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Mike..erm....Smith (Curtain brackets and poles)

Mike G

Mike G

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Today I added blacksmithery to the list of crafts I've tried. Tried, note, not mastered:

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I had to set this up outdoors at a friend's house because he has an anvil set in the ground as a doorstop:

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Unfortunately, it is a farrier's anvil, and as I was making curtain pole brackets I could have done with a flat surface. I could also have done with some decent tongs. I hadn't expected to melt through 5mm mild steel quite so easily as I did, so it took 10 pieces of steel to make 7 brackets. Photos of them when I've got a bit further.......but it was actually great fun, and I can see how it wouldn't take an awfully long time to be passably good at simpler stuff.
 
The real issues come when you want to start working bigger stuff.
A flat surface can actually be a drawback as it increases the surface area and thus the amount of effort put into each blow for the same amount of deformation. Perhaps your next adventure should be a pair of tongues.

Good fun aint it, good way to remove some aggression too.
 
Probably, Droogs, but I have something of a deadline for getting these curtain poles up, and showing a hand-made pair of tongs and no curtain brackets would have led to a somewhat stony response, methinks. :)
 
Where's the pic of the poles MIke?!? Not finished yet?
Done a bit of small scale hardening and tempering but I'd love to have a go at smithing. I think there's a definite link somewhere deep down in our collective psyche with fire that goes waaaaaay back. Or. Maybe. I''m juuuust the right side of Arsonist :shock:
 
:lol: :lol: :lol: Excellent, Chris!

The poles are being done tomorrow. One of them needed laminating, so I glued it up this afternoon. I'll do a thread, although there are no pictures of the smithing work. Your hands are a bit full for that.
 
novocaine":1ztni7t6 said:
.......Good fun aint it.........
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Absolutely. I thoroughly enjoyed myself once I realised that it was all going to work.
 
I'd love to work on a project where I can meld both woodworking and metalworking together and have an excuse to give blacksmithing a proper go, I've even got a half-decent anvil.
 
Bigger, flatter, surfaces, ergo, a big bruiser of an anvil, are not always a good thing. They act as a whopping heat sink, cooling the metal faster than you would like. My grandfather, working shoes for horses for example, would use the horn of the anvil just as much as the table, or, only rest part of the hot piece on the flat surface. Conversely, when he wanted a piece to 'stiffen' quickly, as it approached the correct configuration, he would present the largest, or flattest, surface straight onto the top.

Another thing, that I SO often see in modern day work, that was anathema to him, is well-lit areas to work on an anvil. He, and the generations before him, would judge malleability of metal by its heated colour. That also pertained to hardening/tempering. His smithy was dark, one window, to allow him to finesse wrought work, shoes, twists. Time after time I saw him "work a piece up" and only after cooling would he take it to the door - and full daylight - to inspect it and declare "done" or "needs adjusted".

Sam
 
That is a really interesting point (about the light), Sam.

As for the anvil, this was a farriers anvil, and so didn't have any flat surfaces at all. That was a bit of a nuisance for making something which was mainly flat.
 
side of the anvils flat. so's the top in 1 plane, heal to horn. stop your winging and get on with hitting stuff with a hammer already. :lol:
 
novocaine":33w3e29p said:
side of the anvils flat. so's the top in 1 plane, heal to horn. stop your winging and get on with hitting stuff with a hammer already. :lol:
Click to expand...

:lol: :lol:
 
Here's what I made:

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There were 7 altogether, but the other pair were in the house when I took the photo.

These were made to hold oak curtain poles, and you'll see why they are the other way up to normal brackets when you see the in situ photos later. The poles involved a certain amount of hand-work, roughing down from the square to an octagon with a draw knife then a plane:

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And then to 16 sided just with a block plane (the other hand holding the work):

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The trick with the dowel making jig is to be shaving off small and regular shavings, rather than taking a little then a lot:

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There's still a little bit of cleaning up work to do:

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.....and then sanding.

The weak link in this set-up is the drill. For a start, it gets extremely hot. I takes quite a while to do each pole (there were three), and it has to turn at a fairly low speed, which makes it labour. And then there is the connection between the pole and the drill:

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That was the longest pole. Luckily, each pole was substantially over-length to start with, but clearly I had to find an alternative to spinning the pole with a drill. I came up with this:

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It's just a temporary handle allowing me to turn the pole though the device by hand. Two things resulted: A/ a round but not so smooth pole after an hour's work, and B/ forearms like Popeye.

After varnishing the poles, and drilling the screw holes in the brackets, it was just a question of fixing them in place and hanging the curtains. Now you can see why the brackets hang down from above rather than being below the level of the poles as per normal. Finials will happen when my friend gets a lathe:

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I was quoted £178 +VAT to have those 7 brackets made. I'm really pleased about that now, because it has forced me into doing something which proved to be great fun, and definitely practical for a hobbiest with a shed.
 
Very nice Mike, not sure if you were really meant to use the pein of the hammer to put all those little dents in though! And a proper blacksmith would have put the holes in whilst it was still nice cherry red, I think – I’ve never done it but I am itching to have a go, future son-in-law has all the kit and he is very keen so I might sort of help a little bit ha ha
I was introduced to dowel making when I was at school by one of the old teachers, I was making a Windsor chair for my A-level project, we had a hand driven crank handle turning the beech square rods whilst I pushed the dowel maker along the length, sounds crude but it worked. Ian
 
Cabinetman":1pdss5py said:
Very nice Mike, not sure if you were really meant to use the pein of the hammer to put all those little dents in though!........
Click to expand...

That's a deliberate aesthetic choice, Ian. We wanted a heavily hammered look. Commercially available "wrought iron" curtain brackets are just plain flat steel with pressed bends, and we wanted something much more hand-made looking.
 
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