Right you are Arthur, I did mention that matched products cost more didn't I? When someone wanted "perfect" I told them I can't do "Perfect" I'm not a deity but I'll do the best I can for time and materials. And kindly offer to not charge materials. 4-5" of 3/8" square cost less than $25 per 20' and I usually bought a ton or so not far above the first quantity break but it was worth it. Funny how so many thought that less than $0.35 was a deal. 

Some products REQUIRE precisely matched pieces, hinges are a perfect example. On the one hand they need to be matched to work mechanically. On the other hand they're on display, everybody sees the hinge plates and door latches so even if the customer doesn't care the smith SHOULD. They have your mark on them and they are lasting testimony to the quality of YOUR work. Yes? 

Hinges aren't easy, I never did enough to get good enough to try selling them at demos.

Of course then they started talking about smith prices in George Washington's day. Sure, I'll be MORE than happy to make them 2 for a dollar. . . 18th century GOLD dollar coins. My 1980s, $75/hr shop rate didn't sound so bad after that. It always got a chuckle at demos and demos is where I heard this argument most often. IN Washington's day you could buy a large house, barn, outbuildings and decent acreage for 1,000 gold dollars. Have you seen pictures of Mt. Vernon? He made and had a lot of work and improvements done but it was a working farm so it's hard to calculate the purchase vs finished price. 

Pricing your work is hard, often harder than making the product and just because you get faster as you get better should NOT lower per item prices. All we have to sell is our skill and time and it's REALLY expensive to increase YOUR time above ground. That costs US time and money to acquire and maintain. Do NOT sell yourself short.

And do NOT charge according to what someone else charges unless they're in direct local competition. In that case price is part of the competition, along with quality, time, etc. 

A trick I used for folk who wanted say 4 matched coat hooks. I took more time and made as many as necessary until I had 4 that matched. Twists and the transition to smooth square or round are really hard to make matching items and I learned some tricks that really helped but I'd still have to make 6-8 hooks to get my 4. 

The transition trick I discovered from twist to rnd. or sq. cross section is to twist first, THEN forge the transition and rest of the piece. With a little care it's easy to forge the corners of square down into the main mass. Better than that, the transition is visible and attractive. Customers LIKE being able to see and feel the changes hammer and anvil make to the stock.

I believe this is the ONE reason nearly worthless (for blade stock) RR spike KSOs (Knife Shaped Objects) are so popular, they can see and feel the transition from a familiar object into something else. Sure some spikes have HC for "high carbon" on the head but it's a relative term. High carbon for a RR spike is well below useful for a blade. The increase is to make the spikes tougher for special uses on the line.

Twists were usually the thickest cross section of my leaf hooks, the stock does NOT shorten or thicken enough to measure without pretty sophisticated  instrumentation. Scale loss is far greater. It takes more time to explain why and how but a tighter twist with the corners of the SQ getting tighter does NOT mean the bar is getting shorter. The REAL bar is actually the center excluding the corners and the solid center twists with no appreciable length change. You don't REALLY think you can compress or stretch steel bar lengthways by hand do you? Hmmm?

Dang, rambling again but I've had this conversation many times, often with the audience over the anvil at demos.

Frosty The Lucky.

I made a little coffee scoop. 

Nice Pedro. Does it measure accurately for you coffee maker or just scoop? 

Frosty The Lucky.

Let's make this fun! Guess the volume!

I'm going to say two tablespoons/1 oz.

Nice work, BTW. 

Pedro, I really like the handle on your scoop. Nice job!

Keep it fun,

David

Frosty, I remember you telling me to make the twists first when I was making some door pulls. Thanks for jogging my memory for when I go to do it again. 

Pedro, I love your coffee scoop. It'll give coffee drinking a little elegance. 

Pedro, that's a nice looking coffee scoop.

Billy, I'm sure you'll get the hinges just the way you want. I totally feel you on that heat. I've gotten better this year about not forging when it's over 100F heat index. It's just not worth the mistakes I'll make. This is still just a hobby for me - there's no reason to be out there pushing through when I'm not making money on it, lol

Our area finally caught a break with this insane heat wave and our heat indexes are in the mid-high 90s. So I've been able to get out and work on stuff again. Last night, I started on a new sculpture. If it works out the way I sketched it (I didn't test in clay), it should end up being a mouse with its tail wrapped around a railroad spike. When sitting on a surface, it will (hopefully) appear as though the spike goes through the surface and the mouse is just curled up next to it. I'll only have an hour to work on it tonight so we'll see if I am able to finish. 

 

Shainaru, they are not hinges. Test pieces for a grill that is going in the bottom of a storm door. The spured part will be on the diagonal then have 1/2" round bars as pass throughs. So it will be a diamond pattern.

EDIT: forgot to add cool idea on the mouse thing. Hope it works out will be pretty neat. 

Darn Shaina I remember you asking for mouse ideas but I blanked. Sooooo of course I just now thought of one. Forge a mouse  on one end and a dragon's head on the other connected by the tail. The mouse sitting on the dragon's head eating it. Oh come on, EVERYBODY's heard of the prehistoric Sabre Tooth Terror mouse.

Frosty The Lucky.

LOL - I love that. I'm adding it to my sketchbook for real. That one probably should test out in clay first though. That merging of tails could get hinky.

Oh wait - As soon as I hit submit, I realized I think you meant a decapitated dragon? If so - even better!

Oh no! the Dragon's head is emerging from the table, display plaque, base, etc. Dragon's are magic there really IS 30tons of flying fire breathing dragon under that table you know.

There have been many versions of the prey animal eating the predator. The Roadrunner picking scraps off or perched on a coyote skeleton is pretty common in the S.W.

Thinking about it a skull would probably be easier to do in the time allowed, you don't have to worry about ears, eyes, etc. and you don't have to make the species recognizable so long as it has fangs. Ooh WAIT! A rattle snake head is REALLY easy to forge from a spike head. Just enough snake body to coil so it'll stand and it's drawn down to the mouse tail with it on the snake's head.

The voices are getting excited now!

Frosty The Lucky. 

 

Lol, okay! 

Well here's the progress from tonight. I need to adjust the ears. I must have flattened them at some point without noticing.

Shainarue, that is a very cool idea for a sculpture. Creative thinking there. I have a good stash of RR spikes. I got them a few years back when they were all the rage lol. I've found very little use for them in reality but your mouse is a good inspiration for taking them somewhere I probably wouldn't have thought about.  

Looks pretty good Shaina. You are going to brush the rust off the spike aren't you or is it a deliberately rust-ic design? (sorry, couldn't help myself)

I see one of the issues of using RR spikes as stock as demonstrated by the elongated muzzle. Call it a shrew and it's a good representation. 

If you trim the sharp end back you'll be able to forge the more "blunt" muzzle of a mouse easily and quickly. If you do it from the notional Top of the mouse across the thick of the spike point the chisel will start the shape of the muzzle and save time.

Cut the ears from 2 corners of the spike and be generous, they're easy to trim when you're finishing. Mouse ears are pretty large and face forward BUT angling one or both to the side like it was listening to something will instill a sense of motion and life to the piece. Hmmm?

Brian Brazeal's horse and other animal head videos make these things much easier but it's probably a little late now eh?

Good luck and bat it over the fence!

Frosty The Lucky.

This is my 2nd mouse and it's better than the 1st, lol, but still not great. The long nose is all me - not the spike. If I'd have been using a reference photo like I should have been doing, I would have seen it was shorter and I would have upset the spike accordingly. 

Regarding the ears, I was following the steps I watched in a YT video. They cut the ears in after the body was shaped. Once again, I opted to "save time" by not making the correct tool and using a different tool that actually made the outcome not as great as it could have been, lol. The person I watched used a curved chisel to start the ears. I didn't have one so I used a slitter, then a thin chisel, then a thin fuller, then a thicker fuller - pulling them out a bit more each time. They also did that thin-to-thick fullering, but I think the curved chisel would have gotten the best shape right off the bat. One of the ears broke off on my 1st mouse so I was being mindful to keep this hot and not work too long in any one area - and I was probably holding back too much due to that fear of it breaking. 

More tooling I didn't take the time to make: a stop block with hole for the nose - used when cutting in the ears. A vice jig for carving. It's SO EASY to make! I could have cobbled together some bits from around and had it welded in less than 30 minutes! But I didn't. Instead, I had to continuously work out marring in the body from the post vise jaws.

I won't be attempting any more head carvings until I've made that tool and some more proper punches. I don't know why I do this to myself.

Yeah, using a photo or better a sketch from a Sci type mouse or rodent book is a good idea. 

Who's YT were you watching? I've only ever taken a little bit away from them myself, even from the greats. You know, a trick here maybe a different sequence of steps, etc.

It's all part of gaining experience, don't sweat it.

Don't try finding or making a chisel that shapes the ears for you, just take even cuts behind the notional head then upset the pointed ends a LITTLE for round ears, lift them enough to get something behind them to act as the anvil. I just use an old chisel with a blunt edge and form the ears with a round punch. Do the cupping with a ball punch, just anneal a ball bearing and weld it to  the end of a piece of round stock. To align them or any round stock for welding lay them in a piece of angle iron, tack roll it over and tack. Grind the welds flush if necessary and step weld all round. EzPz.

Make your eyeball punch by heating a thrift store punch you've flattened to yellow and smack a BB. Again you can center the BB and punch by welding a piece of plate to a length of angle iron and using a similar diameter center punch held in the angleiron to punch the spot where the BB or whatever matches the body of the punch. Make sense?

Anyway, before I get myself in blind linear ramble mode, making animal heads is fun and the necessary tools for the vise and anvil are easy. 

To prevent maring the heads with vise teeth marks make slips, two thin pieces of angle iron that drop in the vise aren't the best but work okay. Later you'll want to make them from copper or aluminum, the softer metals hold better and won't damage texturing.

NO! Do NOT wait till you have all the tooling you think you need! You don't have the experience to know what you need and what's a maybe good idea that doesn't work, All those special ear chisels are a perfect example. Very few are worth making for specialty heads. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Or you can use a real mouse. I have one that hangs out in my shop. I found him in a tool box and assume he had a peanut allergy since he was mummified while eating a peanut. I used to use him in my pics.

Had to dig back to 2021 for this pic. I got my first phone call from Glenn over him. I called him a term that is used in Louisiana that is a compliment to people there, kind of like calling people from KY hillbillies, but not thinking it could be taken as a racial slur.  

IIRC Glenn much preferred Szechwan mouse over Kung Pow mouse.

Frosty The Lucky.

I made two eye punches (one almond shape, one round) using the ball bearing method a year ago. I had a center punched both the punch head and the dish holding the ball bearing. Dang things still went flying after each hit. I went through 5 or so ball bearings making those punches. Next time I'll just use a ball punch to punch the eye!

I also made a small-ish ball punch last year - but by forging, not welding. Didn't take long.

Sure, I *could* make the ears with other tools (as I did with this one) but if I could accomplish a similar or better result with less effort, why wouldn't I? Now, if only I remembered to adhere to this logic, lol

I make plenty things harder than they need to be because I don't take the time to make the tool that would make it more efficient. (sigh)

2 hours ago, BillyBones said:

kind of like calling people from KY hillbillies, but not thinking it could be taken as a racial slur.  

Sort of like raccoon donkey?

I switched out my single pilot 5/2 valve for a dual pilot 5/2.  It works great but I had to remove the muffler.  Now it's really loud!  Pop over to that topic if you'd like to see it working and if you'd like to offer suggestions on how to handle the loud hiss.  I had an idea, myself, but welcome others.

Dual pilot 5/2 upgrade

I haven't done anything in the shop for ages. However today, I needed to find a simple way to keep a set of wheels for Debi's kayak from falling out when she is wheeling it around to get it in the water. Then I thought a spring collar like I have for my weight bench to hold the weights on would work. The problem was the collar for the weights was too large. Got to looking at it and thought that should be simple to make one.

Found some spring steel rod and because it was so small in diameter no sense firing up the forge, especially as hot it is outside. A propane torch worked just fine and about an hour later had one made that fit the wheels. Hardened it in oil and tempered back, still nice and springy.

And a very blacksmitherly solution Randy, KUDOS!

This kind of job is why I keep a couple old screen door springs around. I have another small wire tension spring like a screen door spring but the wire is maybe half again as thick and makes a fine choice when stronger is necessary or desirable. 

Frosty The Lucky.

BillyBones, I remember the mouse! That brings back good memories 

Hey Irondragon, how are you doing?

 

37 minutes ago, CrazyGoatLady said:

Hey Irondragon, how are you doing?

I'm doing great, just turned 83 last month.

I can’t control the wind. All I can do is adjust my sails. ~Semper Paratus~

Sorry about the flying bearings, containing it is an issue I'd forgotten about, my bad. I'm thankful you weren't hurt. 

Frosty The Lucky.