Newbie Question about forging nails.

[Robert Simmons]

Greetings,

I am a newbie to blacksmithing and so I thought that I would start by making a bunch of nails to learn hammer control. I took a 1/4" inch rod and I have a 3/16th nail header that I fashioned by drilling a hole in 1/2" plate, expanding it with a cone shapped piece of steel and welding on a handle. I started working on the taper and I am getting better at that with some frustrations. First of all I am using a propane forge for my work so that might be of interest.

Questions:

1) When trying to taper the round rod, It keeps spinning in my holding hand. I have a hard time holding it, especially when it is curved slightly from working the rod. One thing I have noticed is that I shouldnt hold it so tight against the anvil but are there any other tips? I suppose I need to really square the rod before trying to taper but that still wont change the spin as it was happening with the 3/8ths square that I had as well.

2) While tapering, occasionally the metal will splinter when I get down thin. Why is that and how can I avoid it?

3) I am heating to yellow and when I pull the rod out it seems like I only have about 10 to 20 seconds max of time to hit. If I try to brush there is no way I could do more. Is this normal because the rod and nails are so thin that they cool so fast?

4) Finally, I taper the rod to a spike end and then I put it in my improvised nail header. Then I measure where I want to cut it. Since I dont have a hot cut hardy (thats next) I use a cold chisel I have that is actually for wood but works or I use the corner of the anvil and bend the nail to the side and then straighten only the nail part. After I straighten, I put it back in the forge with the nail 90 deg to the bar. When I pull it out, I put the nail header on, bend back and forth a couple times and it breaks. Then I drop the whole thing over my pritchel hole and try to pund down the head with straight down strikes. The problem is that it isnt working. One of two things is happening. Either I am punching the nail all the way through the set or I have too much metal above the head and it is just bending over. How can I stop this from happening in the nail set?

Thanks in advance.

[Fe-Wood]

The easy answer is Practice look it up on youtube, you'll see every variation
Heres a long answer
If you are starting with round stock you basically want to forge it tapered square with 4 sides. To do that you will want to hold the rod at a slight angle to the anvil and hit with your hammer at an opposite slight angle. You will want the flat you are making to be square on the anvil. Don't try to work both sides at once for now. Practice hammer control using a couple blows on each face at a time. Go slow until you get it. Once you have the taper, put it in the heading tool to see where and how it fits. Depending on the taper of your header and the taper on your nail- correct and cut to size accordingly. Mine usually run 1/4" to 5/16 above header for a 1/4" nail using 3/8" rod. When I do the heading I usually hit one good upsetting blow straight down to set the head then hit again on 4 sides rather than straight down. This gives you the capability to correct a little, also makes a nice decorative head. I finish with a straight down blow to put a small flat on top.

Making nails is one of the best practice exercises you can do with the amount of steel used. Its also a nice warmup exercise.

The split in the end is from working at too cool a temp.

Watch Hofi's clip on hammer control

I hope this makes sense and is helpful.

[bigfootnampa]

Greetings,

I am a newbie to blacksmithing and so I thought that I would start by making a bunch of nails to learn hammer control. I took a 1/4" inch rod and I have a 3/16th nail header that I fashioned by drilling a hole in 1/2" plate, expanding it with a cone shapped piece of steel and welding on a handle. I started working on the taper and I am getting better at that with some frustrations. First of all I am using a propane forge for my work so that might be of interest.

Questions:

1) When trying to taper the round rod, It keeps spinning in my holding hand. I have a hard time holding it, especially when it is curved slightly from working the rod. One thing I have noticed is that I shouldnt hold it so tight against the anvil but are there any other tips? I suppose I need to really square the rod before trying to taper but that still wont change the spin as it was happening with the 3/8ths square that I had as well.

2) While tapering, occasionally the metal will splinter when I get down thin. Why is that and how can I avoid it?

3) I am heating to yellow and when I pull the rod out it seems like I only have about 10 to 20 seconds max of time to hit. If I try to brush there is no way I could do more. Is this normal because the rod and nails are so thin that they cool so fast?

4) Finally, I taper the rod to a spike end and then I put it in my improvised nail header. Then I measure where I want to cut it. Since I dont have a hot cut hardy (thats next) I use a cold chisel I have that is actually for wood but works or I use the corner of the anvil and bend the nail to the side and then straighten only the nail part. After I straighten, I put it back in the forge with the nail 90 deg to the bar. When I pull it out, I put the nail header on, bend back and forth a couple times and it breaks. Then I drop the whole thing over my pritchel hole and try to pund down the head with straight down strikes. The problem is that it isnt working. One of two things is happening. Either I am punching the nail all the way through the set or I have too much metal above the head and it is just bending over. How can I stop this from happening in the nail set?

Thanks in advance.

#1 When you are finished working a heat straighten the rod before putting it back in the fire.

#2 You are hitting the metal too cold. Is it possible that you are working with some antique wrought iron? Because it is much more sensitive in this regard... needs to be hit at high yellow heats.

#3 I never brush nails... hit firmly and swiftly. Then return to the fire quickly... doesn't take long to reheat if you get it back in the fire as soon as it loses forging heat.

#4 Forge your nails with a shoulder by forging them at the edge of the anvil... material for the head is left at original diameter while a shoulder is formed on two sides of the rod (by drawing down the taper). You only flip the rod 90 degrees back and forth so that the shoulders form on only two sides and they should prevent the nail from slipping through the header. Note some smiths do this differently like you are apparently attempting to... but I think it is harder to accomplish. BTW the nail rod should be at high yellow heat for heading and I use a pretty firm blow for the first hit or two... slightly less firm for the "dressing" blows (after the main squishing is done).

That's my advice anyway. Practice does help... a LOT! Nails are excellent taper practice.

[pete46]

The cold anvil is taking your heat;try to leave a gap between hits.
You may want to preheat the nail header[black heat]to save heat also.
Hope this helps.

[Frank Turley]

The nails should have a square tapered cross-section, not round. Drift the header hole to a square. This will be a time saver, and you'll have more strength because of the stock filling the corners of the square.

Most nail makers forge the point first either on the base of the horn or at the far, radiused edge of the anvil. This helps prevent splitting and gives you a point of reference for finished nail length.

When making a number of nails that should be approximately the same length, as a novice, you can make a mark on the anvil face with a Presto correction pen or soapstone, say 5/8" or 3/4" in from the near anvil edge, a relatively sharp edge. Now, after pointing, you lay the point on the mark and begin the two-sided shoulder with half-face blows, all the while drawing the taper and taking care not to shoulder too deeply. You don't need a shoulder on all four sides; it's time consuming.

The hardie cut can be on one side only with wrought iron. With mild steel, you may need more cuts. The nail is wrung off of the parent stock after insertion in the heading tool. You expect the head to be lopsided, and it will be, because of the two shoulders. Therefore, your very first blows are angle blows to center the head over the header hole. Finish hammering the head.

Many old house nails had heads which were eccentric to the shank, and no matter. In doing fine ornamental work though, the head should be centered. I draw a concentric circle around the header hole with the Presto pen. This gives me a guide as to hammer-centering the head.

None of the above is engraved in stone; I'm just sharing my experiences.

http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

[pkrankow]

Eccentric heads have character and hold the Christmas stocking on the mantle better!

Phil

[Rich Hale]

Try a forging exeercise first and when yoiu get it down then go back to nails. Take a piece of two foot long 3/4" or at least half inch stock and taper it down like it was a huge nail. It will hole heat alot longer and you may gain some hammer control and learn about useing anvil face for one side of taper and hammer for other. Whil you do this make sure you are not having to stand on your toes to reach it...it you aree haveing to do that stland on something or lower your anvil. work at at easy height for you. When you have a nice long taper..maybe a 6" or so,,the make the square taper into and octogon. then work it round. then make it into a square taper again and even alonger one than a first. Keep repeating this until you learn how metal moves at the right heat and dont have the frustration of losing heat in small stock before you gert anything done. When you have done one end severeal times cool the stock and start over on the other end. If you get thel east bit fatigued take a break. One thing you can do if you are not carefull is learn to work really well at perfecting bad habits. Constantly review how you stand at the anvil, how you hold and swing your hammer. the heat youi are forging at and how your work is coming out. A new smith should expect to get those things right in a couple of years if they work on a fairly often schedule of forging. The absolute very best way to review your body mechanics and how you work is to attend demonstrations and hammer ins or visits with other smiths. Watch how they forge. If at all possible see if they will watlch you and make suggestions. And have fun.
( a few sessionslike above should get you back to trying nails)

[Ed Steinkirchner]

does your header have any crown or is it a flat, wide piece of steel? i had problems with nails heading off center and when i made my header crowned it made a big difference. as for having too much or too little metal for the head, that is all experience. By the way, if you think nails are hard, try making 1/2 inch carriage bolts.
good luck with your nails

Ed Steinkirchner

[Robert Simmons]

I am doing the nails to gain experience as a newbie to smithing. I hope they will help me learn the control I want. Thanks for all the advice.

[Robert Simmons]

Also I was wondering if there is anything I can do to get more forging time on the nail. It seems to cool very quickly even when attached to a 2 foot section of rod. Is that something you all observe as well? I was looking at a couple of videos of people forging nails and it seems they have a bit more time than I do to forge before it cools.

[ThomasPowers]

As my forge welding instruction used to yell at me "don't look at it *HIT* *IT*!"

Is you anvil real close to the forge so you need only to make a slight turn?

Is your hammer in your hand before you touch the stock in the forge to bring it out?

Is the hammer raised by the time the stock is just over the anvil?

Do you hammer *fast*.

A lot of the experienced smiths "extra working time" is actually just cutting out wasted time in the process. I've noticed teaching new folks that I will generally have hit the metal several times by they time they have gotten in *1* hit which they then stop and look at. For nail rods pre-heating the anvil with a hot piece of metal or an old clothes iron can help as well as keeping the stock off the anvil until the hammer pushes it down onto the anvil for the first blow.

Cold weather, cold anvil, cold hammer, cold header does not help!

And as mentioned nail "rods" were actually square and were slit from sheet/plate. If you want hammer control practice you could make all your round stock into nice even sq stock...

[Robert Simmons]

And as mentioned nail "rods" were actually square and were slit from sheet/plate. If you want hammer control practice you could make all your round stock into nice even sq stock...

Thanks for the tips. Honestly I could probably get a bit faster. What size square stock would you use for making a 3/16ths size nail? I was also thinking to make consistent lengths would it be correct to first forge a shoulder with the rod and then taper it down to the point so you could forge a shoulder one inch in and then realize that will make perhaps a 2" nail when tapered. Is that a good idea or sillyness?

Oh by the way, is it just me or does really yellow hot metal have a sort of fruity, almost cherry smell to it? Perhaps I am just loosing my mind.

[brianbrazealblacksmith]

Robert, understanding the dies or surfaces that you use with your hammer or anvil will help you more than anything. Hofi has taught the nail making techniques to countless smiths and they have passed them on to countless other smiths. Tom Clark was one of them that I saw demonstrate this for the first time. I'm sure there are videos some where out there of either Uri Hofi or Tom Clark making nails. They are doing a two-sided taper turning 1/4 turns back and forth with the hammer tilted appropriately useing the near radiused side of the flat die of a square faced hammer on the flat face of the anvil starting about an inch back from the end of the material and moving up as the taper develops which causes the material on the far side of the forging to lift up off the anvil so the heat does not get sucked away. They continue the taper saving the point for the end. This lights up the material and allows you to forge for alot longer than using flat dies with full contact.

[Robert Simmons]

Robert, understanding the dies or surfaces that you use with your hammer or anvil will help you more than anything. Hofi has taught the nail making techniques to countless smiths and they have passed them on to countless other smiths. Tom Clark was one of them that I saw demonstrate this for the first time. I'm sure there are videos some where out there of either Uri Hofi or Tom Clark making nails. They are doing a two-sided taper turning 1/4 turns back and forth with the hammer tilted appropriately useing the near radiused side of the flat die of a square faced hammer on the flat face of the anvil starting about an inch back from the end of the material and moving up as the taper develops which causes the material on the far side of the forging to lift up off the anvil so the heat does not get sucked away. They continue the taper saving the point for the end. This lights up the material and allows you to forge for alot longer than using flat dies with full contact.

What dies are you referring to? I only have hammer anvil and a home crafted nail header to work with. I want to get a real nail header but I am afraid finances do not permit at the moment.

[Ed Steinkirchner]

the dies he is referring to are the different working faces of the hammer and anvil, like the flat face and the rounded peen of the hammer.
also has anyone else noticed that you can actually re-heat a nail rod from dull-red to yellow by hammering quickly between quarter turns? because if that isn't normal i think my hammer is magic

Ed Steinkirchner

[pkrankow]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I68Cik7ywg

Not a joke. I tried once or twice a day, every day, for over a month. I got 1/4 inch A36 to show red heat ONCE and could not repeat it.

A36 is supposed to be too hard though, as it can have 30 points carbon. 1018 is what I am told was used in the video.

I can go get dark blue easy, every time in fact after I got the 1/4 rotation right.

Phil

[bigfootnampa]

Hammers make a difference too. My favorite for nails is a smaller cross peen made from 1" square stock. It is about 4" long overall and I have it dressed with just a slight crown and lightly rounded edges. This little hammer HITS HARD! Because it has a smaller face but a decent column of steel behind the head and because it is light so that I can swing fast I can move metal pretty quick with this. I'll use a bigger hammer for larger nails but for most of mine this hammer is less tiring to use and gets really accurate detail fast FAST. I have gotten most of mine down to two heats for the tapers and the hardy chop. I use another heat for the heads (and I like a nice big head on most of em). It seems kinda puny compared to some single heat guys I've seen on film but is a far cry from where I started (and I am rather finicky about my nails... long thin tapers and good points on em). Since quality is a bigger element for me than speed I am pleased with my nail adventures so far. The big surprise is when you find out how much better they hold than wire nails... I figure around 5 to 8 X better! JOY to your hammer!

BTW Phil I understand that it makes a neat trick for demonstrators to lay their forge fire with a little piece of paper in the kindling and light it with a rod hammered up to heat like that... kinda like magic! Drops their jaws before the fire even gets going!

[ThomasPowers]

The shades of about 3000 years of blacksmiths are now scratching their heads and saying "what do you mean that a home crafted nail header isn't a real nail header?"

Making nails is part of my intro class and we've been doing it for years with two nail headers that I forged from coil spring that were my first ones I ever made!

If you have a lot of a certain size stock it's an easy thing to make a header to fit the stock than to hunt for one that will.

[pkrankow]

A tip for making your header: Use nail stock to make a 1 use drift to size the square hole. Just quench the nail stock in cold water or even cold salt water so it is as hard as possible (the salt will lubricate it some) and use that to drift your header to size.

I made a nail from my drift since it was already tapered proper.

Phil

[Frosty]

A tip for making your header: Use nail stock to make a 1 use drift to size the square hole. Just quench the nail stock in cold water or even cold salt water so it is as hard as possible (the salt will lubricate it some) and use that to drift your header to size.

I made a nail from my drift since it was already tapered proper.

Phil

Actually salt raises water's boiling temp making it a faster quenchant.

Frosty the Lucky.

[pkrankow]

Actually salt raises water's boiling temp making it a faster quenchant.

Frosty the Lucky.

Yes, the salt in the water makes for a faster quench. The dry salt on the "drift" will help lubricate it while opening up the hole square. This is a single use tool so there is no point in cleaning it up any before using it.

Now I don't remember which direction to drift first because an hourglass shaped hole (bigger on both ends than in the middle) is desired to prevent jamming of the nails as you make them.

Phil

[edge9001]

Actually salt raises water's boiling temp making it a faster quenchant.

Frosty the Lucky.

frosty it sounds like he was saying that the salt, while allowing for a faster quench, will form a light layer on the metal and that layer of salt will act to lubricate the project for drfiting.

***edited*** see, nevermind, just ignore me.

[pkrankow]

Pictures of what others have done, and directions.
Phil