Tw, I just edited that to say "while hot", incase anyone might think to do it when it is not malleable. Doing so cold "could" snap the barb off.   

Make a pitch fork and tines as practice.  Bigger is sometimes easier and helps you understand the process. 

You can always say that the Eastern Oklahoma frogs grow BIG.

Daswulf, I figured you meant hot lol, 

Do you have any pictures of a gig you’ve made? Id like to see how everyone else makes them.

Glenn, I’ve been practicing by making cookout forks for people, but your pitch fork idea is pretty good to! 

I haven't made a gig but have made some over sized fishing hooks as art for people. The concept is the same with the barb.  I don't have any pictures on my phone of the nicer ones I've made just one I made for someone for halloween. 

The barb could be shorter and the point not as long on a gig.  When I get home and can dig out a few I still have Ill get pictures. If not just make a gig. Lol

That giant fishhook is pretty cool Das! 
 

For a gig I wouldn't weld tines, but raise them with a chisel by shaving it up from the parent stock.  Like dragon horns, and wizard beards are done. That is how commercial gigs appear to be done.

BGD, beat me to it, i was also going to suggest cutting the barbs with a chisel rather than try and weld. 

TwistedWillow, Torjborn Ahman (?spelling) did a video not long ago about making sockets out of pipe. 

I have a friend who used some of my clinkers in epoxy resin tables and such.

A pretty good day (yesterday, me and the wife got into a discussion and i forgt to hit submit), no one home so shop time for me. Made a fire poker for JLP's challenge A few more chain links, up to 31 now. Tried a BBQ tong thing. 

That sounds easier, I might give that a try too! 

I haven't made one of these since jr. high school but they worked really well on largish fish, I'm pretty sure a Doberman sized frog wouldn't be a problem. 

We used 1/4" round, forge a flat taper on one end like a chisel, cut or grind one side off so it looks sort of like a Y with one arm removed. Heat and bend the remaining side over to the shaft. Leave a space, it's the barb! Then we ground the outside to finish profile and sharpened. 

With just a LITTLE practice we were k nocking these out in a few minute. A couple guys in class were making decent money selling 3 and 4 point fish spears. I put mine on a 6' push broom handle with IIRC, 2' of rod between stick and points. The fish wouldn't stay around if I got closer enough to use the 3' handle. 

I took a 22lb. dolphin. (No, not FLIPPER the fish, AKA Dorado! sheesh guys!) I also got a couple rock cod and something else I didn't recognize. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Ive got some 5/8” square stock laying around, I was thinking on the next one about using it, 

I think that will be enough material to make the socket and enough to make three beefy tines, 

I’ll try y’all’s suggestions on the next one and instead of trying to weld the barbs I’ll use a chisel,

before I do all that again though I’ll practice making barbs with leftover pieces, 

Had a friend stop by yesterday with his angle grinder and cutting disk and we cut a small passthrough hole in the wall of the shop and in the hood for the NTM forge.  We also roughed in the chimney and after they left I used a block and a piece of soapstone to mark a better fit to the top of the forge and cut it with some bulldog tin snips.

These are early iterations of my bottle openers,  but I never had very good results trying to make the barb with a chisel.  My method is to do a slight set down and isolate some material to the side (like half a leaf) and cut the resulting bump from the backside with a hacksaw.  That's when I use a chisel to raise the barb and start shaping it.   

At the star below I flatten the sides out which makes the setdown disappear.  This does result in the whole barb and point area being an overall taper from the original round stock.

I generally clean up the back of the barb with a file to get rid of the sharpness and snags, probably not what you're going for though. 

That’s very interesting HojPoj! 

im wanting to make some functional frog/crayfish gigs so I need the tines and barbs to be a little bit smaller than your fishhook bottle openers but you gave me another method to try! Thank you very much for sharing your own how too do! 
I’ll give that a try to! 

Very new blacksmith here, but I managed to make a little vertical hook rack over the weekend for a late Christmas gift to a friend and I thought it turned out well : )

That looks awesome! 

HojPoj, I don't know if you heard the heavy Slap from the PA area. That was me slapping my head saying "why didn't I think of that" with the hook loop being a bottle opener. Brilliant!

Loafers, excellent work. Very new? You are on your way to success. Keep up the good work. 

Love the hook rack. Looks great. 

Also love the large fishing hook. Needed to find a whale to test it. 

I've really been wanting to make a very large functional safety pin for a while now for no real reason. (maybe Ill get on that in these winter months). Now you are making me debate how large a fishing hook I could actually forge with my equipment.

Good Morning Das,

A large safety pin , makes a great paper towel holder.

Neil

Loafers, that’s gorgeous! Very clean work- the hooks look identical, and the rack is symmetrical. Great work.

I have a safety pin that is 8" long. It is a left over from back in the day when we had to pin our hunting license on our backs when hunting.

Got my BBQ tongs finished, another bit of chain, and (not in pic) a bic with a groove to maybe, hopefully start getting round links where they are welded. Also made something i never thought i would make, a RR spike knife. My neighbors son brought me over a bag full of spikes and a bolt. He then proceeded to tell me he was going to go get more for his uncle, also a smith, and there were piles of them just laying around. So i proceeded to tell him that is not a good idea and could get him into a lot of trouble. Said he will wait till today so he can ask the guys working on the tracks about them, i said that is the best course of action. Even if he did take them he is 10 or 11 years old so they provably would not do much more than a good talking to about what he did and no real legal consequence. 

Is there some unwritten rule that all blacksmiths must at some point make a spike knife?

No; I never have after 40+ years of smithing.  I make knives from HC alloys not LC!  (Save for historical replicas that are plain WI.)

Burnt off more of the yard yesterday and this morning scruffed one of the barn cats and put it in a travel cage---off to Dr powers for spaying!  Now to convince the rest of them to let me approach them...

Well, 40+ years just means that you have not yet.  Just seems that you see these things all over. I know they are not good steel and i do not expect much more than a show piece. 

We have a group of ladies here that i let come onto my property to catch the feral cats. They take them to get spay and neutered then bring them back. If we have kittens they will take them to a rescue to find them homes. They set live traps up on the property through the spring, summer, and fall. They come and check them every couple hours or if i notice a cat in one i call them and they come get it. Pretty good deal, keeps the cat population down and keeps me from having to deal with it. Now if they could do something about the possums, racoons, skunks, and groundhogs. 

No, and I won't let my students make one in my forge. What they do in their own shop is a "Don't ask, don't tell" kind of situation.

I have found that if you use the spikes marked HC (high carbon) which are used on curves and switches and quench (no tempering) in Super Quench they aren't great but are OK for edge holding.  Certainly better than mild steel.  That said, real high or even medium C steel makes much better blades.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."