Frank Turley

Got some sample tongs out. The rule is 12", zero centering. Right to left: hefty scrolling tongs made and gifted to me by Ric Moorhouse of Nevada City, CA; bent flat jawed, followed me home; homemade straight scroll tongs out of coil spring; bent jaw veed for getting around obstructions; bill tongs or wagon tire tongs for holding flat stock from the side. These latter are bent on the flat, not on edge, so they must be sized to fit one thickness.

I've seen a couple old forges in the West that were made in wagon tires.

Just a note that I got to work with Peter Gott, a master log builder from North Carolina in the 1990's. He was giving a log building class and I got to participate for one week if I could pay the tuition by doing some ironwork. Besides a little architectural hardware, Peter wanted his three broadaxes to have a bit of camber to the blade. He wanted the finished blade, as it's unbeveled side lay on a plane surface, to have each corner/end to rise about 1/8". I was a little leary heating up his personal axes, but I went ahead with it, and was able to provide the required curve and heat treat, hardening in oil and tempering carefully with a torch. If the tempering colors ran too fast in any one area, I cooled that portion down with a wet cotton swab tied on the end of a stick. After facing a log at the class beginning, one student asked about the chalk line that had been snapped. He said " Mr. Gott, you said to hew to the line. Are you hewing to the edge of the line or the middle of the line?" I had a hunch that this student was trying to put Gott on the spot. Peter answered, "I'm hewing to the middle of the line." When he was finished hewing, the class went up to inspect the log and sure enough, he hewed to the middle of the line! Blew us away!

I am still surprised to be doing what I'm doing, running a blacksmithing school. I got interested in horseback riding during high school at a horse rental stable, one dollar per hour in the 1950's. To ask my parents for a horse would have been folly. No money and no place to keep it. From the stable groom, I learned stall mucking, saddling, bridling, and haltering. So on Saturdays, I would help in various ways, including working with customers until the end of the day, when I would have earned a one hour ride without having to pay cash. In those days, a dollar was as big as a cartwheel. I attended college majoring in Sociology & Anthropology. Never did much with that. although I think that the essays I wrote allowed me to later co-author a book with Simmons, "Southwestern Colonial Ironwork," first published in 1980. Then I had odd no-count jobs and eventually wound up in an L.A. office building adjusting insurance claims, a desk job. Not fun. I found a horseshoer who allowed me to work with him on Saturdays. After 10 months, I was able to shoe a horse, although it took me much longer than my mentor. This was my first forge work...dealing with horseshoes. I then attended a horseshoing school in Oregon, hot-shod horses in Salem for about 3 years. I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, because I had visited there before, and I liked the area. I began to take orders for such things as fireplace tools and screens, branding irons, and kitchen utensils. This led to more and more blacksmithing and fewer horses. I finally was able to turn my shoeing account over to another horseshoer and open a small smithy. After smithing for a few years, I opened my blacksmithing school in 1970.

I wonder if the hinges are store bought

I attended horseshoeing school in Corvallis, Oregon, in 1964 (no longer in existence). All of our coal forges had bottom blast firepots of cast iron. The surrounding hearths were covered with a strong mix of concrete to a varying depth of 1 to 1.5 inches. The mix I use in my forges is one part Portland cement to three parts sand. The concrete goes level to the top flange lip of the firepot. The old catalogs called firepots "tuyere irons." I have not used a pressed steel rivet forge but if I had one, I would probably replace the tuyere hole arrangement with a plate with a slot cut in it, maybe 1/2" x 1 1/4", no round holes. The round holes clinker up too much. I think it would be possible to create a firepot of fire brick surrounding the tuyere plate and then loading up the pan/hearth with concrete level with the top of the bricks. These little round forges were called rivet forges because they were easily portable in the old days and taken to construction sites. The iron or steel frames of the buildings were hot riveted together instead of using the modern day nuts and bolts. The rivets were heated and thrown, hopefully with accuracy, to the rivet men who caught them in a funnel-like tool and quickly placed them in the proper hole(s), They were then bucked and headed. I

Solid geometry. The "bent nose" tongs will have a constant parallel jaw closure from bend to tip. Straight scrolling tongs do not have that feature.

Hierro dulce is the material, wrought iron, no longer made but can be salvaged. Acero dulce is mild steel having a relatively low carbon content. Dulce translates as "sweet."

I recommend googling Bethlehem Steel's book, "Modern Steels and their Properties; Carbon and Alloy Steel Bars". I found the 4th edition dated 1958. Although dating from that period, I find the material quite informative. On pages 18-19, we find out that nickel provides a number of things when added to steel in appreciable amounts. It provides improved toughness particularly at lower temperatures; it provides a simplified and more economical heat treating procedures; it responds to milder quenching media; it lessens distortion in quenching; and it gives improved corrosion resistance (see Thomas' response above). It also lowers the critical temperatures of steel. There is more regarding heat treatment internal structures.

The thicker the material, the harder you must hit it to get the weld. Dinky blows on thick stock doesn't get it.

I like the knots. However, I have taught the following about pinching and good workmanship. One can develop the habit of, when finishing tightening and the handle-hand is above horizontal, do throw it downhill, clang or no clang. This prevents juddering while you're working and avoids pinch. If the handle-hand finishes tightening below horizontal, you're home free; leave it.

Not to worry. You're doing fine. This is my 54th year at the forge, and I still have questions. A sign in my shop reads: "Nobody knows 10% of anything."

In rwolfe's 4th post, the upper fork looks mucho Spanish. I have one, and they are very flimsy, made as wall hangers for tourists. Mention of their forge-welded manufacture can be found in the book "The Blacksmith and His Art" by Hawley.

Welded to the top of a shank, preferably square in section, gives you a round topped stake.

You did the layout and calligraphy? If so, that blows my hat in the creek! Wonderful work on a wonderful project.

This photo shows the style I was trying to describe in my earlier post as brass "Swedish" sleigh bells. Not sure if they are Swedish. Anyway, these particular ones are 1 5/8" in diameter. Besides the slot, they have four holes above the midline. Each has a single tenon with its single hole for a strap attachment, and each is centrally marked on either side of the slot, "NO 6."

Can't remember, but it was 2005 when I joined, so I may be forgiven.

This photo shows two of many styles of bells. These particular ones are mounted for use by Native American dancers. The nickel plated brass bells on the left are 1 1/2" in diameter. I don't know if they are still made. I got mine from Crazy Crow Trading Post a few years ago. We called them "beehive" because of their shape. The brass ones on the right are old, purchased at an antique store in Pennsylvania, 1 1/8" in diameter. There were many other styles. I formerly had some "Swedish sleigh bells" which were all cast brass and came in different sizes; they had incised lines on the casting and were fairly heavy compared to other brass bells I've owned. There are also square, open ended bells with clappers which the catalogs call "sheep bells." The nickel plated bells were mounted with copper rivets using a home made upsetting-punch for reaching inside the slots. The brass bells I drilled to size and mounted them with self tapping screws.

As a horseshoer many moons ago, I used flat jawed tongs almost exclusively. They had to have parallel closure on the horseshoe and I would be constantly changing their position on the shoe depending on where the bend or unbend was to occur. Horseshoer's tongs are light, often 14" long, and the jaws are small and sometimes oval in shape. I used bolt tongs when dressing the pritchels.

I did not use mine for a number of years except for an occasional half round swage. Then, a large gate job came along, something I had avoided. My helper and I did lots of hot slitting; the opening and through-drifting was done over the swage block holes. The hardie hole was too small to accommodate what we were doing. As one of my mentors, Victor Vera, told me once, "When ya need it, ya need it!"

Got a sorghum molasses mill powered by a burro (donkey) going round and round at our Spanish Colonial living museum, El Rancho de las Golondrinas, 12 miles south of Santa Fe, NM.

I've been away from horseshoeing for quite a few years, but for horses used in the snow, I used to put on a regular shoe with a "bubble pad." In my day, I think the pads were full and made of rubber with a partial convex "ball" formed into center of the pad. This was supposed to move by compression and expansion to pop packed snowballs out of the hoof bottom. Nowadays the pads may be made of flexible plastic. Something I have not used is the currently made tube-type rim pad which your search engine can find. It is supposed to be pretty good. The shoes are not necessarily special, but the pads are. Snowball buildup on the hoof bottoms can cause unbalanced hooves and legs and can therefore be dangerous. In the good old days, blacksmiths used to make all iron or steel "snowball knockers," small hammers with one of the faces pyramidal-pointed. On the small handle end, there was sometimes a spring snap for attaching the hammer to the driving harness. Every now and then, the horse(s) were halted while the driver got out and knocked the packed snowballs off with his hammer. Some people have collections of snowball knockers, considered antiques. I don't think there is an ice shoe manufactured, but I could be wrong. In the early days, horses used on ice were "sharp shod." This would be a hand turned shoe with tapered wedge-like heel and toe calks. The medial calk would be sharpened in the horse's line of stride. The lateral calk would be at right angles to the line of stride. The toe calk was forge welded on and sharpened in a toe calk welding die. These dies sometimes had a hardie shank or some old step vises had the vee shaped dies built in.

In Santa Fe, NM, at a 7,000 foot altitude, we get some snow, normally not a great deal, and if it's on the ground in the AM, it sometimes melts at midday. However, one year, I woke up to 14 inches of snow, almost unheard of. I shoveled snow off my little porch and down the four steps to ground level, We kept our dog indoors overnight, and there was no way she could evacuate her bladder or bowel unless I dug a path for her. I did so, about 25 feet long. Success! None of that was much fun. As a kid in St. Louis, I had a "Flexible Flyer" sled, a snow suit, and some snowy hills to go down. That was fun.

Fuller one or more grooves lengthwise on the round stock and twist. A hot cut is too narrow to use in place of the fuller; it may close up too much to give a nice appearance. I think it's best to make a small half round fuller.