I had an order for a flint striker, with blade, they wanted it made from a Rail Road Spike. I had never made one before, and Tonges didn't seem practical to hold it while I drew it out, so I welded a piece of scrap to it. here it is heated up, (Notice the old grinding wheel in the background? I used to use that all the time, till I got an electric wet stone.)
and being heated.
These were taken at night, thats when it is coolest during the heat of summer months, but you can see the contrast, and color.
Here we see it being drawn out some what
.
Now I used a "Hot Cut", to seperate the end, one split for the handle, and one split for the knife.
The end peice is seperated. (The box on the ground is 20 Mule Team Borax. I use it for flux... no wonder i can never find it....sighhhh).
Here I bent the handle portion around, it helps for the next step and to make it some what easy to work on the blade.
As you can see, I Tapered the bent piece to almost a point, now its almost ready to bend. For this I made a jig.
But first, I need to dress it up alittle, I put a Curl on the tip. using a "BICK", or "BEAK". Its like a small manderal that fits in your hardy hole.
Next thing i did was to put a twist on the handle, this actually makes it some what thicker.
After adding a twist and a curl on the end, and sort of working on a blade, I bent the handle around. Note, you can never have too many jigs.
Here's what we got so far. the next step is to cut off the far end.
Here it is cut off, now we draw it out again and do the same on this end for a handle. (Note that I welded the scrap to the blade... I was being lazy and didn't want to fumble with tonges).
The drawn out portion is done. All thats left is to repeat the last few steps for this end of the striker. (see the beer keg? I used a plasma cutter to cut the top off of it. It now serves me well, as a Slack Tub.)
With the bottom handle twisted, curled and bent, all thats left now is to sraighten it up, then bust off the weld.
There we can now clean it up, and go check it against the shop drawing (sketch) and see what we got.
It was pretty close. After heat treating it, I left it like this, so the coustomer could finish it. "DID it spark"? Yes, barely. But it was fun to make, and an exercise in metal working I had not done before. (notice the well deserved beer in the pic? I mean, come on folks, that was a rail road spike of all things, beat into this.)
If you liked this presentation let me know and I'll put more up... I do all sorts of stuff.