Hi everyone,

As the emphasis in the title suggests, I want to hear how YOU, plural, draw different kinds of tapers.

At the far edge of the anvil with the work raised and the hammer tilted to set your angle? At the near edge using half faced blows and then working them smooth on the face of the anvil?

Do you use the same technique for long and short? steep and gradual?

Do you have any tips for different circumstances?

My motivation is not from any specific taper that I am working with. I just love the "more than one way to swing a cat" nature of blacksmithing and I think this is one of those areas.

So, how do YOU do it? And don't forget pics, if you've got 'em!

Cheers,

Jono.

Straight tapers on the close edge in steps. Draw the tip to close to the desired diameter, advance the stock, a little for an obtuse taper, longer for a longer taper, adjust as needed. At each step draw down till it matches the step towards  the tip stop at the parent bar's diameter, take another step. When you've reached the desired length gently round and planish. I only use full face blows rounding and planishing the tapers. Half face blows for virtually everything else.

In general I use the SOR method. Draw a square taper almost to length, then draw it octagonal, then round and planish. 

I make reverse tapers on the far edge but follow the same "general" steps. Starting back from the end and work in in steps, be a LITTLE generous with your starting point and trim to length. You'll need to trim the end anyway UNLESS you want the end rounded. The steel WILL bulge out as you draw it down. Trim the end in a V for a fish tail scroll. Hmmm?

I turn scrolls of any kind on the face of the anvil, only starting them over far edge. I GENTLY curve it in a round-ish 90 then flip it scroll up and finish it on the face alternating blows from vertical down to horizontal inwards toward the stock. It takes a little practice but once you get a handle on the technique it's much faster than turning scrolls on the far edge. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Good Morning Hefty,

I have multiple, very specific, Scroll Making Tools. Some people laugh at my method of conveyance Transport. I have a Large Tool Bag/sack (very heavy) of Very Well Trained and Mild Mannered, Sack of Hammers. These Hammers have all been Maid buy Me/for Me. I have had them all (at different Thymes) spend a certain Learning Curve/Straightening out their Quirks. They are all Potty Trained and they listen well Two They're Instructions, either Digital or An A Logue. Once you get a Handle of Them!!

There may bee an Index four there Corr-ect Man (or Woman) Ipulations.

They have Know Price-Tags, They're Price-Lesss

West Nile

Frosty, it's interesting, I do all my small forward tapers on the far side of the angle (not over it, just at the edge) so I can angle the work up to a bisecting angle of the hammer and anvil, but I do my longer tapers (and/or larger stock tapers) with half face blows on the near side then planish. Yes, always square, octagon round.

I've never done a reverse taper on the far side. I guess I've never had to do any large enough to mirror my large forward taper technique. (or maybe I have but I haven't been paying enough attention to what I'm doing?) Hmmm, I'll have to find a project that has an excuse to do one!

Dang, it's been a couple few years since I lit a fire, arthritis in my thumbs makes it painful after too short a time. I must've reverted to the way I used to forge tapers, I did forge tapers on the far edge after a Bryan Brazeal demo at a club meeting. Two out of 30 years makes a smaller memory file I guess.

I address my anvil from the end when drawing tapers, it lets me see exactly where and how to position the stock and puts the hammer directly in line with my dominant eye. Drawing tapers with the point on the edge (far edge) means you don't have to try to miss hitting the anvil with the hammer making half blows easier and more effective. 

Sorry I got it so backwards Hefty, please disregard my previous post. That is NOT the method I used last time I forged a taper. 

Frosty The Lucky.

I have never really given it much thought.

Maybe I should but I just do it pretty much without thinking about it.

For longer tapers I try to use the horn with smaller stock (5/8" or less), larger than that I'll do over the body.  But my anvil is big enough to use heavier blows on the horn.  

This is something I'm looking forward to. My current "anvil" is a very small, Record brand ASO with one of those cast iron horns that has a flattened cross section that I don't find useful for much of anything. I'm saving towards a 40kg (~88lb) Nordic Edge anvil that I will hopefully be able to get later this year. I'm very keen to see if I will be able to notice/appreciate what some different geometries and better rebound will do with my current technique/skill level. Not that the anvil will magically increase my skill, but that a better anvil with the same skill level will hopefully elevate some aspects/results of the same techniques. Does that make sense?

Edited May 29, 20251 yr by Hefty
Tried to clarify, might have made it worse :P

I will often put a very short, very steep taper on the very end of my workpiece before I start drawing out the long taper. This helps me avoid the dreaded fishmouth.

On 5/26/2025 at 1:19 PM, Frosty said:

In general I use the SOR method. Draw a square taper almost to length, then draw it octagonal, then round and planish.

British blacksmith Rowan Taylor recommends an additional step in his YouTube videos: square > octagon > "sixteen-face-agon" > round.

Good Morning Hefty,

When I am teaching a Blacksmith Course, the first day, I give every student a small container of 'Play-Doh'. The 'Play-Doh' works identical, even with a Hammer, to Hot Metal when it is in it's plastic state. If you are asking how different people draw out different shaped Tapers, you can create your own answers by spending $1.00 for a small sealed container of 'Play-Doh'. I recommend keeping a container in your Tool Bag. A Kindergarten Teacher I know, makes her own 'Play-Doh'. When I was a kid, we called it Plasticene. The students in Art School call it 'Modeling Clay'. When you are at a Beach or bank of a River, you call it 'Mud'

We invited Glenn Moon (NSW) to Canada in 2017. He is someone on your Continent, that should be talked to. Quite often, you have a good 'Listen', but his knowledge base is HUGE!!  Say Hello from Neil.

Neil

No one else has commented on this, but I’ve never used half-facing blows for drawing out, and I don’t think I’ve seen it done.  Holding the work at 45 degrees from the horizontal and using the (radiused) edge of the anvil as a fuller makes sense (though it’s probably more ergonomic to do it on the far edge of the anvil). 
 

Half-facing blows would concentrate the force some, but would be less effective at directing it into drawing rather than spreading. And making 90 degree shoulders that you then flatten would increase the potential for cold shuts. 

While better tools don't make a person better, bad ones can certainly make for a bumpy learning curve. Record anvils are true ASOs. I'm no fan of the flat topped horns either, I use the horn mostly as a fuller for drawing out or widening. I rarely true up rings even around a horn.

Nordic Edge look to be good anvils, even if it's just the right shape though being cast from 6150 steel says they should be more than hard enough and 40kg is heavy enough. My go to anvil weighs 126lbs but out performs my 200lb. Trenton which is not a low tier anvil.

If you want to try drawing over the horn, address the anvil from the horn end, hold the stock vertically and strike horizontally on the side of the horn. It isn't ideal and the anvil will want to shift but it works with practice.

Frosty The Lucky. 

1 hour ago, Mike BR said:

I’ve never used half-facing blows for drawing out, and I don’t think I’ve seen it done.

This is a favorite technique of smiths of the Brian Brazeal school, especially on longer tapers. There's an excellent demonstration of this on one of Alec Steele's videos from several years back:

The section with half-faced blows starts at about the 2:26 mark.

Thanks!  Makes more sense now that I see it.

I had forgotten that video existed! I knew of the "unicorn horn" half on/half off technique and had seen it here and also in a similar style video by Brian Brazeal, himself, too.

I haven't had to use it as much because I haven't had to forge too many larger or longer tapers, but I think I want to increase the size of some of my work and start doing a few practise pieces.

The half-on, half-off technique isn't restricted to larger pieces. This old video of a Swedish nailmaker shows him using the same technique on fairly small workpieces:

 

Watching the Brazeal video again, I think the technique amounts to using the edge of the anvil as a fuller.  You could do the same thing by fullering a groove in a bar, and then extending the groove by advancing the bar 1/2 the diameter of the fuller before each blow.  After you made the initial groove, the radius on one side of the fuller would do all the work, so it wouldn't matter if the radius on the side were there (or if there were a big flat between the radii . . .).   Of course, two edges come standard with every anvil, and they don't move around when you hit them.

The Swedish video was neat.  I liked the way he broke the nail free of the rod with the hammer.  Might be hard to do with a hand-held header, though.  And the caption at 0:55 said that to reach full competence, you need to learn smithing as a child!

I loved that video, JHCC. I watched it at half-speed so I could really see what they were doing. 

Thanks, Hefty, for creating this thread! I think it will be great for beginners (and experienced) smiths to come across and learn there's more than one way to form a taper.

Personally, my preferred method is on the edge as shown in the video. It's how I do nails, tapers for hooks, and pretty much anything with a taper on less than 3/4" bar stock. Larger bar stock, I prefer the horn to get it started. I don't like tapering smaller stuff on the horn though because it twists so easily there.

I've only started tapers on the near side of the anvil a handful of times - I'd love to watch some videos specifically of that technique because I'm sure I'm not doing it the most efficiently. I do use the near side to clean up the shoulders - like where leaf meets stem - and continued tapering from there for a few hits until it's long enough to move somewhere else. It feels awkward to me so I don't stay at the near side for long. That's why I'm sure I'm not doing it in the most efficient manner.

For short tapers, I stay on the face of the anvil near the edge and tilt the bar to whatever degree of taper is needed. Once a pyramid is formed, I hit at the spot where the taper meets parent stock until that section is tapered/blended. Continuing as far as needed. It seems to take longer using this method for long tapers though - which is why I only use it for short tapers.

"The spot where the taper meets the parent stock", YES! It's such a simple thing but this concept, along with "increasing/decreasing surface area contact" made such a difference to my tapers when I was first learning and saw this video and a few other similar ones.

This is all fantastic stuff!  For my first magic trick, I plan on making leaves with tapered stems and also making nails.  I think that's a good way to figure out my hammer techniques, and to use different hammers. 

Neither of which needs tongs, at least to begin.  Leaves I think can be done without extra tools....Nails need a hot cut and a header block, which I do not have yet.  Well, honestly, I don't have much more than a pile of 3/8 rod and a half made forge, but I'm diligently learning every day I can.  Reading and watching as many resources as I can.

 

Remember leaf stems taper from the leaf to the branch, narrowest at the leaf then the stem transitions into the vein.

Tongs are handy things and twist tongs don't take more than a beginner's level.

Frosty The Lucky.