Chevron or Wheat twist, forge welding twists

It's been a while since we've looked at

twist

ing patterns or other ways you can

twist

your pick besides simply taking a square bar and twisting it in the vise. Today I thought I would look at what is known as a

wheat

twist or a Chevron twist. I think I've heard it referred to both sides so I'm not sure there's really a difference between the two and to do this, this is another Forge welded twist so I'm going to start with a quarter inch round. bar measuring about six millimeters around, these are 14 inches long which looks like they are about 36 centimeters and I'm going to fold them in half and lightly Forge weld the ends, that doesn't have to be very strong, let's just help them behave when we turn them the first time in the vise and then we're going to turn them in opposite directions one bar to the left one bar to the right and then we're going to show you what else we're going to do to it so we just want to warm them up in the vise. center and I'm going to do this in the Coal Forge because it's pretty cool to make the short little welds that we need in the Coal Forge, but you can do it in the Gas Forge as long as you can weld in your Gas Forge. just fold this right in the middle, this is a place where the torch would be good, you could mark its center and get very precise heat, but we can get pretty close by looking at it and doing it on the anvil and when we're done it won't matter if there's a hair on this one it's about 1/8 inch away it's not a big deal and that's all we want to do now we want a

forge

weld on this end but first let's bend the other one and get it up to the same point I'll leave this aside while we solder the first one.

It's very easy to burn this little bar, so stay tuned. Just a small amount of flux is all we need. In general, in general, we are looking for. for a lemon yellow color on the stick, if it's sparkling you've gone too far, if it's sparkling too much you're probably ruining it, a few sparks are fine, especially since this flux I'm using is an Iron Mountain flux. It has a bit of iron in it so it sizzles before the material, so you just have to learn to judge these things. They keep turning it to make sure it heats evenly.

I'm going to solder this very lightly. I just want it. to keep us together I'm not trying to make a permanent weld at this point that's good just a few light taps is all it takes is a good weld I'll set this aside and I'll weld the other then we'll do the

twists

and that's enough well soldered so now we need to rotate them to make this pattern look good we need to rotate one of these pairs of bars clockwise one pair counterclockwise or that's clockwise and counterclockwise clockwise or gee and haw or as you need.

Think about it in your mind to make sure you end up with mirror images. You don't want two identical

twists

that might look good, but that's not what we're going for for this project. You should also make sure to rotate them. exactly the same number of turns to get the best results, so we're going to do one at a time and we're going to start doing the first one clockwise and I'm going to put the solder in the vise so it fits nicely supported and less likely to break. I have scissors, I twist it, it just hit the camera.

I hope you're still focused here and that's one turn 2 turns 3 full turns, let's go to 4 and I left a twisted end here, that's 4 4 4 full turns clockwise explains why I've left so many things undone. twist trying to straighten it as much as you can, that's what we're looking for, see if we can make the next bar match up, I want to walk the same amount in the vise, try to put the rico in the same place and then we're going to go around full counterclockwise, that's one; I think it's 3, but let me check if one more already looks awfully tight and hopefully this results in two opposites, it looks pretty good, let's do it. a little bit of straightening this one is a little bit better now you're probably already with me on this one we want to

forge

weld side by side and I'm just going to forge weld the ends I don't want to forge weld the twist because we're really going to crush it and destroy it if we do that we're going to flatten it out. before I'm done, but to start I just want to Forge solder the ends to help ensure they stay together the way I want them to.

I'm going to wrap them with some bailing wire and I'm going to wrap them back in the middle because I don't want to just burn the bailing wire as I get close to the Forge

welding

heat and this is not going to be a perfect tight way to hold them, so you still have to be very careful when moving them over the fire to get to the anvil. Another option would be to put in some spot

welding

. Fold everything towards the middle so you can spot weld. the ends with a MIG welder or something and that would work, but if you don't have that, you can Forge weld them, solder them, and use baling wire.

Another thing that can really help is to put a pair of tweezers with a clamp clip. That keeps them together while they're in the fire, so I'm going to sneak out of the chamber real quick and put these two ends together and then just a little bit more flux just to make sure I don't knock the whole thing over. there, but you don't need a lot of flow, these are open enough, the flow will get in there as you get closer, it's very easy to burn these little things, so keep an eye out and look down. between the pieces of coke so you can see what's happening, it looks pretty good and then I'll solder them gently.

Another soldering heat will be needed for this later, but I'm going to flip it over and work on the opposite side first. see the developing pattern and keep an eye out for these things, you might see something happening here that is interesting for some other use so pay attention, it could be some kind of animal horns or something like that, just like I did with the another extreme. I took this to the vise and put them together to make them solder easier. It's very easy to get this really scrawny and thin at this point, so be careful.

I'm going to go ahead and bevel this and cut it off. so you can weld it into a handle and then it can be a chimney tool or a forge 2 or something like that. Now let's make it easier to work with while we finish this. I'm going to do the same thing with a piece of 3/8 square bar and take it back a little bit and create your scarf, these two pieces should go together like this, we've seen this type of weld before a scarf weld or in this case, often called pincer drop. I'll solder and I'll link to a video that covers that here in the left corner, so I don't have to fully explain the whole process in this video, but in any case it's worth trying this type of soldering first.

I try to warm it up. I know that this piece has to be face up on the anvil and this piece has to be held in place while the tongs come down, I take my hammer and do the welding, so there is little coordination involved and the more you practice it without welding, the more likely you are to achieve it. It's also best to practice it on things that don't matter before trying to do something that's important to you. This is also a place where they tend to want to move and slip. at high temperatures and different flow rates affect the borax flow differently I find it slippery and slimy so I don't use borax for this.

I'll use the iron coaster or EZ solder, it seems to be a little stickier and these are less likely to slide under each other, so another try put them together like this, drop the tongs, grab the hammer, do the soldering , let's see if it really works that way or if that happens, quick light strokes and then back to the fire. Refine the solder and make sure the scarves are glued together, but be careful not to make them too thin. I want it to end up as a 3/8 square bar to match this bar. It is necessary that we can take one more heat.

I'm not at all. as thin as it could be and I think it looks pretty good just to make sure we're going to put a little bit more flux in a few select places and also make sure that otherwise you're going to be hammering away with your decorative anvil twist. you're going to end up messing that up while you're doing this, the next thing I'm going to do is just straighten this out, there's not much hammering involved, you just want to get it back in line, so I'm going to finish this off and put a little ring on it so you can hang it from a hook or something and we'll do the last little step to our Chevron in a soldering heat.

I'm going to draw this, this could share a part, remember there are four little bars there and I'm sharing a little bit. I'm not going to work on the end anymore right now. Put a little more flux on those ends and see if we can resolder it and that's pretty common when you're trying to get it out. four bars in a small spot, so the actual light blows rotating at 90 degrees each time to try to tie all that together, still being a bit testy. I think we have it welded. I'm not going to work too much on low heat, so let's go back to the heat, just make this however you want it to be.

I just want a nice, dainty ring on the end that is sure to go away again. That's very common, like I say, it's just one of the problems with trying to draw something that has so many layers. So it's one of the problems you encounter when working with wrought iron, let's try to weld it once again, if it doesn't work, we'll end up cutting that part, but it's almost what I want, so if I can get it. Stay at this point, let's leave it, yes, it looks better and I want to round this off a little bit, very gently with that advice so as not to blow it up again, now I realize that a lot of these things have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

It has to do with the Chevron or weak twist we're working on, but you need to do something with the twist when you're done, so it really makes sense to go ahead and weld it to a handle if it's going to be a fireplace tool or a shovel. of poker something like that anyway, this is the time to do it, so for me it's just a normal progression to go ahead and do all that and then finish the decorative element at the end so as not to mess it up. While I'm doing the Forge welding, but in the meantime go ahead and finish this little curl at the end, little fold back.

I'll heat it up one more time, and we'll put it on this little jig and fold it. the ring looks like the templates are a little too big for the ring I'm going to end up with always a little messy and complicated, it looks like it's split again, that's what happens when you're in a hurry to watch the video, but you got the idea and that could probably be soldered with a blowtorch and it would go away or you could cut it up and just make a blunt ring. It's always disappointing when that happens, but it happens, so now what do we do with this?

You can leave it like that if you want, there's nothing wrong with that effect, but I like it better if it's flat, if it comes together and this is more of a rectangle, it will forge it very smoothly, but I don't. I don't want to do this with welding heat because I don't want to weld it or warp it too much, everything will be very smooth with it, so we had a heat well below the welding heat, which is really all that needs to be done. just take one last moment to straighten it out and do whatever it takes to make it look perfect now.

I would have the option here to straighten the ring and REE solder it, but I'm not sure that's necessary at this point. period so I think I'll probably take the blowtorch and solder it and then we'll file it to get rid of any lumps or anything else that's not my preferred way of doing it, but it will certainly work, sometimes we all get a little bit off. a little lazy and we think we can do a little more work than we should, in this case that curl where I was still having trouble with the solder probably would have worked better if I had stopped and cleaned the fire because now that the fire is out I took out a very big, nice clinker from the bottom of that fire pot, which means it didn't have a neutral fire, it didn't have a clean fire and those things are vitally important to get good forged welds, so the fact that it was Trying to finishing that last bit without doing what I knew I should have done is what bothered me in this and now I'm going to have to fix it, so anyway, let it be a lesson to you, we have a very nice

chevron

twist, the only problem is a little bit of delamination on that ring and that's something I can go back and fix.

I've seen many versions of this. I have seen two pairs of bars like the ones we saw here. I have seen three. I've seen four, side by side. I've seen four made in a perfect square bar pattern, so there's one in every corner and every pair you've ever seen or twisted in the opposite direction, so it's the opposite. The corners are the same on both sides, it is a very interesting effect. I like the flat version like this. I think it is a comfortable tool. You'd probably also make a nice back hook or something if instead of a ring here you make something to mount the hook on, draw this end on a hook, all kinds of possibilities you can do with a twist like this, let your imagination run wild and you will see.

What comes to your mind? I know that people avoid doingprojects that involve forging welding, but I consider it to be an essential skill of a complete blacksmith and the sooner you learn it, the sooner you will become good at it and the more things you will be able to do, it will open doors for you, it is not an arcane mystery, you will need 20 or 30 years as a blacksmith to find out that you have to learn how to Forge weld in your first year in blacksmithing.and then use it as often as you can so you get good at it and then you can make all these really cool turns and compounds and if you like the knife making, that opens the door to making some welded steel patterns that you can't do without Forge welding anyway.

I hope you enjoy doing the spin with me. If you like the video, if you haven't already. I'd love for you to hit the subscribe button. Don't hesitate to see more. videos Share the videos with your friends or on your social media sites, but of course, take some time in your day to go to your store, do something, stay safe, wear your safety glasses, see you next time.