[TheForge] Re: Cone Question

[Mike Spencer]

Bob> I've got a project where I need to make a large number of small
Bob> cones.  They have a 1 1/2" opening and are 2 1/2" tall out of 14
Bob> ga steel.


MikeG> I am assuming that your blanks are circles and not "C" shaped.
MikeG> (That is cut for a blacksmiths approach not a tin smiths.)

I would cut the blanks with a Beverly to what Mike calls a tinsmith's
pattern, i.e. a pie-wedge, then nip off about 3/32" or 1/8" of the
corner (what would have been at the center of the pie.)  You can't
roll up that last 3/32" to a sharp point anyhow and having the little
straight edge there will help you eyeball it true.

Then I'd roll them up hot, starting with a swage and some kind of
mandrel, then over a candle mold tinsmith's stake or similar.  If I
has more than a dozen or two to do, I'd rough-forge and grind a fairly
shallow tapered swage to match the taper of the cone.  (I haven't done
this but I'd try it.  Tapered swages are nothing new although perhaps
fairly uncommon.  I've seen a swage block for making wagon axle skeins
that had two sizes of tapered hollows.)

If you *must* have a very pointy point, I think you could forge the
tip of a  14 ga. cone just a bit without destroying the cone.  Hot, of
course. 

Just off the top of my head, YMMV, "But what do I know?" etc. etc. :-)

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This just in as I write:

Bob> So far the method that seems to work best is to start the pieces
Bob> by driving them into the half circles on the edge of my swage
Bob> block, close them up by hammering on the edges, and then
Bob> smoothing out the kinks and flat spots on my make shift mandrel.
Bob> Very time consuming.

Are you doing them hot?  For the size of your pieces and 14 ga., I
think it would be real hard to get them round doing them cold.


- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^

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