ArtMetal

For quite some time now I've been wanting a sinusoidal stake.  Every once in a while I actually have a need for one,  and the resto fo the time I just think they're really sexy and have been dying to have one.  A couple of days ago, I actually had a few hours free time so I got busy and made that sinusoidal stake.sinusoidal stake  The overall length is about 25" and the large diameter is around 1-3/8", tapering to 3/8" at one end and 3/4" at the other end.  The arms were forged from a piece of automobile axle stock and the remainder was made from A-36 structural steel.  To forge the sinusoidal arms, I first tapered both ends of the axle on the power hammer, and then made a series of alternating bends using adjustable bending pins in the post vise.  (After I finished the stake, I developed a better bending pin jig for the vise - I'll try to get that posted one day before long.)

The anvil shank portion was fabricated and welded to the forged top, after which the whole piece was heat treated to get the 1045H axle stock to about 50 Rc hardness.  The arms were then ground and polished to a mirror finish since I'll probably use this primarily for non-ferrous cold work.  For hot work, I'd still polish it, I just wouldn't expect it to stay that way for  long.  :-)

One feature of this, and all the stakes that I make these days, is the combination mounting shank.sinusoidal stake in post vise   This allows me to use the stake in either my big anvil with a 1" hardy hole, or in a vise, as shown here in my post vise.  If you look closely, you can see that the stake is welded to a piece of 1/2" plate that is the width of the vise jaws and deep enough to just reach the bottom of the jaws.  A piece of 3/4" square bar is welded, on the diamond, tot he bottom edge of the clamping plate.  This acts as a "keel base", preventing the stake from tipping in the vise jaws when in use.  I purely hate having a stake start tipping down with the first hammer blow and then ultimately getting so tipped you can't use it at all and have to stop to re-position it.  This eliminates that issue entirely.  keel base detailNote too, the 1" hardy shank for the anvil is vee'd out deeply  and then welded to the bottom of the keel.  I adjust the length of the hary shank to just touch the screw box in the vise.  This is a handy method for getting it in the vise at the proper level so that the keel does its job.

Now that I have the sinusoidal stake made, I guess I need to get busy and do some anticlastic raising.  Actually, it will probably first get used to do some contouring on a batch of leaves I need to make as examples for a demo I'll be doing later this year.  Leaves just look so much more lifelike if they have a few nice compound curves, don't they?

I hope this inspires a few of you to get busy and make some stakes.  I'll post the details of my spiffy new adjustable bending pin jig for the vise sometime soon, I hope.