Need blacksmith-made puzzle

When spaco put fingers to keys it was 6/20/07 11:49 AM...

There's the two 'horseshoes' linked with rings at the tips holding a ring captive around them. I expect you've seen it.

Crude quickie drawing:

I often do a ribbed leaf on the end of 1/2"sq. Curl the tip back on itself just so, cut the leaf off, draw out the stem to as point, curl that up into an eye. Voila! A key fob. That opens bottles. Maybe five minutes. With talking. Two, maybe three heats.

- Carl

I have made a couple of those horseshoe puzzles, but they take machine welding and some fixturing (the way I do it anyway). The ones I have seen for sale often use 4 ought shoes (pretty small) but the smallest I can easily get are about 1's; a little big.

Thanks for the leaf/Key fob idea.

Pete Stanaitis

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Carl wrote:

When spaco put fingers to keys it was 6/20/07 10:50 PM...

Hmmh... I've never seen one that actually used horseshoes.

Visualize this:

Start with manufactured solid rings available at tack and leather shops

Take two bars of appropriate length and put offset rat-tails on each end. bend them 'round into 'horseshoes' or some interesting shape with the ends the right distance apart and bend the rat-tails into loops around the rings (I'm seeing them looping to the outside with maybe a dainty little reverse curl on them)

Enough forging to be interesting to watch, but quick enough for all but the most television-addled of the public to stay for.

"OH! Darn! I forgot to put the center ring on it!"

Well, I don't know if you'd get much for selling them, but I found nail making to be pretty facinating- and there is a simple, common puzzle that could be made with the hand forged nails.

I don't recall how long it took when I watched you making nails when you showed me, but IIRC, it would probably fit into that 10-minute window you've set for yourself. I doubt one of the old nail puzzles could go for more than maybe five bucks, but there's not a lot of work involved, either. If you made up a dozen or two in advance, I'm sure they'd sell out pretty quick- as an example, without any demonstration my wife sold about 200 little wooden reindeer she cut out with her scroll saw the Christmas before last. She was charging a buck a piece for them, and people couldn't get enough of them. The little stuff usually moves really quickly, if you don't mind doing a whole lot of the same thing.

Of course, you need to take that with a grain of salt- by temperment, I'd never be able to do that myself. I'd get two or three done, and want to move on to something else.

Probably can't make much chain in 10 minutes, but that seems like a winner to me as well. Even after having seen it done, I'd make a point of stopping to watch it again if someone was demonstrating it.

Pete the horseshoe one is fine....the way I do it is just to draw the tips of the shoes down and roll them into rings to hold 3 links of chain between. works fine and can be done in a demonstration. Tack rings or coil springs closed up works for the ring parts. we usually gas weld a few and throw em into our gear. they can be used for all sorts of things. If you have a roll-up door company they will usually give you all the broken springs you want for the asking. And if you aren't a farrier you should talk to a few to save you some old shoes.

Gday Pete, Try a long bill ducks head, then just after the neck cut it off and bend it down a little so the head is at an angle, bill down. You have a door wedge, in 2 or 3 heats. Finish with a brass brush for a bit of color and wax. I have a couple around here somewhere, I can look for them if you like and take a photo.

Really anything with an animals head is popular.

Check out Bill Epp's "Boddice Dragon" on iforgeiron, should be popular with some of the women - perhaps not with your wife :-) Fire pokers and fire place tools are good too, people can tell their friends that they had it hand made.

Thanks for all the help over the years. Regards Rusty_iron Brisbane, Oz.

Thank you guys for the ideas. I hadn't thought of drawing out the ends of horseshoes and clinching them over a few links of chain. And, we do have very large garage door mfr within 1 miles for the spring coils. We used to have a mfr of horseshoes in the area. I used to get the defective ones for free. When I demo at the Minnesota State Fair, I do sometimes ask the farriers to save shoes. Sometimes I get them for free and sometimes I have to pay 25 cents apiece. In any event, I have a lot of them around. never thought of simply bending a piece of 1/4" X 3/4" stock to horseshoe shape either. I thought you had to have a farrier's license to make that shape .

Jesse, I may try the nail puzzle. I think I'll need nails at least 2 inches long or so, and more would be better.

Keep your thinking caps on, Pete Stanaitis

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spaco wrote:

Gday Pete,

just pokeing through my library...... and found your name in the credits of one book

Iron Menagerie. I never put the 2 together before.

Its a great book, thanks.

Regards Rusty_iron

Thank you for noticing my small part in it. Paul Hubler, the blacksmith who made those animal heads, died some years ago and this is a great way to remember him. Our club, the Guild of Metalsmiths, still receives royalties on sales of Iron Menagerie (through Norm Larson Books). We use the money to fund our educational grant program.

Pete Stanaitis

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Rusty_ir> Gday Pete,