So this weekend was my first day being able to go back to The Blacksmith Shop since the end of the summer after Burning Man. We are starting work on stuff for the holiday season, when people will buy handmade gifts for friends and family. One really popular type of gift are small metal wands made from 3/8" square bar. This week was more practice and experimentation so we can get better at making them, since we will be making them for the December art walk in the next few weeks.
I have a few photos of the process, which is pretty simple. First we heat the square bar up in the forge. We then taper it using a power hammer. This will make the wands longer, and bring them to a point. After they are tapered we will "break the edges" which basically just means making sure the sides are hammered a little bit flat. After they are tapered and broken we heat them up in sections, and twist them by using a vice and tool that allows us to turn them. This is done one section at a time, and can be tricky depending on what you are doing. Trying to get one long and consistent twist is actually pretty hard.
Anyway, some photos!
Starts out with the square bar, and it goes into the furnace.
Then it is tapered using the power hammer.
Then after it is tapered and the edges are broken it is heated in section using the induction forge and twisted.
At the end, if all went well, you have a nice twisty metal want.
