In order to keep things moving, I am trying to do at least a little bit of work during the week. I just did about an hour tonight but it was enough to do some cleanup on the corner post. In the last post I mentioned that the post curved during cutting and that I did not straighten it out right away. This is a photo of what I am talking about.
So, what is the reason for not straighten it out right away. The reason is a thin piece of metal that is left over from cutting. The way you cut away a large piece in blacksmithing is use a chisel and cut from both sides. Technically you can come from only one side but that has it own set of issues. Anyway, when you cut from both sides, the cut does not always meet perfectly in the middle. What you get is that the cut on one side just slips past the cut on the other side. This creates a very thin piece of metal. This photo shows this. This is a closeup with the photo only being a few inches. The top of the photo is the piece of metal and bottom of the photo is the anvil surface. If you notice on the bottom of the piece is some ragged looking metal.
To cut that metal off, I heat it up in the forge and clamp it in a vise. Next I use a hammer and chisel to shear away the metal. The process is pretty quick. After the metal is sheared away, I use a farrier's rasp to remove any extra bits of metal. If I do this when the metal is hot, the process is very quick.
Finally I straightened the piece out a bit. The first photo here shows it next to another piece that has not been cut. The final photo today shows it next to the drawing on the layout table to give an idea of what I am going for.
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