Good Morning,

My favorite measuring device is a not digital, not dial, Vernier Caliper. No battery, scrub it clean and it is good to go, regardless where you are and how dirty the floor is. Yes, I do have Digital Vernier, but it is not the one that is in my pocket.

Geometry is simple,  Pi r square or Cake are square, Pie R round.   LOL

I teach to do Math in your mind, simply. In a Blacksmith Shop, circumference is diameter x 3. plus a bit more. No calculator required.  A friend of mine was the Press Operator at our local shipyard. 20ft Press, making compound bends in the Bow Plates for an Ice Breaker, 2" thick plate. His calculator was his soapstone and long-hand Math on the Steel Plates, No Batteries required.

Digital doesn't mean you are smarter or are more accurate.

Neil

"I know my times table, naught times naught is naught"

Digital is not more accurate, it is more consistent. And that is what is important in industry. 

Do not even get me started about the "new math" and the state of our education system. I would provably get banned. I thought that the whole 2+2=5 thing was a myth until i had some kid try and tell me how it can be true. My response was you are now in a machine shop where we use exact numbers, not estimates. Needless to say he did not last very long. Just hope he aint working in a bank now. 

Yeah, learning the times tables, OH JOY! I have memories of sitting at the kitchen table with Mother and flash cards every single night after dinner instead of watching TV until I knew the tables better than the teacher did. I didn't have to think, give me two numbers and I'd rattle the answer without thinking. At least I have to think about it now. <whew!> 

I agree, approximation is a tool to solve problems, NOT the answer! Someone applying as a machinist in Dad's shop that used estimation instead of precise numbers would be told to estimate where s/he was going to find work. 

Another auto-denial tactic was to sit in the car and send your girlfriend in to ask for a job. Dad ended up hiring a couple of the women afterwards. He'd tell the prospects to come back when the boyfriend wasn't around and they'd talk. If he'd offered them a job with the boyfriend waiting outside there was too good a chance the woman would get a beating for dishonoring the guy. 

That was 50 years ago and it hasn't gotten any better. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

I think some of you may be missing the point.  The "4-digit" precision on my drawing is not to imply that I require that kind of precision.  It's simply the thickness of the taper at that particular point, and AutoCAD defaults to 4-digits.  I just didn't bother to adjust the precision before I created that screenshot.  Nobody is going to be throwing a caliper (digital or not) on these pieces.

 

Having said that, and since this thread has re-animated, I'll provide a status update.  I've finished the tapering step of the piece.  As stated above, I milled spacers to the dimensions shown on the drawing, and used them in the jaws of my forge press to ensure I didn't oversquish at those points on the taper.  Here are the spacers:

This obviously created a stairstep taper, starting at the original stock size of 1/2" and ending at 1/4".  I left a chunk of metal at the ends for material to forge a leaf.

The next step was to grab a hammer and smooth out the steps.  Then go to octagon and finally round-ish.  I wanted a rougher finish than the original design I'm copying, so I left some of the octagonal edges in place and then hit the tapers with a belt sander to provide a more hammered look.  Here are the three pieces:

 

 

The next step will be to forge the leaf on the end of each, and then bend the curves for the actual piece.   If I haven't mentioned it previously, here is what I'm aiming for:

 

When you do the leaves make sure you keep it hot. Do not try and forge them cold or they will crack. The more heats you take the more likely they are to crack as well so try and do them as quick as possible. 

Looks like a cool project cant wait to see the finished pics. 

 

Neil,

Counting on you fingers is no different than using a calculator or a computer, they are all digital. ;-)

G

My mother Anna used to count on tree trunks. 

They were analog. 

I remember Thomas Powers saying "forge to the thickness of a well worn shilling". I'm good with that.

I believe Mr. Powers was citing Moxon's Mechanick Exercises. I used to hear the "if a true edge is yours to win, forge thick, grind thin." a lot. Moxon used the thickness of coins quite a bit, especially in his woodworking descriptions. I've used the worn coin trick a bit - we used to fix our Army uniforms with quarters - One quarter is about 4 percent less than an inch (from cap brim to insignia) or from lapel pins to the points or seams, and two new stacked quarters is about .14 inches, so a worn pair takes you down to an eighth of an inch on the Class As or the blues.

Productive day in the forge, while the rain trickled down here in CLE.  Current progress.

Coming along nicely. A few tweaks here and there. 

That would also look cool with snakes. 

Yes very nice. Cool design 

Forced myself to go out to the forge on this cold, wet grey day and do a little work to move this project forward.  Current situation as pictured.  Still need to do the clips and then some cleanup and then finishing.