The good old wrench bottle openers.  If you can't solve one problem with them you can solve another.  I like how they turned out Rojo.

I made some s hook chain for a rain chain.   So far I have 9 sections of 4 links.   I need to get the pipe I found cut to length and soaking in vinegar to get the galvanizinf off.  I was surprised at how quickly I could do it anymore.  Thinking back a couple years a simple taper took me probably half an hour.  

21 hours ago, Frosty said:

By weed whacker blade do you mean a "Sling blade"?

Well, "some folks call it a Kaiser blade." Yes i believe that "Sling Blade" is not only a good movie but what they are called. The one i had i made from a piece of leaf spring and it took a lot to move the metal down thin and light enough. That one had a tang that was set into the handle. This time i am thinking of making a socket instead. 

4 hours ago, BillyBones said:

 "Sling Blade" is not only a good movie but what they are called.

When I finally nailed that "mmmm, mustard 'n' biscuits" impression, I drove my wife absolutely insane.  For a week I pretended to be Karl Childers.  I even made some biscuits with mustard. She finally snapped, I reckon. 

My go-to response to comments that I look like I'm deep in thought, "what were you thinking about?"  is "Just thinkin' I should take some of these fries home for later..."

 

Well, I made a nail. I didn't figure it would be, but making them is not as easy as it looks. I finally got one maybe decent looking one after about 6 attempts. I was determined to have something to show for it before I shut down for the night. I got the nail header from Centaur Forge in the mail today. I had to file the edges of the square hole. They were sharp. But I suppose it works okay but I don't know because it's the first time I've ever used one

Welcome to the club!  Making nails takes practice and that's not bad for your first session. 

Well done.

Frosty The Lucky.

Welded up the flamingo head. 

CGL, fun coincidence, I decided to do nails yesterday too! The great thing about nails is they can be done between heats of whatever else I'm working on. And they're wonderful at showing exactly what your hammer control looks like, for good bad or worse! 

A few years ago, I would start every session with a few nails and end with one. I got pretty good at them and they were my go to when I would demo at the club tent at festivals. 

It's been a bit over a year since I've done any nails and after a pretty crap couple of weeks, I decided nails were the kind of "easy win" I needed. Hahahahaha 

Oooor maybe it was the brutal honesty I needed, lol

I present: my nails and their story of Shaina's off-center hammer blows 

Frosty, thank you. I think I may have the process kind of put together in my mind and it'll be easier next time. 

Shainarue, you nailed it  I couldn't resist lol. I had this big idea that I could make ALL the nails for the barn we are building but my pragmatism said maybe I can make SOME of the nails for it. My husband is excited for the idea and he's really proud of my one sorta good nail. Maybe I'll get to where I think it's an easy win! I do want to make the door hinges if I can. I've made door handles and latches for one of our old chicken tractors, but it would be so cool to make barn door hinges. 

JHCC, looking good. Will this flamingo be painted or going to have a blacksmitherly finish on it? It'll put your clients neighbors flamingos to shame 

That's looking really good John. I'm not sure what the expression means but I like it. Maybe its giving Brutus the old Popeye squinky eye.

Oh come ON Shaina, you can't fool us those are excellent examples of hand forged picture hanging nails.

Don't over think nails, there is a simple formula for how much should be sticking up out of the header for the right diameter head. I'm sure someone will correct me if my memory is working as well as usual. IIRC 1 1/2 x the diameter of the nail stick up out of the header.

Frosty The Lucky.

I drive my wife nuts with Forest Gump quotes.

8 hours ago, JHCC said:

Welded up the flamingo head. 

You're going to cause familial problems among the surviving siblings.  They WILL be fighting over that!  I love it!  It's an heirloom.

I went out to the smithy this morning because we're only in the high 80s today.  I was going to make some nails myself, so I dug up my nail header.  I think it was the very first tool I ever made...and it shows.  I made it out of a railroad spike.

But first I had to fix the hole.  It wasn't really tapered as far as I could tell, so I found a file with the perfect square tapered tang, reheated  and drifted it some more.  Then I tried to make some nails.  Wow.  After two attempts, I quit, realizing I needed a review.  I had a problem with turning a square cross-section into an irredeemable trapezoidal cross-section.

So I went to making a new fuller out of a piece of coil spring and making that last leaf I need for a pair of shelf brackets.  I hopefully got the right curves on the fuller.  It sort of looks like the one from Brian Brazeal's video.  I think my fourth leaf will look really good.

Installed the balcony in its place. Never done in this style before.

 

 

 

I think I need to round off the corners of the fuller some more now that I compare it to Brian's.

Alexandr,

Nice work.  That's an interesting roof in the background of the first picture.  It's not like anything I've ever seen.  Metal roof on a metal roof?

Nate

As a general rule, the tool should be shaped as the negative of how you want the workpiece shaped.

6 minutes ago, MeltedSocks said:

Nice work.  That's an interesting roof in the background of the first picture.  It's not like anything I've ever seen.  Metal roof on a metal roof?

Thank you! Roof made of galvanized metal sheets.

Melted, I was looking at the hole in the in the nail header from Centaur. It's not hour glass shaped so I was a bit worried it wouldn't release but it seemed to do fine. If I were to make one, I would taper the hole though. I think I'm going to try making nails in the vise. Someone correct me if I'm wrong please, but it seems to me using the vise wouldn't limit me to just whatever size the hole in the header is. Your fuller looks really nice but I think you are right that maybe the corners need to be rounded more to match the Brazael fuller if that's what you're going for

I've never gotten the hourglass shaped rivet or nail header either. I punch nail headers after forging a nail from coil spring and shortening it to a proper punch length.

Of course you need different size headers for different "shank" sizes. Different size heads is a matter of how much shank you leave above the header when you head it. 

Making nails in a vise works fine IF you don't mind turning and resetting it a couple times to finish it.

A fuller needs a GENTLE curve, visualize an axe blade and ends rounded JUST enough it isn't cutting sharp divots. Half round profiles makes an embossing tool, not a fuller. Similar but different tools.

Frosty The Lucky.

I'm taking notes Frosty. I'll have to move my vise out of the loafing shed. It's too far from the fire to do much of anything right now. It's mounted to a tire rim with a thick steel plate table. Whoever built it was definitely taller than me. So since everything is on the ground, I think I'll sink it down some. That should make it stable and more suitable for my shortness

Oh goodness, sounds like you need to mount your vise correctly. Depending on what you use it for you mount it to match your height. Not your . . . shortness. Height is the 3rd. dimension, length, width, height. 

We're talking about a leg vise yes? Why haven't you mounted it to a post or portable stand made from wood? I've always had some choice words for the knowledge, ability to reason and experience of people who use wheel rims to make stands for bench tools. And yes, a leg vise is a "bench" tool, the mounting plate screws right into a bench just as well as to a shelf on a post. 

Rivets are not heavy hammer work so a 2nd hand store bench vise works just fine, just soften the edges of the jaws so they don't cause "cold shuts" if you head nails in it. 

Heading rivets requires a heading tool but it's only technically different than a nail header. 

Back in the day people used to make nails cold at the "dinner" table in the evening. 

So, draw a number of nail shanks leaving enough of the original stock dia. for the head. Sure, it's making multiples of a single product and counts as production work. There are a lot of good things about learning how to do production, it requires planning, arranging tools in places and ways you won't have to look for them. Establishing a routine so a fresh blank rod is to heat when you're ready for it and it goes back in the forge (not necessarily in the fire) at the back of the line of stock pieces. A trick for making this effective is pushing the whole row of parts forward in the forge when you lay the one you just finished down. 

Do you have a nail parting tool? One of those or a hardy would be in the hardy hole at hand.

Forget developing production techniques, those will come and I'll help. Just forge some nail shanks every day you get to the forge and set them aside to head later. 

I STRONGLY prefer and recommend using a "butcher" type hardy to part nails from the parent rod. This leaves the end of the nail to be headed Flat, the "pinch off" is on the end you'll draw to a point. This speeds up the process and makes more even heads.

Until you make or buy a butcher type parting tool there is no rule against flattening the head end of nails before heading them. 

I need to go do stuff. More later,

Frosty The Lucky.

Back out into the smithy after a little wash up, lunch, and quick nap.  The new fullering chisel seems to work very well.  I added some texture to the fourth leaf to make it go with the other three. I think they all look good. I tested the new fullering chisel with some modeling clay.  Looked okay.

I ruined my old, crappy nail header, so I started another.  This carbon steel came from my old HF shop press.  It was the action side of the hydraulic press.  I could have started with a smaller piece, but the high intensity hammering felt good to  my old soul.

 Will finish this tomorrow.

Frosty, I'll post a picture of my vise if y'all can see it amongst the "stuff" on and around it. It's been sitting in the shed since we moved here. It is a leg vise. I've been thinking about mounting it some other way, but when I used it before, it was heavy enough for the work I did to stay in place, just too tall for me. But you're right, it needs to be better mounted. I bought it because it's only 1 of 2 leg vises I've ever seen in the wild. The other was in the corner of a storage unit somebody was selling stuff out of. It wasn't for sale.

I need to make some tools. Last night I used a big chisel turned upside down in the hardy hole to seperate them from the parent stock. I do have a butcher die in my little guillotine tool though and I thought about using it but then thought it might take me too long to get anything accomplished. I'll try that next time. Thanks for your advice and the backstories of things. I'll take all the information that you are willing to give. 

Melted, the fuller lines in the leaves look real good. Well done! 

More work on welding up the flamingo. 

A trick i learned with a butcher, if you angle the stock just a bit the end that is at the downward angle will upset slightly. Not much but just enough sometimes.