Frank Turley

Not all of us are curmudgeonly. Some are just fossils.

"Pull-off pincers." Horseshoers use them for prying off the shoe.

Thanks Joel OF. I just sent for mine.

Looks old, maybe the first half of the 19th century. Looks British. Probably has about a 4" jaw width?

Iron City Tool Works, 1854-1958. Besides vises, they made blacksmith tools, hoes, picks, hammers, and railroad tools. In 1958, they were acquired by Warren Tool & Forge Co., Warren, Ohio. For a while, the vises continued to be stamped IRON CITY within the six pointed star. At some point, Warren Tool began stamping the vises with QUIKWERK. Ref: Directory of American Toolmakers, Robert E. Nelson, Editor

Where does steel wool come from? A hydraulic ram!

There's a wonderful book you might try to find, "20th Century Toolsmith and Steelworker." I suggest scrolling on iforgeiron to Book Reviews and then clicking on Survivors' Library. You'll find a url which offers many smithing books by title and downloadable in PDF. You may load "American Blacksmithing, Toolsmiths' and Steelworkers' Manual 1911" and go to Chapter VII, page 122, and read on about tools for granite, marble, limestone, and sandstone. Two books are combined in this volume, the second one being the toolsmiths' manual. This book has good line drawings of the tools used in various trades. The author is dealing with high carbon steel of various carbon contents, not alloy steel. On the market, there is a good tool steel called "drill rod" which comes in 3 foot lengths. It is W1 (plain carbon, high carbon) has about 1% carbon content. In the early days, it would probably have been in an octagonal cross section, but now is sold in round section. I get mine from Travers Tool, but you can also contact MSC or McMaster Carr.

Small sheet metal hinges can have the barrel rolled and unwelded. I heartily recommend watching on youtube "the manuel Guerra lockmaking shop." The video was made several years ago by Helmut Hillenkamp in Cuenca, Ecuador. Manuel is the smith in the camo cap forging rolled barrels beginning two minutes into the video. The entire video is worth watching.

Before the web, when self learning, I had to rely a lot on books. The author, Ernst Schwarzkopf,* has a good chapter on welding. The British book, "The Blacksmith's Craft" has a succinct portion on fire welding, and Harcourt's "Elementary Forge Practice" has excellent drawings of scarfs. The British book talks about three welding heats. For certain grades of mild steel, the recommended heat is "light welding, sweating, or slippery heat." This is just above a yellow or lemon heat which is the optimal forging heat for mild steel, not for welding. The metal is a yellow/white and the surface may appear sweaty due to surface molten flux and/or scale. When I teach, I call it a sweating heat, and with flux, I use it quite often. A "full welding heat" occurs when a few incipient sparks begin to appear above the fire. This heat can be used for mild steel. The sparks are particles of metal separating from the parent stock. Too many sparks however, cause burning and pitting of the steel. Too much oxidation. "White or snowball heat" is used for welding wrought iron, but is too hot for welding mild steel. When working mild steel, I frequently use the sweating heat as it is safe in terms of burning the metal. The disadvantage is that the heats don't last as long as the full welding heats. I have been known to take a few sweating heats over the same area to insure solidity and to get rid of shuts. We often read that wrought iron can withstand the bright, "white" heat, but wrought iron can also be welded at a sweating heat. We must not forget that high carbon steel was welded into the wrought iron bodies of axes, adzes, and chisels This heat was used to preserve the steel and not ruin it. *Plain and Ornamental Forging, Ernst Schwarzkopf

This is one I got on ebay some years ago, has a 2 inch jaw width. It needed a little help. I forged the spring, 2 inches long. I tenon/attached the disc on the bench tightening screw; the disc is hollowed on top to hide the peened tenon end. I forged the handle for the bench screw. The mount was held with a square nut, which I left. During the original manufacture, the pivot beam was forge welded to the fixed jaw lower portion, which was characteristic of the large leg vises. As shown, with the bench screw in about the half way position, the overall length is 9 1/2 inches. I suspect this was English made, and is similar to David Einhorn's on the left, in his photo response, above. I've seen a number of the other "style," as his on the right where the spring is hidden by the squarish plate, and a few of them are marked "Germany."

Not to forget that top fullers can be made in varying shapes. An example would be a farrier's creasing fuller for applying the horseshoe nail crease. it is held and rocked along like an old p38 can opener. If it were swung, you'd ruin the shoe because of inaccuracy.

I thought divots were on a golf course. Anyway, the sharper the peen marks, the more lengthy the 'cleanup' to gain a smooth surface again. One way would be to use the center of the horn as a bottom "fuller" and a ball face hammer on top. In this way, the forge indentations will be longer and will require less 'cleanup.' The job can be done sans power hammer or striker, but it will require many bright heats and much perseverance.

The Warren Tool & Forge Company of 120 Griswold Street, Warren, Ohio, acquired the Iron City Tool Works of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1958. Iron City, founded in 1854, made good leg vises among other smiths' tools and for a while Warren continued to stamp IRON CITY (within a six pointed star) on their vises. At some point, Warren started stamping QUIKWERK on their vises instead. Rererences: Directory of Early American Toolmakers, Robert E. Nelson Ed., 1999. Old Blacksmith Journal advertisement for Blacksmith Vises by The Warren Tool & Forge Company

I arc welded round-section A36 (so called mild steel) to the sliding blocks in the guillotine. They are lasting me a long time.

"Traditional" is going to be a matter of individual interpretation, and it could be considered in perhaps three ways; a date in time; appearance or style; method of manufacture. For example, if you were writing a book titled, "Traditional Ironwork in Poland," I would expect you to define your terms in the introduction or preface. David Pye, a British author in the 1960's, wrote a thought provoking book, "The Nature and Art of Workmanship." He begins by talking about the dichotomy of hand tools as opposed to power tools. After getting several pages into his work, he confesses that isn't what he wanted to talk about at all. His thinking is now about workmanship of risk as opposed to workmanship of certainty. Workmanship of certainty would be say, an aluminum soda can. Unless the machinery has downtime, one manufactured can is going to look like another. Workmanship of risk would be something like blacksmithing. At any point in the making of an object, the piece could be burned or the necessary mass lost. I think one of Pye's examples had to do with a dentist's power drill. It is a power tool but requires workmanship of risk when in use. A note about scrolls. They don't need to follow Fibonacci's formula nor the "golden" formula. Scrolls can have different ratios. A snail shell ratio is different than that of a chambered nautilus, but they are both legitimate in terms of constant rate of growth from the center.

In a tin can, business end upwards.

Smith's hammers get hardie cuts under the head when the final shearing blow is given as the haft is improperly perpendicular to the hardie blade.length. The haft should be taken out to the side so that it is parallel to the blade length. Problem solved.

Cowboy coffee. When the horseshoe floats, it's ready!

For your interest, a friend gifted me this relief carving which he purchased in Majorca in the 1970's. The starter block of wood measures 9" x 16" x 1 1/4".

Santa Fe moonset from our driveway, 7:13AM.

A cowbell sitting on top?

The thread on sad irons turned into a lard and cookies thread. It reminded me of a use for tallow that my Mexican mentor, Victor Vera, shared with me. He said that it made a very good lubricant when making threads with taps and dies. Victor used the Spanish name, "sebo" for tallow.

Clothing irons used to be forged in the long ago days. Typical would be the forged shape with a handle coming off the center of the heel. The handle of tapered round section could be straight, 12" or thereabouts, and extending back at an upward angle to get it away for the heat source, or it could be a rattail curving up and over the top of the iron body. P.S. "My name is Cisco, but they call me Crisco for shortening."

Not sure if this book has been listed here. I recently received as a gift "Beauty in the Shadows" which is a large photo coverage of the cathedral ironwork in Washington D.C. The photos are in color on slick paper. Senior author is Nol Putnam. Blue Moon Press, Huntingdon, PA. The book is inspirational, especially if you are into "neo gothic" ironwork.

Red sky at morning, sailor take warning. Red sky at night, sailor's delight.