Leaf Keychain

[Forging Carver]

i was making a hot cut today and needed once I finished the hardy shank I had to wait for my dad to come home so he could use the angle grinder and trim the steel so that I could make a shoulder then the cutting part. In the mean time I started my second leaf. I knew from the beginning I messed up the taper but I continued on. Now it is almost finished, but the lead is shaped oddly. Should I discard it is there something I can do to fix it. The stem is off center too. And the left side is thicker than the other. Thanks

 

[Latticino]

You could possibly offset the stem over using light hammer blows at the joint, but it appears that there is a crack starting, so I would recommend starting over.  Typically I make leaves a lot thinner, drawing out the center further with a cross peen.  This is good work for a second leaf.  Try making a dozen or so and see how your work improves.  This is good practice for a lot of other blacksmithing processes.  One trick I sometimes use is after the basic shaping is complete laying the leaf lengthwise along a fairly sharp edge on the anvil and using half face blows to emphasize the stem projection into the body of the leaf (done on each half of the leaf with the stem extension resting right at the edge of the anvil).

[Forging Carver]

You could possibly offset the stem over using light hammer blows at the joint, but it appears that there is a crack starting, so I would recommend starting over.  Typically I make leaves a lot thinner, drawing out the center further with a cross peen.  This is good work for a second leaf.  Try making a dozen or so and see how your work improves.  This is good practice for a lot of other blacksmithing processes.  One trick I sometimes use is after the basic shaping is complete laying the leaf lengthwise along a fairly sharp edge on the anvil and using half face blows to emphasize the stem projection into the body of the leaf (done on each half of the leaf with the stem extension resting right at the edge of the anvil).

thanks for the help.

[Joel OF]

The scrap bin is a cruel mistress, visit her and she will cleanse you.

With such a hard shoulder transition from the lead to the stem (made from necking down off the far edge of the anvil) it's easy to get breakages. IMO necking down on the bick is kinder to the steel and creates a gentler, more realistic transition from the lead to the stem.

You may find this thread I started a while ago of some use. Even if you don't forge a raised central vein the general processes may prevent you making as many visits to the mistress as I have made...

**Attempt number 3 at positing the link still won't work. If you're interested, go to the search bar and type "avoiding leaf stems breaking"**

Edited October 24, 2015 by Joel OF

[DSW]

I'd say you did pretty well for #2. It took me quite a while to avoid the stem cracking at the connection to the leaf. One thing I learned is that there is an "up" and "down" to these as you make them if you are doing the 1/4 turn neck down. The stem is offset to one "side" of the stock. I was often turning the stock any old way when I put it on the anvil after the initial neck down while drawing it out. That caused the mass at the end to move up and down a lot as I needed to straighten it out, and I'd have a lot of cracks. Once I realized this and kept the mass supported on the anvil while necking down, I had a lot less straightening to do, and a lot less cracks to deal with.

Spreading some times still gives me issues. I spread much better on the near side than the far side of the leaf for what ever reason. I have to really pay attention when I spread the far side to get them even.

I see a lot of pitting on the back of the leaf. I'd brush your stock more to remove scale and make sure you keep the anvil face clean. I'm betting what I an seeing is scale beaten into the stock.

[Josh Hoffman]

Crazy Ivan taught me a good way to get these leafs to look good and to forge well.

Start off by giving your stock a nice point flat on the face of the anvil.
Second, you'll put the tip over the edge of the anvil and hit it half on, half off (if I remember correctly) to give the leaf/head some defined shape and separate its shape from the stem shape.
In your last picture, see how the back of the leaf sort of folds on itself? Avoid this by taking your hammer at a softly outward (toward the head angle) and tapping/pushing the metal forward, giving it a sort of forward sloped angle. This stops the metal from bending backwards on the stem when you hit it straight down in the future.
Not to go backwards, but when defining the head make sure you hit on 2 sides (picture a square [ ], you want to hit on top and right side) rotate every good hit or two. This keeps it consistent and your stem won't drift on you. Over the edge of the anvil separates the leaf from the stem and hitting on two sides makes the leaf kind of triangle. It'll look something like an arrow head, high in the direct middle.
From there, you'll want to shape the stem - make it as long as you'd like it to be, and use the leaf head as a guide - aka push the 'leaf' head over the edge of the anvil and pull it back until the defined edge is against the edge of the anvil, holds it pretty nicely.  once you've got your stem squared off and at the length you want, you can shoot for forging the leaf itself.
Set it flat on the face and hit at the high point, driving it down in the center and pushing the iron outward away from the center of the leaf. This spreads it out and gives it some shape. Once you've got that down a bit, you can switch to the cross pein and use it from the inside and work the steel outward as thin as you want the leaf to be.

I'm still learning this myself, so I may have missed some important detail/step - or even got this slightly out of order (this was all from off the top of my head from a recent lesson) but my first leaf looked a whole lot like a leaf. Hehe

when you're taking square stock to round for the stem (if you are), takes the 4 sides and hit on the corners, flat. This will give you an 8 sides stem, then do this again to make a 16 sides steam, and then gentle hits to round it the rest of the way.

Aside from that, a few notches around the sides and some chisel detail and you'll be looking at a leaf. Personally, I flipped mine over and gave it some wavey shape with my ball pein, which looked pretty decent.  Honestly, you've been doing this longer than I have - so maybe I'm not the best person to give advice, this is just how I was shown! Haha. Hope it helps even a little bit. :]

[Daswulf]

Joel here's your link. 

http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/43803-avoiding-leaf-stems-breaking/

[Forging Carver]

Thanks for the help everyone. Now that you say that DSW, I always clean my anvil every heat but never brush the piece till the end. Whats a good word of thumb to wire brushing the piece? Also, do you guys use a block brush or a welding brush?

  Thanks