Frank Turley

My former helper, Daniel Baumann, moved to the small island of Kauai, but I don't think he's set up yet for smithing. He said that he did find a smithy on that island. About two years ago, the Donkey Mill Art Center on the big island, had a British smith come in and give a blacksmithing workshop.

Maybe off topic, but I wanted to talk about wrought iron. We often hear about it being welded at high temperatures with so many sparks, it can be called a "snowball hear." But there have been many wrought iron edge tools made that have high carbon steel laid in for the cutting edge. In these instances, the welding heat is "light", what I call a sweating heat...no sparks. Any higher heat would crumble the steel.

A straight peen was furnished as a cooper's tool, maybe for tapping down the barrel bands. I've not used one as a hand hammer. I use a cross peen. I have two sledge hammers with straight peens, which peens I don't use too often. But when you need 'em, you need 'em. Brian Brazeal can do most anything with his rounding hammer, no peen. He's figured out many angle blows to achieve what he wants. Fun to watch his vids.

It'd be fun to try to rebuild if you're a good welder. Sometimes, stainless electrodes are helpful to weld cast iron, rods suitable for 304. Is the tuyere valve a cylinder with a rectangular hole through it? If so, it's a Buffalo.

A buddy from Detroit was arguing with a guy about who was the most traveled. The Okie said, "I've seen more light houses than you have fence posts!" My friend responded, "Yeah? Ya' ever been to Hamtramck?"

Tongs only? How about a ring welded to a ring? How about a ring welded to a chain link? How about a ring welded through a hook eye? Etc.

As to layout, dividers can leg off the proper distance for the bend while the metal is hot. When using fork and wrench, the hot workpiece is "captured" between the near leg of the fork and far leg of the wrench. The distance between the two will give a tight, radiused bend or a larger, radiused bend.

My understanding of a faggot weld is two or more lengths of iron or steel stacked together and fire welded into a solid; no scarfs used. In smithing, two pieces can be considered a faggot, the dictionary derivation meaning a bundle. As Thomas mentioned, folding an end onto itself is a solution for Jacbow2, and our old farrier instructor called such a thing a layback.

Another route to go is the time honored use of a bending fork coupled with the use of a bending wrench. The fork can be as simple as a bent U shape of round stock, the distance between legs just a teense wider than the hot stock it receives. It can be clamped in the vise, open end upward. The wrench can be two similar legs welded or forged to a handling length, same distance between legs. The hot piece is "trapped" horizontally between the fork and the wrench placement, can only bend in that place.

A friend was using an angle-grinder cutoff wheel, thin alum-oxide type, but not for straight cutting. He turned it on its side, held it at a slight angle, and attempted to sand with it as you would a sanding disk. It blew apart sending pieces toward his head. He lost one eye and one shard lodged 1/8" from his brain. He recovered and is still smithing. The shards blew through his face mask.

I brazed a little round butterfly valve inside the 3" intake stovepipe, It has a little handle coming through the side where I'm standing.

I had a brief period in the 1960's, shoeing a couple of Standardbred pacers. This was in Brooks, Oregon, and the owners were two bib overalled brothers, probably in their 50's. They had enough property that they had their own track for exercising the animals. They were very exacting about the shoeing, as the each horse was going to be driven to a sulky on the race track in Bellingham, Washington. They had their own horseshoe swage which I used to draw the steel through in order to give the proper shape to the hind shoes. As I recall, the hind shoe was "3/4 swaged." The front shoe was light and flat, save for a curved, fullered groove at the toe. The shoes were of mild steel. There was no mention of aluminum shoes being used. It seemed at that time, that aluminum shoes were used most often on the tracks where horses were ridden at speed, not paced or trotted. I understand from a Wall Street Journal article, July 16, 2013, "Some think Shoes Make the Horse but Others say Neigh", that aluminum and steel are used frequently on the harness tracks, There are proponents of both with some horses even wearing aluminum in front and steel behind.

A good thing too, at least in 1983 and 84. I had blacksmith classes at Tennessee Tech Joe L. Evins blacksmith shop, and it was an air conditioned shop, only one I've ever been in!

They used to be called pipe tongs. Yours has an adjustable jaw.

If purchasing a handle, you'll often get 2nd growth Hickory, which is OK. However, the entire haft is often oversized. Imagine yourself holding the wrong end of a baseball bat. I exaggerate. I rasp or shave and/or sand my new hafts so they are quite slender in the neck area, and the handle portion is reduced to fit my hand. The slender neck allows some whip and shock absorbency. I definitely want to remove the shellac or varnish coating that is often covering a new haft. I give my hafts a coating of half linseed oil, half turpentine.

I had a student who brought with him an ugly, bulbous hammer with an extremely short haft. He struggled with it. I approached him with a decent shop hammer, and told him to try it. I showed him how to swing for light, moderate, and heavy blows. A short while later, he was back to his old hammer. I attempted to show him three more times with the same result. He told me he apprenticed for a time with a bladesmith, and the smith was a master who used the bulbous type hammer. Hey! I know when to back off. I gave him the curriculum as I would anyone, but I allowed him to sloppy hammer; no more hammer corrections from me.

George Earnest [RIP] started forging and selling horseshoeing tools on the West Coast in the 1940's. Using his initials, the business is now called G.E. Forge & Tool. George is reputed to have said this: "Some people hit it and watch where it goes; I know where it's going to go before I hit it."

Many years ago, I was able to visit the old Myres Saddlery in El Paso. An old timer was in an alcove in the back of the store, and he was making saddle trees with a draw knife. The two bars of the tree have a convexity, so he had the bevel facing the wood so that he could rock it out of each cut easily.

Lookin' good!

That's all very well and good, but I'm still on occasion trying to get into the box, so to speak. That is, I see the works of Fritz Kuhn, Alfred Habermann, Johann Georg Oegg, or some other master, and try to figure out how they did some of the things that they did.

Looks like a flatter and an edge/border tool, the latter being rocked along linearly with the longer tip acting as a fence. Several years ago, the tool collector, Kenneth Lynch, had amassed many smithing tools and lots of them were from Europe, especially France. With his passing in Wilton, CT, there were some dispersal sales, and some of the tools had markings such as yours.

When I was rasping white feet, the particles would be falling to the ground. I told any kids that were watching that that's where coconut came from. It helped if a dog was around eating the stuff.* *Dogs are natural scavengers and like to eat hoof trimmings, even though they're not digestible.

Heat a small piece of your 1060 to a cherry red and quench in oil. If it gets glass hard and brittle, it might be usable. I order plain carbon W1 water hardening steel from Travers Tool, sold in various diameters and termed "drill rod." It has about 1% carbon which would be good for woodworking tools' edge holding ability and keenness. After forging and doing some cold sanding partial finishing, you quench the blade only in oil. Don't heat and harden the tangs. If you have enough pig lard, it could be melted and used. Don't sharpen before quenching; leave the cutting edge about 1/16" thick to help prevent warping. Now you temper by reheating to 500F in the kitchen range or a toaster oven. Tempering will remove the brittle condition and impart toughness. Finish sharpening by grinding/sanding/honing/whetting. It would be easier to make a flat chisel before attempting a scorp or drawknife.

A situation where nobody was hurt, praise be. I was hoof trimming an Arab stud which I tied to a recently installed hitching rail. The owner copied the rail from the Western movies, I suppose...a horizontal with a vertical support either end. Little did I know that the verticals were in the ground only about 6". It didn't take much movement from the horse to pull the thing out of the ground, The horse was totally spooked and took off galloping dragging the rail alongside. He soon ran into a small grove of trees, went between two trees. The hitching rail couldn't make it through, so the horse was thrown. I was running after the horse and getting my pocket knife out so that I could cut any leads or halter if necessary. I was able to untie the lead rope and the horse stood up and seemed to be OK. I noticed a little bloody scratch on his neck. Other than that, all was copasetic. The owner was excited and at the same time, apologetic. He asked about building a better method for tying up the horse. I suggested cross ties. The next time I worked on the stud, the owner had put two large diameter posts in the ground and had two cross ties on each post, one about ear high and the other about chest high. Lesson learned.

I met an ol' shoer who worked in New Mexico in the 1940's, 50's, 60's, name of Charlie Force. His saying was, "I been drug, bit, pawed, and laid on!" I love that. I guess we've all had our jackpots and adventures. I never got anything broken. Shod an old horse once and when the front foot was done, I went out in front to inspect. Boom! Got an instant hare lip with that foot striking me. I didn't see it coming.. One time a horse's head hit my head; I got four stitches in the eyebrow. A big Appaloosa kicked me in the front thigh and I limped over to the side of the pen and laid down. The owner said, "Did it hurt?"