Old forged door pull

[elmoleaf]

The rasp door pull thread make me think you might be interested in this old forged pull.

I found it with a metal detector years ago, so it's a bit corroded. It's rigged up on an ugly hollow core door. The backplate holes are somewhat irregular, as well as the circular corner cut-outs. The pull seems to be wrought iron, upset at each end near the back plate. How would the round center ball have been made...some sort of swage?

It's marked B. DAVIES   ALL WROUGHT IRON WARRANTED

Here is a picture of the back. It's interesting how the thumb lever is pinned on those two little ears. I'm guessing maybe the smith put a hole through the backplate, then made separate pieces for the ears...each notched top/bottom to the thickness of the backplate? Then they could be wiggled diagonal thru the hole and crimped down onto the backplate?  The pointed end (not in photo) of the thumb latch is very sharp!

[2ballcain357]

I am fairly new at all this but i am wondering as well how the ball was formed... Seems to me there would have to be extra material in the center of the round bar before using a swage. And that brings up a question as well..... I have never seen a piece of stock upset in the middle..only on the ends. Is that even possible? Might have to try and find out.

Awesome find by the way. Large pieces like this one are always fun to dig out of the ground. Were you detecting around an old house elmo?

[Charles R. Stevens]

You certainly can upset a peice of stock in the middle, just isolate the heat in the middle

[2ballcain357]

Charles, I am going to mess around with that... Like I said I have really only seen and tried upsetting on the ends of stock. therfor have never really gave it much thought till know, thanks

[Frosty]

Sure, upsetting in the middle isn't really much worse than upsetting on the ends, it's all upsetting you know.

 

The maker's mark on the other hand leads me to believe it's commercially made, eg. closed die forging. Regardless it's an excellent find. Have you been back with the detector? That might be some good hunting.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[anvil]

I've made those, or similar and do not upset. the ball in the center is the size of the parent stock. also the same size as the ends. then forge a tenon on each end. once you do your initial layout they are quick to make. special tooling depends on how much production you do. for one off, or to do a set for cabinetry(or doors) I file finish the details instead of making a top & bottom tool.

my tenoning tool works great to draw out the arms

I'm talking about the pull. I have done this style, or similar, for cabinets and doors,,, but a bit larger parent stock. for doors.

[SJS]

just because it was a commodity product, probably from England, doesn't mean it wasn't produced in a small shop with less than modern techniques...  Donald Streeter in "Professional Smithing" shows forge welding a collar and then using a spring swage, or set of bottom and top tools to do pieces like this.  Lots of stuff was forge welded together, especially back at that time and in wrought iron. Modern smiths OFTEN go out of our way to avoid having to do a forge weld, at this time forge welds were everywhere...

[ausfire]

Nice find. Deserves a better door.

[Frank Turley]

I googled 'Norfolk thumb latch' and found lots of good photos of your style latch at 'Robinson's Antiques.' This style is given the name 'Norfolk' if it is constructed with a backplate and separate handle tenoned on. Nowadays, lots of us plug weld.

 

The so-called Suffolk thumb latch differed in that the two cusps, thumb piece boss, and handle were forged of one piece.

[elmoleaf]

I dug this up about 25 years ago....went back once or twice but never found anything similar. Typically metal detecting is about looking for non-ferrous stuff....coins, jewelry...not the rusty stuff.

An identical B Davies latch was recently listed on ebay....but didn't sell. This one was found in Mass, the ebay listing was from Pennsylvania I think.

Definitely some sort of production piece, versus a one-off.

Thanks for all the info.

[Judson Yaggy]

Shane's right, a lot of them were forge welded together for the center "ball", and were made in production shops first in England and then in the eastern USA once we built up enough of an industrial base.  Peter Ross and others talk about this in their demos (if you ever get a chance to see Peter work jump on it!)  There must be tens or hundreds of thousands of them east of the Mississippi, when you find them in flea markets and antique stores flip them over and look at the back side.  Sometimes if there is not too much paint or rust you can see the forge weld joints and riveted tennons like Streeter describes in his book.  

 

Cast parts started to creep into the later versions, I recall seeing ones that all parts save the screws and pins were cast.