Iron work

This little patch of workspace is within the maw of the fly press. The six bars here are on their way to becoming the struts for the chair backrests. All are worked from a set of springs that must have come from the suspension of a large car. I found them by the side of the road some years ago. The ends of four of the bars have been flared out while two are still to be done. They have a blob shape of upset metal on the end to allow the flaring to be a little wider than it would by just fulling out the bar. There are two disk shapes here that will be the plates to join the struts to the wood. The disks were cut on a bandsaw from a bar of tool steel. The same bar that most of my press tools were made from. One disk is still just a blank that has been floor annealed (brought to a bright orange heat and left to cool). The other has been worked in the press to give it some texture and shape. In normal steel the little depressions around the edge of the disk could be done in one or two strikes, but the tool steel took five strikes on each due to its added toughness.