Posted by Chris Ray on September 20, 1997 at 20:42:03:

I have seen a number of beginning smiths struggle with making a long taper and here is one basic way to accomplish this shape. This method works with both light and heavy stock and the principle is the same.

Begin by taking a heat on the end of a bar and then either over the horn of your anvil or a rounded die in a power hammer, concentrate on reducing the end first. Draw out a thin taper as much as you can in either one or two heats and finish off on the anvil face. Be sure to keep the tip near the edge of the anvil face while pulling out the metal to avoid distressing the anvil plate from the leading edge of your hammer.

Once you have a slender end shaped, then it it quite an easy matter to reduce the rest of the stock down to a matching dimension, or to draw out a slender taper. Think of taking a swipe at the metal when drawing out by hand. By this I mean that there is a twisting motion to your wrist and forearm as you bring the hammer into contact with the metal. I kind of like to think of it as ironing out the metal, letting the hammer sort of drag the metal outward as I hammer. A mental construct like this sometimes helps one to achieve a sound practice with their hammerwork.

The principle behind this is that once the bar end is shaped, there is very little mass forward of the new metal to be moved and the resistance is reduced. This makes it quite easy to control the shape of your taper and one may be drawn out as slender as you like. Simply keep working into the reduced area rather than along the length of the bar and you will achieve quite quickly, the shape you are attempting to make.

By the way, this same principal works for other shapes that are to be reduced as well. Not an earthshaking revelation for sure, but it's surprising how many of us overlook some of these simple principles.

Drawing out a tenon usually works the other way though, by notching first the section to be offset, then drawing to length. Well, that's another topic for another time.

Chris Ray

Follow Ups:

• Re: Topic: Forging a taper Marrin T. Fleet 9/24/97 (0)
• Re: Topic: Forging a taper enrique 9/22/97 (0)