A Dozen Roses

[Strongback]

I know I'm a little late but I made this for my wife on Christmas eve. It took 8 1/2 hours but I finished wiping it down at 11:50.

My wife was happy with it as evinced by the first thing out of here mouth, "Aw Tony, I want to sell it!" The highest form of praise from her.

This was my first attempt at twist using a forge instead of a torch and I wasn't ready for how much harder it is. I intended for a bit of asymetry but not to have no two twist come out the same. I'll obviously have to work on that.

Any suggestions/advice/comments/criticisms are welcome. Thanks for looking.

[Flaming S Forge]

That is one neat looking piece. I like the twists the way they are. It gives an illusion of vines. No vines grow perfect. You and your wife can be proud of that.

[Paul B]

Man that is beautiful, I hope to some day be capable of something that nice.

Paul

[Donnie]

That is a beautiful piece of work.

[tech413]

Wow! Looks great, that's alot of work!

[azIRonSmith]

You can't beat making the wifey happy!

Good job.

[Thomas Dean]

Beautiful work! Twists look nice too.
One thing about twisting from the forge is an EVEN heat! Also, if a twist is going to be in a bend, as in the top of the heart in this case, you will loose some of the twist. It may have the same amount of rotations but the bend will elongate the twists giving it the appearance of a looser twist. Does this makes since? Hope I explanded it OK. Also, when twisting from the forge, have a can of water handy to cool areas that are twisted like you want. This will 'freeze' the twist at that site and you can either continue to twist or start your reverse twist---if it is still hot enough. Still nice work.

[element]

Gorgeous, I dont think she meant sell that one, I think she meant
you should start selling some of your work. Im just guessing;)

[Strongback]

You folks are too kind.

I appreciate the compliments and having a forum to show my work where it might be appreciated/critiqued is a real motivator for me. I found myself thinking of how it might be recieved here while I was making it and that pushed me to do better work. I could have gotten away with a lesser product as a gift but knowing I was going to post it for review by better 'Smiths than I prevented me from taking any shortcuts. Am I alone in this?

Paul. Thank you for your generous compliment but there isn't anything so technically involved in this that you couldn't do it now with a working forge, hammer and something to beat on. (An O/A torch and welder are very helpful too but not absolutely necessary.) This is the current limit of my know-how and 100% of what I know of blacksmithing has come by way of the internet. If I give you links to the BPs that I used to do this, I'll bet you 100 million fake internet dollars that with just a couple of attempts at the roses you'll be able to replicate or improve this within a week or so.