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I Forge Iron

Frank Turley

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Everything posted by Frank Turley

  1. I don't have a standard. If you look at old hand-forged hammers and top tools in the U.S., the eyes are usually Rx capsule shaped, not oval. Oval eyes are usually on manufactured tools. That may be because it's easier to forge a tapered rectangular shape and radius its two narrow sides than it is to forge an elongated oval shape. Of course, cold work and a bright finish should be done on the finished drift and punch. The capsule shape is often twice as long as it is wide.
  2. I was with my horseshoeing mentor long ago when we got a call from a San Pedro salvage yard. They had a Hay-Budden anvil for sale. We drove over for a looksee, and it was a good one attached to a metal stand. I said that I wanted it for the price they were asking, and after the transaction, Al, the mentor, separated it right away from the stand. He said he was looking for a silver dollar as some of the old smiths would have one between anvil and stand (or stump) for luck...kind of like ship builders "step a mast." There was no silver dollar.
  3. Put a log in the vise, flat end grain up. Take a heat on the circular flat you have forged on the end of the handle. Sink into the wood with a pall peen while trying to ignore the flame flash. The heat will start a cavity. Repeat until the metal sinks to your liking. Irregularities can be worked over a ball stake. This method also works for flower petals, leaves, and suchlike.
  4. You might be dating yourself. One time, Jo Stafford released a hillbilly version of "Temptation" which the record label called, "Timtashun. She used the name Cinderella G. Stump. " It's a real hoot. Another time, she sang one of her songs totally and purposely out of tune, which I imagine would be hard to do, if you're used to singing on tune. Yes, I've had stuck songs most recently, "Don't Fence me in."
  5. Ted, I hold all good thoughts for you. Frank Turley (another elder)
  6. Tempus fugit and memory fades, but I just wanted to add a note of possible interest. A few years ago, I visited the Dutch Van Alen house near Kinderhook, New York. It is now kept as a museum and dates into the 1700's. The fireplace was actually a place for fire that had no sidewalls nor was it inlet into an existing wall. It was simply the floor meeting the wall. Overhead was a hood and spanning the interior of the hood lengthwise was a "fire bar" a hefty rectangular sectioned length of wrought iron. There was no crane as I recall, but a beautifully made wrought iron trammel hung from the bar. I didn't ask what the wall and floor were made of, but it may have been a refractory clay. I think there was a cast iron fireback standing against the wall.
  7. In the 20th century films on closed die forging, grain flow is mentioned as being an important part of die design. However, I don't think that I ever heard grain flow defined as regards steel. I read some time ago in an old metallurgy book that grain flow had to do with entrapped slag inclusions and trace elements of phosphorus and sulfur along the grain boundries in a lengthwise fashion on an as-purchased bar. I asked myself, wouldn't that affect the boundries adversely? Questions arise. When forging at the correct temperature, the grains move and change shape somewhat, but the boundries are retained. I think that there is a grain restorative process in hot work where the grains don't get permanently "flattened" and elongated and stay that way. In cold work maybe, yes, but not in hot forging. I think that I'm asking for a fair definition of grain flow, and I'm asking just how important it is in closed or open die work, as well as hand forging.
  8. Made a quick sketch. To the right is brickwork with two plates with one hole each to receive the top and bottom tenons on the vertical bar. The horizontal bar had something like a horseshoe heel calk on the end. The curved brace could be forge welded or it could be a straight bar with thinned and bent ends, riveted. The old s-hooks were often of flat stock, so when the bail of the kettle was hung, there was less twisting and twirling of the vessel. Square sectioned stock would probably work OK for the frame, but you might use others to your own liking.
  9. I see a flatter, dirt pick, swivel hook, and a tapered drift (?).
  10. If you're really interested in all sorts of spurs and bits, I recommend tuning in bookfinders.com and typing in "How to make Bits and Spurs" by Robert M. Hall; an excellent book.
  11. I heard about a psychological theory. If you are a heavy drinker, meaning alcohol consumption, then you might dream, but not remember the dreams at all. Or possibly, the dreams may be scanty or few and far between. In that instance, the "dreams" may come out during your waking hours as delirium (Illusions.) Tune into Walt Disney's song and animation from the Dumbo movie, "Pink Elephants on Parade."
  12. My educated guess is that it is English, quite old (1800-1850), and with the composite brazed screw and screw box. It has the tenoned mount which predated the U-shackle mount. I would use it, even though it is on the verge of being an antique. These old tenon mount vises seldom had a jaw width more than 4 1/2". We suppose that such a vise was forged in a specialty shop by two to four men.
  13. Sorry I can't be specific. The vise has the appearance of a Columbian. Some early Columbians had chamfered legs and some had chamfered pivot beams, as yours does. The screw box shape and triangular mount look to be Columbian. I don't know why an Indian Warrior is on there.
  14. I started in 1964 ordering my Buffalo firepot, new!. I really like the tuyere valve with the rectangular hole, helps centralize the hot spot of the fire.
  15. Just to add a little. This letter opener was given to me by a friend. It is stamped, YELLIN. Sorry it doesn't show in the pics. I have since given it away to an old friend and smith. The stamp is in all caps and looks not too unlike the letters in my earlier sentence. No serifs. I twice visited the National Cathedral in Washington DC, and got to look at Yellin's work up close. I was looking at a nicely decorated ring handle and had the urge to touch and lift it. When it was upside down, YELLIN was stamped on it right side up. The letters were larger than those on the opener, but not all that different. No serifs. I knew a Western Art dealer who specialized in Schreyvogel, Russell, and Remington paintings. When he ran onto a Remington for sale, he would have it authenticated by the noted expert, Harold McCracken. At one point in their relationship, Bill, the dealer, asked McCracken how he went about authenticating and how could he be sure. McCracken replied, "Bill, I've seen thousands of Western paintings by different artists and hundreds of Remingtons, not only seen but studied them as to color, brush technique, subject matter, and so on. I've been at this so long that when I take my first look at a Remington and I get an OK feeling right away, I then take a closer look. If I get a little sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I take a very close and long look and I am wary."
  16. Someone, probably at Hay-Budden, thought up and designed the clip horn. It was used to draw clips but was not all that popular among horseshoers. Say you're drawing a toe clip, you find center on the turned shoe and hold the foot surface against the outer, central edge of the clip horn leaving about 3/16" of shoe above that edge. Hold it at about a 45 degree angle, heels angled away and lower than the toe contact. Hammer back onto the hot shoe toe width, centering the hammer face on the point of contact. As you hammer, you'll lower the heels of the shoe slightly after each blow or every second blow. The clip will start forming over the top of the clip horn. You'll start angling your blows to draw the clip rather than continuing to hammer in one place. Doing the latter, you may cut the base of the clip. The clip should be about finished when the shoe is lowered to vertical. I think that most of the old shoers noticed that on the foot surface after the clip was drawn, there was a crescent shaped gouge or depression which provided the material necessary for the clip. This removed a little ferrous material where the horse's outer foot was to bear. The radius of the clip horn was part of the problem. Anyway, the appearance and the removal was not desired. My old farrier mentor told me, "You don't want to gut out the foot surface of the shoe!" There are other ways of drawing clips, but I think that most shoers today would rather hold the shoe against a straight corner, far side of the anvil preferably. Less gutting of the foot surface is done by using a ball peen hammer or specially made clipping hammer. You'd be drawing more clip material from the ground surface of the shoe than the foot surface.
  17. The big ones like that you don't find so often. I had a 211 pound one that I sold. It was 36" long, had a 4" face, and was 12" tall. At the farriers' schools, the instructors would often have the big H-B farriers' pattern, maybe 180 pounds or more, for their personal demo anvil.
  18. I've used a round faced hammer since 1963; still doing it.
  19. I see now that my little statement earlier from the monograph was a blanket statement. It has already been said that there are lots of variables. My source further stated that the water or brine temperature should be well below 60F; no more specifics on temperature. The amount of salt suggested to add to the water for the brine was 5% to 10%. Whether by volume or weight was not mentioned. Agitation and vapor blankets were mentioned, but in another paragraph, and it was a rather general statement about the vapor being a significant barrier to heat abstraction. The same source said that the brine had the ability to "throw" scale off the quenched piece. I was able to spend six days with the premiere saw maker of Japan (Yataiki) R.I.P., when he gave a workshop in Iowa in the 1990's. On his small tools, he would apply a coating of Miso paste before hardening. He didn't explain, but we knew that the paste was salty.
  20. "Heat Treatment and Properties of Iron and Steel" is a Government Printing Office monograph, 1966, and it says on page 24 that brine Is a faster quench than water.
  21. This may seem childlike, but when I try to explain tempering, the English usage, I talk about living in the temperate zone, neither too hot nor too cold. It's temperate. I talk about the three bears. Goldilocks found father bear's bed too hard. Mama Bear's was too soft. Baby bear's bed was just right (had the right temper). A guy flies off the handle with anger and his wife tells him to temper his feelings...meaning to back off.
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