On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 8:24 PM, WesG <wesg@g...> wrote:

> I'm all for keeping Phil busy, but in case he's out and about and
> unavailable, even a noobe can have fun making a holdfast.
>
> Cherry red heat will allow you to bend it and orange will allow you to
> flatten a foot on the business end. If you don't happen to have your own
> forge, the next best thing is two trigger-equipped torches. (one for each
> hand, it really heats up the steel fast.) if you only have one, that will
> work fine, just takes a little longer to get it up to temp.
>
> Use a picture of a holdfast to guestimate your bend angles and see how it
> works on your bench. It's easy enough to adjust by re-heating and trying
> again.
>
> To make it last longer, it might help to heat the sharpest part of the bend
> to a dark red and let it cool slowly. Fireplace ashes are traditional, but
> some of us have a bucket of vermiculite handy. Normalization isn't required
> to make it work though. If you're making them to sell you'll spend a good
> amount of time doing a special heat treat so your customers stay happy.

Hi guys--

You caught me off the wire for a while there--

Good answers all.  I was a bit surprised to find a dozen or so notes on this
thread while I wasn't looking today, but Wes is absolutely right--any
beginning blacksmith can make them, and I know because I are one.

For anyone who is interested, my considered opinion is that the angles are a
kind of a misdirection, because the relevant geometry comes from the
distance to the pad--what I call the horizontal reach.  The longer it is,
the more torque they develop at the bench top.  I find that 7-1/2" is about
right for the reach.  All that curvey stuff is just for appearance.  I use
11/16" low carbon (1018 cold rolled) steel to make holdfasts because it's
pretty forgiving, and because I don't want people to have to use a sledge
hammer to pound them through the 3/4" holes in their pretty new bench tops.
I don't think that's really much of a problem, but it also saves a bit of
work because 11/16" is noticeably easier to work than 3/4" steel.

I start with 40" pieces of steel and forge a leaf shape on each end.  It's
much more convenient to work with longer steel because I don't have to use
tongs to handle it.  After the pads are shaped, I cool the steel and cut it
in half to make two holdfasts, grind the rough end a bit, then heat it again
and make a chalk mark 9-1/2" from the tip and chuck it in my vice so that
much sticks out, then bend it with a wrench, and check the result with a
carpenters square--the pad should be at a right angle to the shaft, and the
reach pretty much always comes out right.  Finally, I brush the pad with a
brass brush to give it a little bit of a gold-like color.  The brass sticks
at about 600F, so just keep brushing lightly as the steel cools, and it will
finally stick.  The last operation is to stick the shaft back in the forge
to burn a nice black scale onto the steel so it will have a bit of texture
for the grip.

I really encourage people to do their own holdfasts, but as the barber of
Seville once said, "I'm willing to make holdfasts for all those galoots, and
only those galoots who are unwilling to make their own."

The price is $110 per pair, (or $50 each plus $10 flat rate postage)
including priority mail postage in the US and Canada, and I do sort of a
modified SOT--If you decide to pay for them, send me a check after they
arrive.

William Bohl's tutorial is a really good one, showing a slightly different
style, although I see that we bend them almost exactly the same.  Mine look
like this--
http://pics.livejournal.com/pdknz/pic/0010g9p1/

And I see that Jeff's note has an out of date email address for me.  Use
this one.

Also, FWIW, I have been working on a new shop space (with windows!), so my
forge has been cold for a week or two.  Oughta get caught up on forgery this
weekend.  Look for new shop pics pretty soon--I'm really pleased with how
it's going.

PK
On a beautiful summer day in Galena.  It has been so hot lately that I had
to take off my flannel shirt ;^)
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