I'm a farrier more than a blacksmith, but wondered what you might think of some recent door hardware i made.

The hardware looks great.  My only suggestion is to paint the screw heads black to match the iron.  Or use brass screws. 

Thanks, my dilemma there was to make the screws conspicuous or to blend in. You're probably right - a bit of black paint.

Jack,

Bob out thescrew holes with a small ball peen so that the screws are flush. Otherwise it all look good.

Peter

The hardware looks great IMO, but have to agree with Jim, the screw heads aren't quite right. I have only made 1 similar set of hardware, but I used standard plain hex head bolts that I heated in the forged and the square up the heads and finished the same as the hardware.

Greetings Jack,

 

A simple and useful answer is to use square nuts behind the screws....

 

Forge on and make beautiful things

Jim

 

 

A minor change would be to bend the end of the latch out at 90* to give the user something to grab to lift the latch.

As said, looks good except for screws,

 

It appears you have a peg fitted to lift it with, does this pass through the door so it can be opened from the other side if it happens to close behind you?

very nice. as above. I heat my screws in the forge on a piece of small channel iron so I don't lose them. then either wire brush and finish with hot oil or reforge a bit.

keep it up! pretty soon the only shoeing you will be doing is shoeing them away!! been there done that!

I think your more blacksmith than farrier, lol. If your trims and shoes look half that good I'd let you work on my stock.

Thanks, Charles. and John B and George M, there is a peg through the door to lift the latch from either side. Hard to see in the first pictures.

I have no picture but what I do is to take a small bolt, heat the head and pound it until it looks like hand made nail head. Then I use washer and nut on the back side. In this case, when the nut is visible, I would make a square nut like the one shown but threaded of course - or I would countersink the nut and make a spiked flat ornament to cover it. 

Nice looking furniture by the way. I wish I could do something like that myself on the "barn door" I have on my newly erected smithy. However, the doors open outwards and I want the "lock" to be on the inside.

Cheers

Göte 

Well done!

Thank you

Nice work. The older Suffolk latches had a minimum of two holes per cusp, more often three. This was to prevent excessive sideways pull over time thus loosening the whole thing. I've pictured a Rhode Island latch to show this. It is not my work.

The latch Frank Turley posted a pic. of is amazing to me in the level of finish. Is it the result of a lot of filing or grinding ? 

I purchased the latch set recently. It is truly well forged. I think the grip was run through a shallow swage before bending. I'm guessing that some of the work is file finished, then possibly reheated to a blood red and wire brushed. I've seen some of Peter Ross' latches, and they are similar in appearance to this one. The cusps and thumb piece are quite thin.