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I Forge Iron

Horseshoe making tools


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My wife wanted me to make her some decorative horseshoes for a couple things I'm supposed to build her. Since I didn't have the tools to make horseshoes I contacted a ferrier member here and asked him about them. He sent me some nice pictures from a book showing the profiles and some other good information about what I needed to do the task. These are all rough forged except for the creaser which I have started filing on to clean it up some when I decided to stop and take some pictures to share. When I finally get them finished and heat treated I'll take some more pictures showing how well (or poorly) they work. The pritchel and the bob punch is made from W1 instead of the coil spring I started to use and the creaser came from the coil spring I posted a few months back that is 2"+ in diameter. I used the power hammer at the local meeting to forge the big spring down to roughly 1.25" square and from there I forged it by hand. But enough rambling let me show some pictures.

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My bob punches were rounding on the end, a little ovoid in cross section, for making a depression when starting a clip. For your job, I don't see that clips are going to be necessary. The creaser looks to be the right size. The end of the pritchel is dressed to be the size of the middle section of the nail shank. The shoe is hemmed before using the creaser in order to keep from spreading the shoe too wide. Google hemming and creasing.

I didn't look up nail hole spacing on google or youtube, but you might find it. You probably won't need more than three holes per crease, although we see four on manufactured shoes.

Post Script. Instead of saying 'upset,' horseshoers say 'bump.'

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1 hour ago, Frank Turley said:

My bob punches were rounding on the end, a little ovoid in cross section, for making a depression when starting a clip. For your job, I don't see that clips are going to be necessary. The creaser looks to be the right size. The end of the pritchel is dressed to be the size of the middle section of the nail shank. The shoe is hemmed before using the creaser in order to keep from spreading the shoe too wide. Google hemming and creasing.

I didn't look up nail hole spacing on google or youtube, but you might find it. You probably won't need more than three holes per crease, although we see four on manufactured shoes.

Post Script. Instead of saying 'upset,' horseshoers say 'bump.'

I guess tool I called a bob punch is gonna be something else instead. Unless im confused worse than I think, there's a tool used to size the crease where you punch wi the pritchel. Now I have to go back and find those mustad videos I've watched to get some idea what the tool is.

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1 hour ago, Frank Turley said:

My bob punches were rounding on the end, a little ovoid in cross section, for making a depression when starting a clip. For your job, I don't see that clips are going to be necessary. The creaser looks to be the right size. The end of the pritchel is dressed to be the size of the middle section of the nail shank. The shoe is hemmed before using the creaser in order to keep from spreading the shoe too wide. Google hemming and creasing.

I didn't look up nail hole spacing on google or youtube, but you might find it. You probably won't need more than three holes per crease, although we see four on manufactured shoes.

Post Script. Instead of saying 'upset,' horseshoers say 'bump.'

Don't horse shoers bump AND grind?

Oh wait, that's SOFT shoers. Nevermind. :lol:

Frosty The Lucky.

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Creaser, pritchel, stem punch and head stamp are the terms I think your looking for, lol.

Now you need to file and grind your tools to match the nail. The creaser and the head stamp fit the head, or specifically form a grove or pocket the head fits in to, with the line above the touch mark being flush with the ground serface of the shoe. The stem punch fits the nail shank just below the head to the hoof serface of the shoe. Ideally  close tolerances, with the nail holes angled to fallow the hoof (toe nailes angled in and the heal nailes nearly strait). In practice most only use the creaser or head stamp and the prichel, making the hole large enugh to angle the nail at need.  If you push the toe web of the shoe over the edge of the anvil the toe holes will be just on the anvil, and the heal holes will be at the widest point of the shoe (any thing behind that restricts the movement of the heals). Now hear comes the trick, the toe holes are just inside of the center line of the web wile the heal is outside the center of the web. 3 holes to a branch is standard for a hand made, but I was taught to punch 5. This allowes one to very nail placement 

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Head stamp! That's the one :) I left it big on purpose cause I knew I had lots of filing to do to get he right shape and size.

i did some clean up with the files and saw just how not flat my flats are. For the rough forging I used a 3lb crosspien that has a really round flat face great for moving metal then I came back with my 2lb drilling hammer with flatter faces to smooth it out. I obviously missed a few spots with my smaller hammer. I'll put some more pictures up in the next week as I get them closer to finished.

im thinking about puttin the pritchel back in the forge and making the handle round instead of just roundin off the corners.

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