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I Forge Iron

Show me your Bottle Openers!


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These are my first 3 tries, posted from 1st to 3rd. Really disappointed in the opener on the wizard (or at least my first try at the wizard) when I slit the hole for the opener it wasn't dead center so ended up with more meat on one side, hence it being drastically off. Wizard was 1/2 inch mild bar I had

I didn't get a perfectly uniform heat when I did the cube twist, currently scavenging through the forge forums to come up with ideas for a better forge, as I'm using a brake drum forge right now. I had fun and learned some things along the way though, any additional thoughts/ constructive criticism welcome. 

Might try the cube twist on my first RR spike opener, not sure yet.

I also bought a can of the clear carnauba paste wax Frosty was talking about a while ago in this thread, cube twist is currently sitting outside taking a bunch of rain we've been getting here in Nebraska last few days

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You're very critical of your work. They all look fine to me. The cube twist is impressive. Can you say how you did it? I searched the forums and found Glenn's thread about twists but all the posts were gone.

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Awesome for firsts! usually mine are WAY worse or burned off or broke. Great job, you'll only improve from there. I agree with Aus, The cube twist Is impressive. I havnt attempted one yet. Thanks for sharing.

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8 hours ago, ausfire said:

You're very critical of your work. They all look fine to me. The cube twist is impressive. Can you say how you did it? I searched the forums and found Glenn's thread about twists but all the posts were gone.

Found a video on YouTube for the twist, same as the wizard.

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Here are a few bottle openers I have made. Top is tje first one I made, bottom is the last. They are simple but I am learning a lot from doing them.

I get the steel for free and it is great practice.

 

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  • 1 month later...

I made this yesterday. Starting stock was 3/4 square WI from an old harrow. Tried to etch it in muriatic acid to show more grain.

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This was the orginal harrow:

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Thank you Guys and Gals for keeping up this topic - lots of very good info!

Bests

Gergely

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that's pretty nice! I lots of the time have trouble punching and drifting wrought iron (such as a bottle opener) so that is also very impressive.

                                                                                                    Littleblacksmith

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Thanks, but I actually cheated on that - that's why I love to use harrows for bottle openers: the holes are already there! Even doing so you have to be careful. When started to draw out the ring I noticed a crack inside. So had to forge weld the whole inner ring to itself (I hope this is understandable. The ring stayed as ring but its surface delamination was corrected.)

All in all this was a fun project and a cool stock to work with. Hopefully more coming...

Bests

Gergely

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Gergely,

Congratulations on being able to forge a bottle opener from that stuff. I've got a lot of those old harrows but punching holes in them is a harrowing experience.

Here's an opener I made during today's demo.. Started with an offcut of 10mm square bar. Bottle opener on one end, letter opener on the other. I thought I would try a cross patch pattern on the handle and a guy who was watching the demo said that he was counting the crosses and asked me why I did five. I didn't catch what he was getting at until he said that 4X (XXXX) would be more appropriate for a bottle opener. (For non- Australians, XXXX is a brand of Australian beer). I conceded that it would be a good idea and the next one I make will be XXXX.

 

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So I was asked to make some brand bottle openers for Christmas, luckily they asked for them in plenty of time. One of them should be pretty easy, the other is a bit of a head scratcher for me. I've got a couple ideas ranging from extremely easy to probably easy for the curmudgeons here. Whichever what I go I know that I want the inside of the star to but open so it can be hung on the wall.

First thought is to just chisel it out, which of course would work but doesn't really stretch me much.

Second is to basically make a star form and start by drifting it round then using the star to collapse the inner points back in. 

The second sounds easy enough but I'm not sure how to go about a star form or if it's even worth trying and if I don't need to make more than one or two.

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My 1st thought would be to cut out some stars from flat stock and use them to make yourself a top and bottom set of dies to form what you want. Something similar to doing a ball or acorn die. Once you get the rough profile forged in, you can forge in more details with possibly a 2nd set of dies.

 

I wouldn't try to punch out the whole center of the star, I'd just punch a round hole to hang it up with. Of course you could go at some heavy bar stock with a mill or grinder and shape the end of a punch like a star and try that as well.

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Stretching yourself is a good thing... sometimes.   If you have an order to fill, do it in the most economical way possible and save the stretching for when you're just tinkering around and don't have a deadline looming.

Depending on the scale, I'd consider some heavy brass wire/rod bent into the star shape.  It would look good and add a bit of flare to the steel body.  

Or, get some 3/16" bar and chisel out the star so it can be welded onto the main portion.

I like DSW's idea of punching a round hole in the center of the star rather than opening the entire star.  It cuts down on your work and the technical difficulty of the project (which is good for the customer's bottom line).

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The quantity you have to produce has some bearing on the method to be used, so how many are you being asked to make?

Laser cut and (tig) weld on is one way to go 

Another would be to alter the sketch a tad, (there is a potential weakness as the star points contact the main body end)  make a star shaped punch, forge the end down to a disc, punch through and then trim to give the external profile (hot cut or cutting disc on angle grinder)

Twist the handle and it will appear to look a little like a shooting star.

Good luck with the project, and have fun

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I'd find a buddy to plasma cut a couple of blanks full thickness with all the rough extra "features" one could want-- like the balls you see at the points on a sheriff's star.  Manipulate the blank with files and such to rough final form and use that original to make a die for future versions.  Once you make a die, you need only rough bend some rod to shape and use the die to hammer it to a proper form.  It's a bottle opener--you might get away with a single sided die.

If rough-bending rod to the pre-form shape is a pain, just make more plasma cut pre-forms and forge those in the die.  

Big seller potential--police, patriotic, astronomers (they have drunken star parties :) )

 

Dog was barking at a deer and that's why I used the word "Rough" so much :P 

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Blank the stars out of sheet, do not put it onto a handle, then do the center so no matter how you hold it you can pop a bottle open (pentagon center?)  This way they can be used as key fobs, or hung up. This will also be a stronger design since the points will be solid.

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Try this again,  first time disappeared...   fold your stock back and forth on itself.  Glue the loose ends together by your preferred method.  Fold it all open like a Fredericks cross.  Flatten and tweak to your satisfaction.

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Thanks for all the ideas

John B: I'll probably only be doing the one but it's going to someone with a large family so who knows. For any other project a twisted handle/shooting star would be good but as this is their family brand I don't want to take too many liberties with it.

Kozzy: I have a plasma cutter so that's a possibility if I can't figure out another way. There aren't too many astronomers out this way though.

Bigconductor: may have been some miscommunication, the star wil be on the handle end not opener end

 

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