Need Help with Wizard bottle Opener

[Chris Covington]

I am relatively new to blacksmithing and I am currently working my way through The Fundamentals of Blacksmithing by Mark Aspery.  I have been working on making the wizard bottle opener in his book and have done ok except for one part that I cannot for the life of me to get it to look right.   The problem I am having is when it calls for a half hammer face blow with the bottom edge of the eye socket just on the anvil to set the nose.  I usually end up flattening the nose or creating a line across the bottom of the socket.  Do any of you have an alternate way to make the nose or any tips or tricks?  I have used up multiple 2 1/2 foot sections of 1/2 inch square just trying to practice that step but with no success.  Attached are a few of my attempts..  Thanks in advance  

 

[Dale M.]

Looks fine to me.... At some point you have to accept the metal is not always going to do what you want it to do and move on.... May be next one will be more to your liking.... I'm just happy if item halfway resembles something I see in pics and it is "recognizable" by others at this time...

 

Dale

[Chinobi]

for an alternate method i suppose you could make a sort of butcher or set hammer (dont kill me if im calling it the wrong thing please!).  that way you can leave the stock flat on the anvil and manually place your indent and really be able to keep an eye one where it end up.  Taking a stab at what could be contributing to the line:

it looks like you might be punching the eye sockets a little deeper than they need to be, which means you have to chase your nose down further and you end up pushing up a large ridge around the outside of the eyes

mostly based on the first one, and it could just be a trick of the light, it looks like you raised the angle up when you hammered in the nose transition, seems like theres a steeper groove right under the nose than a little ways down the beard

 

here are 3 of my first 4 wizards that i made in Mark's mastering the fundamentals class last november, didnt get a pic of the 4th.  i actually have the opposite problem, i tended to set my nose too low, leaving a wide flat schnozz.  you can also see the brassed one in progress and the very first (incomplete) one i started.

 

i wish i had my copy of Mark's book with me but i swapped it out so i cant check.  try and aim to eliminate the little raised triangular 'cheek bone', for lack of a better description, by varying the angle and placement of your socket punching.  that little triangle is difficult to chase down when flattening for the nose and contributes heavily to the appearance of a well defined nose line.

 

good luck!

 

edit:

you can see also i ended up with a more defined nose line on the shined up one, notice also the presence of those triangular 'cheek bones'

[rthibeau]

jeremyk has them wizard heads down pat...hopefully he will jump in here and give you some pointers.... :)

[jeremy k]

Trauma - as youve found out, there is a fine line of placement of where you set your piece to isolate the nose area. It starts with the eye sockets, they need to be as close to side by side as possible - this helps keep the nose more symmetrical. When setting the nose i take a good heat, and put head on the edge of the anvil so the side and bottom of the eye socket is on the edge as a reference, then roll it so the face is down and at a right angle from the edge, now give 1 good half on/half off hammer blow to set the bottom of the nose, another hit or 2 may be needed to get desired depth. Good luck... just takes some practice