How to make a collar

[Glenn]

This is the finished product needed. What are different ways to get this accomplished.

How would YOU go about making a dozen of the items?

[Strine]

Some questions first dear client. Those sharp corners at the bends, do they have to be sharp? Let's say no.

Then....for a one off...
open the vice jaws to a little more than 3/4"...
heat up about 2 1/2 " of 1" x 1/8"...
lay centrally across open vice...
lay a piece of 1/2 x 3/8 over the vice gap and hit it into hot piece.
hit down until top of 1/2 x 3/8 is flush with top of "wings" avoid squashing wings...
while still hot remove collar to the anvil and tidy up, leaving the insert in place...
trim to length.

For eleven more repeat.
The time taken to design and manufacture a handy little Hat Collar tool would be better spent making the other eleven collars :wink:

[HWooldridge]

I'd weld two pieces of 1/2" square to a bit of plate with the right distance betwixt them then make a top tool (also out of scrap) that fit the inside dimensions. Heat the stock, place over the lower jig and swat the top tool with a treadle hammer.

[irnsrgn]

I would just modify the jig I already have for my hydraulic press and go to it, a simple matter of knocking the pieces that are tack welded on off and replacing with the proper size, I used to make something similar 2 at a time, 100 to a run, about 4 a minute in the press. they can also be done on the anvil in a simple jig. I called them clips, they were for attaching the bows on a high wheeled farm wagon.

[Ten Hammers]

Same way I've made them in the past. The collar is 1/4 deep so 2 pieces of 1/4 welded to a piece of scrap, the distance between them about 5/8 or little more (would first wrap a piece of 1/8 around a piece of 1/2 and then weld the 2 pieces of quarter using this distance roughly). I don't have a treadle or a press so I just whack the collar when it's HOT with a piece of tooling made for this purpose and then whack the edges down somewhat afterward (but not a whole lot). I draw the collar ends somewhat to help in closing it fully. Heat the collar Hot, slip it over the place to wrap and then use tongs or channellocks to close. Worked like a charm the only time I've used them. Sorry, tard and my writing may not be the best.

[frogvalley]

I have a fixture that is set up like a spring fuller. Bottom "die" or swage is shaped just like the collar you have shown and the top is the opposite and fits into bottom with just enough clearance for 1/8 stock. Both top and bottom swages were milled out of solid rectangular bar stock. I welded a piece of round bar to it like a spring fuller, so I could use it under a power hammer or clamp in my vice or press or simply hit with small sledge.

This shape is common for my bolt keepers on sliding door latches/bolts.

[Rantalin]

A jig could be made with two pieces of 1/4" X 3/4" stock that are about 3/4" apart welded to a piece of scrap as suggested below, this would account for the 1/2" width of the collar and the 1/8" of the stock on each side. You can then cut a piece of 1" X 1/8" to 2 1/4" and lay it across the jig, with each end flush with the ends of the 1/4" X 3/4". A piece of 1/2" stock is then smacked into the jig, bending each wing up. The wings are then bent over the 1/4" stock on either side and the angles are all trued over the jig. I drew a picture in paint to help explain what I mean.



The hard part would be getting the 1/2" bar to be in the exact center of the 1" X 1/8" bar

[Glenn]

I am told that this is a "CLIP" and not a collar.

The difference is that the collar encircles and holds 2 or more pieces of matal. A clip is attached to a flat surface to hold a piece of metal or other object in place.

[Strine]

:)
Glenn a collar is pretty much as your revised description explains....much like that hard bit of stuff at the top of your shirt that goes all the way around your neck. But heh, what you call a rose is what I call a thorny bush that's a mongrel to prune. Who is correct? :)

[6013]

Any horse person knows the collar goes around the horses neck and hooks to the harness, the clips go on the clops - the feet. Otherwise the horse could not go clip-clop when he walks. And when the police horse helps arrest a bad guy, it is called a clop collar.

[Ed Thomas]

Glen: Clips are most easily formed with a top tool. It looks like a hand-held swage only instead of round it is square inside. You make it to the dimensions of the outside of the clip, naturally.

To use, place a bar on the anvil that is the size you want for the inside of the clip. You place the hot metal across that. You put the top tool on the bar, and hit it. Simple as that.

[Ed Thomas]

Oops. I didn't see that frogvalley had already posted the spring swage equivalent. That is also a good solution, because it is easier to be accurate.

[irnsrgn]

This what you had in mind, the top one.