Frank Turley

If memory serves, I saw a die sinking set for making the lamp vessel at Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan. The bottom hollow was of a lamp shape out of thick, rectangular cross-sectioned iron, carefully made and finished. The negative space would receive the cut-to-shape sheet stock when driven in hot by a male block of steel, also carefully shaped to match and having been made to allow for the material thickness. They also had on display a small wrought iron shovel maybe 8 or 9 inches long, very well made, and it was labeled "Grease Lamp Primer."

A consideration. I read one time about short tapering or blunt tapering (same thing) the end of a bar before upsetting, I believe in "The Blacksmith's Craft." I assume there is a right angle cut on the end to be upset. If you upset without first blunt tapering, the edges tend to come on thinly and sideways giving what I term an exaggerated valve head or golf tee appearance. This is to be avoided, so a square bar for example, can be angle hammered to a truncated pyramid before the upset. A round bar gets a truncated cone. This does a couple of things. It centralized the end force of hammering. and by eliminating the sharply cut edges, it pushes the upset back a little further where it should be. P.S. Farriers call upsetting "bumping." I talked to one Scottish smith who called it "staving up."

Good "impressionism" on the figure; good scale; good proportion; good trompe-l'oell on the suitcase. Keep on keepin' on!

Frosty, I can't always predict the size that comes up. On my screen, the photo is about 1 3/4" x 1 1/2" and when I zap it with the mouse, it grows to a larger size with more detail. Best, Frank T.

Helmut Hillenkamp, a fellow smith at iron-to-live-with in Santa Fe, NM, visited my forge on January 29th in order to interview me about traditional branding iron forging. He intends to forward the script with photos to the German magazine for smiths, Hephaistos. He is working on the article and will review it with me before sending it overseas. I did a little bit of demoing. Helmut thinks that the article will be received favorably, partly because of the early 20th century fiction author, Karl May, who wrote many stories about cowboys and Indians, even though he had not been to the U.S. to gain first hand knowledge. There is still today a sizable German "community" of Karl May followers, and I think there is a museum dedicated to him in Dresden. This German interest in cowboy culture and Indian culture continues. I've shown a few irons from my collection. They are carefully constructed by way of forge welding, tenons, and rivets. I assume all in the picture were made prior to the advent of gas or electric welding. The two on the left are from Australia, overall length 27": a "flying HD" and the numeral 3. The next is an American iron, reverse fT, 46" long. The next is AN, a Mexican iron whose stamp is 5" tall. Next is a Mexican iron, hard to decipher; it has a socketed shank for a wooden handle. The circular one on the right is probably American, and the connecting rods are attached with right angle tenons. Some of the early iron stamp-letters had serifs.

I purchased the latch set recently. It is truly well forged. I think the grip was run through a shallow swage before bending. I'm guessing that some of the work is file finished, then possibly reheated to a blood red and wire brushed. I've seen some of Peter Ross' latches, and they are similar in appearance to this one. The cusps and thumb piece are quite thin.

I'll just say this. I had a student who told me this. "Blacksmithing is the most REAL thing I've done since I left Nam two years ago!"

Sometimes a windfall. About 40 years ago, I was driving through Kingman, AZ, and there on the sidewalk was a big Champion cast iron hearth standing in front of a 2nd hand furniture store. When I parked and approached, I saw that it had a rectangular hole in it where a firepot would go. The sales woman said, "Isn't that a funny lookin' table?" I agreed, "Yes, it is." Got it for 50 bucks, and it's still my personal forge. Recently, I got a 350 # Peter Wright in good shape and a nice 155 # Hay-Budden out of the same shop which had closed its doors. I paid $1500 which went to the widow of the former owner. Overall, I was satisfied. About 45 years ago, I found a cast iron 4 foot tall floor mandrel that had a 1" thick wall. I gave $200 for it which at the time just about made me cry, but now, I'm glad I did what I did.

"Mediocre artists borrow; great artists steal." Saying attributed to Pablo Picasso, but probably not truly Picasso's.

I've got a Peter Wright anvil and three Peter Wright vises, probably all about the same age, but I don't know the exact age.

My recently acquired book has a chapter on the wheelwright that is well illustrated. "The Art of Traditional Blacksmithing: A Norwegian Perspective" by Havard Bergland; Blue Moon Press, English Edition 2011.

I tuned into this thread late. Praying for your dad's rapid recovery.

For Christmas, my shop helper, Taylor, gave me a Mark Aspery book on leaf work. Yesterday, I ordered my second Art of Traditional Blacksmithing book to give to him.

I call mine a filing jig, but the Blacksmith Depot sells them, or at least they used to sell them. The Depot calls them by another name, and I can't recall what it is. The Depot's tool has a Vee spring to allow it to open with the vise jaw opening. They are handy in allowing you to file a bevel or chamfer putting your body in a good position and letting you to better see what you're doing. I have made them out of leaf springs by bending the spring into a 'U' and angling the jaws to accommodate the thickness of the workpiece.

I received my copy yesterday. I've only scanned it so far, but it looks good. I especially liked all the drawings, diagrams, and photos, some of the latter in color.

Pacific Machinery & Tool Steel Company sent me one that had both incandescent heat and temper heat colors, but that was years ago. You might inquire.

I've started a number of demos by saying, "Just remember, a man with a mustache is never alone." It's a sort of non sequitur, but it breaks the ice. There are sometimes hecklers; we call them Sharpshooters. Here's something to offer for the Sharpshooters. "There are three kinds of questions. The first lets the demonstrator know how much you know. The second lets the demonstrator know how little he knows. The third asks for information. Today, we're only going to deal with the third kind of question." Here's one I like. "I haven't had so much fun since the hogs ate grandma." There is a lot of lore and stories to be shared in the British book, "The Village Blacksmith" by Webber. If this were the 1950's, I'd be there for you. I'm a grad of E. Lansing High and MSMoo.

About 40 years ago, a student did this floral "vase" idea as a personal project, and he left it with me when he returned home. Aesthetically, it may not ring your bell, but it shows lots of techniques which he wanted to do. The vase is black iron pipe fullered and with a notch and wrap at the bottom. The stems are held in place with a hard putty. The petals are textured, thin gage steel with 3/16" round stamens. The base is edge hammered to a taper all around and sharp fullered around the inside edge. A standard was made by rolling flat stock and having it pierce the base where it was plug welded on the bottom.

There is a way of wrapping a collar around an upset end and forge welding. The upset is reforged parallel sided to allow for a straight wrap, but it is still an upset. I do this on the end of cane bolt handle ends. The bolt handles are often begun with 1/2" round. I wrap the upset end with 1/4" x 1/2" leaving a slight gap between collar ends. The gap will fill by the material drawing together through hammering. It needs practice. You do a square, octagonal, round with repeated welding heats, much of the hammering is done backing into the far radiused anvil edge in order to preserve the shoulder.

What those guys said, and sometimes called a dolly.

Good work. Lots of careful measuring and layout.

Thanks to the two Brians. FYI, I am sending pics of a nicely done feather that Doug Wilson gifted me about 10 years ago. Doug resides on Little Deer Isle, Maine, and is a student of nature. Doug's feather is left with natural forge texture and appears to be in the shape of a tail feather, another route to go. I don't know the method he used to get the quill; you can see an indentation on the reverse side.

Natkova, Thanks for sending this. Several things. The initial quench required a quick dunk after being in the water a bit. This diffuses the chill. If he held it still without the dunk, he might have gotten a contraction crack at the water line. Sometimes, a smith will get enough "reserve heat" to chase tempering colors without reheating. This smith did require some reheating. The wet, cotton rag swab is shown in an old book that I have* that explains its use as stopping the chased color if it is running too fast in one area of the blade. You can put a hold on the color in one place and allow the rest of the chasing color to "catch up to it." I'm open to feedback and/or corrections on my observations. *"he 20th Century Toolsmith and Steel Worker"

I've had boo coo students, a wide age range, men and women, and very few accidents. It's been a pleasure. My shop is funkier than the posted school forge photos. All of my forges are different, but coal operated. All anvils different, but all are old and weighing 227 pounds and above. Each student station has a forge, anvil, and leg vise. All of which reminds me: "Starting a business without capital is like being the Butterscotch Man. You have to get warm in order to run; yet you have to run in order to get warm."

Heller Brothers formerly manufactured a nice rounding hammer that was octagonal faceted lengthwise and overall, had a slightly barrel shape. It did not have the drawn cheeks or fullering separating the faces from the eye area. I think it weighed about four pounds. One face had a slight rocker and the other was a ball face.