Scrolls and Collars

[pkrankow]

When you make your jig, how do you go about setting up the clean curves? Do you lay out your marks then use a spline or french curve? I imagine that the jig is the first part to get "right" making it critical. Is there an easy way to calculate your line length, or are you using advanced math for that? Or do you make it larger than needed then cut it down after measuring it with a tape rule?

Phil

[jeremy k]

Pkrankow - Usually you make a scroll to your liking - then make the form to fit it for more the same. That way its easier to see how the final one will turn out vs. making the scroll form first and compensating for the thickness of mat'l so it looks good. - JK

Edited September 10, 2009 by jeremy k

[outsider]

OK so i have a question about this and it's so basic it prolly dose not even belong here but i have read this whole topic and the work is amazing so i have to ask.
so now i'm a beginner at this with like a cpl weeks of actually doing any kind of blacksmithing work and i see the touching "C" scroll jigs but what i do not think i understand is how the jig works, do you heat and bend as you feed into the center of the jig or is there some other way, i'm sure ya'll are shaking your heads at this but i ask to learn since i have not had any training at this work so far but i am working on that but not till Jan.
thx

[John B]

Like most things, you start at the end, forge it to the required shape, and curl it over to fit the scroll jig, or to start the scroll to make the jig from, and then work the heat along as you curl the scroll further until you get it to where you want it.

If you are using a scrolling jig, the use of scrolling tongs or scroll wrenches to ensure it fits the scroll form securely is highly recommended if not vital

As a rule of thumb take a heat one and a half to two times the length you are working, and if you continue try to bend at the end of this heat range, you will get a kink rather than a smooth scroll

Others may have different suggestions, this is how I do it and it works for me

[Mark Emig]

Hi there,
Great thread, and nice tooling Brian, but I had to reply to the "sorry about the rust-I work outside" thing. I work in the humid Hudson Valley and I get worse rust than that INSIDE my shop-with fans and dehumidifiers going.
Mark

[divermike]

I'm finally at the stage where scrolls and collars are no longer so intimidating, but I have had a bit of problem getting the scrolls to touch in a uniform fashion, the ends come rather easy, then when trying to get the center heated and shaped, and a consistant curve, that's where I run out of luck, the scroll jig does not work for this, and none of my other tooling works, I guess I need a clamp table, and have to tack on a piece already arched for that purpose to clamp to?? seems like a lot of tooling, but if you are making 50 of these I can see the point, as a hobbyist, I just don't have that kind of volume, or space in my shop, however if we could get some more pics of various types of jigs etc, maybe some shortcuts will come to mind, thanks for all this Brian, look forward to taking a class from you.

[John B]

Why do you have to rely on jigs? Granted if you are making multiples they help, but you have to be able to make a jig to a similar curve that your require and slightly smaller to allow for material thickness etc if you are going down the jig route.

The use of chalked/marked profiles on the bench and then using your anvil, hammer, scrolling tongs, bending forks, wedge block in anvil hardie hole, step on anvil or any other convenient method to control the shape of the curve will all help to produce the required shape.

Practice and build up the basic skills, and this will then come easily.

Jigs fixtures and bought in items to weld on will not make you a skilled blacksmith, learning how to make these bits will.

There is no quick fix to learning the skills, but it is quicker if you invest some time in learning the basics from someone who knows what they are doing and can help you. This could be friends, guilds, associations, blacksmithing courses etc a little guidance and you are not in a widerness. 'Smithing can be a lonely road even when you have been doing it for years, thats why this site is so valuable and appreciated.

Whatever route you choose, good luck in your endeavours

[beth]

just sped through the posts on this thread - all very interesting - and as somebody who fears maths i love your sums brian - you make it sound very natural! Has given me a lot to think of in terms of more control over the cost of a design. Your threads are always so full of info!! thankyou everyone

[brianbrazealblacksmith]

I just spent over an hour trying to respond to this thread and lost it all. I'm going to try again, but I'll break it down this time.

HWooldridge, you're right about the rust.

Minotaur, I sometimes scarf the ends of collars, but usually I just butt them. I don't even clean up my cut ends that I cut with my shear. [see pics]
I do not forge weld the circles. They are just butted up also.

[brianbrazealblacksmith]

Pkrankow and divermike, I started making my first jigs a long time ago with the golden mean scroll, but I didn't like it because they didn't touch. So to get a jig that would make a C-scroll that touches, I simply make a scroll jig with 1/2" thick material that I form hot on my golden mean jig. If I make a jig for someone else, I use 1/4"x 1" and form the tapered end hot [on the jig that will make a C-scroll that touches]. I just fit it to the jig until it grabs it, then let it air cool, and then after it's cool, I wrap it the rest of the way cold. When you wrap it cold it springs back to the same scroll as your jig. When you wrap it hot it make a scroll that is different from your jig. Now to make different sizes, I just have to do what I just described on the jig I just made and so on, and they get bigger every time you make another off your previous one. Or I can use my 8 foot golden mean jig and make smaller ones by wrapping it with 1/2" material. The ones in the picture were made that way, and you can see one that hasn't been cut off yet.

[brianbrazealblacksmith]

Outsider, here are some pics of what you were asking.

[Bryce Masuk]

So your using the golden ratio or a true logirthmical Sprial

and slightly adjusting it?

I still cant entirely see how you can make the c scroll without having to pull the one other end above the jig a bit this is a problem I have ran into quite abit when making c scrolls i just use the dog fork or whatever you like to call it and tweek it abit

I havent actually tryed to make a scroll that is a golden mean scroll all of mine are "special" they dont look nearly as nice as yours

Looks like its time to work out a drawing and make some more jigs.

So when you talk about the length of the scroll this is the length of the flatbar as a cutsize for that section correct?

Seems like your system is worth understanding in many ways, I will do my best to use the information given to best of my abilitys lol

[IanR]

Brian,
Just wanted to say thank you for your posts, they are always informative and well presented. It's through contributions by people like yourself that make this site such a wonderful resource for those of us still learning the craft. I'm reasonably confident with my scrolls but have yet to try collars, I have a couple of projects that I would like to use them in and your information will help me.

Regards

Ian Ross

[brianbrazealblacksmith]

Bryce, I started with the golden mean scroll and made my jigs from it. When I first was trying to make a jig that would make a C-scroll that would touch, I made a jig with 1/4" material off of the golden mean jig and that wasn't enough, so I made another one off of the new one, and that did it. Now, for different sizes, I know I can just make jigs off of my 8 foot golden mean jig with 1/2" material. The one's above in the picture that aren't rusty were made that way for the split scroll piece next to the jigs.
The number on the jigs is the length that I cut the barstock, and the jigs do not interfere with the second half of the C-scroll. I know what you are talking about when you have to lift up to avoid the other half of the scroll, and that is why I say, "I make my jigs so they will make a C-scroll that touches." I would have taken pictures of making a C- scroll, but my things are already packed and ready to go.
Thanks, IanR, for the kind words. I think you'll like collarring. If you run into any problems, let me know.

[brianbrazealblacksmith]

I got a call from Alaska asking for a workshop doing forge welded bundles, so I'm bringing this thread back from the dead to show them how to make my collarring tool because I left mine with my brother when we left California.

[tazmig33]

I haven't seen much on this sight about collaring, so I thought I'd share a few pictures and some information.


Collarring is the most efficient means to join 2 or more pieces of metal together and form structures that I have ever seen, and it is also the simplest. The technology is basic and straightforward. As long as there are at least 3 connecting points per scroll you will form a rigid structure with nothing more than the collars. Collars can be made and installed in one heat, or you can make the "U's" up in one heat then install them later in another heat. It never takes more than two heats unless you are forge welding them.


Here are some examples of collarring, and I'll go and take some pictures of the tooling and post them if you are interested.

Thats a good looking kid must take after his dad.lol

[Borntoolate]

I discussed some recent work in a few other threads that weren't related to Scrolls and collars but that was the subject. It seems like this is the right place to put it. I learned a lot. Let me first say that it was Brian Brazeal that got me started in this work. I have copied much of what he showed me. Or at least tried to. I have probably not applied it as well as could be but perhaps my struggles and learnings can be of use to others. The following few posts are about our progression in making some Trivets simlar to what Brian posted above.

[Borntoolate]

To Start off me and my brother in law were planning to cobble together the tooling to make the collars. Well actually I had decided and since this is how we do things he had little choice but to comply with my holiday request. WE made a serviceable two C-Scroll collared trivet. Like this.


This one is incomplete with some collars not finished.

Learning. This certainly can be done and it worked. However Brian mentioned something about if you can get at least 3 collars on all the given structures then the structure will be strong. assuming your collars don't suck (more on that later). Well.... I would say that three is a good number and that having a three C-scroll trivet is better than a two C-SCroll Trivet or "Structure". THis is just a theory and there are more ways to skin a cat. So I think this is preferable.


THis one does not have the outer ring yet.

On circles and such...

WHen me and brother in law made the two C-Scroll trivet we needed a way to make a circle that would fit the outer perimeter of the 2 scroll structure. QUite accidently I had a near circle that was VERY close and we made this bit of tooling.


It worked fine. It was time consuming to heat each section and bend it around. THis was slow going. The bending fork was a huge help. I mean heating about 6 inches of metal and then fitting to the circle, bit by bit for a roughly 32" length is slowish. Plus the hot parts want to roll on you as you progress around the circle. This causes a lot of fork tuning to get the circle consistant with no little bumps sticking out. This is hard to explain. As you try to bending the less hot section it wants to bulge out the hotter piece just behind it. So this could make this a 2-4 inch at a time progression. That is a lot of heats to make a circle. Here-in are some learnings that happened by accident.

Here is the bending fork in simulated action.


So this is not a pic of the bend hot. This is after the fact just to show. Here are some interesting learnings for me. NOtice that I did not have a full circle. THere is a gap. THis is a good thing. Because this gap is there it allows you to overbend the metal because the jig flexs a bit at this opening. What this really means is that you can heat one end of your circle and get it nice and well fit to the right radius using the fork. Then, because you can slightly overbend the circle due to the inward flex at the edge of the circle jig gap this allows you to bend most of the remainder of the circle cold. Using the leverage you have of all that metal. Then when you get close to the other end you can heat and fork the last bit neatly. NOt sure this is making sense but it made making a circle WAY WAY faster. Just to clarify when I say OVERBEND this means you can pull the metal cold just a little bit smaller than the JIG radius such that when it springs back it is at the actual jig radius. Be careful not to bend the jig. This can be done by hand with no fork. You just have to take it slow or you would get a very lumpy circle.

The other thing about the jig opening is that it is handy to be able to insert your tongs into while finishing the circle end hot. as simulated here.



So the next problem is I did not have anything close to a Three C-Scroll circle jig. I also had all sorts of issues with tight collars. MOre to come on next post. Hope this is useful

[Borntoolate]

Ok so this post is just for fun and some pics . Me and Wife Andrea actually worked on this together. She got to running the forge while I made the C-Scolls and hammered out the collars. SHe hammered some too. BUt anyway here are just some random pics.

This one doing the overbend of the circle using the gap on the jig.


Setting up to make a collar


Collar hammering


Interesting that the collar "chisel" is made from this RR springy thing. This seems to be tough possibly Tool quality steel. It sure as heck is hard to unfold.

[Pault17]

^{Borntoolate, your picture taking is almost like Brian's. thanks so much for posting.}

[beth]

have just rejoined this thread - good pictures borntoolate - im watching :)

[Borntoolate]

So making the three C-Scroll circle wasn't hard after all. I needed only two for the time being so using the same concept of the circle tool above I made a slightly undersized wood circle on the Band saw. I also made a cut out for ease of overbending.



I probably could have hammered the hot end into the wood but I figured I could get this right on the horn or with a hardy bending tool. Especially since 95% of the circle was already bent properly to reference too. So nothing earth shattering there. BUt I could see using a wood tool for cold bending in the future. Maybe some would say this is not blacksmithing. Oh well.

Now for the Collars and collaring. This had it's challenges. Back during thanksgiving the brother in law and me used the following makeshift Brian-like stackable collaring tool.



Well this worked only ok. This is incomplete as shown. THere were more bits of metal to make the right gap. I did not have all the right bits of metal though to make the right height for the two uprights particularly for when I was containing the collar during the actual collaring. This set up was ok to get the gap for making the collars. But in general the metal pieces did not stay secured very well. Partly due to the too low edges that stick up on either side of the metal stacked bits. I guess they aren't really stacked but layed out in a line. See Brian's pics previously to get a better Idea if this is not making sense. I was tired of the thing bouncing and falling apart... I could have modded it but....

SO. I made this hardy tool from some of the stack bits I using. THat's why they are not in the pic. It worked ok but the mild steel did not survive well. A few stray hammer swings and so forth ended up making it look like this by the time we were done.



By the time we were done it was so deformed that after you hammered a collar onto a form you could hardly get the thing out of the tool. When you hammer a collar and then spend the next 2 minutes trying to work the thing out without loosening up all the other collars really starts to xxxx you off. So I never got happy with how I did the actual collaring. Making the collars was fine. I did not attempt to make collars and collar all in one heat.

Here is how I did the last few collars and it worked just fine. I did them hot so they would shrink and tighten when they cool. I heated, applied the metal to be collared, stepped on them to hold them down deep in the collar. Then hammered over the ears on the floor. And before the collar lost a red heat I squeezed them tight with some channel locks. Not fancy but I ended up with noce neat tight collars. So now my thoughts are on making a different collaring tool. I know brians works fine but I think I could come up with something slightly more to my liking. When I get that figured out I will repost.

[Borntoolate]

My thoughts on what a good collaring tool would need to have:

1. Easily adjustable for various collars both for making them and attaching.
2. Has the ability to hold the piece you are collaring in place so you can focus on collaring and not on where a third hand is going to come from. This implies a table or some sort of outrigger type set up.
3. I think a foot petal would be nice as a way to squeeze a hot collar tight as well as release the collar with ease when done.
4. Something that makes it easy to hammer over the ears with damaging the tool. Accurate hits would still be good.
   

On the other hand applying the hot collars on the floor held downwith my foot and then sqoze tight with channel locks worked pretty dar good. The above also assumes I am working mostly flat 2 dimensional stuff and not things like a three legged candle holder or something.

If someone else has some collaring tooling I would be interested to see the pics.

[John B]

I have some adjustable tooling I use on my flypress I will try to get some pics for you.

The process you are using seems somewhat flawed as you are trying to use it, no doubt Brian has it down pat, but you seem to be straying away from basics, or waht he is doing, maby he will come in and clarify/restate how he does it.

I always use a mandrel made from the same size of materials section I am collaring, either straight on the anvil and step/block (to form the corners/shape against) or under the fly press,

The collars are finished around the mandrel, then opened up and fitted hot to the scrolls/connection

They are then closed with tongs and hammer and allowed to cool,

Typical time to do them like this is 3 to 5 minutes each, (from cold to finished ready to fit, typically up 10mm (3/8") material, thicker and larger may take a little longer.

Speed and number of heats are not important at this stage of the game, the method is what needs sorting. Keep it simple, and keep your collar material hot,

Another key thing when putting on multi collars as in the trivet is deciding the order in which they are to be put on, and securing the assembled parts using clamps, so you just slip th collars onto the assembled pieces and then close them up in an ordered manner.

A flat table (welding table?) is useful here to do the initial placement, and squeeze the sides together using collaring tongs (bowed jaws),



or suitable other style of tong strong enough to do the job

if the table is substantial enough, no need to transfer work to the anvil, hammer the collar closed, otherwise transfer to the anvil to do this.

If the collar has been preformed to the finished shape over the mandrel prior to opening it up ready for fitting, and the collar is at a High heat when being positioned, this should take minimum force.

Good luck with them.

[Borntoolate]

I am not forming complete collars and then re-opening them to insert onto a structure to then recollar. I could see this as a good way to make and install a very critical single or few collars on a complex hard to get to shape. But for trivets as shown I don't see the need for all that.

On the other hand I am wanting to rely on some simple, versatile tools to make this fast, easy and tight. A saw some stuff about making the collar, fitting, folding the ears, unfolding, affixing and then finalizing. This makes sense to me for a difficult hard to reach single, gotta be real tight collar. BUt when access isn't a challenge I'm thinking this can be done very successfully without all that effort. Make a collar, fit it to the structure, fold the ears, done. If you can do it in one heat... fabulous. Otherwise two heats max.

Then again my brain has wiring that is generally different than most. SOmetimes that is good. Other times not. The other thing is I generally say what's on my mind. I appreciate a challenge to my thinking.