I've watched videos on the process of nail making several times and I think I'm still misunderstanding the geometry of the header, so I have a question for all you nail makers/nail header makers:

Do you forge and punch your header to match your nail starting stock, or do you forge the initial taper of the nail to match the header for a required nail size?

I.E. do you start with stock slightly larger than the header hole and just shoulder in from what will become the head to start the taper? Meaning that all that is preventing it from falling through the header is the full-size section that will become the head?

I hope I've worded that clearly. As I type this out, it seems logical, but I feel like I'm missing something so thought it better to ask. 

Cheers,

Jono.

Leave a shoulder so there is (I THINK this is the ratio but don't quite me) 1 1/2 x the diameter of the parent stock you're making nails from. The easy way is forge the shank, leave the shoulder and cut it off 1 1/2 x the diameter of the parent rod. 

Once you have some experience you'll be able to leave the right stick up by gaging he taper to jam in the header at the right spot.

Make sense?

Frosty The Lucky.

I think your last statement is the part I always get hung up on. This isn't something I've tried yet (definitely on my to-do list though!). So, the taper does need to be snug in the header hole? And it's just a bit of trial and error/fiddling at the start to get used to the size of taper you need?

The taper has to be more than snug, it has to be stopped from passing any farther so it will upset into the head. You're upsetting then flattening to form the head.

Frosty The Lucky.

The way I was taught is to start with stock maybe twice the width of the hole in the header. Shoulder down from two sides to the size of the hole. Then taper the nail shank down from the base of the shoulder, and cut the stock almost through maybe 1-1/2 times the stock thickness above the shoulder. 
 

Insert the tapered part in the header and twist off the remaining stock. Strike at a slight angle to center the head as you upset. 

I've had this grinder and pedestal for years but no place to put it in my old shop but it did find a home in the "new" shop.  The grinder is 1.5hp 3 phase and is a beast, especially the wire wheel - it can easily grab stuff and fling it about I have learned!  I had to make a bracket to hold the switch (another item from my hoard of potentially useful stuff), a cooling water vessel, a place for the wheel dresser and purchase a solid state 3 phase converter thing.  Runs very quietly.

Hefty, one thing I learned years ago when I was teaching myself to make nails (pre internet) is that the nails release from the header much more easily if the hole has a slight reverse taper.  That is, the hole is wider at the bottom than the top.

I also had to learn the hard way about forging a shoulder at the top of the taper of the stock.

When I am in the groove I can often (not always) taper, cut, and upset the head in one heat.  To do this I have to make the decision of whether I have enough heat left to forge the head after I have cut the stock almost all the way through but have not bent it off from the head of the nail.

Also, I will have my cutter in the hardy hole, head the nail over the pritchel hole, and knock the nail out of the header on the edge of the anvil and let the pile of nails build up on the floor or have a can on the floor to catch them.

If you do it this way, it’s advisable to reverse the usual tail-of-the-anvil-towards-the-hammer-hand alignment, so that you don’t risk that hand coming down hard on the hardy. 

(Pardon the crude drawings: best I can manage drawing on my phone with my thumb.)

I was working on a piece of 2" wide flat bar last night but didn't have any tongs that would hold it well. After knocking it loose a few times, I decided it just wasn't safe to continue with the tongs I had so I set out to modify a pair I bought for $1 and have had in a bucket for the past 2 years or so, lol

This is the UGLIEST tong bit I think I've ever made, lol

I wasn't able to spread them far enough to hold 2" stock but I got them spread enough to hold the width I had already tapered (maybe 1-1/2"?). At one point during the spreading process, it occurred to me that I should have just forge welded a forged-to-size bit on there. And I'll probably still do that before I work on the 2" flat bar again. But for now, these held the piece very securely so I could continue on with my project.

Behold, my ugly but functional tongs:

 

Ugly but functional: they must be engineer's tongs 

J/K Shaina! The box jaw does look thin! But if they hold the piece very securely then they are great!

Frosty, I understand what you mean about the process of upsetting the head, in general, but I'm still a little confused as to which faces are providing the stopping force. Sorry, not meaning to be pedantic, just aiming for a fuller understanding. I've drawn up a digital sketch below to try to clarify (some dimensions and angles are a little exaggerated). On the left is what I think you are describing, in the middle was my original thinking of how this works, on the right is what I presume would be the perfect scenario:

So should you aim for the image on the left or the image on the right? Looking at this sketch now that I've drawn all three, I can see how my original thinking could possibly lead to the nail upsetting inside the header and essentially riveting itself in place.

George, yes, I have seen people talk about having a reverse taper in the heading hole.

JHCC, that's good advice, thanks. However, I just picked up my new anvil TODAY before work!! I don't even have a hardy yet! I currently use an improvised hardy/chisel upside down in my vise, but I'm keen to make one once I get some steel the right size! I'll post some pictures in the "It followed me home" thread very soon  

 

Cheers,

Jono.

Edit: just after posting (and just after the editing window timed out ), I've realised that the stock is normally only shouldered on two sides of the square due to how it is forged (as Mike mentioned), so the diagram isn't quite correct because from a "cutaway" view like this you would only see a shoulder out one side of the hole.

Maybe I'm overthinking this!

Goods, that is a beautiful bending fork. Great job on that and the knife looks like it will be pretty great too. 

Arthur210, thank you! Your nails look really good especially compared to mine and I'm glad the new header is holding up and it's doing it's job. I think if it's not raining tomorrow evening, I'm going to go make some more. 

Shainarue, who cares if the tongs are ugly if they do what you need them to do. Good job getting them to work for you. Speaking of tongs, I've got 3 pairs of Kens Custom Iron Quick tongs that I forgot that I had. Bolt, scroll and one that holds a RR spike.

 

JHCC, that's the way my anvil is oriented full time. I never could get the hang of the horn pointed to my left although it seems most folks do. But I move to whatever I need to to accomplish my purpose

They'll all work but on different size nails, the left one is plenty of taper.

I don't get your last paragraph. Shouldering all the way around to isolate the head from the shank is easy enough. If you use butcher dies in a guillotine tool round the edges so they don't cut cold shuts into the nails.

If you made a guillotine blade with two edges you could set the shoulder and part the nail from the parent stock. Forge the shank of course.

There are probably thousands of various nail making "stations", check out the pics of the one at Colonial Williamsburg. It was made to be used at the cabin table with minimal heat.

Frosty The Lucky.

Do a set of tongs from bed frames, just don't forget that they are a high carbon steel that quench in water.  Ask me how I remembered that bit.

Anyway,  I'm working on getting some roses made for upcoming sales, have the leaves to put on and some adjusting the flowers themselves.  I've decided to make some that stand on their own just to be a bit different than usual.  Also,  with the deep conversations that were had about nails the past week I tried my hand again with 3/8 inch starting stock.   Really happy with how they turned out.

 

The rose is Italian Ice.  

 

Chad J., the roses are gorgeous! And your nails are pretty great too. Mine are from 3/8" stock, but I'm forging the shanks a little shorter than yours

Good looking roses Chad and the spikes turned out perfectly usable. What would you say, 10p or so?

After a while start practicing enameling steel and you won't be able to keep a flower on your table, people will be trying to buy them all before you're unpacked. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Nails. I am not even sure where my nail headers are at been so long since i made a nail

However, IIRC mine the holes are more of an hour glass shape with the top having a short taper. More like the shape of a pellet for a pellet gun. Also no convex portion under the hole, just sits flat on the anvil. 

 

Thanks Crazy Goat Lady,  I still feel the petals are a bit stiff,  I'll get in there Wednesday night and finish them up.  I might even make a custom set of tongs to help me, I do enough roses.   Frosty, I'll get a small torch and go for the heat oxidation colors on some,  get that great deep blue, purple,  and straw then put some good clearcoats on it to protect the finish.   I also found that the hammered finish titanium from about 2 feet can give it a great sparkle.   Like glitter except not as messy.  

I continue to make a new chandelier

Tried to use the break in the weather (finally cool and rainy instead of hot and sunny) to knock out a few sale items for the state fair that starts next week.  Went through my scrap pile and found a length of what I assumed (duh) was 3/8" square that was just long enough to make two steak flippers, which are (to my surprise) one of the hottest selling items at the fair.

    Forged the handles and felt it was harder than usual to get them made, and when time came to forge down the tips and it took many more hammer blows than I remember ever having to use on a steak flipper,  I realized I'd grabbed a scrap of 1/2" square instead of 3/8".   Spent a *lot* more effort drawing those down than I had intended, but at least I have a couple more sale items for the fair.  They are "beefy" steak flippers, which is appropriate enough, I guess.

Nice bbq. grill size flippers, well done.

Camp fire flippers need to be at least 24" from handle to hook. Also not everybody is right handed so if you make maybe 1 in 6 or so with the hook the opposite direction, you'll have left handers asking for your card. Could even advertise your "South Paw" steak flippers. There may be only 1:10 left handed folks out there but very few righties think of them at all. 10% of the population is a respectable market. Eh? Try one of your normal flippers left handed and see.

1/2" sq is 2x as hard to forge down because there is almost 2x as much steel per linear inch as 3/8". The cross sectional area of 3/8" 0.375" = 0.14 sq/" where 1/2" 0.5" has a cross sectional area of 0.25 sq/".

That's why 3/8 sq is my preferred stock unless there's reason to use heavier. 

Frosty The Lucky.

I have made left-handed flippers.  My sister is a southpaw and I gave her and my brother-in-law a matching set of left and right flippers to use on their barbecue.

 

I guess my flippers won't be useful for campfire cooking, as they are well under 24" long.    But they sell like hotcakes at the fair and when not being made from absurdly fat stock, are good, quick demo items.

I should be asking you any flipper questions I have. I've only made a few from RR spikes to have something to do with RR spikes. Left, right, long short about exhausts my expertise. 

Frosty The Lucky.

It is kind of weird how some items seem to suddenly be in high demand. Last summer a freind of mine could not make enough log tongs. 

Our state fair was last month. My granddaughter is in 4H and had an entry at the state fair. She did something with baking i think, i have yet to ask my daughter but my daughter is one heck of a baker, her entry was a winner at the county fair so she advanced to state. Next year they are planning on rabbits. 

 

Cool, it's nice having winning bakers in the family. But . . .BUT, they're going to bake RABBITS next year!? 

 Oh well, you know me and a good straight line. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Baked rabbit is pretty good  Although we don't butcher rabbits anymore. These days their job is for manure for the garden and for adding to vermicompost bin. 

I recommend starting with rabbits to show. Our nephew showed rabbits for FFA last year. He won 2nd place at our local show and Grand champion for his breed at the County Jr. Livestock show. His was the only Rex rabbit, but the judge said he an excellent example of the breed. Unfortunately, we will not participate in FFA this year because the nephew is not dedicated to it enough yet. If he shows more interest next year, we will reevaluate. I'd suggest buying an ARBA book. It tells you everything you need to know about rabbit breeds and even guinea pigs.