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Got another item off the to forge list over the weekend!  forged myself a Brazeal style hot cut hardie with tapered shank and curved blade.  did most of it solo as I was starting with just 3/4" sucker rod (4130), which is not terribly difficult to forge.  had to enlist some help to forge the fullers and strike on the flatter because I ran out of hands.  it is actually as small as it looks, my anvil's hardie is 5/8" so it had to be pretty small to fit.  unfortunately because I started with a piece that I had previously squared up for an unrelated project I ended up with a much narrower waist than I had anticipated and it sits right at the lower edge of the fuller, which I don't think is ideal.  not catastrophic if I have to make another one, just more practice :)

 

still need to file the edge, and beyond making the curve uniform on the belt grinder and knocking the remnants of the previous ragged cut from the tip of the shank everything is wire wheeled as forged.

 

comments and criticism welcome, always willing to learn.  question for anyone though: what exactly is the purpose of the fuller between the top of the shank and where the blade springs? I included it largely because that's how Brian's are made, but does it have an intended function that I am overlooking?

 

 

Thanks for looking!

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got an edge on it last night, chiseled out a bur inside my hardie and filed a real minute radius on the edges.  pic shows how it sits in the hole.

 

I took a few test swings on a chunk of scrap lumber to see how it would behave in use and it locked up nicely in both directions, with no jiggle or slop.  but it was a little difficult to extract in the orientation shown in the pic, so im kind of worried the taper might be too gradual and its locking up because it sits within that fullered groove.  I will likely try forging another one with a wider shank the next time I am at open forge.

 

edit: forgot pic :)

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The hardy looks fine. You just need to forge a larger one for that anvil. The taper should be sticking above the hardy hole.

The fullering between the shank and the blade is to isolate the material so that it is easier to forge the blade. The same concept is applied to forge a hammer. The fullering between the cheeks and the faces isolate material and allows you to work without hammering or gouging into the forging on the other side of the fuller line, and you can just forge the other side of the fullering or in between them in the case of a hammer.

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thank you brian!  I will forge a fresh one the next time I am at the forge and use new stock so I can get the full width out of it.

 

thank you for the info on the fuller as well, I will keep that in mind for future application to other projects!

 

I appreciate you taking the time to look and respond :)

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The hardy looks fine. You just need to forge a larger one for that anvil. The taper should be sticking above the hardy hole.

The fullering between the shank and the blade is to isolate the material so that it is easier to forge the blade. The same concept is applied to forge a hammer. The fullering between the cheeks and the faces isolate material and allows you to work without hammering or gouging into the forging on the other side of the fuller line, and you can just forge the other side of the fullering or in between them in the case of a hammer.

 

Brian, newbie here...

 

Thanks for explaining the fullering on the hammers and hardie.

 

I always thought it was just for cosmetic purposes.  The way I hammer, the fullering to isolate the material is a great concept!

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same here Arkie, not quite lightning, but far from dead-eye yet!

 

I believe fullering on a hammer also serves to increase the distance from eye to striking face, or striking face to opposite striking face without the added weight of all that metal that would have occupied the groove, allowing you to have a longer hammer for less weight.

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its definitely on the list, but it will be some time before things settle enough for me to escape that many states over for a meaningful length of time =/

 

He travels, put the bug in CBA's ear. He came to Alaska and we're farther west than you are. I was still too messed up from the accident to be able to spend much quality time at the anvil but just watching showed me things I'd never thought of. Just his method of drawing a taper is a pure gold labor saver, start to finish.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

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  • 1 month later...

a little behind with posting my new material, but got to forge the larger version two weeks ago, got an edge on it this weekend and had to file a small hump out of one face of the taper to get it to sit right without wobbling.  first shows how the new one sits in use, second is both side by side (new one on the left).  not sure what to do with the old one, contemplating making it into a handled top hot cut but I think the shank is too small for that to be done very well.  might be able to harden it and regrind to be a cold chisel.

 

anyway, both are from the same 3/4" round sucker rod stock (4130), no special steps given to heat treatment, just as forged and allowed to air cool after the last swing.

 

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thanks, that would probably be the best solution.  gotta buy some rod or forge something equivalent from 1/4 square or something.  would you do anything to try and prevent it from rattling or otherwise being loose in the loop or am I inventing phantom problems again?

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Actually you are taking a valuable feature and discussing how to get rid of it.  Top tooling is generally made with some give to the system so it doesn't transmit shock to the person holding it.  So for wooden handled examples they are generally left unwedged and you reset them every so often, (bumping the handle end on the anvil stump)  If you wrap your rod *hot* a couple of turns, (even better if you have a shallow fuller for it to bed in) and then give it a couple of twists to tighten it up you should be good to go. The other end of the handle can be as you like it.

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true, thank you.  I guess I was thinking too much about if there was too much slop which could lead to offcentered blows causing the blade to skip and the handle to bend.  there is an existing fuller from the forging where I would wrap it so that should work nicely :)

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