Frank Turley

Glen Gardner made me a trophy-type buckle of WI. He allowed it to bend back and forth a bit, so when it was acid etched, it came out looking like wavy wood grain. He even put a "knot hole" in one portion of it. Very nice. I recently finished ironing an antique Mexican wooden chest. I made the hinges and hasp of wrought iron because I wanted to be true to the material being used during that period of time (integrity). http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of blacksmith schools

It gets welded at a "sweating heat" which is a light welding heat; no sparks. I use a W1 drill rod for a high carbon steel. It has about 0.95 to 1% carbon, and I get it from Travers Tool. In that way, there is no guesswork about alloys or carbon content. http://www.turleyforge.com

Johnson's old fashioned floor wax or Minwax put on warm steel with a cotton rag. Caution. Don't let the rag catch on fire. Work in a area with doors and windows open or work outside. For interior ironwork. http://www.turleyforge.com

I suspect that many times a tool's shape develops by happenstance. It the old days, there was lots of regionalism, so that particular shape stayed in France. I have two old beautiful French books which picture tools. In one "l'outil" The Tool, they show a quite old French pattern hammer from a museum. In the other book "le livre de l'outil," they also show the hammer, but a newer one in recent use in the blacksmith shop. I have an old, rusted, "pock marked" hammer of the French style, and it has a rectangular face, slightly rockered. The edges are not radiused. I have not used the hammer; to me, it is an antique. If I were to use it, i think I would radius the edges of the face. http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

My 1894 catalog* calls it a Blacksmiths' Sledge, New England Pattern. I have a couple of similar ones, except they are smaller cross peen sledges. This pattern was very common in the smithies of the U.S. They always have the fullered corner-indentations at the thick end of the peen. The old Atha brand sledge hammers have the same shape. Over the years, I have usually found them in the 8 and 10 pound range. *Manning Maxwell & Moore Catalogue; New York and Chicago http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

Mighty suspicious. In my opinion, it was made yesterday with an ugly oxy-acetylene weld, and the scroll welded to the bottom should have a nice "vanishing point," a neat looking shut. Let's not forget that 18th century means it was made in the 1700's. "Show me. I'm from Missouri." http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

I asked Hofi how he controlled length of taper using his hammering method, and he answered, "With experience." I understand pipe to be an internal, lengthwise rupture. A forging example would be if you flattened, say, a round bar on the end until it was a capsule cross-section. Then you mistakenly give it an eighth of a turn instead of a quarter turn and hit it. You are hitting it while holding it diagonally under the hammer. It can't be a solid blow. By not giving it a quarter turn, you may cause some pipe, especially if you are using a power hammer. That is one reason for square-octagonal-round. Another is that the square is a point of reference. It gives you a known value. You know you can get round from that point. If you don't square the stock first, you are just hitting willy nilly helter-skelter, hoping that someday it will become round. http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

One of my old students, Harry Jensen, started his apprenticeship in Denmark in the 1940's, working with wrought iron. A journeyman kicked him in the ***, literally. Harry asked what he was doing wrong. The journeyman said to form the point first and work back from it to help prevent splitting (and to control length of taper). Harry had been starting behind the point and was pulling the metal under his blows making the hammer go from behind to before. The journeyman's advice helps with mild steel as well as wrought iron. The MIDDLE OF THE HAMMER FACE hits the tip of the stock when you begin to SOR. If when doing everything as best you can, you still begin to get a separation, you can sometimes forge weld it together if you're "quicker than a snake astrikin." http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

The old catalogs called these "pipe tongs." I think the Stillson type of pipe wrench replaced them, causing the pipe tongs to become obsolete. http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

Just keep on going until you reach Santa Fe, NM, and come to my school. I gave two blacksmithing clinics at the Elko, NV, Cowboy Poetry Gathering in 1998 and 1999, and had students from all over, but not too many from Nevada. http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

If the hardie shank is smaller than the anvil hardie hole, you can cut a length of appropriate thickness angle iron, thin a small portion of the the top edge of the angle, and bend it outward at a right angle. When dropped into the existing hardie hole, it makes the hole smaller, yet the hole is still square. http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

I've said this...the distance between is SLIGHTLY more than the stock that is to be be used. I've made quick short run ones by bending round stock into a U and arc welding on a handle. In using that style, you don't want to have the work in the curved bottom of the U, because the work will get tweaked. It's better to make the hickey* or fork with the interior bed of the U being flat and the juncture of the posts at sharp right angles. It's best to use the two tools together, thus the bend can only come between the near fork post and the far wrench post. *old fashioned name for the bending wrench http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of blacksmith schools

Esoteric horse stuff. I am restoring my quite old Mexican bridle bit. It has jingles hanging from it (sometimes called jingle bobs). These jingles have a bent wire loop and a kind of bell shaped flattened portion below its connected wire. Overall, one is about 1 1/8" long. Some of the jingles are in tiers, meaning a hole can be drilled through the flat of one, so that the other can hook through. Well, I took one look and thought geez, get some baling wire and just flatten part of it. I tried with a sharp cross peen cold and hot, and I got hardly any width at all. Got nowhere, and the flattened part was getting way to thin. I wound up using soft steel bundling wire of 7/32" diameter. You guessed it. The originals that I was copying were forged of larger stock just as I figured, and the wire was hot forged along with the bell shape. I am able to do this in about 5 to 6 heats, but it kind of ate my lunch. I thought it was going to be so easy, and I thought I was so smart. "A man with a mustache is never alone." http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

This query engenders multiple age old queries. Years ago, I met a man, last name of Rocca, a native of inner city New York who had that wonderful accent when speaking English. He taught design to beginners at Parson's School. I told him, "Geez, I don't envy you, trying to convey design to neophytes." He responded in this manner. "Frank, I used to begin class by having students take a couple of field trips. First, we would each have a postage stamp size of paper, and we would go visit the Empire State Building where we had a good view of same. They were all to draw the building on the tiny paper. On the next field trip, we carried a large roll of newsprint, and at Central Park, we drew a blade of grass on a 30 foot length of paper. At the end of those two trips, they were BEGINNING to learn how to see." http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

The Iron City Tool Works of Pittsburgh made leg vises and other tools, and the company was acquired by Warren Tool Corporation of Warren, Ohio, in 1958. For a while, they continued to use the Iron City logo which was IRON CITY stamped inside of a six pointed star. Warren Tool also made blacksmiths' hand tools stamped QUIKWERK. Reference: "Directory of American Toolmakers" ed. Robert E. Nelson, Early American Industries Association, 1999. You can seldom make out a Peter Wright stamp because it is in small stamped letters on top of the screw box. It says P. WRIGHT; PATENT; SOLID BOX. It most often gets obliterated with use and rust. http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

In the colonial and immediate post colonial days of the now-U.S., whether hinge barrels were welded or unwelded depended on your heritage and training. All Pennsylvania German and Hollander Dutch hinges that I've seen had unwelded barrels. The "Anglo" and Hispanic hinges had welded barrels. I like to see the hinge cover 2/3 the door width rather than 1/3. A half-butt hinge will not need a pintle. It is a strap hinge with a plain butt, the butt being countersunk screwed into a gain in the jamb, not unlike the installation of a modern day butt. You'll need to hacksaw and file some knuckles; three per hinge should work. When installed and with the door shut, you see just the hinge and barrel. Make sure the installation nails or screws don't go through any cracks in boards or between boards. http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

I've made several hammers out of "OLD" axles, which I assumed were 1045. Most of them were cross peen forging hammers. The eye is not hardened, because the thin cheeks will harden before the face and peen, and they may crack. I heated the face area to harden at the edge of a coke fire and quenched vertically in water. After abrading the face to bare metal, the head goes in the vise, face up. I use a 7/8" square, turned eye tempering tool with enough remaining straight for a handle. The turned eye at a welding heat will fit snugly over the hammer face end, and I've taken the faces to a dark straw color, about 465ºF. The "wet rag method" is used by wrapping the finished head in a wet rag and holding it with large bolt tongs when heating the peen for hardening. After the peen is quenched, it goes in the vise peen up and keeping the wet rag in place. I temper the peen usually to a purple using an oxy tip. Truck junk yards have old 18 wheeler axles which average 2" in diameter. I square them with a power hammer before punching the eye. A 1 5/8" square will yield about a 3 pound hammer. http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

Nakedanvil has been around the block, so I would pay attention. I'm a smith, not a metallurgist. I read years ago that W1 was a shallow hardening steel. I can't find the source, but the reference stated that W1 below 5/8" thick will harden all the way through. If over 5/8" quenching will produce a "case-core effect." You'll get a hard case and a tough core. The word 'case' is used here, but it has NOTHING to do with case hardening (carburizing). On the 5/8" and larger, the size of the material slows down the rate of heat abstraction, which is the reason for the shallow hardening effect. An old Bethlehem booklet stated that when quenching W1, oil can be used on thin sections. The booklet did not define 'thin.' I would reckon that 1/8" or less as with a chisel or knife, is 'thin.' http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

Because of my school, I have two 250# Trentons, and it is happenstnce that they both weigh the same. I got one from a retired machinist about 40 years ago, and the other about 3 years ago at an auto junk yard. I used the one as a personal anvil for about 35 years, and even though the two weigh the same, there are slight differences in dimensions. My personal one is 32½" long overall and has a 1" deep step. The other is 31¼" long and has a 7/8" step. The shorter anvil is a little blockier in the waist. http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

I made mine with a round face but larger than the original cat's head face. I started out as a horseshoer before turning to smithing, and I became accustomed to using the round faced rounding hammers. In the U.S. for whatever reason, even most of the manufactured cross peen smiths' hammers had rounded faces. They were made of square stock, but the corners of the face were angle-chamfered to create an octagonal face. The octagon was then radiused to a round. On the Continent, square faced hammers are preferred. In Britain, some of the work is still done with the ball peen, which has the round face. I find no fault with the square face, but I have learned to fuller with the hammer face edge over the far radiused edge of the anvil. The round face is easier to use, because you can get at it from the required angle. IMO, the square face on a cat's head hammer would look rather strange. The aesthetic of the cat's head is that it is a chubby, rounded up, little rascal. I just returned from the shop with hammer head dimensions. Length 3½"; total width measuring across center of eye 2 1/8"; peen width 1¼"; peen 1/8" radius; face 1 1/8" diameter, slightly convex; circular flattened cheeks 1¼" diameter; oval eye 7/8" x 11/16". http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

In the 1960's, David Pye wrote a book titled, "The Nature and Art of Workmanship," where he begins with the idea of a dichotomy between hand tools and power tools. He gets a few pages into his book, and decides that the division isn't what he wanted to talk about at all. He arrives at something he calls, "workmanship of certainty" as opposed to "workmanship of risk." If memory serves, certainty means a product coming from machinery, perhaps an assembly line, where unless there is down time, it is difficult to tell one produced item from another. I'll use the example of an aluminum Coke can. One example he used of risk workmanship, was blacksmithing. We know the risks. You can burn it up at any time. One blow too many and you can't recover the overly reduced metal. Etcetra. In an early 1970's ANVIL'S RING, Tom Bredlow wrote an article called, "On the Anxieties of Using the Arc Welder." His article was a bit "tong in cheek," but the conclusion was that sometimes, arc welding could be used judiciously. An example of this that I've thought of and used, is plug welding a Norfolk style handle onto its escutcheon. The weld will be hidden after installation. I think that is OK, unless one is doing period work and wants to be true to the material and technique. Then, tenons are used instead. Sometimes it is a matter of intent and/or what the customer wants. Even though Tom Bredlow wrote the above mentioned article, he one time drove by my shop to show off his Packard gate that he was delivering to the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. I looked it over and then asked whether there was any arc or oxy welding done on it. He said, "No, because that wasn't what it was!" Again, intent, and he knew it would be in the same building as other fine gates and grilles. http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

The Japanese hand hammer is different than the Japanese sledge hammer in that it is not as "head heavy." The sledge is proportionately longer in the head when compared to the hand hammer. It is long because the anvils are buried in the ground and are lower than Westerners' anvils. I have two Japanese hand hammers, and they have rectangular eyes. The hafts are rectangular at the eye end and fade into an oval for the hand grip. The eyes are canted, so that the haft enters at a slight angle. If a medial line is drawn through the hammer head, the haft would make a bit of an acute angle with that line. The faces are round. The poll is not used for striking, just the face. When you pick one up to use it, there is no mistaking which way to hold it. http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

I have a "cat's head" that I got via evilBay. It's heft is deceiving, because there is lots of material either side of the eye, and this is where it differs from a Hofi style. The Hofi hammer eye is so big that the cheeks either side are slender by comparison. The small, round face of the cat's head takes getting used to. My 1894 Manning, Maxwell, and Moore Catalog calls it a Chicago Pattern Horse shoers Turning Hammer (farriers don't talk about making or forging shoes; they turn them). The hammers are expensive, because they are antiques and they are no longer made. I made one years ago, and I had lots of time in it. http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

Shall I toot my own horn? Beginning in 1970, I've presented 120 workshops, 98% of them out-of-state; two in Canada; one in Australia; one in Costa Rica. I'm not the best on animal heads, but if you want tools, architectural hardware, farriery, branding irons, etc., I'm available. I'm an old timer but not dried up yet. http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

There is some more info if this url works: http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/blacksmith/farmshop.html http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of blacksmith schools