May 13, 201610 yr A couple months ago, I watched the Peter Ross video on making a wood worker's compass (divider). This is my first pair. I made these for my neighbor and he will finish doing the filing work on them. I thought they turned out really nice. Also, this was my first attempt at fire welding and I was very pleased with how it turned out. I plan on making many more pairs of these and getting good at making them. One improvement I want to try is fire welding a carbon steel bit into the tip to begin with so the tip is more durable. The one mistake I made was bending the hinge a little when I set the pin. They still work just fine though. This compass is about 6 inches long and my neighbor was thrilled to get them. He spent some time showing me how he would use them to lay out a dove tail. I had no idea how useful they were. Anyhow... super fun little project to hone your black smith super powers. Matthew D Provo, Utah
May 14, 201610 yr Nice work, Matthew. Funny I thought about the same thing a couple thousand miles away from you. I did it today, it's another style, not ready yet. I'm also thinking making one in this style, I watched the same video.
May 15, 201610 yr Author Break, Those look really nice. Thanks you for sharing. Please post a photo when you get them completed. When I first thought about a compass, that is the pattern I first thought of, with a simple single hinge plate and identical halves. I will probably make some like that as well. A little easier to make and you can hot punch the hole. Well out to the forge to work on another compass. Matthew
May 15, 201610 yr I made this pair a few weeks ago. Needed a larger pair for a project. I must say I really enjoyed making them, good fun.
May 15, 201610 yr BreakDown, in the third pic is their a crack starting were it hinges and going down towards the end of the compass, or is it just some fire scale? Littleblacksmith
May 15, 201610 yr Author Little, the "crack" you are referring to is a forge weld seam. Most of the weld took but a small part at the edge of the weld near the hinge didn't.
May 17, 201610 yr Handy to lay out distances on hot steel too. With a little practice dividing a line or circle in even segments is fast and easy and a good "trick" for students.
May 17, 201610 yr Author Forgin-fool, That is a very nice compass. How did you make the double hinge on the one half? Also, how much of that is forged to finish, or did you do some filing work too?
May 19, 201610 yr On 5/17/2016 at 8:24 PM, Matthew D said: Forgin-fool, That is a very nice compass. How did you make the double hinge on the one half? Also, how much of that is forged to finish, or did you do some filing work too? The hinge way hot cut. I find I get more precision with the hot cut rather than a fireweld. I hand forged it right down to a fine finish then used the hand file on hot metal to get the finish. 9 hours ago, rockstar.esq said: Forging-fool, I love the thumb screw! Thanks. I can't remember where I saw this done first but I copied the idea from somewhere.
May 19, 201610 yr On May 15, 2016 at 3:20 AM, forging-fool said: I made this pair a few weeks ago. Needed a larger pair for a project. I must say I really enjoyed making them, good fun. Nice job! How long are those, and are you getting any flex? I work in an industrial sheetmetal shop. We hand layout all fittings , and parts. My dividers are my most used hand tool.
May 19, 201610 yr 7 minutes ago, Reversepolarity said: Nice job! How long are those, and are you getting any flex? I work in an industrial sheetmetal shop. We hand layout all fittings , and parts. My dividers are my most used hand tool. Thank you. They are 20", there's no flex. I'd imagine you would be using them all the time in a sheetmetal shop.
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