Jigs for bending Triangle Bells...

[VaughnT]

Ran into a bit of a kerfuffle this afternoon while making a dinner bell for a nice lady.  I was running really low on fuel (doesn't that always happen), and got the thing barely finished, struggling at the end.... and it looks pretty horrible.  She liked it because it's "rustic" and "looks so blacksmithed".  I think it looks like a drunk chimpanzee got in the metal pile.

This got me to thinking about making a jig that allowed for quick, even and consistent placing of the bends.  While I like a little variation just so the things don't look like they were made by a machine, I'm seeing far too much variation between the triangles I make.  When stacked up next to each other, the variation is really glaring, and I don't think it looks as good as could be.  This isn't normally an issue because I don't have a big stockpile of them for customer viewing.  But, if I have a handful of them lined up at a demo, I'd like them to look reasonably close to one another.

So, before I head out to the shop to cut and weld stuff, I thought I'd reach out to the wise minds of the collective to see how others are handling the issue.  I see a lot of folks making some really nice triangle bells - nice enough that they look almost like they were made on a machine.  Question is, how is this accomplished?

[Daswulf]

I ran into that issue too. I saw a picture of a jig ......somewhere.......  I'll have to look for it again. I havnt made any lately so it slipped my mind until you posted.

 Love your description.  "I think it looks like a drunk chimpanzee got in the metal pile." 

http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/20519-dinner-bell-jig/

here's one

[jeremy k]

Vaughn - These bells were made with a jig similar to the link posted above.

[Glenn]

I lay the bell stock on the table and use a center punch to make a light dimple at the center point of the bend (two dimples per stock)

I drive a piece of rod down through the prichel hole of the anvil, and another rod down through the hardie hole of the anvil into the wooden stump. The rods stick up maybe 2 inches above the anvil face. Those two rods make a bending fork. Heat the stock at the point of the bend, adjust the center punch dimple to the center of the bend and using the anvil bending fork, make the bend for the triangle. 

Later I built a bending jig/lever that would bend 1/2 inch round cold or 3/4 and larger hot. Same idea, dimple the stock and bend at the dimple. I speeded things up by building a stop to push the stock against and bend. It would EAT round bar as fast as you could pull the lever.

 

[VaughnT]

58 minutes ago, jeremy k said:

Vaughn - These bells were made with a jig similar to the link posted above.

 

Jeremy, that's the exact kind of repetition I'm looking for -- enough variety to let you know they aren't machine-made, yet similar enough that they look good hanging together on a display.

1 hour ago, Daswulf said:

I ran into that issue too. I saw a picture of a jig .....

Thanks for that link.  His jig is pretty close to what I was thinking of building, though I was planning on using some angle iron and simply bending it into a triangle by cutting through one side so it bends at the "hinge".  I'm not sure I'll be able to cold bend the 1/2" round stock I use, but it's worth a go.

 

The big issue is the spacing on the thing.  I start with 30" of 1/2" round and peen the ends so they have a bit of flair to them, thus shortening the bar to about 29 3/4".  I've found that this makes a triangle that's "just right" in size, scale, look and ring.  Another 6" makes the ringer for the bell, so the math is pretty easy to cipher when wondering how many units you can get out of a single bar.

Right now, I take a heat to peen each end, then a heat for each of the bends.  Then another heat or two to get things all looking as neat and tidy as possible - generally with a good bit of cussing involved.  The first four heats can't be changed, but that last heat or two to clean things up need to go.  A real time-burner and aggravating!