Tooling up for some upcoming projects

[M.G.]

Hopefully this fhread will become a comprehensive account of all the tooling that I am making for an upcoming decorative ironwork project. 

Just to give you a quick insight into what the tooling will be working towards....

I am planning on making an ornate set of medieval basket torches and a wall mounting. I'm still working on the concept and design, but im planning on a design that lays a little less in line with the sensibility of form follows function, and to add a more modern organic and decorative touch to the project (think rococo meets nouveau) I may add some sketches or photos of some test pieces to the thread as they come together. 

 

But before i dive too far into the immigrations of a mad man, we might as well get started with the tooling.

I couldn't just wait to let the new gas forge do its job, so I started in with some seemingly simple pieces of tooling. (Most of these for the time being, are loosely modeled after the processes laid out by Mark Aspery, with liberties taken by yours truely[likely to be re interpreted down the road after some use])...

First up was a scrolling wrench, forged from 1 1/2"x3/8" bar mild steel. This was my first attempt at this type of forging. And will not be my last, I can foresee needing a couple of these in various sizes in the future. So I will likely have more chances to make nicer ones. 

Next I made a set of scrolling tongs these were forged from 1"x3/8" bar of mild.  I will likely trim down the reigns on these after a couple uses. And will likely make a smaller set for finer work down the road.

Here is the leafing hammer for the project. Forged by hand, with a little help from my very accommodating wife, who I was able to convince to strike for me to punch the eye. Forged from scrap steel of a truck axel, which I broke down to a 1 1/8"x1 1/8"×4 1/2" billet. Then hung on a highly figured piece of curley ash, and secured with a wallnut wedge. And oiled up with some BLO. All in weighing 3.5lbs on the dot.

That's all I I was able to do in my last couple weekends, and other chores are calling. 

I hope to be back with more tools over the next few weeks, so please check back and let me know what you think.

Enjoy!

 

[Goods]

All very nicely done MG! Looking forward to seeing the rest.

Keep it fun,

David

[M.G.]

Thanks Goods! Will do. 

Excelent work on that axe you made recently! Love the simplicity.

[George N. M.]

Nice looking tools.  There is nothing like having the right tools for a particular job.  I often try to do a job with the tool I have in my hand rather than pause, reconsider, and pick up a better tool from the rack.

In making a basket torch there are a couple of practical issues that will affect your design.  First, will they be operational or just decorative?  Second, will they be mounted vertically or at an angle? Third, if operational, what kind of fuel will you be using? Wood or a fabric soaked in a flammable fluid, e.g. burlap soaked in kerosene.  If the former, you will have to make a porovision for ashes and coals falling out the bottom of the basket.  If the latter, there is the issue of dripping fluid.  These can be mitigated by mounting a "bowl" in the bottom to catch things.  This works better if the torches are mounted vertically.

You might also consider a fire basket as an alternative to a fire pit.  I believe Torbjorn Ahman has a video on that.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Frosty]

Well done M.G. If you maintain that level of craftsmanship the project will be outstanding.

I'll be watching.

Frosty The Lucky.

[M.G.]

Thanks, George N.M. great considerations to keep in mind for sure. I saw Torbjorns video on that a while back. Definitely not gonna make anything quite that industrious yet. These are ment to be decorative pieces, but I will make them function as they should. Likely fule will be wood. 

Frosty thanks a bunch.  Credit to you and the great info you supply all of us with here. The burner runs great, the forge holds heat well. And it will definitely do the job for my humble operation. 

[gewoon ik]

Nice tools.

Seeing the scroll-tong and bending fork, it reminds me that i need to make those as well. My bending is now a bit wonky, but i don't do it nearly as often to justify the tools.

[Jobtiel1]

I have the same issue, I don't have much forging time so for now bending over the horn or edge is good enough. I do have a small bick I made a while back which really helps a lot for those small curves where scrolling tongs work nicely.

~Jobtiel

[JHCC]

Looks good! 

You remind me that I need to make some more bending forks. I've got some decent ones that I welded up from various bits of scrap, but the one nice Aspery-style one I forged a while back snapped off a couple of years ago. 

[M.G.]

Hopefully these reminders are not fleeting,  get out there and tool up! 

[anvil]

Great start! Scrolling wrench and bending forks( not scrolling tongs) sized for the job are a major part of my tooling!

Have fun

[Davor]

Nice, looking forward to the rest.

[M.G.]

Anvil, thanks for the clarification. I've heard these tools be called by probably 5 or 6 different names, infact the leafing hammer could even be called something like an armorers hammer. But I guess it depends on the work piece in that case. But really names aren't my strong suite, so I will probably mess it up a few more times. So please forgive me. 

Thanks Davor, I'll hopefully have some time to make some more tooling early next week. 

[George N. M.]

M.G., as you say, the particular name for a hammer has no effect on what you are using it for.  If you like, you can name your tools and always use "Bob" for a particular job.  Consistent nomenclature is only necessary if you are talking to another person about the tool.  If I tell someone that I always use Fido for a particular job it will be much less clear than if I say tht I use a dogs head hammer.

Your hammer shape is one that is used to reach into tight places, usually the inside of a bowl or the crown of a helmet.  So, it is often called a raising hammer or an armorer's hammer.  I am not sure why it would be called a leafing hammer.  I don't see any special advantage in making leaves by using a long hammer like yours.  Am I missing something?  The design advantage is mainly the distance from the faces to the handle allows it to reach into a constricted area.

Auto body specialists us a very similar form to pound out dents in constricted and deep areas.

And it is a very nice hammer.  It has a fairly thick swell in the handle you may or may not find that to be a good thing in use and whether you always hold it as you show in the photos.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[M3F]

Tools look great, looking forward to the rest. 

[M.G.]

George N.M. 

The nemae "leafing hammer" comes from the instruction put forth by Mark Aspry and the CBA, viewed through utube.

I will be trying to use this for decorative organic elements like leafs and other floral type work. And will be used in conjunction with a swage stake type tool with a depression that is similar to the cross pien of this hammer. (Also described in videos by the aforementioned smith. 

But, being that I have no experience in this type of work with these types of tools yet, plans may change and tools may change throughout the process.

I do not intend on holding the hammer as pictured, these photos are to show off the work, and the wood. I am a little unsure as to the comfort of the palmswell at this time as well, for I have not had the opportunity to put the hammer to use yet. And as stated previously there are likely modifications coming down the pipe as I put these tools to work.

Thanks!

 

M3F, thanks I am looking forward to sharing more of my journey in the future.

[anvil]

23 hours ago, M.G. said:

Anvil, thanks for the clarification.

Lol, heres the clarification. You do show a pic of scrolling tongs. The bending forks are the "H" shaped tools at the top of the pic. Both tools are sized for specific stock, added to your tool collection as you progress. So for 1/2" stock the opening should be a little larger than 1/2". What I meant is that I don't often use scrolling tongs. I forge my finials over the edge of the anvil and use " forks and wrench" for the rest. Those tongs are a great tool to have and I use them for minor corrections. Just differences in use.

I don't throw tools away, so you can see the evolution of how I make these tools. The large fork is the first one I ever made. Now, I make them with parallel inside edges and a tapered outside edge. Being parallel minimizes twist when scrolling and the tapered outside edge allows me to get the tips into tight places in order to correct flat spots etc. 

[M.G.]

Correction, I think I may have seen the stake swage tool on Blackbear forge s channel. 

[M.G.]

Anvil.

Oh even better clarification. Thanks for sharing the pictoral as well. 

[M.G.]

Over the last few weeks I've been in and out of the workshop trying to tool up for some specific projects, as well as for general use tools in the smithy. 

First up was making a hardy tool blank to form into a sort of complex collar swage. The blank was made from a 1 7/8th" piece of round unknown steel.

(Although it came with a bit of known 4140 that I picked up from a machinist as scrap drops. This particular piece I used for this tool was unmarked. But sparked similarly to the known 4140.) I am not planning on heat treating this tool so I won't worry too much about what the steel is. 

After I had the blank tapered

and upset

into my hardy hole, I used a hand top fuller to rough in the shape of the swage.

Then I normalized and fully annealed in vermiculite over night and into the next day. After that I cleaned up the flats with some files and used a small chainsaw file to cut in 4 bands of piping. 

Today I finally ran some mild round stock through this swage for some test pieces. First one was giving me some trouble. And it got a little bit chewed up from miss alignments and miss hits. I felt like I was having trouble feeding it straight, and keeping it from wanting to banana curve due to uneven forging, although I was able to get all four pieces of piping to read in the final.

On the second test I attempted to sort out my alignment issues bu pre forging the round bar into octagon, which seems to have helped with getting it straight and clean, but on this test piece I must have pushed toomuch material off center and only was able to get piping fully on the center and one side rail. Perhaps a different preform shape and a little more material to start with. But ill keep working at it. B9th came out with some uneven flashing to one side as well. I feel like I'm gonna have to play with this a bit before I get the two pieces I need out of it. Ha.

Over the course of the collar swage project I took some time to knock out a set of tongs box jaw tongs. That I had gotten the reigns nearly drawn fully out, when I felt the jaw go loose in my hand. I had attempted a twisted jaw from flat bat, must have had a tiny coldshut at the twist. So I tossed em on the floor under the forge and moved on.

After that me and my buddy Andrew from Portland Ironworks, got together and did some hammer making, using his forging press. We grabbed the two biggest hunks of 4140 and 1045 that he had in the shop and smashed out a couple of sledge hammers for doing heavier striker work.

The 4140 hammer came back to my shop with me. It weighs in at 13lbs. Hung on a torch roasted hickory handle.

Big thanks to  Andrew from PIW for sharing his knowledge, experience and workshop. With out him it would have probably taken me and a striker months to get right, but we knocked out 2 sledges and roughed in about 6 or 7 axe heads in 8 hours that day, I didn't expect to get an axe making lesson that day but, man I shure can't shake a stick at it. Andrew hosts tool making workshops at the PIW, look him up if you are in the Portland OR. area and want some hands on learning.

[Frosty]

13lb. sledge Man you don't show your strikers any mercy do you?

A round or octagonal preform is inviting it to drift laterally under the hammer in an open die.

Try a rectangular preform close to the outside width of the flutes. Calculating the volume of the flutes is easy, ignoring the the small details will just provide some excess to help make up for expected loss in the forge, brushed scale, etc. Having to trim a little flash is just part of the craft.

Frosty The Lucky.

[anvil]

Heres some input on your collar "texturing" bottom die. 

It looks like your die is rounded. It should be flat, not high in the center. I learned that on an aspen leaf key chain veining hardy tool. Lol,,, seemed like a good idea at the time. However, I did use it at many crafts fair demos and learned how to use it. And I still have it, but I learned that my tool design was not good.

The most important side of a collar structurally is the bottom or inside face. If its not flat, you will play "hades" getting it to do its job without loosening up. You have better control doing this with a top tool to detail your collars, not a bottom one. A top tool doesn't care what your collar width is, as long as the collar is wider than your tool, so its far easier to preserve the raised outside edges of the collar. And if they do go a bit wonky, its easy to turn the collar material on edge and true them up without messing up your collar detail.

Personal aesthetics  here,,, Thats a lot of detail in a collar.  

I usually detail my collars first and before they are cut to length. Use a handling length and thus, minimize the need for tongs. Then I cut them cold with a shear or hacksaw, then bevel the ends for the overlap. You lose the detail, but the bottom one doesn't matter and you can "set" your collar tight and restore the lost detail with your top tool.  

Hope this makes sense.

[M.G.]

 Frosty, I will keep this one hidden until after I have somebody roped into the job, I've got a little 8lbs sledge to lure em in with. Then, If they can swing with consistency, then I will pull out the big guns, 13lbs. Hahahah

I was thinking about trying a couple more shapes, like a wide flat pudgy triangle, or I guess a rectangle with the corners knocked off, to move some of the material to the deeper portions of the die.

I didn't get a chance to try any different stock or pre forms on the collar die but there will be more experiments to come from this next week. 

Anvil. The input is appreciated.

I understand what you are getting at, I do realize that even if I do get this open die to work for forming the pieces I need. I will likely still want a top handled top tool to match this "collar" shape, and I am realizing just how much work that is going to be with how detailed the shapes are. 

This piece is not specificly going to be used for a collar, but for a decorative strap or ring, im not sure how to call the specific piece of the project I am building. I may try and use it for a collar at some point though. It's not out of the question. Unless I can't get a clean forging off of this tool.

And I am using a workable length of bar stock that I have been holding by hand while forging. No tongs needed, I then lopped off these test segments with a hot cut, just to get em off the bar. 

Any way that will all be work for another day.

But after lunch today, I got back out to the forge and knocked out a variation of box jaw tongs. With a fun little clip ring thing on the end.

 

 

[M.G.]

Quick addendum, the reigns and clip ring will need to be adjusted for comfort. But they will hold the stock I need em to.

[Frosty]

Anvil is exactly right about making collars and it goes for decorative straps, rings, etc.

A version of your bottom die would work a treat under a power or treadle hammer with a flatter. Or just make a closed die spring tool.

Frosty The Lucky.