ptree Posted October 15, 2012 Share Posted October 15, 2012 Saturday Octerber 13th the Brotherhood of Friendly Hammermen, demonstrated for the public, in Cannelton Indiana at their Heritage Festival the making of a split cross made from 3" square stock. The billet weighed about 75#, was heated in a forge made for the job, forged on a sledging anvil made from a forged 4140 rough terrain earthmover axle. Used about 75# of coal, had as many as 6 persons (Yes we slipped Donna Kunkler into the team for one round of striking) and took about 3 hours, As the sledges sturk in rythem, the crowd moved to watch. We noticed that as the billet was heated the crowd would shift away. I did notice that some had the timeing down and would reapear about the time the billet came out of the forge:) The finished cross was donated to the Cannelton Heritage foundation, who sponsered us. They also saved us by providing 2 cases of cold bottled water and that was near gone in 3 hours! We recruited several for the Southern Indiana Meteorite Mashers the parent group of our little Brotherhood. We have yet another big cross to finish at Beck's Mill on Oct 27th at the bean soup dinner and festival there. We only have stock left for a few more of these crosses and so we have begun discussions amongst the brotherhood of what the next project shall be. A bearded dragon from 4" stock has been mentioned:) Ohh and by the way we had a real ball in a truely fine heritage festival on the Ohio River in a quaint town, that really likes blacksmiths. They invited us back next year and asked if we could bring more blacksmiths as they would like us to fill a city block! And note that the BFH's use sledges to touchmark, as the iron is sooo big:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
781 Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Show offs. Congradulations. I saw the one in the gallery at SOFA Great work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
george m. Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 A couple of technical questions: How did you split the billet? Did you bring it to the demo pre-split or was that part of the demo? How did you open the splits once it was hot? Wedges? I can see hitting it on the back to open it once it was at 90 degrees or so but how did you get the first part of the opening done? Thanks. George M. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten Hammers Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Nice work Ptree. Some serious heat and some serious forging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptree Posted October 16, 2012 Author Share Posted October 16, 2012 Answers: The billet was sawn out by Steve King, the tallest guy in the photo. We spead the arms by first using a hot cut hammered into the splits to start them. Then used long tools that have pockets to slip over the arms, made by Dave Kunkler. Once mostly open, we used a stand made by Dave kunkler to hold one arm of the cross as we adjusted the arms to true. e then leveled the arms on an add-on anvil top that is about 16" diameter and 8" thick by sledging, anvil top made by Jason Hardin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Gaddis Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 I gladly say this is one very impressive project that was carried out in style. Congrats to yall "smiths" carry on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigfootnampa Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 That looks like lots of fun! One technical question: who are those guys (in the picture)? I like this concept... blacksmithing teams as performance art... and not just for other smiths but for the public! Event managers would love this I think! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptree Posted October 16, 2012 Author Share Posted October 16, 2012 We had Dave Kunkler, Steve King and myself as the founding members of the BFH's, with Dave's Brother Bill joining in and Jeff the Welder from Cannelton also joining. In fact Bill Kunklers 2 small sons cranked the forge for much of the day. The event manager has asked us to return next year with more and bigger. We might be induced to do this as a demo at Tipton Indiana for the IBA conference or who knows? Steve King observed that we really needed 3 crosses, 3 forges and 3 teams to keep the crowd fully engaged as the heating was not very entertaining. But it was a real hoot for us as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 Notice the "anvil" they are using! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptree Posted October 16, 2012 Author Share Posted October 16, 2012 It just illustrates that an anvil does not have to look like a London pattern anvil to work. That is a rough forging from the upsetter shop I used to work at. about 20" flange on the end that makes it very stable, and it has almost all of the weight directly under the hammer. These are aerospace grade 4140, and I took some to Quad State to sell. No interest at $50 for a 250#+ and $70 for a 454#. Now that I no longer work there of course everyone wants one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HWooldridge Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 I made a Friedrich-style split cross from 1" stock at the Texas Folklife Festival in San Antonio one year - with no assistance. It was quite the PITA to split it hot and took over an hour to finish. None of the crowd hung around from start to finish but the people who were there to see it actually open up into the "+" shape were the only ones who eventually understood what I was making...I nearly killed myself with heat exhaustion that day - it was in August and we had no shade. You guys did a great job - the mass is impressive! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptree Posted October 16, 2012 Author Share Posted October 16, 2012 Oops, left out Jason Hardin a founding member of the BFH's, he was there and on the crew. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry H Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 you guys sound about as crazy as me, "why would you do that ? "..... because we can ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 like the fellow shown in Sachse's book making 1 tonne pattern welded billets? (or pretty much any smith who's doing bloomery smelting!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptree Posted October 18, 2012 Author Share Posted October 18, 2012 Crazy, Maybe. But the good fellowship, the learning as we get better, and the shear joy in making something that people enjoy is the actual answer to why. And we like a challange. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkunkler Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Here is a photo of the base fixture and one of the bender bars we used. Once the blank was up to working temp, the long leg was lowered into the hole in the base and the split was started with a handled hot cut. The bars were then slid onto the arms and bent open to about 90 degrees of each other. Next the bars were used alternately on the top/bottom and arms to open the rest of the way.The base and bars were finally used to get the cross square and straight. You can see the bender bars are angle iron with round pipe added on. On the first cross we did we didn't have the pipe extensions and I imagine it was somewhat comical to watch us struggle with it. We had plenty of help, but you can get only so many men at the end of a 4 foot piece of angle iron. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptree Posted October 19, 2012 Author Share Posted October 19, 2012 Dave's Bend jig reduced the time to open and align the arms by maybe an hour. Trying to hammer align a cross this big was not very effective. Comical it was, and I was one of the comic's :) Every member of the BFH's has contributed to making the tooling and the how to on these big crosses. The founding members: Jason Hardin Steve King Dave Kunkler Jeff Reinhardt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Johnnie Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 That is impressive! I love doing them out of 12mm or 1/2" square bar but that is nuts! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptree Posted November 7, 2012 Author Share Posted November 7, 2012 Johnie, we just had a wild hair when Steve King found a hunk of 2.25"(57.15mm) square and he cut it out and bingo. We had a lot of fun doing that one and then moved to 3" square (76.2mm). We have now done 4 of these and plan a few more. Then who knows, we will maybe step up to a new project. Great fun, great fellowship in our crew, and the public loves the team striking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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