Bending on the diagonal

[Exo313]

I've seen some smiths making bends on the diagonal cross section of square stock, using dies with vee grooves to hold the metal in position. Looks simple enough but requires some scrounging and/or fabrication.  Is there a simpler way? 

[arftist]

The simple way is with vee grooves cut into dies. 

The difficult way would be to firmly jam or weld the stock to a mandrel ( the size of the bend)

Then heat (with torch) and wrap around the mandrel being very careful to keep the stock in alignment ( with a twisting wrench)

[Jim Coke]

Greetings 313,

            That all depends on how many bends,how close and if you are planning to do more-in the. Future. I have several set ups to diagonal bend . Some vise mounted and some much more elaborate.  The quick easy way for just one bend is to place your stock in a v wedge swage on the anvil and with a wooden mallet to bend over the edge.  No free lunch they all take practice. 

Forge on and make beautiful things 

Jim

[anvil]

I do it hot and just jump in and forge it like I would on the flat.

Finials over the edge of the anvil, the rest via bending forks and scrolling wrench.

No special tools

Forging g a right angle bend on the diamond is a different kettle of fish, so to speak.

This is a test piece for a railing. I did the tendrel two different ways. One on the diamond, one on the flat.

I used my swage block and a matching vee top tool to set up and fw the leaf and tendrel on the diamond and a different top tool and bottom slot for the one on the flat,but the scrolling was done first and over the edge of the anvil

 

 

Oops, sorry, the forge welds were not done in my swedge block but on the face of my anvil

[Exo313]

 

1 hour ago, anvil said:

This is a test piece for a railing. I did the tendrel two different ways. One on the diamond, one on the flat.

I think the one on the diagonal looks amazing, by the way! Flows really well from the vein in the petal.

[anvil]

Thanks!

[IronAlchemy]

It takes less force to bend square stock on the diagonal than on the flat. Clay Spencer kindly showed me a quick moment of inertia calculation for the two orientations to make the point. 

I place one face on the curve of the horn to provide some support and forge curves freehand. As already noted, special tooling is needed to do a upset corner on the diagonal. 

[anvil]

Ol, as an old farrier,I did all my "turning" of horse shoes over the horn.

However once I got turned onto the combination of bending forks and scrolling wrench,,, I got hooked. Nearly all my scrolling is now done on my post vice with those tools, looking down on my work. All my finials are  still done over the edge of the anvil. Both ways work very well.

The point here is that you don't need any special tools to turn iron on the diamond

A good practice for this is to make simple "S" hooks out of 1/4" square, and do them on the diamond.  They take the same amount of time but sell far faster than when turned on the flat. It's amazing what a 90 degree turn will do.

[ThomasPowers]

Hmm I may file/forge a notch in some of my turning forks and see if that makes it faster/easier to do it on the diagonal...

[anvil]

Nope, unnecessary. No need to screw up a good bending  fork. 

With a good firm post vice and a set of "benders"(fork and wrench) sized to your stock, you have great control and can see every step you do because you are working in the horizontal plane. Thus you are looking down on each  step and can see, as well as feel, if you rotate off the diamond.

[anvil]

On 1/29/2018 at 11:14 AM, ThomasPowers said:

Hmm I may file/forge a notch in some of my turning forks and see if that makes it faster/easier to do it on the diagonal

Thomas, you have given me something to think about, and not for the first time.

I can come up with many reasons to not try this. That's easy. Habit being in the for front.

There is a situation that a set of benders and forks specifically would solve.

Often when using benders and forks that are flat sided, when bending on the diamond an edge will crush, or flatten. It seems I see this more when bending but it seems to not be noticeable when the job is done. I'm sure it's not healed itself.

I believe a set of benders and forks with a filed in vee would solve this problem.

Thanks for the input.

[ThomasPowers]

I also was hoping to reduce the level of care needed as many students take a long while to learn to watch their stock and not their phone.  (I think I'm up to 3 phones that have met anvil horns accidentally---usually after I've warned their owners several times.  I've had a couple of college students I had to take aside and tell that I didn't care either way but they had to chose: to be in the Class or to be on the Phone---they were getting to be a safety hazard for others and themselves...