozen on order and I haven't even got them 100% figured out yet. LOL I'm thinking they will probably sell well here. I recently started making shackles and collars, primarily to suit my own fancy. Seems like a niche that's largely untapped, of course it could be because there's no demand, so I have no idea if they'll sell, but I like making them. Oh, and I make all my tools short of hammers and the big stuff. (Vise anvil etc) I work solo, no shop to speak of, actually have to pack everything in/out of a cargo trailer ATM. I have shop space available, just that it's 30 mins away so I'd really only use it if I had a large consignment or something.

Lard, rendering... eww, gross. As far as your hand/sad iron.... I forge hands on about 1/3 scale of what you would need for a decent heat sink. I end up with about 1/4" thick hand/fingers, about 3/8" at the base of the thumb and roughly 1-1/4" wide with anatomically correct thumb placement forging down from 1/2" x1". Forging from a solid bar is probably unrealistic unless you have power hammer as you'd probably have to start with 1-1/2" x 3" and I don't wish that on anyone, lol. Put to the task, I'd probably forge fingers from some 1" round aiming for about a 3/4" finished diameter, and sandwich them between some 1/2"" plate. Fuller the plates so as to make sockets for the fingers to sit in. Forge weld it together and use some rounded chisels to clean up between the fingers. You might use a bolt through the palm to help hold it all together while heating. As long as you can get the assembled sandwich hot and to anvil whole, it should weld super easy as long as you don't get into a hurry. After its welded you can even use the hole as a mortise for a handle. That way it doesn't even have to weld very well. Just well enough to keep the fingers from falling out.

Yeah, that was mostly a joke. I really am very private though.

Having stumbled onto the site here several times from Google searches I've been reading quite a few back posts. After having read enough to be able to predict various members responses and customary level of off topic ranting, I figured I might as well sign up. I do sell a few things here and there, and I'm seriously considering building up some inventory and attending some craft shows etc. As such, I primarily came here looking for tooling ideas, making jigs and such trying to economize my time on production runs and optimizing repeatability. I do have some other inquiries that I've not been able satisfy via the search function. (Apparently largely due to the software problems and recent loss of substantial media.) I hail from SoCal, and currently reside somewhere in Texas. In person, I'm an extremely private person, or possibly just some intense social anxiety issues, so I have little interest being "surprised at just how many of the IFI gang live nearby". Not trying to be rude, just being real. -P

It's a twisted bar. You're effectively looking at the cross section.