Hmmm bottle openers

[coldironkilz]

[SoCal Dave]

unique design.  Nice braiding on the handle.  How does it work?  

[Viktor Robert Bederka]

beatifull shapes Sir :) 

[beammeupscotty]

I realize that these threads are typically back patting sessions but I am going to break that trend and tell you what I actually think.  

 

First of a ll, I am a big fan of mixing metals.  It often really highlights the intrinsic beauty of the materials but in the case of this bottle opener it doesn't work for me.  I don't think the addition of copper really adds anything at all to the design.  Regarding the design, that doesn't really work for me either.  I have made quite a few bottle openers in the last couple months, many of them "open loop" style, like yours.  The problem I have with your design is that it is what I call, "inelegant".  I have seen minimalist takes on the open loop bottle opener that really works but for me, yours doesn't.  It does not strike me as minimalist, it just looks crude.  That failing is aggravated by the fact that your piece is overworked.  The surface is tortured as a result of too many heats or from beating scale into the surface of the metal.

 

At the risk of appearing to toot my own horn, here is an opener that I made fairly early on in my opener making binge.  Note the reasonably smooth surface texture and the taper that is not foreshortened like yours is.  Curves are usually your friend and adding some curves to your piece would improve it's overall look.

 

[

 

As I continued to explore the open loop approach to openers I found that it lacked the three point contact, self aligning function that a closed loop opener has.  I modified the open loop to add much more curvature to it such that i was able to get the unique open loop look while still getting the three point, self aligning mechanics of a closed loop opener.  This was the shape I finally settled on:

 

 

The loop on this design comes around so far that it essentially works like a fully closed loop opener.   The extremely curvy nature of the piece imparts some organic feeling to the opener.  Though the "S" scroll at the end of the loop doesn't add a thing in terms of function, it further emphasizes the organic feeling.  The stacked reversing twists in the handle complete the overall impression of plasticity.  Finally, the reasonably smooth surface texture does not detract from the piece, where the heavily damaged surface of yours really bugs me as a blacksmith.  Possibly someone without any knowledge of the craft might not find that distracting.  

 

My intent in this post is not to pat myself on the back, insult you or to imply that I am any better than you are.  My impression is that you are fairly new to blacksmithing and I am attempting to do for you, what my instructor did for me when I was starting out.  I was taught the basics by an old industrial smith and his way was to be brutally honest about the work I was doing.  I don't think there was a single project I ever did for his class that he did not find some aspect that could have been improved.  Rather than taking this as a personal affront I always took it as constructive and a challenge to do even better the next time.  He is the one who got me thinking about all the aspects of a piece, even a piece of work as simple as a bottle opener.  Function, execution, aesthetics and surface.  These are all things you should be thinking about as you design and make a piece of iron work.  

 

I hope you take these comments in the spirit they were intended.  I also hope you will excuse me if some of my language is a little awkward.  I screwed my back up recently and am rather high on Vicodin right now.

[Dan C]

Very nice beammeupscotty and this forum should be a place where honesty is valued.  If not how else can you improve?  How did you get the dice to be copper?  I'm assuming you didn't just wire brush them w/ a brass brush.

[ThomasPowers]

I'd think I'd sell the original poster's version as combination hoofpick and bottle opener.  Would probably sell to the rodeo crowd...

[beammeupscotty]

Very nice beammeupscotty and this forum should be a place where honesty is valued.  If not how else can you improve?  How did you get the dice to be copper?  I'm assuming you didn't just wire brush them w/ a brass brush.

The overall color comes from cleaning the opener back to bright metal then heating with a propane torch until the color comes up.  In the case of this piece, I heated the dice until they reached a deep straw color while the rest of the piece was heated until dark blue.  

 

I appreciate that you understood my intent in critiquing the OP's work and hope he does as well.  

[John McPherson]

BMUscotty, that was well-spoken and I did not take it to be mean-spirited in any way. I hope that the original poster takes it in the positive manner it was offered.

[coldironkilz]

beammeupscotty,

 

I find your criticism of my work to be most rewarding and challenging, thank you very much. After ruminating on your comments for a while, I employed myself in one of the most enjoyable days in the forge that I have had in a while. Mixing metals is a new interest of mine. I have dedicated some hours to that interest and have concluded that the addition of other metals would work best as a highlight or they become the center point serving only as a distraction or outright indignant.

 

I have noticed for some time now that the surface of my work was looking, as you put it "tortured". I shall put the wire brush to more frequent use from this day forward. I might also mention not as an excuse but as an instructional thought that the face of my anvil has multitudes of micro pits as do the business ends of the "old" hammers I am currently using. 

 

I used your bottle opener design as a test piece when I returned to the forge. I added one element, that being, the fullering of two opposing flats. I found the test to be quite exhilarating, as I mentioned earlier. I discovered several things about the finished piece; 1. my fuller needs some tweaking, 2. my twisting iron marred the work, needs more radius at the pressure point 3. my anvil face and hammer face still impressing my metal, this is a problem. 

 

I offer for your judgment and that of the greater community of iforgeiron these two images (front and back view) of my latest bottle opener.  

 

regards,

 

Smiley

 

 

 

  

[Dan C]

Wow, the difference is night and day, the new one looks fantastic!!!

[the iron dwarf]

pits in hammers and anvil with heal with use, you grind and polish you hammer but dont grind an anvil, if you want a smooth surface to hammer on to finish things you can make a hardy tool that is just flat on top or use a separate block of steel, a piece of rail can often be found and it will have a reasonably flat top with a few radiuses and curves too

[beammeupscotty]

I agree with Dan C, the difference is like night and day. This is very much improved. It is better in pretty much every way. Even the quality of the surface is much better.

I don't know if it is just a function of the photograph, or if your handle is not quite straight. When you are doing any sort of twist it is easy to end up a little crooked when you are finished twisting. It is even more common when doing stacked reversing twists. It is fairly easy to straighten your work using a hardwood mallet and a stump. I do it with the work still red hot, using the stump as an anvil. I just hold a chunk of hardwood in my hand as the hammer. It doesn't take a lot of force to straighten when the work is still hot. Using wood will avoid damaging the ridges of the twist.

I cannot see the damage done by your twisting wrench in the photo. What are you using? The wrench that I use is a modified monkey wrench, which should not be confused with a modern pipe wrench. I added a second handle welded to the top jaw and find it works quite well. One way to avoid that sort of problem is to leave the handle long and cut it to length after you have finished all your twisting. That way if you only put your wrench on the part that will be cut off, you will never mar the finished piece.

Thanks for taking my comments in a positive manner, as they were intended. Thanks even more for taking them to heart and producing such a greatly improved piece of work. It really makes going to the trouble of writing a critique worthwhile.

[Dan C]

You can always use your vise to straighten the handle as needed.

[beammeupscotty]

Just for clarification, here is a pic of my twisting wrench.  These are pretty commonly used by blacksmiths, the idea is not original. This is made from an actual "monkey wrench".  Here is a pic from wiki showing a monkey wrench along side a pipe wrench, also called a Stilson Wrench.

 

And here is a modified monkey wrench for use on twists.  These wrenches are commonly available at flea markets for just a couple dollars.

 

[coldironkilz]

Ya gotta love iforgeiron don't cha. Begging your patience for just one more moment, I don't actually know how to do the stacked reverse twist. What do I mean by that, well, I had never done one before. I wasn't sure how to execute the twist. What I did was lock the piece in the vice made an isolated heat of about one inch with the torch then twisted about 190 degrees. Moved the piece down into the vice about an inch took another isolated heat and twisted in the opposite direction about 190 degrees and so on until I reach the point where I intended to stop. Now that may have worked but, that seemed like the hard way or the wrong way. I would like to learn how to do that twist the right way.

[beammeupscotty]

You have the gist of it. I do it with an oxy acetylene torch. It gives more control over where the heat goes and you dont have to keep moving the piece in the vise. I have been playing around with reversing twists lately. You should try it using a different twist for the right and left twists, that is to say,do 180 degrees right twist, then do 90 degrees left, then 180 degrees right etc. If you leave the handle long, you can cut off anything that gets marred by your wrench.

[coldironkilz]

Sure! I'll give that a try. A problem I did encounter on the one practice piece I ran was, enough residual heat remained in the previous twist that succeeding twists were untwisting previous twists, which is why I kept moving the piece down into the vise jaws. Also I will build a twisting wrench like the one you use. I used an adjustable wrench, not good unless the angles are modified.

[beammeupscotty]

That residual heat is one reason we keep and use a slack tub. Mine is in between my forge and my vise and i have a dipper right there as well which is used to keep the coal burn rate where i want it, but it is also quite handy to scoop a bit of water up to quickly pour over the twists i just completed so i can better isolate the heat to the next section. Learn to use that water as another tool at your forge. I am lucky in that i have a pretty traditional forge floor of dirt and woodchips. A bit of sloshed water is no problem. It just soaks into the ground. Using a bit of water and the torch with a medium welding tip in it you can pretty much start and stop your twists where ever you want. For bottle openers that i will be twisting the handle on, i mostly use 5-16th or 3-8th material. For Rubiks type twists i normally use 1-2 inch square at the handle.

[coldironkilz]

Well after the last post from beammeupscotty, I knew I needed to make some tools. As I wanted to continue to fuller on opposite flats, I worked on that tool first. I decided I would modify a small ball peen hammer I had laying around. Then I needed to modify a small monkey wrench I had, to be used as a twisting wrench. It was locked up with rust so after I got it functional I made an additional handle for it. Next, the new tools need to be tested.

[beammeupscotty]

I have to say, if you put the bottle opener you initially posted in this thread along side this one, I would never suspect they were made by the same person with such a short time between the production of the two pieces.  Very nice job!   

 

The only thing I would suggest you might think more about is the way you finish of the end of the handle.  It is a little difficult to tell exactly what you have done on this last piece, but at least from the pics it appears to be a bit awkward.  When I do this sort of twist on a bottle opener, I just carefully cut it off with a hacksaw at the end of the twist, then remove the saw cut marks and round the bottom up slightly with either a belt sander or with a flap wheel on a side grinder….then I refine it a little more with some finer grit sandpaper by hand. Unless you have a specific function in mind for that little tab at the end of the handle, I would suggest you get rid of it.

 

 

Also, I do not understand exactly what  you are doing with the fuller down opposite flats.  If you are fullering down the length of the handle on opposite sides, I don't quite understand why.  It is not necessary aesthetically for the twist to look good.

[coldironkilz]

beammeupscotty,
On this opener, I cut the handle butt off with a hot cut then cleaned and made safe the sharp edges with a file. It does appeal to me as does the handle end in your pic above. With regard to the fullering of the two opposite flats on my version, that also appeals to me. The stacked reverse twist has in its outcome a quality of rippleing water and the fuller on opposite flats accentuates that quality in my mind. It does add an additional step not to mention four more heats if you count both flats. It is the way I want to make it for now. Perhaps after I've executed this twist many more times, I may change my mind. I am going to try the 180x90 twist you mentioned.
I have been considering the design of three versions of bottle opener, developing those to a level of satisfaction. Your critiques have taught me to view my forging with a more critical eye.


regards, Smiley