Stange Blade

[Josh Bowman]

I just got another hollow auger. The new one is a phoenix. When I cleaned the rust off the blade, it's made in a strange way. It's made up of little 6 sided shapes! It's not a design, because you can see it along the sides. It's like they took little 6 sided blocks and welded them together. Anyone got a clue what's it about? My geometer teacher wife said they are elongated hexagons. I to take a picure of it, but can't get the detail to show up.

[Jim Koepke]

Howdy Josh,

Welcome to the Creek. So where do you call home?

A picture would sure help even if it doesn't show the detail, it gives a reference to consider in the discussion.


jim

[Josh Bowman]

I'm from Spring City, TN. The picture posted is one of my family members from 1800 on a horse drawn wagon.

[Josh Bowman]

Here's the back of the blade and a side shot. This the strangest pattern. A black smith friend things they might be welded like this for some reason. Any ideas?

[Jim Koepke]

Small world, for a short while I lived in western Tennessee, a little east of Memphis.

jim

[Jim Koepke]

Here's the back of the blade and a side shot. This the strangest pattern. A black smith friend things they might be welded like this for some reason. Any ideas?

This looks like something made by a blacksmith of the time. It looks like wrought iron rods were heated and forged together to make a bar of metal that was then used as stock for blade making.

Does a file cut into the metal or is it hard?

jim

[Josh Bowman]

I've been working it with sand paper on a granite block and now up to my course DMT stone. It's as has as any Stanley plane blade.

[mike darling]

Likely forged from a farrier's rasp

[Josh Bowman]

Small world, for a short while I lived in western Tennessee, a little east of Memphis.

jim

Memphis is a long ways from me. I came that way once and saw the welcome to Tennessee sign...thought I was home, only to find myself still 6 hours to go! Spring City is exactly between Knoxville and Chattanooga. We've come up in the world and now have 2 traffic lights!

[Josh Bowman]

Likely forged from a farrier's rasp
So do you thing the pattern is from the teeth of the rasp?

[harry strasil]

Yup, old smiths never threw any iron away, it was to hard to get.

The Common Framing square as we know it came about because a Smith by the name of Silas Haws traded a quick horse shoeing job for some old sawmill blades, (up and down donkey saw) I assume and tired of flimsy squares, forged himself a framing square from some of the blade, then he put lines and numbers on them. He got a patent and rented an old mill with waterpower and went into production, I think his brand name was Eagle squares, I have a small bench square from that factory, you can see the very edges of the forge weld on each side where the very thin edge was cold lapped.

Hobby smiths of today usually turn the old hoof rasps into a snake, because of that texture when its flattened.

[harry strasil]

In the way back days it wasn't uncommon to see a 10 foot diameter by taller than the smith shop stack of old horseshoes, they were often forge welded together to make larger stock for use, and often apprentices were given the job of straightening them out and making nails or rivets out of them for stock for the smithy and to learn the basics of smithing.

John Deere the famous blacksmith was called to the prairie to figure out how to make the walking plows of the time scour or slip the rich prairie dirt instead of sticking, the plow shares or bottom cutting parts were made of chilled cast iron, but the moldboard, the top part was of wood. John was called to a sawmill to make a repair and noticed a broken sawmill blade, whick he acquired from the mill owner and fashioned a steel moldboard by rolling it over a log to get the curve. and thus his claim to fame. FWIW the moldboard of a plow is actually a funnel shape so that it will roll the earth over bottom side up.

Sorry about hijacking the thread.

Jr. student of all old style trades.