tapers on a picket fence... help needed

[JW513]

Long story short, I’ve taken some classes off and on past two years,  6 months ago I got my forge Semi set up, I’ve mainly just messed around. My welder friend has job where he might need 150 pickets made with just a slight short taper. It’s easy but I’ve never made something that has to meet a criteria. I told him I will try making a few.  I’m still new but this is simple. I feel it would be a great learning experience. They don’t have to be perfect but they have to be nice. Here is a sample of what he wants. Any insight on how to keep things similar would be great.  Thanks

[Welshj]

Well, anytime I've had to reproduce any type of identical pieces... the first thing I do or think of- is a jig.

I would think for forging those... a simple piece of flat plate steel with two angled pieces welded in a "V" shape with angles matched to fit that taper. Then a flat stop piece at the narrow end of the "V".  Hardened, or tool steel if possible for the 3 jig pieces- to withstand repeated beating.

Height of the angled pieces should be the same as the stock, then ground down to the height of the desired point on the taper.

Hammer point to a close, oversized dimension, stick into the "V" jig, hammer to final dimension, flip 90 deg and finish other side.

Forgive the rough, on my phone edit... but just an idea.

Edited May 6, 2020 by Welshj
Add really bad drawing.

[Frosty]

JW: As much as he wants to help Welsh has almost no experience as a blacksmith please disregard his suggestion.  I"m not faulting you for wanting to help Welsh but your idea won't produce the taper. At best it will work for a go/no go gauge. 

This is just a matter of a little practice and you'll be knocking them out in a couple minutes each not counting grinding. 

Draw a blunt point on the very end of the bar then lay the bar at a SLIGHTLY more shallow angle and draw the taper down to the point.

This won't take 1/2" of the bar to draw to that point so do NOT start hitting away from the end. When IF you need to lay the bar more shallowly do NOT hit it ANYWHERE BUT the corner where the first draw down ended. OR it'll run away from you.

Frosty The Lucky. 

[anvil]

To make matching tapers, the first thing you need to do is figure out how much parent material it takes to make the 1-1/4" taper with a 1/4" ending.. There is a math approach,,,, but,,, here's the mechanical hands on guaranteed no math deal. Well almost. 

So do a test piece.

Start with a 

length long enough to hand hold. Say 2' for sugars and grins.

Make a chalk mark 1-1/4" from the heel of your anvil forwards down the side. My chalk mark is usually an arrow pointing up.

Now you are going to have to guess the amount of parent stock you think you will need. You will need less than 1-1/4". 

Come back say 1" and make a center punch mark on your parent stock,,, the piece you are forging.

Forge a steep taper on the end of the bar down to your 1/4" square. 

Now finish your taper back to your center punch mark. DON'T forge the end smaller!

Now check your length from the  heel to your chalk mark.

Too long? You need less than 1". Too short? You need more than 1". Just right? Now you know how much half square it takes to make your taper. And you will know how much time it takes to forge that taper as well in case you want to figure out job time.

Now make a small center punch mark on all 150 pieces at whatever length your test piece tells you and repeat the above 150 times. That is:

1) Forge a short taper down to 1/4" square,

2) Forge back to your center punch mark without messing up your 1/4" end.

3) Double check your length against your chalk mark.

Done. 

The deal is, a known mass/length of parent stock forged to a known end cross section will always be the same length taper.

And you shouldn't have to touch it with a grinder.

 

 

[ThomasPowers]

I forge short tapers at the edge of the anvil with a lot of the hammer face actually off the anvil---you are trying to create a > space with the anvil and hammer face. As you work the taper the other end of the workpiece gets held higher so the bottom of the taper remains in contact with the anvil face.

One trick for production work is to NOT cut your stock  between two pickets at 90 deg; but at an angle so a lot of the mass that would need to be moved isn't there.  I find it easy to true up and center from there.  So don't cut  ][  ; but /   Of course the opposite ends of the pickets need flat cuts so a bar would be  [=====/=====][=====/=====]   (20' stick, 5' pickets) (I had a student/friend who was making tentstakes from old porch railing. These don't bring in much money and he was spending a long time and several heats forging tapers on the.  I suggested cutting on the angle and he had a number of reasons not to.  After I left he tried it my way and later told me that it cut the number of heats he was using to 1/3 what he had been doing.)

And finally the one true answer: PRACTICE!

[BillyBones]

If they are just pointy tapers at the end, i think i would just grind them to shape. You could lay 10 or 20 next to each other real tight and do them all at once. Mark where the taper ends and the center line of each bar, grind off that much of each. Turn and repeat until they are done. 

If you do forge them, get some pieces of stock that width (1/2" ?) and 4" or so long and do some practice tapers. I would bet that if you have decent hammer control within 4-6 practice pieces you will be knocking them out pretty consistent. I had to do some on some table legs i made, my biggest problem was not keeping them at length but remembering to keep the bar angled to the face of my anvil so one side would not flatten out as i did the opposite side.  

 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Another thing when matching one to the other, always match subsequent items to the first good one. If you match to others made that look good but have very minor differences the following will have the differences exacerbated. I learned that when making a bunch of scrolls, I would make one then make another matching it to the one just made. By the time I got to the tenth one it was no where near the good first one.

[Welshj]

Frosty- agreed. The idea behind the jig was for a method of making them identical... he would indeed have to forge each taper, but could then "size" them to finish with the jig, so they were the same.

It was not intended as a way to forge them- but... to size them identically ?

[dave in pa.]

Before you go any further...

Check with the customer and find out "exactly" what they want.

Every piece identical the next or hand made with the slight deviations that occur.

That answer will tell you which way you need to go.

[billyO]

On 5/5/2020 at 5:51 PM, Frosty said:

This is just a matter of a little practice

This is all it takes.  Don't look at the initial 'failures' as a waste of time so long as you pay attention and learn from your mistakes.  

On 5/5/2020 at 4:51 PM, JW513 said:

They don’t have to be perfect

Maybe not, but try.  It's easy to forge things  half-assed, much better to forge things well.  It's been said that 5 minutes at the anvil will save an hour at the vice (or grinder).  

 

18 hours ago, BillyBones said:

just grind them to shape

This is possible too.  Again, I'd suggest making them as perfectly and exactly identical as possible.  This shoudl be relatively easy, and as Frosty mentioned, either method should take only a minute or 2 max for each one of those.  

[JW513]

Thanks for all the input, hopefully tomorrow i can light the forge up and try to make a nice small taper.. 

 

 

[ThomasPowers]

Probably not enough margin on this job to warrant it; but one trick when needing a bunch of "identical" hand made objects is to make several more than needed and then discard the ones furthest out of the "norm". (Discard for that project. I Generally come up with another project they will work for---like tripods for camp cooking.)

[Mark Ling]

A jig similar to what Welsh suggested would work fine...under a power hammer. I use a spring tool with two angled “dies” and it works great for making identical tapers

in your case though, first learn how to forge. This won’t be a difficult task after that. I prefer drawing out over the edge of the anvil, take the same amount of material each time and you’ll get a close enough identical taper as to what you are needing. 

[arftist]

Way easier faster and healthier to forge rather than grind.

Make a blacksmith's taper gauge, exactly as drawn in the second post. Use it to check the angle as you hand forge the pickets. 

I use adjustable gauges that I make myself but for such a small job I would just weld 3 bits of steel together.

Also, best not to learn hammer and tong control at the same time. Stock long enough to hold by hand.