[TheForge] Recent photo upload

[John Husvar]

Just uploaded five photos of the three chain, collar and shackle sets I 
made for Alexander Erkiletian's new short film, to be based on the cave 
parable in Plato's Republic.

Alex is a film director and independent film maker whose films have won 
awards at Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals. Another of my customers 
referred him to me. (Word of mouth is a Good Thing (TM)!) :)

They're not great pictures, but you can get the idea anyway. I had to 
make them so they looked as primitive as possible at customer request 
and specifications. Alex also specified no descaling.

The figure-8 links are made up of 8" each of 3/8" square mild steel, 
heavily textured both by hand and under Kim George's air hammer with 
dies he and I made up. (and promptly nearly destroyed, the first try, 
his hammer can hit so hard.:) They were then mandrel hot bent, linked, 
and cold hammered closed.

Thanks to Kim, I still have a right arm instead of a cramped mass of 
abused muscle, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and Arthritis!

The collars and manacles are of 1/8" by 1.5" and 1" respectively, 
hand-textured, with upset 3/8" round stock false rivets held by Cotter 
pins. The Cotter Pins will be out of camera view. 6-1/2" and 3" 
connecting rings are of 1/2" square, textured.

Overall, each of the three sets has about 14 feet of chain and weighs 
21 pounds, including manacles, collars, rings, attachment ovals, and 
false rivets.

The project took about 3 months of intermittent work, including sending 
samples to and consulting with Alex and making changes per his 
instructions.

There are about 50 links in each set, plus round stock ovals for final 
attachments to the collars and manacles.

The manacles' ovals are arranged so an actor need not remove the false 
rivets to put on on take off the manacles. He can do it by merely 
tipping the ovals and sliding the holes in the chain ends of the 
manacles along the long sides of the ovals, which allows the hand to 
slip in or out.