Forging a T-stake

[Luke March]

I am looking at forging a t-stake/stake anvil/bichorn. (I'm not sure what the difference between these is. If someone would like to explain that, it would be appreciated.)

The purpose would be both as a horn for general forging (until I can get a better anvil than the 55 lb HF ASO I have now), and also for raising/curling for armor.

Having looked around a bit, I found this thread:
from which I get the impression that they tend to be in the area of 1.5"-2" around.

Now I have some larger steel stock from the local scrap yard - 1.5" and 2.5" round - but my question is mostly on design. Forging a taper to a point by hand on a piece of 2.5" stock does not sound fun, and grinding a taper to a point on it does not sound much better.

Considering what I would be using it for, and my tooling limitations, what kind of design would get the most bang for the, uh... "bang"? (lame joke, I know)

Thanks.
L.M.

[ThomasPowers]

I am currently making several stake anvils and 2 of them are pretty far along. How I did it was to purchase several odd sledgehammer heads at a blacksmithing conference: one was a RR spike driver (has cylindrical ends of different radii) one had long sq tapered ends and one was long but not very tapered square ends)

Then I drug out a couple of pieces of 2.5" sq stock from the scrap pile and waited till another smith with large powerhammers offered to let folks work on their own projects after a blacksmithing meeting. Using 100# and 200# hammers we forged a spike on one end of the 2.5" stock and a tenon on the other end and tapered it a bit in the middle also making it slightly octagonal---these ended up about 36" long.

I'm currently forging and grinding the tenon to fit the eye of the hammer head on the second one. When it's fitted nicely I will hot rivet the tenon to fill and lock the eye solid. I also plain to hardface the top section around the eye to make a flat area for forging.

I generally try to find items that already have most of the shaping done and are of decent steel---add them to the scrap pile when I find them cheap and then work on them as I get the time and urge/need.

Time to dig out another hunk for a shaft as the blacksmithing group is having a meeting at the fellow with the big powerhammers BWAhahahahahahahahahaha

[pkrankow]

If you have a long enough piece, could you cut at a long diagonal, then forge out the diagonal to tapered round? Weld together after major forging is done.

Power hammer sounds a lot easier.
Phil

[Luke March]

Unfortunately, I don't know anyone who has a power hammer. That would undoubtedly be the best solution.

Cutting a diagonal sounds doable... I have a table saw with a steel cut-off wheel on it; I could use that to cut it. The piece of 1.5" round I have is ~20" long - is that long enough? Sometimes with tools like this it's hard to get a sense of how big they're supposed to be from pictures.

I also found out today that my brother is sometimes willing to work as a striker - that could also help forging a taper.

Thomas, you said "When it's fitted nicely I will hot rivet the tenon to fill and lock the eye solid" Could you elaborate on this a little, or have a picture, or point me in the direction of an article or thread where this is shown? I'm still pretty much a beginner at blacksmithing, and appreciate any help I can get on learning new techniques.

Thanks,
L.M.

[Bentiron1946]

Hot riveting sounds OK but I have a very old stake that is a two piece jobber and it has seen lots of use over the years. It is made with a rectangular tenon apparently hot riveted into a corresponding mortise. Now I know you are not going to be using it for a hundred years but is it going to work loose like this old jobber of mine did or do you care? What about forge welding it instead with a tenon through the eye? I think it is a great idea to use the hammer heads, I have made stakes out of pick axes before and that does take some forging, grinding and polishing. I just welded them top and bottom to a shaft instead of riveting since silversmithing is lighter work than blacksmithing usually. <_<

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

If it was me I would turn the taper on my lathe, add a weld prep, and do a 100% weld with some 7018. Check with local high school, and junior college metal shops if you, or your friends don't have the equipment.

[monstermetal]

Where are you? I'd be happy to rough out your chunks on the 3b if you send me your bits

[ThomasPowers]

The basic problem is "how do you mount the hammer head to the vertical shaft to take the abuse of sheet metal working"

A modern method would be to do a full penetration weld with appropriate pre and post heats.

The medieval method would have been to forge weld the system together being that it was made from wrought iron and perhaps forge welding on a high carbon face layer to that.

Now not wanting to do a full penetration weld at the base of the hammer head and not wanting to forge weld the eye/tenon due to having to re-heat treat the hammer head (and it might be old enough that you cannot get grain refinement from normalization---one of the hammer heads looks to maybe be WI!)

So; I'm striking out on my own by first mating the tenon with the eye---forging and grinding so they bed together with no slop. The tenon is proud of the top of the eye providing material to upset into the hourglass shape of the eye and locking the two together physically---and the eye being cold and the tenon hot it will further shrink down and hold things tight. To make the top smooth and "anvil like" I plan to weld over the eye and top surface of the hammerhead to provide a small flat surface to be used for hammering on right over the main shaft---max mass under the hammer blow! I may do a bead around the base of the hammer as well depending on ho things look. (I want to use this for some LH events and so have to avoid visible arc welds.

If I can get time to read the manual for my new camera I'll try to get a picture up; however at the moment I'm working full time and trying to get the shop extension ready for the meeting Saturday---and working on my demo.

[Luke March]

Thanks for all the help, guys.

The insight on railroad spike drivers and pickax heads was especially useful, I'll have to keep my eyes open for those.

biggundoctor - I do have a lathe, but it's not a very good one, and I don't know that I would trust it to spin steel that big. It has a hard enough time with aluminum sometimes. Still... I may have to look into what it can handle.

monstermetal - I deeply appreciate your offer, but I wouldn't want to put you through all that trouble. (I'm in Michigan, by the way) Anyway, it looks like I might have another solution.

As to the attachment of the two parts together, well, as TP said, as long as it can take the abuse of sheet metal working. I'm prepared to look into whatever methods will hold up.

it might be old enough that you cannot get grain refinement from normalization ---one of the hammer heads looks to maybe be WI!

I've never heard this before. Is this a common concern when working with older metals? Would the metal be weakened if you forge welded it?

L.M.

[Mainely,Bob]

Thomas,if I understand your post correctly you are thinking that the tenon or stub of the shaft will shrink in length when cooling pulling the hammer head down even tighter.
This seems counter-intuitive to what I`ve always done as a shrink fit for anything.The shaft was always cooled and the piece which surrounded the shaft was always heated.
Are you doing this because you don`t want to run the hammer head to to a higher heat or because of the hour glass shaped hole in the hammer head?
Just trying to understand your reasoning here as I have a couple of these hammer heads and was thinking about doing the same thing.

[ThomasPowers]

We're talking *OLD* steel here not stuff that is only 100 years or less; but the pre bessemer stuff where we get the Forge thick and grind thin and Packing traditions. (packing should result in re-nucleation of grains during heat treatment; but the modern alloying does it a whole lot better with normalization)

If I was heat shrinking the eye onto the tenon then I would be reversing the heat; however I am riveting it on and trying not to draw temper on the hammer head doing it. And yes the longest section will have the longest expansion and contraction and for this that will be the tenon and not the eye So I hope I gain more from the tenon contracting lengthwise that I lose from it contracting normal to that---as it's mild steel for the tenon I'll hammer it again when it's cold to "help" it a bit more.

(and then weld over the entire top of the hammer/eye area anyway. I'm willing to bet it will outlast me!)

I once heat shrunk the head of a war hammer onto a steel handle---left some extra to rivet down when it loosened up---that was about 20 years ago and I'm still waiting to rivet and it's done a lot of stumps and appliances.

[Mainely,Bob]

The hammer heads I have aren`t anywhere near that old and made of modern steel.Do you think it`d be worth while to just approach my project as a conventional shrink fit?
I was originally thinking about reworking the eye and fitting the shaft to that with a shrink fit by heating the hammer head and using the shaft end as a drift.I would forge a bevel on the end of the shaft to get things started and to also give me a place to weld a few passes to secure things.
Any further suggestions?

[arftist]

I am the proud owner of a very large PEXTO stake. It is three feet long with an 1.75" square stake arc welded to the center. It is very old and holds up well to whatever abuse I heap onto it. Even if I didn't have a welder or couldn't weld, I would have someone weld it for me. I suppose I might choose other tactics if I were building it for a blacksmith museum. Arc welding is strong, fast and cheap, and if you don't like the look, throw it back in the forge and hammer it.