The Creation of a Turret Clock

Who's Your Daddy Now?!?!

  After a rough day yesterday, today was a much better day on the forge.  I guess my muscles had a chance to "wake" back up because I was able to go for well over 4 hours today.  I had started a pair of tongs yesterday.  I wanted to incorporate a few tidbits of info that I had gotten from the DVDs.

  The biggest thing that I did new was what is called a drop tong weld.  In the past, when I have made tongs, the reins(handles) of the tongs were simple the same square stock that I had made the jaws of the tongs from.  The problem with that is that square handles don't feel good in the hands.  So, I always had to round them up.  When that is between 12" - 18" worth of material, that ends up being a lot of work.

  Another way to do the tongs is to form the jaws of the tongs and weld them to round stock.  This is a somewhat difficult weld.  Both pieces are brought up to a welding heat and taken to the anvil.  Now, since most humans have only two hands, it is necessary to release one of the two pieces.  The jaws are held with another pair of tongs.  The new rein for the jaws are used to hold the jaw piece in place.  The tongs that were holding the jaw piece is dropped and a hammer is quickly picked up to make the weld.  Hence the name of "drop tong weld."

  This process can only take 3-5 seconds.  After that, the metal cools too much to weld properly.  After the first few hammer blows, the two pieces are hopefully held together enough to return to the fire.  They are brought to a welding heat a few more times to close up the weld.

  I was very happy with the result.  I ended up only making one minor mistake that was easily corrected.  My ability to weld at the forge is a good skill to have.  It is amazing how many long term smiths can't do simple welding.  Many will just pull out the arc or oxy/act welder rather than do a forge weld.

  The other thing I did that was new was to use powered wire brush to clean up the tongs.  I was really surprised how much better the tongs look from this simple cleaning.