Fiery Friday, Saddle Hooks

Welcome back everyone,
    Today I thought I’d show you a project I was working on last week. I was commissioned to make some hooks for a gentleman we’ve bought some of our chicks from. In the end I ended up trading the hooks for some Lavender Orphington chicks. Now these hooks are designed to stick right into a wooden beam in a barn. To do that, the hook has a nail built right into it.
 

I started with a 1/4" round piece that was 17" long. The first step is to make the nail end by tapering the end square so it has a nice point about 3" long.

This took me one heat and then it was back into the fire.

Step two takes me over to my leg vise to bend 3-1/2" of the taper back onto itself. I just clamped it into the vice and taped it with my hammer until it was at a 90 degree bend.

To finish bending I pulled the piece out of the vice and quickly went to the anvil to tap it the rest of the way.

Here you can see that the piece is lined up nicely upon itself.

Now it's back to the vice to pull all of it apart except for about a 1/2". This will create a nub for a hammer to strike the nail in.

Once I got it good and straight it was time to heat the other end and start the fishtail scroll.

The fishtail scroll is the steel flattened out into a fishtail shape and then scrolled to create a softer tip of the hook.

Once it is nice and flat I bend the tip over the edge of the anvil and then flip it over and tap it back upon itself until I get a nice little scroll.

Here you can see that anything that is put on the end of the hook wont receive a sharp poke.

After I heat it up again I quickly quench the scroll I just formed to keep it from deforming if I need to tap it with the hammer while bending the hook itself. For these I used the larges part of the horn to create the hook. I started by hanging the tip of the steel over the horn and taping it with my hammer. Each tap I pushed the steel further over the horn, but kept taping over the same place on the horn. This gave me a nice uniform hook.

Then all I need to do is straighten it up a bit with the remaining heat and it's done. I made six of these and modeled them after one that he had salvaged from his old burned down barn. Thanks for stopping by.