February 14, 201313 yr Made this for the wife for Valentine's Day. First attempt at a heart, Brian Brazeal style. 5/16 rod finished with Murphy's. http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/36785-heart/ I was just getting started smithing 5 years ago when we got married. Then we had to move into the city so the smithing tools went into storage. Now we finally got a nice place out in the country with a pole barn for me to "play" :wub: . Hoping to finally get into this and learn to forge!
February 14, 201313 yr Good move. Keep the wife happy and everybody's happy ;) Nice heart. They are certainly addictive.
February 15, 201313 yr Greetings youngun Happy wife happy life..... Remind her of the nice things you make when you invest in some new bs stuff.... It worked for me... Jim
February 15, 201313 yr Author Thanks for the kind words everyone! My wife loved it. Thank you Brian for the videos you have put out. It is a big help for a beginner like me to be able to see the work you're doing up close on the anvil. Question on the tapers. The flats got a little twisted drawing out the tapers. After watching Brian's video again I don't think I was rotating the steel between strikes correctly. Does this sound right?
February 15, 201313 yr Question on the tapers. The flats got a little twisted drawing out the tapers. After watching Brian's video again I don't think I was rotating the steel between strikes correctly. Does this sound right? When you are going square and you strike off 90° (flat), the sides will shift and you'll end up with a slanted parallelagram cross-section instead of true square. You need to watch it and correct it quickly. The worse it gets, the worse it gets. You can correct back to square by hitting it on the corner. Like a lot of things, the smaller the stock the more tedious this is to manage. Do about 100 of 'em and it'll begin to fall into place ;)
February 21, 201313 yr Author Thanks Don that helped a lot! Made another one last night and it looks better. I'll upload a pic when I get home.
February 22, 201313 yr Author Made another heart and it turned out a little cleaner and flatter. Didn't get the two sides the same length so I guess I need to find something on the anvil to do a quick measure to get them the same. http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/36859-heart-and-leaf/ I also made a couple leaves. The one in the middle was my first attempt. It's a pretty sad looking little leaf, I tried to jazz it up a little with some burnishing but there's no helping that thing LOL. One on the right was my second attempt and came out a little better.
March 5, 201313 yr Looks good, sweet and very thoughtful. Like the leaves too, you are on to a great start on creating more projects.
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