Squid Demo by Eric Cuper, 17 Feb. 2007
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Squid Demo by Eric Cuper, 17 Feb. 2007
Meet at Eric’s shop in Easton, PA
by Bruce Freeman
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Eric began with a comment that this demo was in part to demonstrate Jonathan Nedbors "Black Magic Flux," and throughout the demonstration, that is the flux he used, liberally.
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1. For the two arms, Eric started with about 18" of
round stock, perhaps 1/4" or 5/16" diameter. He tapered the end and used half-faced blows to isolate perhaps the last 1.5" for the fluke, as is done to make a leaf. He then tapered the "arm" behind the fluke.
2. He flattened the end to form the fluke, a symmetric or asymmetric leaf-like form. He then quenched the end, and repeated these steps on the other end of the same rod.
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| 3. Next he bent the rod in the middle (with the flukes oriented as shown in figure 7A) and forge welded about 5" or 6" back from the fold.
4. He nicked the side of the forge welded end, then…
5&6. Folded it over and faggot welded it together as shown.
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| 7. (A and B) He worked the forge-welded end as shown
in preparation of the next step. As the forge-welded end cooled, he wire brushed it to eliminate scale as it formed. |
For smaller stock (1/8” - 3/16”) keep anvil close and warm
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| Page 2 |
| 8. For the eight tentacles, Eric started with round stock of 1/8" to 3/16" diameter. He (1) forged this to a tapered end, and (2) nicked and broke it off at a length almost the same as the arms. He repeated this to produce eight tentacles. |
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| 9. Eric then carefully bundled the tenticles around the arms with annealed steel wire. He slowly and carefully heated this bundle so as not to burn the tenticles before the arms were up to welding heat. Then he forge welded the tenticles to the arms. |
| 10. For the body, Eric started with perhaps 3/4" schedule 40 black pipe. He swaged down one end slightly… |
| 11. …as illustrated. |
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| 12. He then test fitted the tentacle weldment to the to body piece. |
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| 13. Once satisfied he welded the body to the tentacles weldment. He cleaned off the scale right away with a wire brush. He followed up with a second weld, but noted that this is a low-temperature (no sparks!) forge weld, because structural strength is not needed. |
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| Page 2 |
| 14. Next Eric forged down the opposite end of the body tube. He emphasized that when forging pipe, one does not forge "SOR" (square-octagonal-round). (The reason is that SOR forging is intended to prevent opening up a channel in the center of a solid rod being forged down. For pipe, this is not a consideration.) He used flux during this operation to reduce scaling. |
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| 15. He closed up the end of the body in preparation for welding…
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16. …and drew it out to a point to facilitate welding.
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| 17. After reheating to welding temperature, Eric used the jump-welding technique to weld closed the end. |
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| 18. Then he finished the shape of the end to his satisfaction. He mentioned that the weld should be made as soon as possible in this process so as not to excessively scale the inaccessible interior of the tube and jeopardize the weld. He also mentioned that the forging can be done over the anvil or the swage block, but he prefers the anvil because using the swage block forges scale into the metal. |
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| Page 3 |
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| 19. Finally, he bent the arms and tenticles to the desired shapes. He emphasized (A) don't overheat these small pieces of steel, and (B) don't work them too cold.
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| 20. He mentioned putting a cone of sheet steel with a hole in the middle over the forge to make a "torch" of the coal forge. (I have done this without the sheet metal by punching a hole through the coal to the tweer.) |
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| Shop Tips from Erics Shop |
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| The pictures below are from Larry Brown and Tom Majewski |
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