Forging Collars with John Williams: National Curriculum Level II

[@marcsenteney3160]

Nice demonstration sir! Lots of things to consider.

[@Klavno]

Nice vid, but I have a few comments. First I suggest you read Francs Whitaker's book " The Blacksmiths Cookbook and read his article on collars. Far simpler, far less tooling, less time and, as he was fond of saying concerning precision, "right on every time". Its fairly similar but with some pretty significant differences. Please note you misnamed blind tenon. What you used is better called a counter sunk tenon. A blind tenon is, in fact a stud with a threaded end. This goes into a threaded hole that uses a bottom tap to bring the threads to the bottom of the hole. Screw the stud into the hole, snug it down, place your scroll over the proud end of the stud and head it however you want. This works particularly well when attaching anything to a newel post as an example. As for collar length, I think you got it right, but it was confusing. The exact length of any collar is the perimeter of the material to be collared plus 2-1/2 times the thickness of the collar material. this is the exact length for square ends, not beveled. If you follow his method, the ends will be butted and tight every time. If you want beveled ends, after you cut to length, just make matching tapers on each end{reversed}. When finished, the ends of the taper will be equidistant from where the tapers start. I suggest never forging a collar after you make the bends and its fitted to your scrolls. By forging I mean hammer hits hot iron and there is no air between hot iron and the cold scrolls. This will draw out your sides and change the lengths. When you review your vid, consider what you are applying collars to. If you are doing a 3'x5' grill or a 4'x10' rail section, using your technique you will need a helper or two. Using Mr Whitaker's method, you can do them by yourself. All in all a good vid and if used will certainly create good collars. Hope this helps.

[@Klavno]

Dang, I meant to add collars are structural when done and designed properly.