Pault17

very nice. thanks

How's this. Mark, you give them pictures of the actual thing and I will try and draw this stuff out (mind you, I am not an artist)
1. Start with a horse shoe and straighten it out.

2. next, I fuller both ends to isolate the blade and the thumb pocket. For the pocket, I try to leave about 1 to 1 1/4 inch of shoe at the end. This will be upset then mashed flat to make a disc/penny end about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inch in diameter. for the blade end I try to leave about 2 to 2 1/2 inches of shoe. I have found with diamond shoes that have 4 holes on each side, I fuller between the first and second holes, a little closer to the first.

3. Now, as Mark mentione, when you flatten the pocket end and hammer in the blade bevels, these have to be done with the shoe oriented as it would be on a horse (the groove with the nail holes goes down). I just taper the blade end to a spear point, without drawing it out any longer that I started with.

4. Next, I upset the thumb pocket area to a round shape then flatten it down to about 1/8 inch or so thick. The goal here is to get about 1 1/4 inch in diameter. For the blade, hammering near the edge of the anvil, I hammer a out a very thick tapered spear point, kind of like a patch knife blade - only having one beveled side with the bottom being flat. I also flip the whole thing over and dish the thumb pocket on a wood stump.

The idea here is that when the thing is finished, the nail groove will be on the outside. This has an already rounded contour and is comfortable in the hand.

5. Lastly, when I bend it over, I do not bend in the center of the shoe, I center my bend at the end end of the nail groove on the pocket side. This way the pocket ends up roughly above the fuller for the blade.

because I did not figure out how to put the pictures in the post, they are in order (more or less) at the bottom of the description.

Thanks for the idea Mark. It was a surprise demo that was really easy to get away with. as for pricing, I was pushing them out for $20-25 depending on finish. pre-made ones were up, shop made ones were 20-22

I'm gonna be a little wordy. skip the first paragraph to get to the meat.

The NC state Fair in Raleigh just finished yesterday. I had the privilege of working there a few days. In years past I usually (mostly by choice, as well as seniority/ability) worked on the side anvil making hammering noises, explaining what was going on, and talking to just about anybody that happened along. this year, one of the gentlemen that more or less runs the shop (Al, for those of you who have been there) said "Paul, set up on the big anvil, and start hammering." That's what I did for an average of 7-9 hours each of the three days I was at the fair. At first, I just made the usuall - hooks, leafs, snakes, etc...Then I tried out demoing something one of our IFI members, Marksnagel, described some months back - reforming a horse shoe into an oyster shucker.

One end I fuller-isolated to make what I call a thumb cup. The other end I fuller-isolated for the blade. When working with a good bed of coke, they crudely take about 20-25 minutes for me to make. This does not include filing the blade end to an edge and brushing the whole thing down. The time is just long enough to keep peoples interest and they were selling as fast as I could make them.

The beauty of these things was that I was able to modify them to true usefullness by asking onlookers to hold them and critique them for me. This actually helped a bit because people that did this usually bought one - often the one I had them critique. I even got several commissions for some of these. Here are two of them.

daniel. that is really cool. thanks for the ideas

Kearnach, where are the "foothills"? nice hawks too.

those are awesome. very nice

(Glenn, please correct me if I'm wrong) I don't believe there is any problem with posting prices... there are actually several threads on that subject along. The things you have to bear in mind are "is the pricing in Mechanicsville the same as in Robesonia?" and "what will the market bear?"
The answer to the first one is most likely No. an example would be a nice 200+ lb peter wright in philly vs. honolulu. The second is something you find by yourself, by asking other smiths in the area, and by visiting a few craft fairs and comparing notes. BTW, welcome to the addiction of blacksmithing. :blink: .

If your anvil is located near a post or solid wall, you can make a hinge bracket to secure the sledge in and use it as a quickee Oliver. Then the pipe would add to the mass. CurlyGeorge has a picture of a complicated one at http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/33441-oliver-hammer-with-electric-motor/

Brian, you answered one of my biggest questions about your technique - how do you keep the metal so hot so long. I do not always work with bigger metal ( I have a large-ish stock of 3/8 round) bu even with a warm anvil, my metal cools down faster. thanks again

This is like being back in high school and going to your favorite class with your favorite teacher. Thanks Brian

Ala Ms. Simms. They look great

"Sam-I-Am" has a nice (pun attempted here) ring to it

Do you like hot steel or not, will you hit it with all you've got?
I do like hot steel Sam-I-Am, and I will hit it BAM, BAM, BAM...

That sounds about right George. Give it a whirl, see how it works, then show the rest of us

Prayers out for you and your wife, both, Thomas

Trying to get there. been a while since any banging. elbow healing and housework

MP, Your sense of proportion is very well executed. nice job!

paul

I know there are more talented picture takers here, but I sometimes us a single layer of tissue/toilet/napkin over the flash to mute out some of the glare
nice opener btw

Hot fire, hammer, alcohol, really bad music and stupidity - a recipe for disaster!! Next time it will a lot worse! An old carpenter that I used to work for used to tell me every day that machines and tools give you warnings occasionally - then they bite and you lose something permanently!

Mark, been a while. would you mind if I borrowed the idea. looks doable even with my meager skills. nice work, BTW

I overhaerd my wife reading to some of the little ones:

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost,
for want of a shoe, the horse was lost,
for want of a horse, the rider was lost,
for want of the rider, the battle was lost,
for want of the battle, the kindgom was lost,
All for the want of a horseshoe nail.

I realized that there were at lease one line missing:
For want of a blacksmith, there was no nail.
and:
all for the lack of a blacksmith...
(yes, I know that this could also be "farrier", but I'm not one of those as yet)

I am only a hobbyist, But I have a part of half of a two car garage. I regularly have to clear away the detritus of the activities of four growing boys to even begin to this about even lighting the forge.

Eric, How Dare You??!!! The twist jaw WAS my learning model. I still have them. Although, now I use a mixture of made and bought. Just twisting you on that (pun intended). I only have the one pair.

Scavnger, for a first... not bad. looks like a viking style. There are many, many different ways to do tongs. And lots of them are here in IFI. just gotta do some digging. welcome to IFI.

very cool "simple' idea. great execution of same

Beth,
I have to say that your "terrible" is my wishful thinking. Beautiful job. I will agree that it looks less balanced up to, but still a beautiful work of funcitonal art.