[Jewelry making - Article 00817] - Re: [Orchid] Forging on both sides of metal?

[David L. Huffman]

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>     I am trying to create a hammered texture on both sides of a piece. 

Hello All;

    The best way to do this is to make what old blacksmiths refer to as
    a spring fuller and use it with a power hammer.  But if you're not
    going to be doing a lot of this, I have a "down and dirty" quick
    method. Go to a hardware store and buy "strap hinge" that when open,
    spans a 6 or 8 inch distance. These look like a pair of long
    triangles hinged together at the bottoms with holes in them.  Then
    get a couple "carriage bolts". These are bolts with a dome shaped
    round head.  Get short ones and nuts and lock washers that can fit
    into the endmost holes in each triangle tip. You're going to put the
    bolts, one each, into the endmost holes of the hinge so that when
    you close the hinge, the rounded heads of the bolts touch together.
    Before you install the bolts, sand the heads of the bolts to a 600
    grit paper, then heat them red hot and drop them into cold water with
    some TSP or even dishwashing soap dissolved. This will harden them
    the little bit that you can harden mild steel. Sand the black off
    with the 600 grit paper again. Now polish with Tripoli and rouge. Now
    put them in their holes in the hinge. You may have to hold them with
    pliers or vise grips to get them tight, since they really need a
    square hole to be tightened into. You can always file the hole out
    square if you want to take the time. You may have to drill out the
    holes a bit to use bolts with big enough heads to give you the gauge
    of dent you desire. Get a block of hard wood to mount this gizmo on
    and drill a hole so that the nut of the bottom die will clear
    allowing one side of the hinge to be screwed down flat on the wood.
    Now you have a hinged fullering jig and you can slip your metal
    between the heads of the bolts and hammer away on the top nut which
    drives the heads into either side of your metal simultaneously while
    moving the metal around between the dies. If you want to make a
    permanent version of this tool, you'll need to look into getting tool
    steel bolts that can be properly tempered, and you might want to
    devise a way of installing a light spring to hold the jaws open. 

David L. Huffman

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