What did you do in the shop today?

[Paul TIKI]

MMMMMM........Cornbread........

I may be spending more time in the kitchen than the shop today.

I spent some time relocating the shop in the backyard, again.  Well, it was more shuffling some things around to make movement easier and more logical, but I'm still not really happy with it.  I had to re-tie down the tarp roof.  I really need to just suck it up and build a more permanent structure.

I also worked slowly on making a new set of tongs.  I'm trying some flat jaw tongs.  The ugly ones I made a couple of years ago work for larger pieces, but I don't have anything to hold smaller things reliably.  I watched several videos, but what I figured I'd do is try to build them from what I remember from the videos rather than watch/repeat.  I tend to internalize things learned from trial and error a little better. 

I'm trying to re-build stamina and I'm not up to marathon sessions yet.  I can manage a 2 to 3 hours before soreness starts creeping in.  The gas forge also heats the metal faster so It's more rounds of heating and hitting metal per hour.   

[swedefiddle]

Good Morning Paul

What material are you going to use for the Tongs?

Neil

[Paul TIKI]

I am using mystery offcuts that my boys brought home from a steel plant they used to work at.  If I recall correctly they are some sort of high abrasion resistant steel, possibly A400, but I'm not 100% sure.  The chunks are roughly 1/2 inch by 5/8 inch by about 12 inches long.   I haven't used any of it until I got the propane forge because with the charcoal forge I never could get them to heat up enough to move under the inexpertly swung hammer.  Now I can actually get them to move readily enough.

[Frosty]

Oh MY Shaina, 10 heats for a leaf? What size stock is the "instructor" having you start with? 

Preform the leaf by forging one end to a point, the real trick is not drawing it too long, don't worry about leaving a little extra sticking out of the end they make nice drip tips. Then draw the shoulder on the far edge, the radiused edge. Keep it HOT and it won't break it will naturally want to taper away from the leaf preform.

Then part the stem from the parent bar, heat the leaf preform and forge the leaf with blows straight down on the center. When it's about 2x the desired thickness do a little refinement of the leaf profile. 

Lastly use either half face blows to widen the leaf define and the central vein in the positive if you wish. Or draw the leaf sideways on the horn with a little practice the cross pein will allow you to direct how it draws. I draw barbs on arrowheads with the cross pein on the horn. Shaping a heart shaped leaf works well this way.

Heat and draw the stem as desired and scroll, twist, etc. before brushing and finishing.

I used to do them as coat hooks with countersunk punched screw holes, and brass brushed lightly to bring out the highlights of the veins in on average 7 minutes and 3 heats. The last two to turn the hooks, or scroll, brass brush, descale w/ brush and finish. 

The only time I hit it really hard was the initial couple few blows drawing the leaf preform down to the refinement thickness. All but widening the leaf is done on the face or edge. 

There are other tricks like refining the shoulder to make a broad leaf. 

Incising is done cold unless it's something serious like a basket twist. My smaller rounded veining "chisel" works a treat incising square for twists and does it's original job of veining leaves cold. Always cold.

I rarely make leaves that are curled, etc. my main use is for bolt plates or as finials for heavy coat hooks like a reverse taper finial. NO DRIP TIPS on leaf coat hook finials!

Frosty The Lucky.

[Shainarue]

To answer your first question, the stock is 1/2". He started with square - which I would guess has a bit of an advantage to lower heats required. I'm using round, so I have to square it first. I'm also using a 2lb hammer. 

In regards to the challenge, I assumed it was intended for beginners as that's typically a project in beginners classes - and beginners (as I consider myself to be) typically require more heats to do even basic operations. Be that lack of technique or uncertainty or any other manner of reasons. Having watched plenty of other videos of people making leaves, of course I realized early on that they could be done in much less than 10 heats. But this is a good goal for me to strive for - since I'm already so far above that number. I figured I'd track my heats - and if I was at or below 10 then I'd just make my goal to be less than whatever I was doing. But it turned out that I was way above, lol.

I kept the parent bar until the end because I don't have tongs that hold really well on the smaller stock (1/4" or less) and both of my bolt jaw tongs are for larger stock (1/2 & 3/4). So holding it from the leaf end wasn't an option and holding the drawn out stem wasn't ideal either. I made it work with what I had.

Half face blows is what I mostly used to widen. Once I had a mostly defined shape, I switched to the cross pein along the anvil edge to try to simultaneously flare it more and give it a semblance of veining without needing to chisel. I'll try the horn for that part next time just to see - maybe it will work better for me. I think it worked fine the way I did it (other than the obvious few mis-hits where I landed a corner pein rather than full pein, lol) but I'm always open to trying other techniques.

The hard blows I was referring to (not so much *hard* as just a full swing rather than half-swing) was specifically just for the drawing out. And maybe a few at the start of spreading. 

I'm including an image of the storyboard he provided with his instruction.

[Goods]

I’m a little surprised by this story board. I would not start with a short piece of stock. Especially for beginners.
 

Here’s where I posted the story board I made last year, but I skipped a couple steps. I use it at demonstrations to talk through the process.

https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/66519-what-did-you-do-in-the-shop-today/page/834/#comment-765164

Starting stock on this is a bar of 1/2” square stock, and I usually get through the 1st three steps on one heat, and don’t cut it off the bar until after the 6th step shown.

Just my two cents, which may not be worth much…

Keep it fun,

David

[JHCC]

The shorter stock on the storyboard might just be there because that's what fits the board. No point in extending the board 36" to the left!

[Goods]

True… but they draw the stem taper pretty early.

One point I also wanted to make was that you don’t need to square a round bar up in this process. Just establish your blunt taper and set your shoulders based on the facets of the taper. Of course, you’re going for the certification, so you may need to work the steps the way they are expecting. Outside of that, ten smiths will probably give you ten different recommendations!

Keep it fun,

David

[Shainarue]

They aren't watching me step by step so I think as long as it looks good then they assume I understand the technique. 

If I recall correctly, the leaf is to demonstrate understanding of taper, shoulder, spreading and drawing out. 

I'm going out right now to try one without squaring up first for the taper. 

[Frosty]

Ten heats starting with 1/2" isn't unreasonable and 20 as a beginner is just fine. Heat count is the wrong goal! Improve your skills, speed will come, focusing on going faster will slow learning the skills. Honest! Hitting the work where and how you want is far more important than hitting it lots of times!

Don't you have a pair of flat bit tongs Shaina? The leaf itself is easy to hold in flat bits. The stems are a PITA even in small V or round bits. The V bit tongs with the opposing bit being a small disk that holds the stock down in the V look good but I've never tried a pair myself.

I always start people with 3/8" square which has very close to the same weight per inch as 1/2" round.

The only part to square up is the stem to draw it out. 

I could make a leaf the ABANA story board way but I like the way I do it, fewer steps.

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

Seems a long process for making a leaf. 

Made this 3rd hand clamp thingy today. more than enough to hold something for light work like measuring or marking. A piece of 1/2" round, 1/2" square and a couple sections of angle iron. Just with my toe against the end of the lever it took a lot to pull out a piece of flat bar. 

The jaws have joints so they can be used at different angles. 

[Shainarue]

BillyBones, I'm curious about your 3rd hand clamp thingy. Can you show more of it? 

2 hours ago, Frosty said:

The leaf itself is easy to hold in flat bits.

I do have a pair of flat bits. First pair I ever made actually, using the EZ blueprint from this site. But previous leaf heads have snapped right off when I've held them to draw out the stem. But that was early on in my learning to do all this so maybe they had cold shuts or I was working it too cold. It was probably 1/4 or 5/16 rod on top of all that. Guess I could try it again. 

 

It's good to know that 20 heats on 1/2" is reasonable for a beginner. I'm not trying to be a speed queen. I just like challenges because they push me to get better. The drawing out looks good, isn't going crooked and I'm not leaving dents or chips off the side like I used to. My hammer control is MUCH improved, lol. So I figured it was reasonable to try to push for faster or figuring out something more efficient. 

 

As for the story board, just to clarify, that's not an ABANA story board. It's just from the Instagram of the person who happened to be instructing the first class. Each month will be a different instructor. I don't think they really care how it happens, as long as it's done to spec when indicated and you can reproduce the results.

[JHCC]

As detailed elsewhere, I made a roller for the Hossfeld bender out of pipe and stacked bearings.

Also welded a bracket onto the grinder stand to hold a water bucket and did a bit more grinding on the last two blades. 

[alexandr]

First stage finish. It remains to connect the spans with an oak handrail.

[BillyBones]

Alexandr, you never fail to deliver. 

17 hours ago, Shainarue said:

Can you show more of it? 

Well, sure. Like i said it is not meant to be a vise or to be hammered on, bend things, etc. Just an extra hand. It really does hold surprisingly tighter than i expected. The lever is a piece of half inch round bar i punched a 3/8" hole into, then bent into a kind of "S" shape. Cut a 1/2" slot into a 4x4, 1/2" because i did not have a 3/8" chisel,  I drilled a hole through the business end and rounded the end. A small piece of 1/2" square, welded to a piece of angle iron, then round the end and drill a hole. For the jaws i took a piece of angle iron and welded 2 more smaller pieces onto with holes drilled through them. I then used roll pins to hold the 1/2" square stem and the end of the lever to hold the jaws. The holes in the smaller pieces of angle being a smidge smaller than the role pins and the ones in the lever and post mount a bit bigger so they would move. A piece of 3/8 all thread, 2 metal sleeves through the post for the lever to pivot on. Any way, like they say a pic is worth a thousand words so...

Had to hold my foot at an angle to get the photo to get the idea of how to operate it. Supposed to use your toe.

How the jaws are mounted.

I decided today that it needs springs. So after breaking a drill, tap, and a bolt i finally got them on.

    

 

[Goods]

An authority xtra set of hands always comes in handy.

I started some blacksmith knives from 1/2” wire coil spring the other night:

Felt like good progress for two hours.

I got them normalizing now:

Ran out of time to harden and temper.

Keep it fun,

David

[Goods]

“An authority xtra set of hands always comes in handy.” 
That was supposed to read “an extra set of hands always comes in handy”.

I didn’t catch that “auto correct”

 

[M.J.Lampert]

Shainarue, as a fellow beginner remember slow is smooth, smooth is fast

trying to go fast will cause you to produce low quality items, take your time at the start and get it right

not much shop time recently but hope to get hammering again before Ii disappear from civilization for three months (yeah)

M.J.Lampert

[BillyBones]

MJ, i have always heard that as slow is steady, steady is smooth, smooth is fast. 

Spent some time doing a bit of leather work. I wet formed one half of it last weekend and this weekend finally got the stuff to assemble. rivets are copper. I could not find a snap for a retaining strap so i just cut a small length of leather to us as a tie for now. Except for the time i made a pair of moccasins as a boy scout i have never done much working with leather.  

Edited April 16, 2023 by BillyBones
forgot something

[Chimaera]

Looks good! I did a bit of leather work as well to make a sheath for this little blacksmith knife I just finished up. It is a neck sheath.

[Chad J.]

I have my first orchid done.   It was a fight to get the head on.  I had planned on riveting in place, but my first attempt broke,  my little torch didn't work, and the stick welder wanted to disintegrate the sheet metal.  I got it though.   I used a hot beeswax on this one.   Next one I'm throwing in the oven at 500 to see if I get colors.

[Shainarue]

Looks great, Chad! 

[Goods]

Very cool Chad! (Might be able to get varying temper colors using a propane or map gas torch?)

I got some more time in the forge today. Knives hardened and tempered, two half sharpened, and a camp axe forged and normalized:

Starting to feel like I’m close to being ready for the demo this weekend! Couple more items to go…

Keep it fun,

David

[Donal Harris]

Nice camp axe. 
 

Christmas ornament. WI and copper. 

[The Jeff]

Nice axe Goods, that's something I want to get into is making axes.