? To Tom Black (scrollwork)

[Guest woody36]

Tom,

        Where on a piece of bar do you make your first

bend.Yesterday i bought some 1m/14mm/5mm bar

not knowing much about scrolling i started the bend

in the middle.I now know this is the easiest way but

didnt at the time,that aside it looks quite nice.

The thing is my mind went blank when it came to

how i should actually try and bend it,hence the

easiest option.I have a couple of pictures of

Slim Farman scrolling  but he is using a much thicker

gauge so dont really help,

  any advice would be appreciated.

 thanks Woody.

[Tom Black]

    What I do is start at the end, keeping one hand at the end and slowly moving my other hand towards the middle.  I keep flexing the steel until I think I can bend it, usually about 6-inches from the end.  I then apply full force and bend the steel (you can do the same thing on an unknown piece of round stock as well).  I try to bend the flat stock as close to the end as possible in order to keep the bends tight and to increase the difficulty.  It is, after all, part of my training.  The best steel I’ve done is ¼”x 1” or 3/16”x1.5” , both are hard.  The ¼” was a little harder than the 3/16”, even though the 1.5” 3/16” was wider.  I do mine bare handed, the flat stock doesn’t hurt as much.

[Guest woody36]

Tom,

        thanks for getting back to me,i would have to

use a thinner bar to bend it closer to the end.

I am having trouble finding any thing in our DIY shops

here in England everythings very basic.

 I am going to look in a steel stockholders for

 suitable things to bend.

    as always Tom thank you very much.

        Woody.