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Outdoor Wood Furnace Part
QUESTION:I am starting a new project: entrance door of home. The
door will be very rustic\colonial in nature. Part of the design
incorporates "fake" strap hinges at the top and bottom amd maybe one in
the middle. They will be approximately 26 to 28 inches long
and about 2 1/2 to 3 inches wide. They have a heart or bean shape
at the end. Enuf of the boring details....
What I want to do is create a hammered look on the face of these
"hinges."
Heat um up and strike them with what?
I don't have a forge YET. I do have an oxy\acetylene rig but don't
if it would be useful in this situation. I also have an outdoor wood
furnace I heat my home and shop with. Would the coal bed inside it be
useful?
ANSWER: One day you might learn some smithing, and then you'd be
horrified at the mess.
Smithing doesn't have a "hammered" look like this. Good smiths put a
bit of effort into neat clean surfaces, not making it look like
plasticine with a child's thumbprints all over it! There is a
_textured_ look to hand ironwork, particularly in real iron, that you
don't get in machine rolled steel, but this can't be replicated just
by hitting it.
If it were mine, then I'd either draw the bar down to get some surface
texture onto it (which is real smithing) or I'd apply a surface patina
afterwards. I certainly wouldn't go around hitting it randomly.
I'd probably finish it something like this (the brown one):
http://codesmiths.com/shed/armour/
That's well cleaned beforehand to take the mill scale off, maybe
sandblasted, then slathered with "rusting paste" (salt, vinegar and
pickles) and left to rot for a week. Then oil it. The surface is still
"smooth" (i.e. undented) but it's no longer as glassy-smooth as
factory steel. It also hides the difference between rolled surfaced
and cut surfaces.
If you want it for outdoors, then hot-oil it, heating sections with
your torch and wiping them with old engine oil on a paper towel.
Repeat until black.
Like the hinges here:
http://codesmiths.com/shed/things/boxes/sarah/
Outdoor steelwork really needs a paint-like coating on it. You might
achieve this by oil alone, but something you bought in a can is often
a quicker and more reliable route. I use bitumen roofing felt primer
a lot for this - bit of weather resistance, but it doesn't look like
"paint".
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