[TheForge] Grape Leaves

[Bob Ehrenberger]

I recently had a request for some towel bars with grape leaves on the ends.
I had never made a grape leaf so I started doing resarch on the form and
discovered that there are a dozen different varieties.

I picked one of the simpler ones and started banging away. I started with
1/2" sq stock to make sure that I had enough material.  The first one didn't
come out so nice and had to be salvaged with a lot of grinding and fileing.
Since the towel bar was going to be out of 3/8" sq I decided to try folding
the end back and welding it. This was not quite enough material so on the
third leaf I folded it back and welded it, then I spread it to about 3/4"
wide and folded it back and welded it again. This gave me a good amount of
material and was roughly the right shape. The third leaf came out much
better than the first two. But unless I get much faster there is no way I
could make this a regular part of my product line. Of course as with most
new form it takes for ever at first and then with practice gets faster and
looks better.

Have any of you made grape leaves? Do you have any pointers on the process?

Bob Ehrenberger
Shelbyville, Mo