[TheForge] Scroll maker/hydraulic hammer

[Ries Niemi]

The germans make some serious tools. Hebo is not the only company 
making mechanized blacksmith tools like this- There is another german 
company named Glaser, and a spanish company as well.
I hope someone will either buy one of the hydraulic hammers, or make 
one, and we can find out how they really work.
Indital, and several other off the shelf forging supply houses do use 
Hebo style machines. They also handforge some of the parts, but in a 
production shop. There is a company in mexico now that is using a 
combination of these kinds of machines and hand forging to supply a lot 
of pickets and parts to the US.
Which brings up the question- Is the tool evil? That is, if you can 
just buy a machine that makes good looking scrolls, or perfect twists, 
is it somehow inherently evil because it replaces hand labor?
Personally, I think the thing that is missing from all the premade 
pickets is good design, which is why I would never buy any of them. 
After you have hand forged a couple of hundred basket twists, as we did 
on a job a couple of years ago, you lose your desire to prove you can 
do it. It becomes more important whether you can buy something that is 
as good as what you can make.  So I am not saying I wouldnt buy premade 
parts, but most of the stuff I have seen commercially made looks wrong 
somehow. It may be copied from european sources, but my guess is it is 
just whatever is easiest to make with the machine, and what you can 
order off the shelf tooling for.
When computers first came out, I had a lot of graphic designer friends 
who said they would never be as good as hand drawn and laid out work. 
Of course, they were wrong, and many of those same people now use 
computers. Because a tool is only as good as the mind and hands using 
it. A lot of people make the same cheesy looking stuff with Illustrator 
and Photoshop. And a few really good graphic designers make great stuff 
no matter what tools they use, and so they use the best tool for any 
particular job.
I think the same principal applies to these fancy german ornamental 
iron machines. Several companies are selling mass produced "hand 
forged" items made on these machines, and they dont look very good. But 
the guys who are running the machines are just punching the clock, 
running parts all day.
Not to blow my own horn, but since I bought my Hebo, I have been doing 
all sorts of stuff with it that is not shown in the catalog, that the 
germans have probably never thought of. The thing is amazing in its 
power and control, and I am just beginning to think of possiblities. 
Plus it allows me to design a piece with 300 identical twists in it, 
and have my 9 year old run them for me in a couple of hours. So I am 
convinced that in the right hands, any tool can produce new and 
interesting work, and in bored and uninspired hands, it will produce 
boring and uninspiring work

ries