The Armour Archive

So when you are turning over a flange towards the outside of a piece, how do you keep from chewing up the fold line? I folded a flange over the edge of my anvil but it sure does chew up the metal, and if you miss the fold line it's terrible.

Steve

How smooth is the surface? Putting something like vinyl tape on the edge is a good idea, it reduces metal-on-metal contact.

Practice and hammer control. You can protect it but it is better to learn how to hit where you want on the metal.

Also clean up the area under the roll just before doing the final closing pass. That is the time for cleaning up the edge of the roll as well. A lot of people forget that part and hammer down the ragged edge and it is almost impossible to clean up once down without wallowing out the under area or thinning the roll too much.

What hammer are you using? Round can end up hitting wider than you expect or aim.

This was turning out the flange on a "soupcan" cop. the edge of the anvil really chewed up the piece if I didn't have the corner of the anvil right in the crease, which of course you can't see while you are pounding on the opposite side of the metal.

I guess you just have to get a feel for it.

Steve

I use a line on my anvil. Some times tape, some times a sharpie marker. Distance from anvil edge to tape or sharpie = height of flange. Then I look at the edge of the cop and know that the corner is in the right spot.

Make certain you have a clean edge on the anvil. Trace a line on the anvil parallel to the edge for the flange thickness you want. Set the knee on the anvil so the face of the steel is on the edged and the top of the knee is over the line you drew. Start in the center and push the edge maybe 10 degrees at most. Move SLOWLY down one side so that half of the previous bend is still guiding the placement and you can clearly see the line you drew on your anvil. Then repeat from the center going the other way.

As you are stretching the steel flange it doesn't hurt to pinch the edge against the anvil as that will push metal in the same direction you are stretching it. A cross or straight peen hammer can also help depending on how you hold the cop. Not too sharp a cross-peen though and if you do follow it with bouging with a much flatter hammer on the last pass.

Sean

Try working it over the edge of a piece of hardwood (clamped in a vise), or using a rawhide mallet while working it on the edge of the anvil.

I have a square stake, each side has a different radius to the edge from nice and roundish to fairly sharp.
I start with roundish/softer edge to begin my fold and finish with with the sharper edge to define it.

The sharpie or grease pencil trick really helps.
If your useing a spoon dolly or stake find a laser pointer with a line or grid lense.
The laser pointer can be mounted above the stake/anvil to tell you where you are in relation to the edge.
Mine has a magnet taped to the handle.

The creasing is much worse if your directly on the crease or trying to move to much metal at once.

I'll second a hardwood steak stake (and hardwood mallet if you have one). I've been doing some small stuff on oak stakes and using an oak mallett (one rounded, one square face). Doesn't mar the metal at all, but acts as a pivot nicely. (Mild 14ga steel is what I've been pounding on)

RoundTop wrote:I'll second a hardwood steak (and hardwood mallet if you have one).

How would you like your steak, Count?

Steve, a fix for your anvil itself -- and if it's a well made anvil (say with some years on it) look to see if some part of the face's edge has a little tiny radius on it -- even one formed as a segment of a very narrow cone, starting from a right-angle corner and zilch radius, expanding to about a 1/16" radius. This will usually be on one corner near the table of a London-pattern, and it's there for forming small-radiused internal, er, corners, thus obviating stress risers that a square corner will give. My 72lb farriers' anvil has this feature. I'm glad I didn't try taking it off when I dressed its battered face with stoning... somebody cold chiseled a lot without using the table, and really whopped it with a ball pein once, left a helluva sphere-section crater. After dressing, a lot of the chisel marks are gone away but the crater, there's still some there. Took a good deal of saddling out. Re-dressed the old, saddled carborundum stone I used too, at the price of making it into a very thin 8" stone, the faces again flat, but no longer parallel. I should score it and break it into two 4" whetstones, maybe, for sooner or later that eight incher will break in two.

If a cone isn't there, you can put one there, using a bench stone and polishing it to about 400 grit, 600 if you're flashy. The cone may be any length and max radius you reasonably want to get it to, which I bet would be about a max radius of 1/8". You can see how using a radiused edge would help on the chew-up factor.

You'll be able to clean up a lot of that chewing using a rat-tail file, and polish it up with finer emery cloth rolled around a bit of dowel or round stock about the size of the rat-tail or thinner.

Steve -SoFC- wrote:This was turning out the flange on a "soupcan" cop. the edge of the anvil really chewed up the piece if I didn't have the corner of the anvil right in the crease, which of course you can't see while you are pounding on the opposite side of the metal.

I guess you just have to get a feel for it.

Steve

I misunderstood. My apologies. The advise stands for rolls though. Its a frequent problem with people who are learning.

A feel for metal alignment comes in time. I sharpie the inside and outside where I am working and use that to line me up to where the edge of the anvil is. Roughly knock it down with a first pass to lock in the line then progress with the rest of the flare. Flip it over and check to see if you are on target. Now is the time to fix it. Once you have a place to register the anvil on the rest is easier to follow.

WMA stake idea is a good one. I have several radi on different stakes but it would be nice to have them all in the same place

white mountain armoury wrote:I have a square stake, each side has a different radius to the edge from nice and roundish to fairly sharp.
I start with roundish/softer edge to begin my fold and finish with with the sharper edge to define it.

Can you post a picture of your stake?

bigfredb wrote:

white mountain armoury wrote:I have a square stake, each side has a different radius to the edge from nice and roundish to fairly sharp.
I start with roundish/softer edge to begin my fold and finish with with the sharper edge to define it.

Can you post a picture of your stake?

I will have to look for it, I have not touched armour tools in just about a year