How many things can be made from a RR spike, and still be recognized as a RR spike

Anything you can leave the head on. How good is your imagination is the real question.

Frosty The Lucky.

Knives, Forks, Axes, Coat hooks, Fire pokers, Figurines, are the obvious ones but as Frosty said almost anything you can imagine. 

Only one thing and still look like a railroad spike---a railroad spike.

Now, recognized as made from a railroad spike---what Frosty said.  

I saw an interesting RR spike implement somewhere on the web the other day.  The head had the usual twisted handle but the rest was split in two and drawn out into two claws.  It was a garden cultivator, something I wouldn't have thought of.

I wouldn't know about garden tools the last time I tried gardening I got arrested,never again!

that because ya forgot to get the growers permit Duck.

Edited March 11, 201511 yr by Steve Sells

Being in Colorado all kinds of herbaceous gardening won't bring me any problems.

Hmm...wonder if you could forge with charred hemp stalks. Apparently hemp is pretty much good for everything .

With proper credit to the Kootenay Blacksmiths Association.  I keep a print of this out in the smithy for inspiration.

The Dragonfly is awesome, how do you think they cut that prior to forging? If you cut down the length on 2 sides, that would be 4 pieces for the wings, but how did they get the body? Maybe cut twice down on side and then cut only 1/2 of those the other way? Hmmm, I'll have to think about that...

And what is that in the upper right?

when I've done dragonflys I'll hacksaw down from one end at an angle, the wider end of the cut leaves more material for the wings. That wide section is then bent up out of the way of the "tail" and, after it cools off, sawn in half again to make the two sides of the wings.  I've seen guys do it with a thin hot cut chisel but I have to use the saw.

Upper right is a small post vice. 

I have experimented wit drawing them out to make steel axe and hammer handles ala Eastwing. With scales and using the head as a heal cap. 

i love the garden tools 

_{what I like about rr spikes is it helps you learn how much material you have and how far it will go, and they are dirt cheep to play around with .}

why was the print so small ?

 

Edited March 12, 201511 yr by winginit

for me, its about the perfect amount of material for making very handy small tongs !  i usually nip the head off the spike but i guess you can leave it at the end of the rein, if you want to show its origin

 

very useful material

Gardening tools?

for me, its about the perfect amount of material for making very handy small tongs !  i usually nip the head off the spike but i guess you can leave it at the end of the rein, if you want to show its origin

 

very useful material

​wow that's great I didn't think they would go the far . I have yet to make a set of tongs guess I am chicken .I know they will be ugly .

You want pretty tongs? Good luck with that.

Frosty The Lucky.

there is a great Bill Epps set of scrolling tongs made from rail road spikes

Bolt tongs are already on the list I see. But here's my version of bolt tongs from (2) railroad spikes.

 

 

An old friend of mine asked me to make a rail spike knife for him, I normally tell people that I don't make knives so this is my first. I don't have the experience and materials to make what I would consider a proper knife so I told him its more for the look. 

frozenforge good job that knife looks great !!

Technicus, thanks for sharing that video! A local blacksmith just told me about it this past weekend, and I'm looking at attempting this when I fire up the forge this weekend (need a set that's a bit more reliable for spikes).

Frozenforge, that's a really awesome handle. Care to share how it was done for us newbies?

 

As for the original topic: the others already put in a lot of good details. My wife found that a number of people make hatchets and gardening tools, so she's been pestering me to get more practice in to make these things. I've seen some snakes, wall/coat hooks, and I might be using spikes to make handles for my tool stump.

Research a staircase twist, Im sure there are some videos on the internet.

There is a video on Youtube showing how to do that twist that explains each step. 

Search " Rubix Cube twist blacksmith " will pull up a few. 

Also check out " Pineapple Twist Blacksmith" also, that one is pretty cool as well and the guy shows how to do it very clearly.

I have yet to try either one, but that is due to my complete lack of being able to hot cut anything even remotely straight, Need to work on that skill first...