Thanks for answering my question, Jennifer. I have a piece of wrought I bought at the 2021 Quad State that I haven't done anything with (except pound small portions to pieces and try welding back together) *sigh*  One day...

Once I saw some very intricate and delicate Spanish wrought iron jewelry in a museum. I admired the work, but it wasn't until I tried to work a little wi myself that I appreciated the skill it must have taken.  

Good work all. Love the W.I.

I only have a few old WI rr spikes and bolts but they seem much finer grained. Maybe I need to etch longer

Finished. 

That is outstanding.

That came out great DHarris, I love art that draws me in looking for all the details. I'll be watching for a pic of it mounted.

I love the umbrella chimney cover Alex! Does it turn in the wind as a wind vane too? 

Frosty The Lucky.

That grain texture is beautiful DHarris

Red Pete; wrought iron came in a range of coarseness: bloom, muck bar, merchant bar, singly refined WI, Doubly refined WI, triply refined WI, USW....  In the day the finer grades were more expensive and preferred for ornamental work.  Today we mainly want the grain pattern and so the coarser grades show it better.

Great job DHarris. You must have read my mind, when I saw the first picture I thought that it would look good with brass, or copper, rivets

Alexandre, beautiful work, as always.

I finally finished up my stock removal knife yesterday. first knife I've made so I'm pretty happy.

Stay happy. Nate! If you stick with it, you will find yourself learning skills you never dreamed you'd be interested in... and loving it.

Tonight I tried to create a ball on the end of a 1/2" round rod by creating a shoulder on the far side edge of the anvil. In my haste, I didn't measure before creating the shoulder and ended up setting it too far back. So I tried upsetting to shorten it. Didn't notice until it was too late that I'd created a shut (I think) because it split nearly halfway through. Granted, it was about 1/4"-ish where it split. It's certainly possible I just had a wayward hammer hit that created it. 

Question: Assuming I didn't have a wayward hammer hit, could my mistake have been in trying to upset after the shoulder was created? Or if that's actually possible to do then could my mistake have been just pushing the upset too far between evening out and not noticing the fold? 

Trying to upset once you have defined a shoulder is not impossible but it gives you lots of opportunities to fail because there is less metal backing up the area that you want to set up.  It will want to bend at the shoulder rather than spreading sideways.

When figuring how much metal to start with before you set the shoulder you will need to do some math (horrors!)  Figure the volume of the sphere you want to end up with (pi x R cubed) and then figure how long a piece of you stock will have the same volume.  Add a bit (maybe 10-15%) for loss due to scale during the forging.  For example, if you want a 1" ball and are starting with 1/2" stock you will need to mark off about 1.6" on the stock before upsetting and after you have upset  the end, set the shoulder .

You can control the tendency of the metal to upset too far up the bar by pouring water from your slack tub over the area behind where you have made the mark before doing the upset.

:"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

You can also heat the section to be upset with an oxyfuel torch.

The key to upsetting is for the heated section of your workpiece to be like a hobbit supermodel: short and hot. 

Did you upset over the edge of the anvil? Take a look at some of JLP’s finial videos. First, collar welding is actually not terribly difficult. Second, you can see how she upsets and shapes over the edge of the anvil or swage block. 

Keep it fun,

David 

Hobbit supermodel 

The first video I watched was Aspery, but he used a tool and I didn't want to create a tool... Impatient, lol. Next video I watched was Black Bear and he showed 3 ways. Two ways used tools, one way used the edge of the anvil but he was using flat bar rather than round. I said yippee and went to work combining the two ideas: create shoulder on far edge of anvil and then square-round-octagon and tap in the corners til it's sphere-ish.

All this happened within 40 minutes, including the video "research", lol 

I'll go look for the JLP finial video. And I'll take more time to plan out the measurements rather than winging it. 

Still working on it. Shooting for an Old Norse blacksmithing hammer.

 

 

George, all: The simplest formula for calculating the volume of a sphere is "v= 4/3 pi r cubed." I don't know of a shortcut and I looked years ago. I was calculating the weight of lead and other metal balls for fishing weights and cannon shot and close ball park numbers would've worked well enough.

Your hammer's coming right along Lary, it's looking good.

Frosty The Lucky.

Frosty, you are correct.  I just reached into the memory banks and pulled it out and didn't check.  I forgot the 4/3 part.  Apologies to Shaina and anyone else I might have led astray.

GNM

On 10/18/2022 at 5:06 AM, Frosty said:

Does it turn in the wind as a wind vane too? 

Jer !

No, it stays still.

17 hours ago, George N. M. said:

then figure how long a piece of you stock will have the same volume

Is this part just something that comes from doing it or is there a formula for figuring out how long a piece of stock will give me the same volume?

Also - my math skills are kinda crap. I'm not sure how to get to the numbers you gave for the 1" example.

1" ball
V = 1.33 * 3.14 * (0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5)
V = 1.33 * 3.14 * 0.125
V = 0.52 (+ 15% scale loss = 0.6)

So how did you figure out the shoulder got placed at 1.6"?

We catch each other, George it's another thing that makes Iforge a good site for good info.

That's too bad Alex, maybe the next one will pivot like a wind vane. I think moving art is attractive art.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

2 hours ago, Shainarue said:

V = 0.52 (+ 15% scale loss = 0.6)

So how did you figure out the shoulder got placed at 1.6"?

If we’re talking about making this from 1/2” square bar, where volume equals L x W x H:

V= 0.6, W = H = 0.5, L = ?

0.6 = L x 0.5 x 0.5

0.6 = L x 0.25

0.6 x 4 = L x 0.25 x 4

2.4 = L

1.6” does seem a little short. Or am I missing something?

I did it wrong because I didn't recall the 4/3 part of the equation.  I suggest you start over with the correct formula.

George

I got 3 more blacksmith knives started:

My wife asked for more gifts for associates of her’s. Three knives and one hatchet. Works out great, she gets unique gifts to give and I get more forge time and practice!

Keep it fun,

David

Thanks for that formula help JHCC. Funny thing about math, it's familiar once someone writes it out for you, lol

I didn't find a JLP video on ball end that wasn't forge welding. I did find another video though that was filmed in a class environment. The instructor demonstrated all the steps on clay first and then did it with the bar. I got closer this time but still got a split in the shoulder. Thankfully I got a phone call and stopped before it flew off, lol