An Elegant Solution for a Non-Sagging Gate

[JHCC]

In his 1969 book Wrought Iron (reviewed HERE), East German smith Fritz Kühn shows his design for a fence and gate that combines elegant design with great strength, especially in its resistance to racking and sagging. Thought folks who wouldn't otherwise look at the review might appreciate seeing the design, which could easily be adapted to match a wide variety of styles.

Here is the detail itself:

And here is the entire assembly:

[anvil]

Excellent book! One of my first.

Another thing to notice in the above gate is the twist. Notice the edges of the twist are inboard of the parent stock. This is done by forging the length of the twist smaller than the parent stock. The diagonal of the twist equals the size of the parent stock.

Thanks for the pics!

[ThomasPowers]

I have the 1939? edition in German: "Geschmiedetes Eisen"; bought it for a few euros at the Frankfurt AM fleamarket back in the 1990's.  Has a few pictures that are different than the post war editions.  One thing I have tried to do when making international trips is to learn some of the basic words & phrases about blacksmithing to be able to ask about books and equipment.  GI  was not out on the table; but when I asked about "old blacksmithing books" the dealer dug it out for me.  (Kunstschmied is a good term to know!  try googling it and looking at the images.)

[anvil]

Mine, I'm sure is the more recent one.

Lol, I had a similar experience at the Frankfort "banhoff". I went to the information kiosk and asked the lady who spoke English if she would help me find any local blacksmith shops. I got a very puzzled look. So I dredged up my long ago german and asked "vo ist eina  Kunstschmied, bitta". She got a very nice smile and said "go 5 blocks up the road and take a left. It's on the corner"! And thus I saw the restoration of the giant screens for the Frankfort Cathedral and met two brother blacksmiths. I spent three days coming and three days going in their shop.

[ThomasPowers]

I have been amazed at how well my middle and high school language classes, (Spanish and German when I ran out of Spanish), have served me over the years.  I have worked on international projects with a group in Germany on a project being built in Chile and worked in Mexico for 6 years crossing the border every workday.

It's amazing at how pleased people in other countries are when you try to speak their language.  (There is an old joke:  "What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages?"  "Trilingual".  "What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages?" "Bilingual". "What do you call someone who speaks 1 language?" "American.")

[anvil]

Lol, that's so true. I was a military brat. I spent 4 years in Germany up to the 7th grade, so it was a long way down, but there when I needed it. Also my senior year was in france. And I used to be pretty fair with coloquial spanish. It's pretty amazing how it comes back in a pinch.

[ThomasPowers]

I think my most amusing time was when we were visiting Germany and stopped by Marksburg castle when they were having a handcrafts festival.  One of the spinners doing a demo was having issues with their plying and my monolingual wife wanted to help them---asking me to use my highschool German which never covered things like "pulley ratios" and "counting your treadling".  Lots of pointing and handwaving; but she was able to convey that to get even plying you needed to draw the same length and treadle the same number of times; every time.

Most fun for me was visiting an open air museum, (Bad Windsheim), a decade later and asking the blacksmith demoing if he could weld up a bandsaw blade and pallet strapping billet I had brought with me.  (My German is much better WRT smithing stuff! His english was very good as he had been a POW here in America during WWII.)  When he said no and I said that I could; he basically picked me up over the crowd rope, handed me a hammer and invited me to demonstrate.  I had, of course, also brought one of the little trial sized boxes of borax and spent the next couple of hours happily going over pattern welding with him.

[SLAG]

Folks,

W. R. T. means   "with respect to". 

I had to look it up, and guessed that some others might not be in the know  too.

SLAG.

Great job Thomas. That must have been very satisfying.

[Frosty]

Interesting story Thomas. My Father was a guard in a POW camp in Texas during WWII they may have met. One of the things the POWs did in camp was make components for the war effort. Dad didn't get sent into combat because he was a machinist and metal spinner and deemed crucial. He had nothing but good to say about the German POWs working in his shop. 

The camp had foundry, forge, heat treat and experimental aircraft facilities. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

My gracious and forgiving wife took our kids and saw the rest of the Museum while I was busy.  She was treating them to ice cream at the Museums restaurant when the smith's striker came in to get beer and snacks for the "smiths" and was talking excitably to a fellow at a nearby table  about the "Amerikanisher Schmied" and "Damaszener-Stahl". When she was paying the tab she found out that then fellow at the table was the president of the museum...; *that* was what made me feel good when she told me.  Never regretted travelling with the billet and borax---though taking a small package of white powder through international customs did make me a bit nervous---why I used the sample sized box and not a ziplock baggie...

The smith was 82 when I met him in the mid 1990's.  Perhaps we'll meet again where the steel never burns and is never hot short or cold short.  (His hobby was collecting examples of Roman forge work, the originals!)