Old timey Gothic style 'Claraboya' ornament

[Frank Turley]

The claraboya is an ornament, usually repeated on Mexican grilles, gates, etc. It roughly translates as "skylight." meaning there is a four sided enclosure to it. In the pictured example is an antique grille brought stateside from Old Mexico, all linear work being seen in elevation, on the diamond. I've been able to make the ornament portion by forge welding a squared up "Y" and pulling the top branches apart at a 45 degree angle, keeping the heat at the crotch of the "Y". Then, a level-up and fine tuning. If one starts with, say, 1/2" square, one gets the vertical bars and the design element all out of 1/2" square. No splitting.

[Bentiron1946]

That sure has an elegance that you can't get from following contemporarary codes for removeability to facilatate escape in the case of fire in the house, of course when that was made they weren't so much worried about escape from fire but in keeping the bad guys from entering your house.

[HWooldridge]

Did you weld on the diamond in square swages?

[Steve McCarthy]

I saw Frank demo this in St.Louis in 2009. Great demo, great smith, great story teller.

[Frank Turley]

I've demoed this before to show how to get the thing on the diamond. In St. Louis, I already had one made up with lapped collars, but they were a booger to make because they were forged on a six sided mandrel. Whoa! Never again. The square collars were fire welded on by the old Mexican makers, probably well over 100 years ago. The pictures are of an antique grille. I would suspect that the old smiths welded with the hammer; then hot-fullered the collar designs and flatter finished. This would need to be done to dimension while the scroll stock was fairly straight. The shaping of the scrolls would have followed (I think). In any event, strikers would definitely be helpful.

To get to Wooldridge's query, no, I welded flat to flat, all squared up. I bent one piece into a tight U and scarfed the bend for a lap weld. The bottom, vertical of the Y, I upset a single bar and scarfed. The two get welded and the formerly bent piece becomes the top fork which is separated a little bit. The weld area and bases of the fork are given a bright heat and taken to the vise, fork upward. With bolt tongs, the two are pulled apart farther, BUT AT A 45 DEGREE ANGLE TO THE VISE JAW LENGTH. This is what puts the metal on the diamond. The join is trued up with a wooden or rawhide mallet on a wooden block to keep from destroying the corners of the stock.

It took a while for this method to register in my peanut brain. I stood looking at the grille and I made sketches. I took photos. I tried welding corner to corner and came up with a mess. I understand that in Spain, they did use special swages to keep the work on the diamond, but this particular grille was not made that way.


The workmanship is slightly "rough," and by that, I do not mean crude. The grille is well made and to dimension.

[HWooldridge]

Ahhhh, I get it now. I went back and looked at the pics again after reading your explanation. Utter simplicity...which is almost always the best solution. It's so much easier to perform a conventional weld and pull to an angle instead of trying to swage weld the joint.