I recently ran across an image on the web of some keychain bottle openers.  The openers were nice, but what really intrigued me  was his surface texture and finish.  I had never seen anything like it before and OP was kind enough to include the modified hammer he had used to make them in the image.  I have been Jonesing to try it ever since I found the pic and yesterday I took a hammer, made the necessary modification and ended up with this test piece.  I think this texture is amazing!  It has a very Japanese look to it.  I can imagine making a very simple opener like in my picture and giving it as a gift in a beautiful and simple wooden box, maybe with a sliding lid and plain cotton batting inside for padding.  

 

 

Can you post a pic of the modified hammer? Did you just stick a few bead welds on a hammer? It looks very cool...

Can you post a pic of the modified hammer? Did you just stick a few bead welds on a hammer? It looks very cool...

No time to take my own pic right now but here is a link to the originator's post on bladeforums which shows the hammer in question.

 

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1178799-Keychain-Bottle-Openers-Forged-Texture-with-Copper-Rivet

That's cool.

I knew I get all the hammerheads from the scrapyards for a reason.  :)

 

Thanks for the idea and the link.

 

Bests

 

Gergely

The finish, by the way, is just a forge finish, brushing any loose scale off with a soft wire brush... in my case I used a brass wire brush. I brushed it while it cooled to below scale forming temperature, then I quenched it. I reheated it a bit with a propane torch, then applied paste wax, wiped off the excess and let it cool.

The thing that is so cool about this texture is that it works on multiple levels. It is visually interesting as well as being highly tactile.

Make the hammer by doing the grooves with a cut off wheel in a side grinder. I then polished the hammer face on a Craytex wheel on a bench grinder.

Nice leaf opener. Would you post a pic of one of your horse head openers too?

Thank you ausfire! Here's the horse head one.

Nice work, Shel. I like the twist. Stock was 3/4 x 1/4 ? I always find 1/4 is a bit light to get the strength needed after the ring has been drifted out to size.
And I'll have to try that textured hammer idea. Thanks for the blade forum link.

I love all of the openers you guys posted! I have an idea I'm going to attempt soon as a gift for the mother in law... she's a big fan of owls so I'm thinking an owl shaped bottle opener with a spiral corkscrew on the bottom as she's a wine-o and my father in law is a big beer drinker. Hopefully will have them designed and attempted in the next few weeks.

Du7th, I would really like to see that owl bottle opener when you've made it. I was asked to make a fire poker with an owl handle. Made a few drawings, but attempt #1 finished up in the scrap bin. Haven't got back to attempt #2 yet.

Make the hammer by doing the grooves with a cut off wheel in a side grinder. I then polished the hammer face on a Craytex wheel on a bench grinder.

 

If you get time could you please post up a picture of the hammer head?  I've made one similar but can not get that level of detail out of it. 

 

On the other side of the hammer head I laid random beads of weld from my mig with the gas turned off and it does well.

 

I think I need to cut my grooves deeper on the other side.

If you get time could you please post up a picture of the hammer head?  I've made one similar but can not get that level of detail out of it. 

 

On the other side of the hammer head I laid random beads of weld from my mig with the gas turned off and it does well.

 

I think I need to cut my grooves deeper on the other side.

 

Here you go:

 

 

 

I'd estimate that the grooves are cut at least 1/16" deep, maybe even a bit deeper.  

Thank you sir.

 

My hammer looks similar, but the grooves are not as deep or wide. 

 

Time to get the grinder back out.

Thank you sir.

 

My hammer looks similar, but the grooves are not as deep or wide. 

 

Time to get the grinder back out.

I used cheap cutting discs from Harbor Freight.  The slots are about the thickness of the disc.  You just need to not be afraid to cut slowly so the disc really gets deep into the face of the hammer.  

I was at Horrible Freight last night, picked up a "disposable" hammer for just this purpose.  Thanks for the pix!

Here's some that i do. coated in brass, with the mouths chiseled out with a chisel  ;)  hopefully i can get photos up.

Good effort there, Owen. Nice to see the ears on your horses. :-)

P.S. What happened to your fingers??

Darryl,

Jane at the hammer in put tape around her fingers, and i thought that the tape would help against blisters. i was working all day on Sunday as well, so my fingers were quite sore.

 

Darryl,
Jane at the hammer in put tape around her fingers, and i thought that the tape would help against blisters. i was working all day on Sunday as well, so my fingers were quite sore.

OK. I noticed in the photo it was your left hand. I know you're right-handed so I thought you may have got a burn. I can imagine how sore your hands would be. You had some pretty heavy hammering with that axle drift.
Anyway, your openers turned out well. They'll make nice little Christmas gifts.

First opener attempt...and about my 6th thing made, after some tongs and some assorted hooks. :P

Inspiration was to have opener somewhat like a big old skeleton key, and wanted the source material--rebar--

to still be apparent.

On the first, one, I formed the loop on the end first...which made it a bit harder working on the tooth part.

Second one, I flattened the end area first to do the tooth first.

I'm generally ok with the loops, not so much with the teeth. Transition from the flat area to the round handle is

messy. Needs some sort of clean line there.  Also, the profile of the tooth end isn't very intentional looking. I also didn't clean

up the hot cut/inside edge of the tooth enough.

The tooth was difficult. Used a hot cut to make diagonal though the flat area, then opened it up by working it around a

round rod in the vice. In hindsight, should've hot punched a hole first, then hot cut over to it. 

I wire-wheeled them to brighten them up....nobody wants to use a dirty-looking opener.

Well at least they actually work, and I learned some things for the next attempt.

Thanks for looking.

 

Those have some character, and a lot of potential. Try using the horn and a rounded cross pein or straight pein to get a nice smooth transition. And your right punching a hole and slitting to it works nicely for a this kind of process, isn't absolutely necessary, but smooths the bottom of the crotch. You just have to clean up the transition to legs so their smooth too;-) I could see a Beer Dragon made out of that, punch eyes and some nostrils, could look very Cool:-) Could make it look like the dragon on the prow of a Viking long ship... Lots of potential like I said;-)

I agree with SJS, the two pieces show a lot of character and a real intuitive understanding of the material. Keep it up man.

Building on SJS' comment about elmoleaf's openers being made more "dragony";  chisel/punch in some details on the handle loop to make it look more like a tail. I just worry that the really sharp looking lower jaw would be likely to chip the bottle edge.

Decided to ignore the football game and instead make another attempt at skeleton key style openers.

Steps were:

1. upset end of rebar.

2. flatten out upset area into un-centered rectangular area.

3. taper opposite end for loop and form loop.

4. hot punch hole thru rectangular area and enlarge hole.

5. hot cut two times to remove material at/adjacent to hole.

6. fussing about etc. to clean up opener end and get distance/angle correct.

7. Bit of filing and clean up to remove square edges at loop and opener end.

Forming loops and working inside diameters is done with rod clamped in a vice, as I don't have a true anvil with horn.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Had a nice session with Thomas Powers, here's the 2 bottle openers I made.

@Du7ch: And it appears that you had a try with some chiles! An excellent pairing with the bottle openers and a very nice start overall.( No doubt they are red AND green for a true Christmas serving.)