Tom Stovall

Because my dad was navigating bombers during WWII, I was raised by my maternal grandfather. He and an uncle had a shop in Sabinal, Texas that did whatever needed doing in metal in eastern Uvalde County. Some of my earliest memories are turning the crank on a blower while standing on stacked up wooden ammunition boxes - and occasionally falling off. Like all rural blacksmiths of that era, they shod horses, an aspect of the business that interested me lots more than pounding iron because it didn't take too long, it had built-in repetition, and it paid cash when the last foot hit the floor. What's not to like? Despite my raising, or maybe because of it, I never had any ambition to become a blacksmith, but I've always liked shoeing horses. I could turn, punch, and clip a shoe three heats before I was 12 - but I'm basically lazy, so I took the easy way out, went to college on a rodeo scholarship and rodeoed professionally for 16 years - all the while shoeing a few horses. I quit running the roads and started shoeing full time when my kids got in school. My custom has always consisted primarily of speed, performance, and veterinary horses. I passed the AFA Journeyman Farriers Test in 1983, the first time it was offered in Texas. About 10 years ago, I started piddling with a plasma cutter and discovered that building gates, firescreens, and signs was lots easier on the body than is shoeing horses. The segue from farriery to fabrication has been a boon to my aging body: Thus far, I haven't had a single gate strain, kick, bite or strike; in fact, all of them have been extremely well behaved and appear content to lay in the jig while I fit their components, clamp them up, and weld them out. In terms of philosophy, I run a commerical shop and I'm into efficiency, not tradition. When you see a collar on one of my projects, you can bet the farm it's hiding a TIG weld.

My apologies to this forum if my comments have engendered any controversy, that was certainly not my intention. To address the orignal poster's question, it should be pointed out that the vast majority of garden and entranceway gates, whether custom or mass produced, are fabricated from hollow goods, primarily due to weight considerations. For this reason, tubing and pipe - hollow goods - are the most common starting materials, at least for the framework. Although weight mandates the use of hollow goods in most gates, most bends are done in stock that has relatively thick walls because thin walls tend to kink, or flatten excessively, along the inner radius. Furthermore, due to the difficulty intrinsic to heating and handling longer workpieces, most bends in hollow goods are done cold, a fact that blurs any distinction between forging and fabricating. The most simple method of forming a radius in tubing or pipe is to anchor one end, then force the other around a mandrel. A mandrel can be anything with the desired radius capable of withstanding the pressure of having the workpiece bent around it. The various mechanical and hydraulic benders found in most shops fall into this category, but most cannot form longer radiuses with a single bend and must be used incrementally to form a radius in longer stock. For this reason, most benders are relaively inefficient in terms of both accuracy and time management. For longer bends in hollow stock, I use a compass to soapstone the desired radius atop a steel layout table, forge a mandrel from 1/2" x 1 1/2" to match the radius, weld it securely to the layout table, weld an anchor on one end of the mandrel to hold it in place, place one end of the workpiece between the anchor and the mandrel, then use a cheater pipe and smooth, even, people-power pressure on the free end of the workpiece in order to force it around the radius formed by the mandrel. This method is labor intensive and time consuming to set up, but it is satisfactory for turning out multiples of a single radius in hollow goods. Many of the radiuses in my screens are formed in this manner. As an aside, it is sometimes necessary to form an edgewise radius in flat bar stock to match the radius one has formed in hollow stock. (e.g., when fabricating a secondary frame) Should this become necessary, it is easiest done hot and around the same mandrel one uses to form the radius in the hollow stock because it is maddening and extremely time consuming to exactly match a long radius in light bar stock using only a forge, hammer and anvil. :D

I must've missed the part about "forged" in the original posters message, I was under impression the gentleman simply wished to know how bends in driveway gates, especially arches, are formed. Since I specialize in illustrated gates, firescreens, and signage, I delineated the methods I use. As advertised, I bend the little stuff in house, but I use 2" 12 gage square and 1 1/2" schedule 40 black pipe to frame my gates and that stuff goes to a commercial bender for bending because sending it out is the most efficient method of found of doing it - and efficiency directly affects my bottom line. I don't worry overmuch about how such bends are formed in the traditional manner, I do this stuff for a living and don't have time to genuflect to the Great God of Tradition. I utilize arcs of various sizes quite frequently in my gate and entranceway designs, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to use an inherently inefficient and inaccurate technology, such as a press, to form those arcs. Instead, I have those bends formed on a hydraulic pinch roller that's guaranteed accurate to within 1/16" because that is unquestionably the most efficient means of doing it. Since I build only 12 - 15 gates yearly, it would not be cost effective for me to spend upwards of $15k for such a machine, but I require such accuracy to properly execute my designs. I don't do mortise and tenon joinery in my gates either, but I do use a traditional TIG welder. :lol:

The bends in the heavy material commonly used arches and archways one sees in gates and entranceways are seldom done in house. For me, bending 11g 3/4" square tubing for a firescreen or garden gate accurately is a difficult proposition - but I can do it. On the other hand, bending the stock I use to frame my gates (1 1/2" schedule 40 black pipe or 2" 11g square tubing) accurately is impossible to do in house. Fortunately, all one needs do is figure out the radius of each bend, then use the yellow pages to find a pipe bending company. Any pipe bending company will have the specialized benders and rollers necessary to bend pipe and tubing accurately. For examples of hand bends, see the firescreens pages on my website; for examples of bends made with industrial rollers, see the gate pages.

My shop sits three miles north of I-10 and three miles east of downtown Katy, Texas, in an area that used to be mostly rice fields and cow pastures. The Katy Prairie is the southern terminus for the Central Flyway and winters more snow geese than any other area of the USA - most winter days, I can look out the north doors of my shop and see more geese in a day than most folks see in a lifetime. I thought of naming my shop the "Blue Goose Forge", but since I planned on being in business the year 'round, I called it the "Katy Prairie Forge." I've since shortened it to "Katy Forge" because I keep forgetting how to spell "prairie." A factor I overlooked when naming my business is the fact that things change: The Katy Prairie is being rapidly overrun with housing developments and sooner or later, I'll have to move the shop. I don't want to change the name of the business because I've got a certain amount of name recognition, so when I move, I'll just tell folks I finally gave in to my oldest granddaughter, Katherine Stovall - whom we call "Katy" - who thinks the shop is named after her. Burr Oak Forge sounds great to me - and it doesn't have any place name baggage.