-Quint- Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 I'm not a gambling man, but I'm almost willing to bet this'll be a first here on the forum lol. An aneurysm hook is an instrument used in the embalming process. I made this one out of some stainless. Intentionally left the flat of the handle "forge finished", as my friend Raymond Richard calls it (maybe everybody else does too, but I first saw and heard it from him). I considered stamping a name on it, but then decided against it but you can see where I messed around with the "E". It's just a prototype. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rashelle Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 Cool, that sort of sparks some ideas for me to make some dental pick like tools for a friend that uses them making electronic thingies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 Aneurysm hook? Nope I've never heard that one and I had a buddy in high school who was a mortician from a long line of morticians. . . He had some weird and disturbing stories but those are for somewhere else. At least now I know where they got the idea for the stage hooks in theaters. . . The director shouts, "GET THAT BLEEDER OFF THE STAGE!!." An old English term of course. I think the Egyptian embalmers used something similar to remove brains through the nostrils. Pretty nice piece, well done. I wonder what the market's like? Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-Quint- Posted January 15, 2016 Author Share Posted January 15, 2016 13 minutes ago, Frosty said: I think the Egyptian embalmers used something similar to remove brains through the nostrils. Pretty nice piece, well done. I wonder what the market's like? Frosty The Lucky. Thank you Frosty! The Egyptians did do just that, with a somewhat similar instrument. This one is used for blunt dissection on one end and then the hook end is used to "raise" arteries and veins. I'm not sure what the market is like but I do know that most of the stuff available is flimsy and mostly made overseas. This piece is pretty heavy duty compared to anything I've seen in my 25 years in this business. I showed it to a couple of colleagues already and they were willing to pay me $50 for one. I tend to think a lot of funeral directors/embalmers are content with the $25 hooks they get from their chemical suppliers, but who knows. This one took me 2 hours from lighting the forge to wiping the rouge off, I'm sure with some practice I can get one done in an hour. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 $50 is pretty reasonable and 2 hrs isn't bad at all, SS is harder to work than most steels. You need to get a good touch mark on it, it has BIG bragging rights. Morticians don't have a lot to impress each other with at get togethers. Not counting creepy stories that is, they're a black humored trade you know. So, good custom made mortician tools might be a gold mine. A cool finial could be the must have "Whistle," say a skull. Anyway, I ran into a similar situation with Deb's spinning friends, a friend makes a nice doffer which is used to remove wool from drum carders without damaging it. Deb sent me to take a look and make her one. Mark, "Metalmangler" has the blacksmith booth at the State fair so I walked over, BSed with him a while and eyeballed his doffer. Then I made a few mods and made one for Deb. The next thing I knew I had orders for 4-5 more so I told them $75.00 ea. for plain janes. They asked what fancy would look like so I made Deb one with a Doxy finial and more orders. Sheep, dogs, just so it's not plain, etc. Of course then I got hit by the tree and haven't made another since though the gals ask now and then. I had it, a "must have" product I could make for reasonable. <sigh> Evil TREES! Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 Add their initials and personalize it for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turbo7 Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 Just guessin but I'd say the markets not real good for getting your brains pulled out through your nostrils-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frozenforge Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 Market may not be good but the user won't hear any complaints hopefully! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-Quint- Posted January 16, 2016 Author Share Posted January 16, 2016 forgot to do the insurance "copy my post before submitting" thing and just lost a multi quote, long post *%#5	@@#%>!#xx(&#% Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yesteryearforge Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 11 hours ago, turbo7 said: Just guessin but I'd say the markets not real good for getting your brains pulled out through your nostrils-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Errorgance Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 cool, I'd add their initials like Glenn suggested, you could have some fun with file work on the corners, but that may be overkill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 21 hours ago, turbo7 said: Just guessin but I'd say the markets not real good for getting your brains pulled out through your nostrils-) Not enough to work with? Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-Quint- Posted January 20, 2016 Author Share Posted January 20, 2016 On 1/16/2016 at 8:09 PM, Frosty said: $50 is pretty reasonable and 2 hrs isn't bad at all, SS is harder to work than most steels. You need to get a good touch mark on it, it has BIG bragging rights. Morticians don't have a lot to impress each other with at get togethers. Not counting creepy stories that is, they're a black humored trade you know. So, good custom made mortician tools might be a gold mine. A cool finial could be the must have "Whistle," say a skull. Frosty The Lucky. If I can whittle that down to an hour, I'll gladly earn $50/hour during some of my "down time". Yeah, the stainless is noticeably tougher to work than mild. I'm still at less than a dozen times at the forge and SOMEHOW I've wound up working stainless more than half the time, which was NOT the original plan I don't mind the tough to work part, it's the rapid cooling that eats up time and gets frustrating. I bet I could make one of these out of mild in a fraction of the time. As far as a finial, I think that's a great idea. The only hurdle is that both ends of this particular instrument get used, but I could easily add a skull and bevel down the edge of the crown of the skull so that it can still be used for blunt dissection... On 1/16/2016 at 8:24 PM, Glenn said: Add their initials and personalize it for them. Yes, definitely! In fact the inspiration to me for making these was so that I could personalize a couple and give them to the guys who work for me as part of their xmas gifts, but it looks like it's going to be xmas in January this year. Or February.... March? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted January 23, 2016 Share Posted January 23, 2016 So put the anvil closer to the forge for working SS. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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