anyone know any good books with lots of patterns for scroll work?

I just acquired a whole bunch of Metalcraft equipment. In case you aren't familiar with this stuff, it's made in England, and marketed in a very weird way, sort of like "only sold at county fairs" well not quite but nearly. Have a look at the main US distributor's Web page:

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I'm trying to make a keep/sell decision. Some of the parts appear genuinely useful, like the one which can bend, roll & rivet 3/16" mild steel strap (aka flat bar). Lots of times I've wanted to roll circles of some strap, or arcs. I also might conceivably get a call for twisted pickets for railings or fences. But the scrolling tools, which appear really nicely made, I can't quite wrap my mind around. To that end, I've decided to try to find a book or two containing a lot of scroll work, either pictured works or projects, don't care. Can you recommend such a book that you yourself have found a valuable resource?

Thanks,

Grant Erwin Kirkland, Washington

Reply to
Grant Erwin
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Grant,

I don't know of a book offhand, but often scrolls are seen in between posts on iron railings and grill work. When I was in shop class (70's) we had a scroll bender and lots of work was done with it.

If you can't find a book, google Ornamental Iron or visit some of the larger shops and look at their photos.

Reply to
Roger Shoaf

from my (work in progress new) website:

couple of hundred wrought iron fence/gate designs - lots with scroll work.

Reply to
bigegg

Thanks, Mr. Gegg! :-)

Reply to
Grant Erwin

Im not sure whats going on here. I looked at the web page with the couple hundred designs. They look like CoSira Rural Agricultural Board (England) drawings now published by Dover Books. Is that the sourrce. If so you should really reference that. I know Joe Stokes who was involved in tyhe original com;iling of such drawings and there are some copywright issues there. Also, Is Greg asking the questions and posting the pics? Im confused. Someone please educate me!

Andrew

Reply to
Andrew Molinaro

R.J. Cunningham puts out a multi-volume set on ornamental iron work, Salt Lake City, Utah. I have the complete two volume set, cost about $125 10 years ago. It is a bible among ironworkers, as it also includes cost analysis, set up for a given design, some how to, etc. Very interesting, altho I just used it for the pictures, for a whole bunch of stuff I wound up never building. :(

Reply to
Proctologically Violated©®

If you have an issue with the responder's Web site having violations of British trademark rights, I suggest you take those up with him. I am the original poster, and I am looking for collections of scroll designs. What his Web site is is a whole lot of gate designs, which is fine - by the way, they look familiar to me too - but I'm looking for something different.

Neither bigegg (Brian Gegg) nor I am named Greg.

Grant

Andrew Mol> Im not sure whats going on here. I looked at the web page with the couple

Reply to
Grant Erwin

Got it.

What type of books? I have a library of about 20 good smithing books. I use them exstensively and try to reference the original artist when possible.

For scrollwork I would suggest Robert Bakewell or any of the Dover ironwork books. They have compiled drawings of English, French, Spanish and Italian ironwork designs. I will often look through the books, see a scroll progression that appeals to me and then sketch it into the design I am working on. I feel strongly that there is "nothing new under the sun" and that reinventing the wheel is not productive. Much of my work so far has been studies of masters works or altered versions of things i have seen. Most of what we make has been made before but it is still new to us. I like to learn as much as possible and hopefully someday I will add to the wonderful craft of blacksmithing.

Let me know what you are looking for in particular and I will look in my library for some stuff.

Andrew

Reply to
Andrew Molinaro

I guess I'm looking for designs of modern-day household items that can be made from scrollwork. My real question is should I keep these scroll benders or let them go?

Grant

Andrew Mol> Got it.

Reply to
Grant Erwin

Don't know of any books but the scrolling attachment that used to be available for the Harbor Freight Compact Bender included instructions with a few examples. The scroller doesn't show up on their site any more but the book is tacked onto the end of the manual for the compact bender at:

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Scroll down about 3/4 of the way to find the scroll attachment manual, titled "Ornamental Wrought Iron Idea And Design Booklet".

Also, if you're talking about the tools I think you're talking about Harbor Freight sells a Chinese set for about $130 that includes 3 of the MetalCraft tools:

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Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com

"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"

Reply to
Keith Marshall

Try these pages. No copyright issues , else the UK Govt' is in the excrement!

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Cheers Trevor Jones

Reply to
Trevor Jones

In my limited experiences in smithing, I found it near to impossible to actually copy the work of another. You can make an object of similar function, but a copy, no.

The metal always seems to find it's own place to be. The best you can hope for is that you stop mucking with it before it's all ruined. :-)

Cheers Trevor Jones

Reply to
Trevor Jones

Trevor,

Not to be a @#$% but here is the copyright info directly from the page you listed

©Natural England copyright 2006

The material featured on this site is subject to Natural England copyright protection under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Different copyright restrictions apply to individual pages and documents on the website depending on their nature.

Natural England copyright protected material (other than Natural England logos) may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium for the purposes of research for non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism, review, news reporting and for internal circulation within your organisation. This is subject to the material being reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context. Where any of the Natural England copyright items on this site are being republished or copied to others, the source of the material must be identified and the copyright status acknowledged.

However, if you wish to re-use all or part of this information for commercial purposes, including publishing you will need to apply for a licence. Applications can be sent to:

Email: snipped-for-privacy@naturalengland.org.uk

Just so you don't think I am a wanker, I was busted by a British dude about 10 years ago while working for a british smith. We were using one os these designs and had not spent the funds to request the drawings from CoSira. It turns out that the whole thing is a bit like most things in the UK. Lots of rules, veryt little enforcement. We blew the whole thing off at the time. Especially because the guy who compiled a lot of the drawings turned out to be my bosses dad. Great guy, by the way.

Anyway, it's no skin off my back. I just don't want anyone to get a suprise in their email box from some overeager britishcopyright narc.

Andrew

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Reply to
Andrew Molinaro

I looked at the videos on the site you refewrenced. Pretty darn handy if you ask me. I think you should definitely hold onto them. We have created a lot of items that work very much the same in our shop. We build them much larger though. I think the tools they have are made for some very light stock...still I bet you could get quite good and fast with them in time.

Good find!

I will look around for some designs that seem to aply to these tools.

Andrew

Reply to
Andrew Molinaro

Ok Grant -

Here is some ideas and a book - I don't have it - but you can see!

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My other books are in the other room - painting the shelves so they are in stacks on the floor. Nothing big, but might be something here and there in them.

Soon.

Martin

Martin H. Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH & Endowment Member NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member

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Grant Erw> I just acquired a whole bunch of Metalcraft equipment. In case you

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

Hi. The pictures were scanned from a 1920's book on wrought iron design

I don't recognise the reference to Cosira / Dover books, but will investigate.

No. Grant Erwin asked the question, I (bigegg) answered

Reply to
bigegg

Andrew - Thanks for the heads -up . I have removed the images from my site until I have had confirmation from "Natural England" that I can use them

Reply to
bigegg

No sweat!

I intended the copyright comment with regard to the fact that it was unlike to have been posted for download by the UK gov't, had there been any issues with that.

As to the use of a design. I figure that It would be a minor miracle if one could not prove the equivalent of "prior art" in the event that some wanker took the issue to task.

That, or it's time to run out and copyright protect the design of a picket fence, and start thousands of enforcement actions. :-)

I fall back on my statement of earlier. Even with an original in front of me, the best I can expect is to end up with an item of similar function. I do not think the same, nor do my hands move in the same manner, as the smith that made the original, and I have my doubts that the original that may be in front of me, is exact to any drawing that may have existed.

Now, were I to be copying the designs and bundling them for redistribution, different thing, in my view.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Reply to
Trevor Jones

That happens a lot more than most folks suspect. Consider the guy who attempted to "back-enforce" the whole concept of integrated circuits.

Or our experience: A competitor patented (successfully) a certain pyrotechnic device. He patented it in the late 1990s. The design, down to the last detail, has been in constant use by the entire pyrotechnic community for well over 100 years. Obviously he failed to note in his prosecution of the patent that he was aware of prior art, and the USPTO accepted the application without question. Go fig!

We'd been making and selling those devices for twenty years prior to his patent, and twenty-five years before his attorney's contacting us with an infringement notice.

In that case (of course!) we had to hire a patent attorney to threaten him with criminal action for lying to the USPTO. We documented our defense with copies of assembly drawings of the item from pyro texts over 100 years old.

I'd have loved to see his face when he saw the drawings. I'd have loved even more hearing what his attorney said to him when he found out he was being used like that.

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

On Wed, 22 Nov 2006 08:12:15 +0000, with neither quill nor qualm, bigegg quickly quoth:

They were also squeezed to absolute death in the JPG compressor until the artifacts around them were equal in size to the content. Egad, who did that horrible and heavy-handed job of OVERcompression, some Brit farmer?

-------------------------------------------- -- I'm in touch with my Inner Curmudgeon. --

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Reply to
Larry Jaques

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