Starting the Metalworking Projects

The morning started sunny and hot for the knifemaker's aunt. The forge porch is in direct sunlight until 11:30 so she innovated an umbrella holder on the handrail that provided a nice piece of shade over the forge and anvil. Yay!! The new glove worked well although it needed to be removed on occasion to allow for finger control when manipulating pliers.

Nails with the heads loosely shaped
into broad kale leaf shapes.

Plain nails with hooks.

The nails were put into the forge to start the day. Because they are small, the knifemaker's aunt could bank up several at once. It turns out the nails were more difficult to smith into hooks than to knife shapes. Even with the new mechanic's glove, manipulating the forging tongs or smaller pliers were challenging. Nails are far smaller than railroad spikes! Using the hammer, red hot nails were shaped around the horn of the anvil for a hook shape. There are plain nails with just hooks, and then there are what she's calling Kale Nails where the nail heads were shaped out into kale leaf shapes [more about that in another post].

While the hooks were being forged, a piece of 1/4" square mild steel went into the forge. The knifemaker's aunt took a chance and worked on a hook with a twist and a willow leaf. The knifemaker and the knifemaker's dad were busy with a custom damascus knife, so there it was all systems go -- take what's been learned and put it into action. When the guys came onto the forge porch to see how things were going, there was some amazement!  The old girl may not be able to forge a knife completely on her own, but she can totally forge hooks!  Even the knifemaker's dad raised his eyebrows in surprise. Yay!!  A month of work is finally paying off!

Once the forging was done, and wire-brushed to release any remaining scales from the surface of the metal, holes were drilled into the heads of the nails so they can be attached to something for use. The scarf broach did not need a hole of course, the the seasoning process put a nice black finish on it to add to the forged appearance. Seasoning metal is when he pieces of metal were placed back into the forge to raise critical temperature (red hot) and quenched into a pail of peanut oil to cool it down. The metal is put straight down into the oil, lifted and quickly put back in and moved top/bottom and side/side. That is to make sure it cools as fast as possible. If the red hot metal is put in, and left there, the oil around it would heat up and not draw off heat. Once done, the excess oil was wiped off immediately. 

The black was rubbed clean. The large willow leaf hook was brushed with a brass brush. In doing this, the knifemaker's aunt discovered the metal takes on a slight golden sheen. Lovely!