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I Forge Iron

Jasen's smithing progression.


Jasent

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  • 3 months later...
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As the weather cools down I’m getting the urge fire up the forge.   Hardy tool was a failure. Back to the drawing board.  Just can’t seem to make a nice feather quickly. Chisel by hand and they look great but boy does it take a long time.  I’d like to keep them below $30 with out going smaller.   With winter coming fire pokers are on my mind

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  • 11 months later...
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I try to resize photos so they aren’t so big. My phone takes huge pics and I try to resize them to less than 1 mb but some times I forget.    I’ll try to remember for the future.  

Ive been working on selling work. Tools are my favorite thing to forge but at some point I need something to cover my fuel, so I’m told

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I don't think it's the size of your pictures in my case. I think it's the outdated I Pad I'm on. You know, I haven't sold a thing yet. Not sure how to go about it. I always say I want to make tools, but the pull just isn't there right now. I think the more artsy side of me is what drives me. I get all these ideas like this time of night and I get a piece of paper here on my nightstand and jot them down so I don't forget. Like I said else where, I wish I had the time and the skill to do some of the things I think of.  I hope you sell a bunch. 

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I will interject because I'm all juiced up on black tea..  LOL..  You made some good progress.   Great to see.. 

The nail header looks pretty good..  It's important to have a square hole..  In fact it is one of the most important aspects unless you are making a different shaped shank..  Other important factor is to have a slight taper to the nail header vs a steep taper inside the hole.  A steep taper will trap the nail in the header if the shank gets deformed at all.   a long taper will help to keep the shank inline with the head so easier to remove.   I can see the ends of the nails are beat up a little. 

the reason why I addressed this is because every thing that is more correct will make the experience easier and faster. 

Next the 1.5X is a good rough estimate but nearly all old nails used much less stock than 1.5X and much closer to 3/4X stock size.. 

Nails should be headed when orange heat until you get the timing down.  (this saves the header from unnecessary abuse and wear and heads better).

and when you cut the nail and take the heading heat remember to leave it attached to the bar and snap it off in the header with the high side away from you.  (away or towards is totally dependent on your hammer swing).. 

Nearly everyone pulls the hammer towards themselves when they strike a hammer blow.  this will recenter the high side and push it into the center. 

Vintage nails are rarely ever round on the heads.   It was only when commercial nails came onto the scene that round heads became more of the norm.  IIRC. they made 1200 different kinds of nails from 1600's to when hand forged nails fell out of favor.     they were not all the same and many of the heads were swaged to size. 
 

 

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I have watched that video and the header video before it.   Thanks for the tips

wasnt trying to make any certain type of nail.  Just goofing off.  Only had about 16” left of my 1/4” round stock so just one peace of stock in the forge.  #4 was an oops the turned in to a L head.   

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