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Asymmetrical Fuller/Pein???

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Hey everyone, I am not yet a 'smith, still working up things for a forge. Which should be finished this week hopefully... 

Anyhow, my question is this: has anyone ever made either a fullering tool or pein on a hammer that was asymmetrical? As in having one shoulder or radius of the pein sharper than the other, and more gently sloping to allow it to move the metal in mostly one direction only? 

This may be completely unnecessary, and if so, feel free to tell me lol... Just sat here this evening and thought it could be useful at times if it would work...

I'm not clear about what you mean by asymmetrical. Do you mean like a conic section? curved, wavy, ?

A straight or cross pein draws steel in two directions like a wedge. Rather than moving it in 2 dimensions it moves it primarily in one.

There are as many shaped dies as there are imaginations coming up with them.

A drawing of what you have in mind would help. There is another tried and true old trick for experimenting with these things. Whittle one out of wood, just a model is fine and give it a try on clay. Modeling clay works a treat, you can even experiment with pattern development for billet welds.

Frosty The Lucky.

Or perhaps like a french crosspeen?  If you wanted a conical peen you could do quite a bit just by angling the hammer so one side goes deeper; perhaps easier with a straight peen; but I've done it to make curved pieces before.

IE: French Pattern cross pien.  It may move material one way more than the other, but not by much. How you swing will have more of an effect me thinks. 

I'm guessing here but I think the OP is asking about a straight peen that varies in radius from one side to the other - so you get more spread across the larger radius.

Edited by HWooldridge

I just have differing hammers; my favorite is an old one where the peen looks almost like a 1" diameter rod was welded on.  Using that and the anvil horn I can move a lot of metal!

  • Author

I'm guessing here but I think the OP is asking about a straight peen that varies in radius from one side to the other - so you get more spread across the larger radius.

Yes sir, that was my original thinking... Again, haven't had opportunity to test the theory, but I appreciate the discussion guys!

  • Author

I suppose we'll when ya put it like that... It does kinda sound like putting the horse in the cart and trying to pull it to town by hand lol

When the question is has anyone ever made... the answer is almost always yes. Whether it was worth making is another matter.

Not to mention that I have reground a fuller on one side when there was a nasty chip there so I got a "combo die" effect.  Didn't like it as much as my wide diameter fuller; but it could be that I just don't do a lot of a process that would profit from using it.

Just penned a scholarly treatise on the subject of "specialized tools", ... only to have it vanish into the vast maw of ....................

It's becoming tiresome ..........

 

.

Edited by SmoothBore

  • Author

*Knocks on wood....

 

Luckily, I haven't encountered the Forbidden issue yet... 

 

Thanks again to everyone for your responses.

Luckily, I haven't encountered the Forbidden issue yet... 

Just a matter of time....

shaping corners and edges down in a recess require tools with odd shapes due to the angles and off-centre hammer blows and plenty of mental agility is also needed.

Edited by yahoo2

  • 1 month later...

I've seen power hammer tools somewhat like you're describing.  As a matter of fact I went digging in my folder of E-books that I downloaded for free from google books and have already read (still a lot more to read) and found a perfect example. It is a side fuller, pictured in Forge Work by William Lewis Ilgen, on Pg 130, Fig 8.  If you read the description below the picture, you fill find that it is usually used to isolate mass prior to drawing out so that a portion of the bar remains relatively undisturbed.

PS: pardon the font, but the Sans Serif was making it hard to read the author's last name.

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