Basket Twist

[Blacksmith Jim]

I have a project to do that has some basket twists on it. I only have experience making basket twists with square rod. On those, I forge welded two square rods together, then forge welded two sets of those together to get the four pieces all attached at the ends. This project calls for round rod to start with. Can I get away with forge welding all four pieces together at the same time, or should I build it up again like I did with the square rods? How do you do your basket twists?

Thanks!

[Rich Hale]

A small hose clamp will hold the rods together whiel you tack weld the ends with a mig, the pull the clamps and forge weld, I think it works better to forge down into a half round bottom fuller as you rotate the stock Go slow and tap lightly a couplfe of hits brush flux and reheat. Good luck. For those that cringe at the thought of a mig welder being involved; they may have another way of doing this, less welder.

[Blacksmith Jim]

Rich, I'm not opposed to using an arc weldor to tack the ends. (arc is whats easily available to me), but I think I'm going to try it a few times this week with out the welds. I like the hose clamp idea, I usually just twist wire.

[Glenn]

Take 4 long rods and insert one short piece of stock in the center to hold their position. Then arc weld the ends. Heat, twist, and beat the end of the twist into a shape to be forge welded to the next piece of stock. As Rich suggested small clamps work weld for holding things together during the arc weld.

[Dutchmancreek]

Small hose clamps, bailing wire both work. Another course is to bend a 28" rod so as to have four sections that are each 7" long. Then the pieces are all held together, no clamps or wire is necessary. Forge weld the ends and twist.

I just made four basket twists today, but I MIG welded the end tips of the bundle and then forge welded them. When I forge weld the ends I usually forge them into a square section instead of using a semi-circular swedge. Since I usually forge weld the baskets to square stock it works out better for me that way.

Steve

[ThomasPowers]

You're a smith them round ends don't have to stay round in the area you're going to weld...

I wire and then weld them 4 at a time using round stock. It takes some practice to get the first two blows to stick the pieces and not drive them apart.

[Frosty]

A swage makes it far less tricky.

Frosty

[Dave Leppo]

I did my first basket twist saturday night, w/ (4) 3/8"dia rods. one was bent in thirds, giving me a bend and an end on each end. I then added another rod. (does this make any sense at all?) The rods were rusty, so I cleaned the ends with a muratic acid soak first. The first welding heat, I just lightly tapped the opposing rods together to stick them. Second heat, used a 1/2"dia bottom swage. Third & fourth heat, started drawing to a taper (square section). Fluxing as I went. As I am a rookie, I tend to weld in increments like this. After welding each end as described, I twisted the bars, and then untwisted to get the basket. I made this weldment into an "s" hook by turning the tapered ends.

I had just gotten back from Kinzers and, inspired, I wanted to forge-weld something!

[fat pete]

hey goatman i was at kinzers too!!

[Blacksmith Jim]

Thanks for the feedback guys, it helps.

[Blacksmith Jim]

I ended up tack welding the ends and forge welding in a swage. It worked great. Next week I'm making myself a swage for it :)

[JerryCarroll]

I found using the o/a torch makes welding the rounds together easier--then forging to size/shape.