Forged Wall Hook - Blacksmithing Lesson 01

The wall hook uses many core blacksmithing skills and is a great place to start. You will use these skills:

Drawing out: hammering thick metal into a longer, thinner piece.

Tapering: make a pointed end.

Cutting: make two smaller pieces from one big one.

Scrolling: making a round, rolled piece of metal that looks like a rolled up scroll.

Punching: making a hole in a thin piece of metal - medieval drilling!

Drifting: make a hole bigger or a different shape - medieval boring!

You need a way to heat your metal (preferably a forge), something heavy to hit it with (just use a hammer), and something heavy to hit it against (an anvil is acceptable). You can use any piece of metal to make your hook but if you are learning, it's best to know what the metal is - rebar and weld steel are "mild" steel, meaning they are mostly iron with a small amount of carbon; they are easy to work.

Get the metal hot enough to glow brightly. The hotter it is, the easier your work. Once it becomes black, heat it again; hammering black metal can cause stress fractures. Use what you have - a homemade forge, an oxy-acetylene torch, or something more professional. Use whatever works.

Hammer your piece into the basic shape you want. Drawing metal out is the most tiring and time consuming blacksmithing task. There are countless ways to do it but the only rule is to strike from the center of your heat out. If you hit the end edges of the work piece first, they will roll over and form a convex end or a hollow, shown in the next step.

A taper is made when you hammer to end to a point. It is the last step in drawing out as you work toward the end. If you hit the end too early, you will get a hollow as the metal stretches forward. If this happens, hit the work piece behind the taper to stretch metal from the core toward the point.

If you let the metal cool a little, it can be cut with an angle grinder with an abrasive cutoff wheel. Since the wheel breaks off as it cuts, the heat does not matter. To use a hacksaw, let it cool completely so you do not overheat the saw blade. You can cut the piece all the way through when cold cutting.

Hot metal can be cut hot (hot cutting) with blacksmith's tools like a hot cutter, hardy tool, or a chisel. This moves the metal instead of removing it and it fun to do. However, if you cut hot metal, do not hammer all the way through your piece or whichever end you are not actively holding will go flying, poking you in the face or setting things on fire. Instead, cut most of the way through, then bend or twist the two ends to sheer the metal.

The end of a hanger should be scrolled to some degree so there are no sharp edges to catch, cut, or tear whatever you hang on it. Half a scroll should be safe - ten scrolls would look cool but be a lot of work. I do one here. Start by hammering the end of the taper off the edge of the anvil to start the scroll. Once the edge is pointing down, you can do hit it over the edge some more, move it to the horn, or rounded part, of the anvil, or put the piece flat on the anvil and hit the end with glancing blows that pull it inward. Experiment with this to find your preferred method. Once the scroll is done, hammer the hook over the edge of the anvil.

Start with a bolster. This is a piece of metal that gives your punch somewhere to go after punching through the work piece. You can use either of the two holes already in you anvil, but you want to use the smallest possible hole to prevent your work piece from bending into the hole and folding on itself. Sometimes you can get a nice, clear punch and push the slug out. Sometimes you get metal that stretches (extrudes) around the punch and causes lumps on the back of your work piece. When this happens, use a file on the hot metal, hammer it flat again, then hammer either the same punch or a different one (to change the shape or size of the hole) into the holes again to push the edges out into a clean hole.

I finished this hook and made it a double hanger - the bottom one for my coat and the top for my hat, but you could stop with one hook and some punched holes to hang it by. Let it cool until it is just barely too warm to hold, then dip it into beeswax (pictured here) or oil. It is okay if it smokes a little; let it cool more if the coating material catches on fire or produces an oily, black smoke. Let it cool until the coating dries, buff it gently with a clean cloth, then hang it up with nails or screws.

The hook pictured here has one extra step - twisting - that is optional, looks nice, and is a good next skill to master after these basic skills.