Holdfast Group Buy - May have found a UK Blacksmith

[laird]

No probs. Thanks for all your effort.

 

[Benchwayze]

No probs. Thanks for all your effort.

Ditto Byron... Good try...

Regards
John

 

[barkwindjammer]

Know any Blacksmiths Dibs ?

 

[toolsntat]

Did you try him :?:

http://www.wulfdalesmithy.com/

Andy

 

[wizer]

I'll pick this up chaps, if no one else has?

 

[eoinsgaff]

Thanks very much Byron, the effort is appreciated.

Regards

Eoin

 

[wizer]

Guys

I just visited a fascinating local blacksmith. The family have been there for over 100yrs passing down from generation to generation. The guy I met was probably in his late 40's and his father was there, very elderly but still making things in the forge.

Anyway. I left a gramercy holdfast with him and he's going to see what he can do. He wasn't sure what the steel was. TFWW only suggests that it is 'modern formed wire'.

Those that have holdfasts, could you give me an accurate measurement of the bar diameter ?

He's going to have a play around and get back to me. This is an exploratory process, so it will take patience on our part, until we find the right formula.

Would anyone care to comment on what steel this might?

Also, can anyone tell me what the patent covers? I don't want to get myself in hot water.

 

[wizer]

Answering my own question:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7571631.pdf

Method of manufacturing a woodworker's holdfast
United States Patent 7571631
A semi-automated method for manufacturing a woodworker's holdfast tool from an unheated length of mild steel rod includes forging a flattened contact surface at one end of the rod and subsequently bending the rod upwardly away from the contact surface and forming the crook portion in an automated wire forming machine configured to exceed the desired working angle during cold forming of the crook portion to account for the resilience of the rod when the bending force is removed.

So it appears the patent just covers the factory process, so we should be fine using a blacksmith.

It also confirms our thoughts that it is just mild steel.

I'll let the blacksmith know.

 

[AndyT]

Sounds interesting Tom - many thanks for picking this up and maybe moving it on.

I don't have any holdfasts to check but I think I read somewhere that the post needs to be tough and stiff, while the 'leaf' needs a bit of spring in it. Maybe your blacksmith can temper the steel so that the right springiness is there?

 

[Dibs-h]

Know any Blacksmiths Dibs ?

I've been following the thread.

From reading the patent info - it appears (to me anyway) that the readily available ones are machine made. Therein lies the problem - machine made is (almost) always the cheaper option. Now having someone make them by hand - my suspicion is that it will cost more. Or they could cost less - if the profit margins on the commercial ones are so high.

Now my little black book is full of nbrs - so I dare say 30 mins or so of phone calls later, there is a reasonable chance that I could arrive at the door of someone who could duplicate them, but my life hasn't quite recovered from the current Group Buy. So I'll just stand on the sidelines for the moment. :wink:

 

[wizer]

Thanks Dibs. I wouldn't want to risk the manufactured route, mainly for treading on Joel's feet.

I'm going to go for a few quotes from local blacksmiths and see what hand-made is going to cost us. Importing the gramercy ones at the moment will cost you between £35 and £40. I'm not sure if 'hand-made' is worth more than that or not, but I'd be aiming for less to make it worth while. The gramercy ones are that good that I don't think it would be worth bothering if they came out more expensive.

 

[WellsWood]

... The gramercy ones are that good that I don't think it would be worth bothering if they came out more expensive.

Damn right. An alternative might be to persuade a certain large tool retailer with massive buying power to stock them in this country. Although given that with currently stocked items from across the pond it can still work out cheaper to import it yourself that may not help.

I had a conversation with Mike Jeffrey at Sittingbourne a few weeks ago about this very subject. Surprisingly he'd never heard of Gramercy's, nor even this type of hold-down, and consequently I promised to take one in for him to see next time I was in. Unfortunately that opportunity hasn't happened yet, which is a shame, since from my description he seemed to surmise it was something they should consider stocking.

BTW the diameter of the important bit (the straight bit that goes in the bench hole) Tom is 18.2mm or 0.72" or thereabouts - please don't ask what that is in fractions. I don't think it's all that critical TBH considering the variation in hole size that they tolerate. I reckon the angle of the bend may be the clever bit, since it's that along with the length of the "head" which dictates the skewing force in the hole and hence the friction to lock it in place.

 

[wizer]

Thanks for that Mark. Luckily, whilst with the blacksmith earlier, he guessed it would be 18.2 stock, from his catalogue. The annoying thing was he couldn't find a piece, so he might have to order a bit in.

I do wonder why someone like Matthew hasn't looked into this. Perhaps he has and there is a reason they've not come to market in the UK. Similarly, as you suggest, no one has imported them from Gramercy. The patent is for a factory process, which suggests that a large order would be relatively simple and cost effective.

I can onyl guess that no one in the UK feels that this style of holdfast would be any more successful than what they already stock.

 

[9fingers]

BTW the diameter of the important bit (the straight bit that goes in the bench hole) Tom is 18.2mm or 0.72" or thereabouts - please don't ask what that is in fractions.

The 'merkins would know this as 23/32" diameter

Bob

 

[Alf]

Rather than relying on the mass-manufactured example, it might be worth sharing the where's and wherefores behind them with the smith so he can make more informed decisions on how to approach the problem. Unless you want a facsimile of the Gramercy of course. Me, if I was going to pay for hand-forged, I'd like them to look, well, hand-forged! :lol:

 

[ondablade]

As before it seems to me too that if the game is just to source some holdfasts then it's probably most cost effective to buy from the US.

If on the other hand it's about hand made then by all means have a go. I've several of the GM variety.

To waffle a bit. My sense (purely from the feel and the 'ring') is that whatever the steel is it's a bit more lively/springy than annealed mild steel: i.e. something with a little more carbon and/or some alloying elements - or else it's work hardened from the drawing and/or bending processes. This'd make some sense, as if it's too ductile/fully annealed/dead it'd probably deform far too easily when you whack it, and might lose it's set.

They have a matt but fairly bright finish, could be it's drawn stock of some sort (this too would work harden it a bit), maybe a higher grade reinforcing bar or something like that.

The Popular woodworking article mentioned before has quite a bit in it (but never really bottomed) what the magic ingredient in a reliably functioning holdfast is. Did they conclude that the angle between the clamping foot's face and the shank was important? There was suspiciously little mention of the metallurgy or heat treatment/state of the steel. Either way it'd be maybe be worth getting a copy to the blacksmith. (I may have it somewhere if it would help Wiz)

Here's more heresy. It seems to me that the blacksmiths bit is perhaps mostly in forging the foot, and that there's probably quite a grey area between 'factory' and 'hand' made.

There's lots of CNC bar and tube benders about these days that would probably give a very accurately reproducible bend, and not cost a lot. Maybe mix the two? I can't imagine a guy whacking a bar around the tail of an anvil getting it spot on every time....

Heat treatment is probably the other variable. Quenching and tempering by a blacksmith is possibly a bit hit and miss too unless he's using ovens and the like. On the other hand some sort of drawn bar might be sufficiently (and consistently) work hardened as it comes, and the bending would add to this.

I wouldn't worry to much about the patent, as there's a gazillion ways to form them unless there's something very subtle going on in there. The point is that they are handing patents out for almost anything these days.

If you really want it to look hand made and old you could chuck it in one of those fettling drums full of steel slag or the like for a while - it'd roughen up the shank nicely too :wink:

 

[squib]

Mine cost £40 a pair(i think) from my blacksmith and he designed the leaf ends, I asked him to do them very rustic to suit my bench, they are mild steel and are i think 18mm which grip well in a 19mm or 3/4" hole, they work brilliantly and i really clout them sometimes. I have only had them for a few months but there is no sign of them needing resetting and if they do i can do it as the steel is not brittle.

 

[wizer]

Thanks for that information Bob. I will pass it on to my blacksmith. I'm also going to try others smiths to get more quotes.

squib. Have you ever posted a pic of your holdfasts? Also, have you measured the angle?

In terms of the decoration on the face. I'll ask the guy, but I suspect it's going to up the price. By how much I don't know. If it's significant then maybe we can offer a choice between plain, like the gramercy or decorated with a leaf or something.

 

[AndyT]

Exactly Alf, that's the article I had read but forgotten. This is the critical bit:

The process of hand forging alters the material used in the holdfast, and leaves it with an ideal set of properties – strong enough to be hit smartly, yet flexible enough to bend and act as a spring to hold the work. Weber contends that modern fabrication methods tend to produce a metal with a more crystalline structure that is more likely to break, and less likely to bend. The sizes and angles may be similar, but there is a world of difference in how the two types function.

So I think Alf is yet again, spot on with her suggestion.

 

[Alf]

Well it struck me it's a bit like someone bringing one of us a plastic stacking chair and saying "I want this" - as woodworker's we'd be struggling to reproduce it. But if all they actually want is a chair, "we have the technology" as the saying goes. Actually I should try and gather this info together myself and go and tackle the blacksmith in the next village - but, as ever, it's finding the tuits.