[TheForge] spaghetti: blacksmithing content

[Bruce Freeman]

Two thoughts come to mind:

1)  Normalize the whole piece between major operations.  E.g., forge
the head, normalize, draw out, normalize, forge the claw, normalize.

2) Damp vibrations along the "shaft" by wrapping with thick lead or
solder (like, 3/8" bar).  If you prefer not to handle that lead, then
dip it first in vinyl plastic -- like for coating pliers handles --
then let that set and use it that way.  The idea here is the same as
wrapping a piano string with another wire to make it play a lower
note.  Furthermore, since you'd be hand-wrapping, the "loose" fit
would absorb vibration the way any composite material (like cast iron
or concrete) absorbs vibration.

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 2:38 PM, peter fels & phoebe palmer
<artgawk at thegrid.net> wrote:
>
>
> On 11/11/2010 10:40 AM, Mike Spencer wrote:
>>
>>> Not long after that a neighbor brought his ram's head poker back to
>>> get the point tweaked. Heated the pointy end and laid it on the
>>> anvil, and the first time I smacked it the ram's head on the other
>>> end popped off and rolled under a table.
>> I've had some trouble with that, Andy.  I've made several door
>> knockers like this:
>>
>>     http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/gallery/img/dragon-knocker.jpg
> Yea! You gots real good knockers man!
>
>> I'd do the head, then draw out the taper and make the claw.  A couple
>> of times, as I did the drawing-out, a transverse crack developed near
>> the head.  The first time it happened, the head fell off, just as
>> yours did.  [1]  The next time, I was able to save the piece by putting
>> a deep arc weld into the crack and peening it down but it didn't make
>> me happy.
>>
>> I attributed the failure to (first) multiple reheating of the neck to
>> too low a heat, trying to avoid burning the finished head detail and
>> (then) continued vibration of the cold part from pounding on the other
>> end. And I didn't have to use tensor analysis to imagine that. :-)
> I'm about to wrestle with that same problem on a long, double tapered
> bronze piece with worked upsets on each end. Wondering how to damp the
> vibrations to the far end.
> Wrap with a buncha wet rags?
>> Of course, I have -- or had -- an excessively high opinion of my own
>> ability to imagine how/why things happen.  I had a carefully
>> constructed mental image of just how my hammer traveled when I was
>> forging.  Even wrote up a description once.  Then I got a chance to do
>> high-speed photography of myself hammering. [2] The hammer flight path
>> was nothing at all like the mental construction I had formed.  A
>> little mortification now and then, they say, is good for us. ;-)
>>
>>
>> Ho hum,
>> - Mike
>>
>>
>> [1] Um, your poker ram's head, that is.
>>
>> [2] http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/hammer.html
>>
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-- 
Bruce
NJ