[TheForge] grape comments

[Cindy and James]

Thanks for the comments on grapes.  Another smith, off line, suggested 
welding a NAIL to each ball bearing for a stem, then welding the nails 
together.  Works pretty well.  Still looking for the answer though.  
First bunch of nails I TIG welded on, today I'm going to use MIG as it 
is faster and see if they stay together when I texture them.

On texturing grapes... I am using bearings from McMaster-Carr, various 
sizes.  when complete, I heat them cherry red either in the coal forge 
or w/ rosebud and put in vise, then use pneumatic weld scale hammer 
(needle scaler) to beat heck out of them.  It does a good job of putting 
little dings everywhere and gets down in the cracks, etc.

I have tried a hand held spring die but my little Moloch 25 hammer only 
has drawing dies and it is pretty hard to keep everything in place, and 
I broke part of one of the grape dies off.  I need a set of flat dies 
for that. In a perfect world, I'd have a set of dies just to make grapes 
for the trip hammer, that seems like it would be easier.  The little 
hammer works well but this is a tad "over it's head" using the spring 
dies, etc.  need a bigger hammer, better control, etc.

I'm making about 14 or so fairly large grape clusters for a wine cellar 
door, using combo of 3/4, 1/2, 3/8 and 1/4 solid bar.  Concept is 
"frameless", 3D, concave (the wall is curved) and will be 2 doors about 
1 foot wide each.  Leaves are from 14 gauge sheet, plasma cut.  Per 
someone's suggestion here, I used a cement mixer to tumble the leaves to 
shine them up and knock the plasma dross off... worked well.  Noisy as 
hell!  I let it run all night and got a note from the local Police Dept. 
HA!  At least they drove by the shop!

James Allcorn
Bois D'Arc Forge Blacksmith Shop
Paris, TX