thinning the profile at the handle?

hardheart

hardheart

Joined
Sep 19, 2001
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I made my first actual attempt with the forge today with some 5/8" O-1 from Fastenal. Working with a 2.5 lb cross pein and same weight flatter, I hammered it sorta flat, then tried to narow out where I want the handle. Thing is, and not surprsingly, the stock gets thicker in the cross as you hammer the width down narrower. Ended up just sorta going back and forth between thinning it and narrowing the profile, which took a while. I'm doing this on a 2 ft. piece of rail track, holding the steel over the side and hitting at the edge of the track, is there another way to do it?

I spent almost an hour on it, but that was mainly because I didn't have the burner tuned in at the beginning, steel needed to be a little hotter to move easily. I am liking how mistakes can be fixed, bulges and dents from errant hammer blows can be coaxed back out of the steel. Now I just need to get to a point where I don't need to coax so much :p
 
Sounds like you are having fun. Get the heat up in the steel when forging.
Don't be timid when you strike the steel. Use a bit of lateral motion with the hammer. It will make the steel move more.
Forging is learned by doing. The next one will go easier and look better.

Keep it up. Post us a pic of what you are working on.

Fred
 
The good news is that you must be hitting the steel nice and square to just be mashing it back and forth the way you describe. That's harder to teach than you may realize right now. :)

Now the bad news. Just moving it back and forth won't get you where you want ...but you knew that. Go to your local steel supplier (welding supply houses are great for this) and get some 1/4" or 3/8" square stock. What you want to practice is a technique known as "drawing out". This is the operation you use to slim down and elongate steel. The trick is in keeping a slight tilt to the workpiece as you work it. Take a piece of square stock and heat it up. When you come out of the fire, hold the stock at a slight angle (15-20 degrees) to the anvil face, resting the tip on the far side of the workface from you. Now, hit down onto the workpiece, trying to keep your hammer at the same angle as your workpiece. Hit once or twice, rotate your workpiece 90 degrees and do the same on the other side. If you continue this you should begin to form an even point on your bar. This is a LOT easier to show a person than it is to explain....

This is the basic mechanism of what you need to do. You can control which axis you thin by changing out much you flatten each side, etc.

Get a little practice and drawing out a tang will be no big deal.

-d
 
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