Alan Evans

how did that happen.... :ph34r: !

I somehow managed to do a double post on the other thread just now, odd ain't it. I discovered that you can go back and edit it by deleting the bulk of the words which means it takes up less space on the page but you cannot delete the post

alan just quickly read this with my morning cuppa - i think i could have put that Should bit differently! i was Most Certainly not refering to dangers piece, which i personally thought was marvellous - and have written as such in his post!! i was more referring to a non specific element, that we are thinking about for the sake of the conversation, and i was suggesting the taper that starts as a fibannacci one, in my oppinion, in the more traditional setting, where traditional style was being adopted is better finished as one. having said that, i contradict myself, as i had not consciosly noticed the fact that parts of michaels did not do this - and i had accepted the work visually entirely and really enjoyed it ... :) i hear what your saying about no Should, but if someone is attempting a traitional looking piece, they run the risk of it jarring if they DONT follow some 'rules" ...? i dont think this is how we should all work, i cant work like this even if i wanted to because i dont have the skill to execute it. and i like to follow my heart a little more. but at the end of the day your heart has unavoidable taken influence at the hands of the traditional, for good or for bad... i really should not just waffle on before ive woken properly ;) i will re read the rest now i have put any insult to dangers fabulous work out of the question!@!!

When I re-read you earlier post I realised how you probably meant it. I picked you up on it because of my own agenda...stressing that there should be fewer not more rules!

I think if you are doing restoration work you owe it to the original artist to get into his head, hands, tools and processes and do as faithful a copy as possible. I then extrapolate that to honour the way he worked by designing and making things for our time using the tools, materials and processes at my disposal. Well at least attempting to.

Alan

Use away..it is a variant on something I recall seeing in the 1980's.

It is a trap to see other's work or an historic trend/style...you become used to some shapes and then you (well... "I") unconsciously incorporate them...its insidious.

I have done play work in the shop from time to time and rather like one result or where it leads to others...only to see something similar in the library....the question becomes "Did I do that shape or did my subconscious see an opportunity and pull me that way?"

I am so much the control freak that I do not even like being led by myself.

Ric

I recognise myself in everything you say above.

I know exactly how you feel, the fear of plagiarism, versus the desire to emulate!

But I also note that when you weren't worrying about it in the first post quoted above; you generously allowed someone else to be inspired by your piece and also openly admitted to having been inspired by the work of another! Give yourself the same credit!

It has all been done before, (most of it by Gaudi!) We will inevitably be copying somebody whatever we do, so we may as well copy the work that we like!

There are a couple of things I have verbalised to myself over the years about this.

One can think of forms we use as vocabulary, just words, it is how you put them together and the story they tell that makes your work a poem or a thriller or a rant! Nobody expects Shakespeare to have invented all the words he used, maybe he struck lucky and did find a few that needed inventing!

There is another analogy with that of a virtuoso musician playing a classical piece, they are playing the same notes on the score; but the interpretation, the feel they give it, sets it apart.

I think if you really like something that someone else has done then it is really important to try and identify why that is; what elements or combination of elements are in the piece that you admire. Using the forms as vocabulary idea I try and identify how the story is being told. Rather than make a slavish copy I then try and distill that essence and use it to tell a different story!

My starting point nowadays is with the site and the way people use it to give me a lead-in to the sort of character the piece needs. Then I try and find shapes and spaces and processes that describe and support that spirit.

Alan

Forging iron into the forms I wish to create, for me relate to "vibration" as well. Example would be nature in motion more than the quick snap shot of a line or form, a wave against the shore, patterns in the leaves of the trees.

That sort of "understood but not seen" element I probably verbalise to my self as the spirit of the piece, the character. I know when the piece is right it sings! It takes on and gives off confidence and power.

I think there is also the physical action of hammering that reinforces this idea and how it is captured forever in the material.

I had a curious experience a few years ago when I became aware of a sense of inhabiting the work piece rather than looking down on it and feeling the changes of section whilst I was forging it, quite uncanny!

Peter Parkinson gave an inspiring talk to some students which I was lucky enough to attend and he referred to the material "recording the process by which it was formed", and how we can read it back. I certainly think that the concentration and effort (and enthusiasm or love) that goes in to a piece can be read by the viewer even if they cannot analyse or understand the reason.

I have not had the pleasure of seeing your work in person and sorry to say the photos do not do your work justice. I do wish you to post some of your work and speak directly about its content and physical process.

The photos may flatter it, ever heard of PhotoShop? :)

Uh, and YEA! You should definitely come and play! :D

Beth the gague will help to lay out the boxes needed to make the golden rectangle if you watch the whole video on you tube by Disney you will understand how it applies. with the golden rectangle about 8;40 in time is where you get into the rectangle and you can see how the dividers would help

Thank you for posting that Francis, I have just watched it. Similar-ish but it wasn't the film I was thinking of so I shall have to do a You Tube search for that one.

What do you think of Nature by Numbers animation?

Alan

Sorry Alan, I need some visuals to fully understand, how bout some picture of the work :D

Okay :( yet another few hours digging out stuff, sigh, maybe tomorrow... :)

I responded a little while ago on the related thread with this photo of a shell section. It shows the "horn of moon" expansion in the central area, but then the distance between convolutions remains fairly constant. Most of our forged scrolls don't have this same distance idea. Some few do.

Much of our scrollwork has the negative space growing, as it does in a chambered nautilus, for instance. Alan's likening this to a taper better explains the latter.

There you go! That varied pitch of the shell looks to me like a fine precedent for the lower scrolls on Michael's grille!

its very heartening to hear you talk about the visual weight alan, and i absolutley agree that the taper of the piece should also be in the spirals spaceing. and so your point with michaels piece was that he was mixing the two styles of spiral? the fibbonnacci (scuse spelling - not my strongest skill) type, and the clock spring type? i like your clear definitions of tapers for us - the despcription of the irregular one made me wince, i hate that..... : ( and also the concave makes me nervous... i have yet to fully appreciate and learn these arts!!! thinknig about vertically placed elements tapering towards the top, instinct says that the negative space left beside the narrow tops should (for best visual effect) be less, OR more than the size of the mass at the bottom end, but not the same? or maybe thats just what my mood dictates this morning :) (reminding me of 60's op art illusion drawings... in my minds eye!) who knows.. maybe i should have drawn that before i commented.... i will go and do it now.... :) this is a useful thing to focus on for myself... :)

ps alan - i LOVE LOVE that thing on your id photo or whatever it is we call it - what IS it? i love it! it is visually totally arresting! :)it looks perfect, if we are talking about visual weight and such, and the energetic kind of weight and direction of it ( there will be a better word i realise that - you will know it and inform me i hope! ) it looks extremely satisfying, is a perfect exploitation of the material - showing many of the reasons we all love the stuff... or like a piece of concise poetry for Matter. why exactly is that? the reasons things are so successful visually interest me very much.. is that to much for half ten in the morning...? i do appologise.. ;)

There is no should about it Beth, you will see in my other follow up posts here that my whole relationship with scrolls and indeed ironwork is that there should not be any restrictive design rules. We should just follow our hearts!

If you reread my initial query in the other thread you will see that I observed and remarked upon what Michael had done and asked why. I made no judgement. See my response to Franks' image above, there is all the justification any body could need if it was needed (which it ain't)!

I am not quite sure about the weight scenario you posit. I think the context of the arrangement will determine the actual amount of metal to space ratio required. The same effect of weight at the base could be achieved with 100mm bars and 100mm spaces or 10mm bars and 100mm spaces just maybe less pronounced. At Danger Dillon's request I will sort out some images to help illustrate...I hope he wasn't joking.

Thank you for your kind words re "Spring Piece" it is the best one of three variations on a life-cycle theme I did from some 60mm square. I fancy it scaled up to be forged from 600mm square....maybe ask Michael if I can borrow his new steam hammer!

this is a great video on the subject with a wonderful teacher. Here is the gauge you can build that makes the job easier to lay out. second link it is a easy build comes in very handy



http://www.zram.com/...liper Parts.pdf

Yes, he is good fun isn't he! I tend to do what he does, design and make the thing then just measure it to see how close to 1:1.618 it is!

I am sure I remember the Disney film he refers to. The sequence in my mind is the invention of axle lubrication on a chariot which then promptly runs over Pythagoras and when he picks himself up he sees his flattened shape in the sand and it is in the form of a right angle triangle with a square coming off each side!

Good video

Alan,
Good description and it may make for a widely read article in BABA with a few photos or drawings or bits of forged work to illustrate your points.

I will add the below as an example of what happens when you get rid of the negative space entirely and bring a scroll into a solid...and then consume 40 foot of bar.
http://www.doorcount...me_Accents.html
My initial plan was to do an increase in dimension from nothing at the center to an appropriate size at the end...but I quickly realized that would have meant ending with a 12" square bar...which is a bit beyond my ambition.

Ric

Ah Ric your marvellous table is a perfect example of the sort of scrolls I think we should be exploring, very elemental! Very barbaric!

Wow Alan, I did find this an interesting read and would love to have photos to accompany some of the explanations. it certainly shows up a massive inadequacy in my mathematical abilities when it comes to applying those rules in my blacksmithing techniques ! Maybe that is why I design in an organically freehand way. I like to think and believe that some blacksmiths appear to have a natural ability of knowing when something looks well balanced and just right with no calculations involved, they just seem to know when to stop. ( I certainly struggle with this ) Is that inherited, or just years of making and over time it just develops or maybe a bit of both ? Some of us never ' get it ' yet are very fine blacksmiths, and some of us very definitely do get it. I really do wish I had the confidence and mathematical abilities that you and many others have in abundance but that is what draws me to this site to strive to learn more. It is also wonderful to know that so many people like you are willing to share their knowledge with us all. Thank you !

Well don't get me wrong. I was writing about my studies of the shapes, and certainly not in order to encourage people to make them. It is just useful to be informed! I design/create intuitively just like you. The mathematics doesn't rule the heart! Although I did teach myself to use CAD and 3D modelling programmes so that I could construct some of the projects on the computer, I still create either direct under the hammer or with charcoal/pencil doing perspective sketches.

As I have already said I will try and put some images together tomorrow.

He we go, Pandora's box and a can of worms spring to mind!

I would like to state that one of the reasons I have never used scrolls in my work was that when I started out in the seventies the only form of ironwork in this country was based on the 18. Century vocabulary of collars, scrolls, acanthus and water leafs. At best it was faithful reproduction but the great majority of it was poor pastiche of this wonderful style.

I felt it a waste of an incredibly versatile material that to be making something for the 20. century and only referring to 200 year old forms was awful. In no other art form was this true. Our houses, motor cars, clothes, diet, attitudes, sculpture, painting, indeed life had all moved on over that period, why not forged work?

The controlling guilds and associations of the fifties, sixties and seventies and their teachers and masters of the craft honoured the vocabulary and process of the 18. century masters but I felt they did not honour their creativity. The revered Tijou for instance was only able to produce his work by exploring the properties of the cutting edge products from the rolling mill; straight bars and flat sheets.

These same dyed-in-the-wool masters bizarrely linked morality to traditional process. Anything other was blacksmithing heresy! Our joyous exploration of non traditional forms (which arguably owed more to industrial forgings than the 18. century idiom) and use of “cutting edge technologies” (mainly arc welding, power hammers and gas profiling) were frowned upon; not "proper" as it was not "real" or "good" blacksmithing. The fact that the 18. Century vocabulary was developed as a direct response to the properties of the charcoal-reduced and wrought iron of the time mattered not a jot. No celebration of the properties of mild or stainless steel was to be permitted or considered!

So my studies of the scroll were done more in the spirit of "know your enemy!" It was because they had become formalised and were attributed with moral value... right or wrong... that I avoided them.


The paragraph below came from a paper I gave at a craft critical writing symposium at the University of East Anglia in 1997, it was in the section of my talk summarising the revolutionary development of artist blacksmithing in the previous decades


“The more interesting women’s show at Collection in Ledbury recently took our revolution and turned it over again; we had rebelled against the classic elegant scroll work of the eighteenth century style which was still being reproduced ad nauseum in 1980; but here every piece in the show included the scroll or spiral in one form or another, although none were of the refinement of proportion and finish of the 18C. These artists had none of our hang ups and were doing wonderfully crude and barbaric scrolls of such humour and power. 15 years ago they would have been thought of as merely incompetent smiths. Our little rebellion had enabled them to explore the expressive quality of one of the most powerful and basic forms known to man....something which I feel is still denied to me.”

Talk about hangups eh!

Alan

P.S. You may notice that I did not mention the development through the design flowering of metalwork from the Arts and Crafts movement, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Charles Rennie Macintosh. To the 18.Century fixated Blacksmithing Establishment in the seventies these were mere aberations and thus to be ignored.

P.P.S Just thought of another one that might be better for the first line “cat amongst the pigeons”

I am pounding out a response to the responses but while I do, I encourage you to have a look at the film linked below.

It will give a better experience of the notions of the golden section than the caliper above which I think is a bit of fun but of limited use.

I just use a calculator...It is easy to remember the ratio of 1:1.618 and when you understand that the reason it is golden and elegant is that it is the same ratio as 0.618:1 that it also comes out of the Fibonacci number series is double joy!

Danger Dillon had it right in the other thread when he said:- "I tend to just work on a composition until I am happy or it is suitable to live with. This work went through many changes a evolution that was shown in the design sketches. I am not rooted in historical reference and tend to go with my gut and what feels right, intuition."

Spoken like a true artist! I thoroughly agree that that is what we should be doing. We should not be getting hung up on academic exercises...(I know I know I started it!)

I think it much more important to ask yourself "why" questions. But if you must know "how" to set out a spiral using those calipers do a google image search on [golden spiral] , the first image I get shows a spiral plotted on a series of golden rectangles as measured in the caliper video.

For a much better understanding look at the movie and wonder. Of course there is a bit of a fudge in it. The nautilus shell is similar but does not actually conform to the golden spiral, it is just another lovely spiral all of its own!



Nature by Numbers

http://www.etereaestudios.com/docs_html/nbyn_htm/movie_index.htm

My connection / computer was too slow for the vimeo version but the You Tube one played fine.

The web site has a really well explained background section in Spanish and English.

http://www.etereaestudios.com/index.html

Alan

This has come about because I was asked to expand on a brief description of scrolls and growth lines in another thread in the 'critique my work' section. It is slightly less brief but still just scratches the surface.

I am on a bit of a hiding for nothing trying to describe elements of my design philosophy here so I stress the “my understanding” bit!

I have never used the traditional scroll form in my work, but studied them and made many of them on 18. century restoration jobs when I assisted Alan Knight in the seventies.

The spiral is one of the earliest forms used by man. Examples are found inscribed in 4000 year old Stone Age tombs in Ireland and 40,000 year old rock petroglyphs in Australia. It is said to symbolise the reproductive organs in the form of the Earth Mother and is often found on “goddess” figures. The Australians interpret the form as symbolising running water. Both fundamental concepts. These were often “clock spring” spirals neither the incised lines nor the spaces between them varied in width.

Similar spirals to those which we associate with the 18. century European ironwork style can be found in nature in the arrangement of pine cones, artichokes, whirlpools, galaxies and snail/ nautilus shells and etc. A logarythmic spiral can be drawn based on the Fibonacci series numbers which resolve into the golden section (1to 0.618) can also be used as the basis.

The classic 18. century scroll depends, like many sculptural forms, on the spaces between the shapes as much, if not more than the shapes themselves. In this instance the space is progressively opening away from the centre. The progression is key.

I think it easiest to describe this in terms of a taper.The progression of a tapered bar shares many of the same characteristics. We are all aware that the eye will follow the line of a taper towards its tip, we can see and sense the movement.

Tapers come in four main types:-

1, Convex or cigar shaped where there is little movement to start with and then it speeds up to the tip, these can look either dumpy or strong, depending on their context
2, Straight where the progression is regular and the movement therefore constant
3, Concave or hollow where the movement starts fast but then slows up towards the tip, these can look either elegant or weak depending on their context.
4. Irregular where there may be a parallel section in the middle or just one too many hammer blows at one point which interrupts the movement and disturbs the eye!

They all have their place and contribute to the whole by complimenting or contrasting with the other elements of the piece.

The spiral space described by a scroll in the classical 18. century work is a number 2, a constant taper.

The growth line I refer to is that of the same movement along an element or in a piece which has greater mass at the base and is lighter and finer at the top; think relative weight of trunk, branches and twigs of a tree. This may be described by a taper or a series of section changes where the mass is constantly diminishing. It can be very minimalist; a square or rectangular section bar that has chamfers run along half of it will generate this apparent movement. If a number of these bars are placed beside one another as verticals (in a grille for instance) with the chamfered section at the top, the amount of light passing through the grille is increased in the chamfered area making the bottom section appear heavier and more dense.

I almost always use this ‘massing at the base’ in my work. In the case of gate panels the weight gathers in the bottom hinged corner, so that towards the latch side and the top it is lighter both visually and physically. In gates this has the real advantage of less strain on the hinges and less inertia to overcome to open them, as well as any subjective aesthetic merit.

I think I will stop here otherwise I will go on all night.

Alan

I noted that the tripod anvil stands at ABANA tended to 'hop' when hammered heavily. Those with heavier construction and/or cross bracing moved less.

Ah that would explain it. The legs are splaying out and then springing back. If it slides out the back one and drags in the front one it would move a bit like one of those pressed steel hobby horses from a few decades ago!

Sorry to the OP to be easing off topic now but @Thomas what is a Bader?

My part built new shop does not have three phase power so I am toying with the idea of either a big generator run on cooking oil or direct driving the hammers with a donkey engine and shafting.

A friend over here has a Goliath (Little Giant type) hammer which he runs from a stationary engine, the interesting extra is having speed control.

He has it in the shed next door and just the shaft comes through, just in case you were about to mention the motor noise!

Greetings!

I'm relatively new, to the community, and to blacksmithing -- so if this is a stupid question, please bear with me. :-)

I have a propane forge and am messing around, making tapers and leaves out of mild steel (new from Metal Supermarkets).

Strangely, the steel rusts suddenly as it cools -- like I get it orange-yellow hot, let it cool down, and a layer of flash rust immediately coats it.

I've not seen this happen in any of the online videos, and none of the books talk about it: the oxide scale, yes, but not brown rust.

Any thoughts/ideas? Is there something I'm doing wrong?

Thanks for any help!

-Shawn.

Never stupid to ask questions...

Your description of the speed the red forms sounds unusual. Is it definitely appearing while you watch it out of the black oxide surface, or is it just there when the metal has cooled down? If its the latter it sounds more like a form of soot or other contamination than rust.

If you heat a piece of galvanised or zinc plated steel to red heat, the zinc burns off and can leave a white powdery residue. Is there any lacquer or rust prevention coating on this steel? does the colour continue to appear after the second or subsequent heats?

If you are sure it is rust (scrape a bit off onto a board and see if it will be picked up by a magnet) you may have discovered a new process we can all benefit from for patination! We will just have to reproduce the exact circumstances.

I have sometimes got a quick film of reddish rust on forged work, especially if the workpiece had already a deeper rust before I started heating and beating. I'll share something that a Japanese sawmaker sensei, Yataiki, told us at his workshop in Iowa. He said that when making a flat tool, to "wash it" preferably with rain water. He said to wet the anvil and wet the hammer and to hammer at a cherry heat down to a faint red, and to repeat this eight times. Yataiki said that doing so would get rid of present rust and would protect the tool from rusting in the future. He admonished us, "Don't worry about the science of it; just do it!"

The Japanese toolsmiths and bladesmiths have a small whisk hanging near their workspace, and they use it to dip into the slack water and apply to the anvil. As a Westerner, I was also shown the washing method when flatting forged ironwork to get rid of hammer marks. We use a blood red heat and water, as the thermal shock helps to pop scale and "clean the work."

The smith I worked with, Alan Knight used to spit on the anvil to make the scale pop off. The other time he would do it was with an evil grin, a wink to me, and a welding heat when he was fed up with whoever was hanging around bending his ear, a shower of sparks at crotch height seemed to be quite off putting to some people...can't think why!

The noise of the hydraulic pump. Light bumping when doing ornamental work, speed of cycling when coining

and perhaps the fact that I have an unpowered shop also factors in!

Luddite...Though I can see why the attraction would pall!

Intriguing. What have you seen that you did not like?

I found that the single acting 12 ton press was much the same as the fly press in action and just used all my fly press tooling under that. So that was bending straightening, punching, bowl making, basically anything I wanted fast blows/squeezes for.

The double acting ( 30 ton down 15 ton up) Ward Forsyth mainly does the punching and drifting, 20mm up to 120mm so far...

The 100 ton horizontal Finlay does all the big heavy stuff

The advantage over the flypress (apart from using the power company energy rather than mine!) is that both hands are free for tool and workpiece manipulation like with a foot operated hammer.

I'll check; but I don't recall much if any slop on mine---it had an easy life. I got to talk to an old retired Tool and Die guy at the auction who worked in the WeCo plant when they bought my screwpress new in 1959. Said it was never used much as they got a hydraulic press soon after.

I have a couple of fly presses, a 4 and an 8 and my experience mirrors that of WeCo...the fly presses gather dust since I spent £300 on a 12 tonne HiTon single acting (spring return) C frame hydraulic press. The no. 8 had cost me £350 a few years before...

Unless you have specific use that only the fly press could do, you may consider cutting out an historic stage of the development of our craft and learn by others experience! Go straight to hydraulics!

A wise man learns by his mistakes...but a lucky man learns by the mistakes of others!

Yes I am sure. That thing will slide a foot after just 1 heat on a piece of 1/2" stock!!!!!

Blimey! Can't imagine that, is it a particularly light anvil and stand? Mine has never moved in use. It is on a cast stand which is raised up on 3'' blocks of wood and just sits on the concrete.

I suppose my shop is not over large for the size of projects I have taken on, so I have always had to reckon on a flexible space and I second the idea of being able to move the anvil. No matter how big the shop it is always going to be in the wrong place when you come to straighten out that 6 metre length or swing the new assembled sculpture around. Even the 100 ton press is permanently sitting on rollers and two out three power hammers can be moved, the 3CWT hammer is the only one bolted down but that has a separate anvil, every thing else is on rubber buffers which need minimal sideways location.

You may also consider not bolting it down but just having a couple of drop in pegs which would solve your side shifting. I have a seldom used bar bender which I position in the same place and drop a couple of bits of 16mm round into holes drilled in the concrete.

The sieve for removing the drop ins could be just a smaller tub with a hole in it...may take a bit of time to drain... bigger holes quicker to drain but fewer drop-ins rescued...but wait I can see a perfect bit of mesh in the background of your picture....one dark night...

I got fed up waiting for the download too :) so I haven't seen the blemish but don't be too hasty to repair small gouges.

Sometimes they can be just what you need to stop a piece of round rolling about when you need to touch it with a file or centre pop.

I often use a groove across the top of one of my vices as a mini swage e.g. when I am forging down copper tube for gas furnace jets.

I've had my anvils mounted on various contraptions over the years. My 240lb HB was mounted on a 20x20in square hardwood block for much of its existence. It was ok but I like to tinker so I made a 3 legged frame with scrap tubing and angle iron just to see if I would like that. It was ok until I got some of the foam rubber matting that you can piece together, that made all the difference. It sort of cushions the stand and sort of glues it to the floor but still allows you to move the anvil if need be. I tosed the wood block and made two more stands for my other anvils, They seem to work great and I have no problem with the bouncing or moving even when I really get to heavy pounding.

Looking at your photos there have you ever had a problem with tripping over the edge of the matting? Looks just where I would stub my toe!

Would a foot block sized piece of the matting superglued onto the foot block still act as a cushion and not create trip hazard /burning smells when you cut off a hot bit?

When you say beaten up what's the problem specifically?

I have just come back from the BABA AGM where i seemed to spend most of the time wandering around the forge area trying to find a radius on the edge of an anvil like the one on mine at home in order to achieve a particular form!

I hate new anvils with no soft edges, I have all sorts of different radii on the edges of mine, choose the one you need. If you want a sharp edge lay a block on the anvil or make up a square edged hardy tool. Mine anvil has a gentle hollow in the middle of the face which is just perfect for straightening and bending. Get to know the anvil's "faults" and celebrate them!

So my vote is leave well alone, maybe grind a radius where you have a chip.

If you must weld I have always repaired my anvils and power hammer pallets with 312 dissimilar metal rods, stick or TIG.

Just spotted this in the local rag:

http://www.shropshir...with-sculpture/

I note that the attendees included smiths from Belgium, the USA and France.

Hope this is of interest,

Charles

Yes it was a good bash. Good to see both old familiar and new faces

I remembered seeing a DaVinci's exhibition a few years back in Chicago that will put you between 1452 and 1519.
http://www.rlt.com/12131 http://en.wikipedia....iki/Trip_hammer

I think that would be closer to a trip hammer than a treadle hammer which is what GNJC is researching.

I am really surprised there is no earlier record of oliver or tommy hammers from the nail and chain making forges of the Black Country. There must have been thousands of them from the basic ash pole return spring and plank treadle on the floor linked together with rope to more mechanically sophisticated ones. There is one with a makers name on it I have seen in the Saint Ives museum but I would have dated it between the wars.

@ GNJC did you contact the avoncroft or blackcountry museum curators?

I am not sure in which guise it still exists but back in the seventies when I used to go to the Jewellery Quarter regularly, the old Birmingham Museum of Science and industry had some superb exhibits; tilt hammers and an amazing bottling machine and loads of bits of industrial equipment from the area. It might be worth trying to contact them in your quest.

Whilst thinking of the BMoSaI, in the gunsmithing section was the finest example of technical blacksmithing/fire welding I have ever seen in the form of a demonstration of how a damascus barrel l was forged. It was one piece, a metre or so long and started at one end with the individual strips of iron and steel fanned out and then proceeded through the process with a couple of inches per stage until it finally reached the machined and etched breach. I must get in touch with them and see if it would be possible to photograph it sometime.

and if its somthing smaller, i know a man here in kosh that bought an old clothes dryer drum from the junkyard (without holes) put a different electric motor in it and just went to the store and bought some steel bbs (about the size of whats in your bbgun) and threw them in there. he would leave it running, watch jeproady or wheel of fortune and come out during commercials to check how it was doing. it works well, dont ask me how but it does.

Interesting, the noise must have been awful, I hope his neighbours watched the same shows! I never tried steel shot in my tumblers, it may have been the solution.

When I was doing jewellery I made up a tumbler from an old record player turntable tilted to 30 degrees and a plastic screw top pot held on by a clip. I used offcuts and beads of silver in washing up liquid and used to chuck in stuff and leave it going. It worked really well to take off the Easyflo flux and give a soft sheen. 33rpm was best!

When I was doing a lot of domestic ironwork I invariably finished it with a burnished, armour bright surface which was either lacquer-and-waxed or latterly just Renaissance waxed.

I started off with a Phosphoric Acid Pickle, soda rinse, water rinse, dry, rotary wire brush.

Thought I could improve the process and reduce the labour so....

I tried various tumblers for ironwork, making a 600mm AF 1220mm (2' AF 4'long) hexagonal drum mounted on a frame with a reduction gear drive....Slow belt slip problems, took too long to load /unload. I also used a concrete mixer....Too noisy and too small for firetools' length. Eventually I bought a commercially produced rumbler which had a rubber lined trough on springs, and a motor hung underneath with an eccentric weight to provide vibration. That produced a good finish.

But.

The trouble I found with the rumbler for steelwork and the reason I went on to dry blasting was that you needed a wet system otherwise the granite chippings or ceramic media just pulverised itself and mixed in with the rust/scale to produce a mud. That meant that you had to rinse the drum to get rid of the slurry...I do not have slurry separators and drains suitable to deal with it. The ironwork also needed rinsing after rumbling and then of course drying, any lamination or tong joint was a potential rust area if you did not manage to get the moisture out. It added more stages than the original pickling system.

The dry blasting and wire brushing did work out the most effective for the objects and quantities I was producing.

Those pulls turned out very nice. 464 would have been a breeze.........
My friend Max Brun did this rail ages ago from architecural brass/bronze and it has always astonished me. To a large railing with such temperamental crap, I hate the stuff. The caprail is that extruded stock you can get from Blum or Braun and just bending it requires you do it in a darkened room to see the faint red at which it can be coaxed.
He forged the scroll ends at the above mentioned ever so dull red heat ...One of the trick to welding this mung is to actually dip the electrode into the puddle,sounds crazy but it works....It works on 464 too.

http://www.maxbrun.c...lStairrail1.gif

Wow, apart from the sheer mastery of the material, I kept looking at all those halving joints and cringing!

I must experiment with your electrode in the weld pool trick, I managed to get a lot of spits and bangs when I last tried to TIG some brass so I gave up and reverted to Easyflo silver solder.

!^-! Sand bags roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose.... :)

The chilled iron grit that would save you the toasting labour and cut back your oxide, scale, rust, paint quicker comes in different grits. I used a fairly aggressive one.

They range from G05 to G55 the higher the number the coarser the grit. Vixen's current price is £27.50 sterling for 20kg I convert that to US$42.8 for 44US pounds. Initial outlay a lot more than the sand but saving hugely with longevity, recylabilty and crucially less labour time.

The link should get you to a data sheet for it. You could always blag a bit from a local blast shop to try it out.

http://www.pytheasgroup.com/sand-blasting-abrasives/chilled-iron-grit/?gclid=CMbwrtLM8bACFcYmtAod7i7xug