[TheForge] instructions to make a Angle Iron Feathers

Sun Oct 13 19:32:22 2002

To All,
These are the instructions that Rod Pickett gave.

1. Cut the angle iron approximately 24" long to give you a handle.

2. Heat about 10" of angle to an orange heat.

3. Lightly hammer the web, driving the flanges out, flattening the angle.
Take care to not overly flatten the web as this will become your quill and
shaft.  This may be done on a power hammer or by hand.

4. Taking care not to damage the shaft, smooth out both edges.

5. Heat the end of the bar and taper the shaft to flat for about 1 1/2".

6. Using as few heats as necessary and working over the edge of the anvil,
draw out the flanges to a blunt knife edge.

7. When it's cool, use a soap stone or silver pencil to sketch the rough
feather shape on your blank.  Using a notcher, band saw, or hot cutting with
a chisel, rough cut the feather shape leaving about 2" of quill on the
bottom end.

8. Rough grind the profile and use your grinder to refine the feather edges.
I use an angle grinder with a stone wheel, but this could be done by forging
with a flatter if you want to use a lot of heats.

9. I then use a standing disc (60 grit) on my angle grinder and refine the
feather, removing hammer and grinder marks and giving the shaft a radius
profile.  At this point I blunt the edges and clean the back.  For my
purposes, this is a single faced ornament.  If you are going to show both
sides, you'll need to refine the back side as well.

10. Use a sharpie and mark the feather details.  Some will be cut and some
will be carved.  It's my opinion when designing that odd numbers look more
natural, so I tend to use an odd number of cuts on the feather.  Avoid too
balanced of symmetry.

11. I used the band saw to rough cut the splits between the feather barbs.

12. Using the angle grinder with a sanding disc (approx. 60 grit), clean the
edges of the band saw cuts and start carving some of the feather barb
details.  Again, if you would rather, these last two steps could be done
with a hot cut chisel.

13. Using a very sharp-edged sanding disc, continue to carve more feather
barb details.

14. Either use a worn disc or a finer grit to polish out sanding marks and
smooth the shaft/quill.  Take care not to sand out the carved details.

15. Using small files, remove burrs and refine the carved details.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Phlip" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 10:29 AM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Angle Iron Feathers

> OK, I copied the pic and I'm sending it to you privately. It really is
worth
> seeing.
>
> So, are we going to get a rundown of the technique?
>
> Phlip
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bob Rackers" <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 11:17 AM
> Subject: RE: [TheForge] Angle Iron Feathers
>
>
> > I can't even connect to http://www.geocities.com/
> > Running a trace gives me a "Destination host unreachable" message.
> >
> > Bob
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [email protected]
> > [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Dave Brown
> > Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 10:03 AM
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: Re: [TheForge] Angle Iron Feathers
> >
> >
> > John,
> >
> > It should work fine without any special actions.  Here's the link again
> > (copied from my Netscape location field:
> >
> > http://www.geocities.com/zoellerforge/feathers.html
> >
> > Try it again.  It may have just been something in the way your e-mail
> > reader displayed it.  Make sure you get everything from the http: part
> > through the end of the html part.
> >
> > Good luck,
> > Dave Brown
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Login:  [email protected]
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> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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>