Part
1-Forging leaves and acorns
Part 2- Layout/Creating branches
This project
is currently under way in the shop in Merrimac. This production journal will
show the processes involved in creating handcrafted railing sections for a
wonderful timberframe that was built by Glenville Timberwrights of Baraboo,
WI. The
owners chose an Oak motif for the great room railings. The design will feature
over three hundred individually forged leaves and over one hundred forty acorns.
Following is a series of photos that show how the panels are designed and layed out for the creation of the railing inserts. The second series shows how the branches are created. Each branch for this project is unique. There are no duplicated or repeating patterns. Also within this series are photographs showing how the leaf/acorn bundles are fire welded together.
Stage 1- Designing the panels and creating the layout templates
The conceptual design work for this project was done in Adobe Illustrator. Rather than spend time at the computer creating designs for each of the six panels required by this project, the final designs were done full size on cardboard sheet and used as the patterns. While the layout for this type of work is usually done in chalk on sheet metal (to avoid burning it with hot metal!), the time savings of using the cardboard sheeting was well worth it for this project. I just keep a little water handy in case my pattern should happen to start on fire!
Click on any thumbnail below for a large
photo with caption.
A new window will open for each photo.
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Stage 2- Forging main branch stem, forge welded leaf bundles, forging a double branch, and preparations for final assembly.
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Copyright 2005, Badger
Village Blacksmithing, Inc