Sunday, August 26, 2007

With knobs on

I spent the morning fitting the center panels and trimming bits of glue squeeze out, then painting on finish. In the afternoon I got on with the knobs, making four little widgets like these. When I had finished making the two door handles I ended up with two little cubes of that 30mm bar stuck on some rod to act as a handle, so I drew each of those down a bit thinner and then made two knobs from each lump. The chap I know here who works with iron isn't fond of tongs, so he welds rod onto smaller work pieces to handle them when they need a few sessions of heating in a similar way to what happens in glass blowing. I suppose when I get some free time I must make up a few sets of tongs to try the more traditional approach. At the moment every blacksmithing excursion is a bit of a mystery tour and I often get to a point where I feel like the little object is a write off, but with a bit of concentration they somehow pull through and make it out into the world.
I couldn't find a 6mm tap to thread holes in the knobs to take some countersunk bolts from the back of the door, so I opened up a larger hole and TIG welded some nuts in there flush with the surface, which probably went quicker than taping threads, but it did produce a rampage of insect life as it was dark by then and they love that UV light.