A sign of the times

Forgot my bloody camera this Friday so unfortunately no photos for this post. The new power-hammer at the studio is finally in place, just waiting for the sparky to wire her up and then it’s ready to go.

I just realised I didn’t actually mention that new hammer in any of the previous posts, so let me give you a quick rundown.

The old power-hammer built around 1920′s (or thereabouts) was still in working order, but “just” it’s a very fickle beast and required
quite a bit of patience and skill to use properly (wobbly parts, inaccurate strikes by the head due to belt issues).
Simon built a base for the hammer an motor from steel plate ~1.5cm thick I’d say.

The box had multiple dividers and straps on the inside to make it more rigid. In the end it was filled with very fine dry sand from the yard .. it “only” took about 8 full wheelbarrows to get the bloody thing full (what a lot of fun in 38 degree heat).

Anyway, back to the story. This week Adam and Simon were working on a sign for a local Swan Valley business (think sweet stuff).
The letters were plasma cut from steel plate and fixed to the length of sheet metal via threaded standoffs (affixed by nuts on the back).
The metal sheet itself was twisted and bent into a beautiful scroll shape by hand. Cold for the most part, some trickier bits heated up with the oxy torch and then hot bent around a pipe cutoff to get a nice smooth shape.

While Adam was busy with that, Simon was working on another part of the sign, a stylised globe. He started off cutting out the sheet metal pieces as required and then brought them do a dome shape by working it over bit by bit with a wooden mallet on a swage block (in this case a wood stump). Looked quite good by the time I left that day.

At about 11am Antonio took me to a bottle-shop near Morley Galleria to take down and move a massive 4.5m mirror and the artpiece he created for it a while back. The mirror was transferred to the shops new premises (literally next door) and fixed into place. The art piece, an absolutely beautiful vine rank with copper leaves was taken back to the shop to be extended further.
The vine ranked up from bottom to top in the middle of the mirror and extended out about half-way towards each edge. The new piece will be quite a bit bigger, extending to both edges of the mirror.

I’ll take a photo of it in the shop and hopefully when it has been extended and put back in place at the bottle shops new premises.

To round the day of after getting back I revisited the Hammer handle I over-worked last week to see if there was any chance of fixing my mistakes.

I started working a new shoulder just a short bit underneath the original attempt loosing about 3-4 cm of the top of the handle, but I’m happy to report that the new should give the head a much tighter fit, even without any wedges fixing it in place. I cut the steel cross wedges and the channel in the handle but didn’t have enough time to cut the straight wood wedge and finish it off before the end of the day. No drama, there’s always next week.

- Ben

BAWA Membership

Almost forgot to post about this. After I finally managed to track down some contact information for the Blacksmiths Association of Western Australia (BAWA) I dropped Brian Kenan an email and wasn’t really expect to hear anything back cause the previous two mail addresses for members I had found on line were no longer used. I guess I’m expecting a bit too much for an old craft like this in relation to the latest tech happening (mind you the net has been around for a fair while and in broad for at least the last 10 years or so. Anyway, I found the info and had a nice reply from Brian the next evening when I came home from work.

It all sounded very positive and almost too good to be true. He invited me to come down that Sunday and so I did. What can I say .. sometimes “too good to be true” actually plays out positively. Full workshop, 6-7 forges, 6-7 Anvils, Powerhammer and a full workshop with MIG welder, Chop saw, Belt sander, Grinder. Alongside that an substantial amount for smithing tools and documents accessible to all members.

I rocked up there at just before 8am with Brian the only person there so far. I had very good chat with about BAWA and smithing in general. I think it’s fair to say that we were definately speaking the same language and he understood were I was coming from in my drive to pickup and (eventually) master this fantastic craft. Slowly one by one more members started showing up and I was introduced and we all had a chat during “smoke-o” break.

After that one of their members, Bladesmith Jack O’Brien, was so kind and took me over to the double burner forge to to run me through the basics. First making me square up a 1.5cm x 1.5cm (i gotta get used to the imperial measurements yet) piece of mild steel, then had me taper it to point, then work it to a round point. Basic yes, hard, no .. did feel quite natural, fun .. immense.

Next I had to fold a piece of the same stock over onto itself (about 10cm long), then added some Borax to the area to be forge welded and brought the piece back up to welding heat. I’m glad to report the first section was welded successfully at my first go.
I continued to weld the remaining length, and then had to call it a day unfortunately.

Shame I can’t be there today, as the showgrounds (where the BAWA shop is) is off limits due to a Caravan and Camping show. Well, there’s always next week.

I’m a member now and am very much looking forward to learn from all the talented people in the group in the future.

So if you’re keen to check BAWA out, just drop Brian Kenan (President) an email: bkeenan [at] tpg [dot] com [dot] au

BAWA meets every Sunday (unless the showgrounds are in use otherwise) at their workshop at the

Claremont Showgrounds in Perth, Western Australia.
The guys are there from around 8m – 3pm.

Just check with Brian before you come down to avoid standing in front of closed showgrounds or a shut shop.

- Ben

Ring(s) of fire

This week I had the chance to help out Simon and Adam to create about 15 steel rings made from flat strip stock.
I watched the guys do a few rings before Simon moved on to welding each pre bent piece together to give me a go at assiting Adam. The first two rings (usually about 3 heats per ring) felt a bit tricky as speed and the right position of the clap as well as bending forks was important and I was not quite sure of what to do when.
Adam cleared things up very quickly giving me pointers of where and when to move and what to look for, which made the rest of work a lot easier and faster as I wasn’t slowing things down.

The rings were made for an artist to use in a sculpture of sorts.

 

 

Shortly after lunch all rings had been bent, welded and the welds smoothed out by grinding. I roamed around the shop for a bit looking at all the equipent that Antonio has collected over the years, interesting stuff.

I also watched Adam for a good while as he made more pieces for the big gate Antonio is making at the moment. It is very organic looking like a sort of ranked vine hedge with flowers. I’ll check with Antonio next Friday if I can show a photo of it here.

The last hour and a half I spent redressing and old hammer head and making a new handle for it. The old one had broken of what seems like a long time ago. I find it quite difficult to hold the two hammers mainly used for forging at the shop due to their fairly “skinny” handles. The must have worn down quite a bit over time and are still a bit thicker at the very end, but I don’t have the strength to hold them comfortably that far down and they still don’t seem thick enough even that far down. No drama though, in time I’ll built enough strength to use them properly.

The new handle I tried to make progressed really well until I did the final check on the shoulder part near the head, and then in some onflight of stupidity rasped off way too much in the final pass. I might be able to chop that bit and make a new shoulder, but I’m not sure how well that will go for the hammer length/balance. We’ll see, if it doesn’t work out it’s a lesson learned.

- Ben

 

Swing of hearts

This beautiful garden swing is not the first thing I have worked on at the studio, but unfortunately I didn’t have the idea to start this blog until earlier this week. The swing is made from two pieces of red gum jarrah connected and strengthened by smoothly sculpted pieces of mild steel. As you can see in the detail shots each arm rest features a partial heart as support.

The up-links are fastened with two eye loops on each side of the swing which connect to the actual swing crossbeams. The bolts connecting the frame at the bottom and top are detailed slightly and the holes in the bottom/back pieces have been countersunk for a smooth finish.

Most parts of the swing had been finished by the time I came back in last Friday, so all there was left for me to do was to finish sanding the bottom and back pieces to prepare them for the oil finish. I started off with a rotary sander going from 80 grain up to 320. Two full passes were run on each piece for each level of grain to give it an even finish. The edges of both pieces where then finished off with two passes of 240 and 320 for each piece and side. Sanding by hand allowed for more close finish taking of any remaining ridges that might could not be iron out with the rotary sander (it’s just a little too big for the curves of these pieces).

Saw dust was removed after each pass to keep things nice and clean and both pieces/sides where blasted off closely with an airgun and fine varnishing cloth (clean) to prepare for the first oil coating.

The oil used for these pieces was purified German Linseed oil. I’m not sure of the brand, but I’ll check on that this Friday. The oil was applied with a piece of varnishing cloth and done in small sections at a time. Any excess oil was removed with a second piece of clean cloth, to prevent the oil to build up in areas which would then not dry properly and leave a sticky mess. The first coat was applied before the forged iron arm rests, anchors and up-links were attached. As you can see in the first shot the amazing marble of the wood really came out through the oil and it became a lot darker and deepish red in some areas in particular.

The iron pieces had a clear lacquer finish applied to them to protect them from deterioration by rust etc.

Antonio and Adam worked on this piece, I’m not 100% sure who did which parts but I’ll check up on that this Friday.

- Ben

* EDIT: turns out the swing was jarrah and not red gum, goes to show how much I know about wood I guess.

Please read first

I’ve recently started working at a traditional blacksmith shop hoping to learn as much as I can of this amazing craft while I still can.
It’s been a life dream of mine to become a blacksmith one day, one way or another. I am very grateful to have found an amazing teacher in Antonio Battistessa, letting me roam around his shop observing his work and helping out on projects large and small. Right now I can only manage to be there one day a week (Fridays) and the odd day on weekends, but I’ll take whatever I can get.

I plan to post photos and a few words after each weeks session to keep track of what I’ve worked on and learned as time goes on.

I would like to expressly say that unless stated otherwise all work that is not marked as carried out by myself is the work of either Antonio his employee Adam or his apprentice Simon.

So if I talk about how I worked on a table, don’t assume I did the whole thing by myself, because that is not the case (for now).
I’ll mark out clearly what I have done on each project I write about and what I have learned.

I hope you’ll enjoy the read.

- Ben