Small-Scale Blacksmithing: Simple Heart Bracelet

My "first love" in metalworking was blacksmithing, and I've worked as both a professional and hobby smith since 2007. These days my metalwork is mostly utilitarian around the farm, fabricating tractor implements and tools to get by on the homestead... although, it comes in pretty handy around Christmastime or the odd birthday - a hand forged trinket always brightens someone's special day :)

Do not feel discouraged to try this project if you don't have a fancy forge or gigantic anvil... When I started smithing my only forge was an oxyaceylene torch, and my anvil was the flat spot on my bench vise! And even now, after accumulating most of the tools I could ever want over the years, it's funny how often I revert back to those simple tools when I'm tinkering, and how much can be accomplished with so little.

For this Instructable, I am featuring an item I made for a very last-minute 11-year wedding anniversary gift for my coworker's wife. The traditional gift for an 11-year anniversary is something made of iron - so naturally as a lover of all things metal, I offered to help and came up with this simple heart bracelet. The project took less than 2 hours from set-up to final fitting, and I hope you enjoy making it (and maybe giving it) as much as I did!

4"-5" piece of 1/8" round steel stock

Oxyacetylene torch setup, forge, or other heat source sufficient enough to achieve a glowing orange heat on metal

Bench vise & non-flammable table top to work on

Hacksaw

Leather gloves

Sander or grinding wheel

Small hammer

Vise grips

Needle nose pliers (for fine scrollwork)

Anvil or hard metal surface for light forging

Used motor oil (the blacker the better), or any other patina you like

Used rags, paper towels

Leather cord (size/length depends on the size of the person's wrist you are fitting)

Jewelry clasp/findings

1. Cut your piece of 1/8" round stock to size, 4"-5" long - depending on how large you want the heart. Use a sander or grinding wheel to deburr it so you don't slice a finger.
2. Grind 1/2" long tapers on both ends of the piece of metal. These tapers will become the two scrolls that form the "humps" of your heart.

**The longer and more slender you make the tapers, the more graceful and delicate your scrolls will be - if you make your tapers short and stubby, your scrolls will have stubby ends too (just something to keep in mind). You can also heat and forge the tapers if you prefer.

1. Set up your torch, forge, or heat source.
2. Grip one end of the metal securely - I used vise grips because the metal piece is so small and I didn't want to risk dropping it. **You can avoid marring the surface of the metal by sandwiching a bit of old leather glove around your metal piece. You will need something you can hold the metal with, the entire length of it is going to get very hot!
3. Heat the taper on the opposite end to a glowing orange. **Do your best to avoid reaching a bright yellow heat, or you will melt and burn your metal. When metal starts to burn, you will notice sparks shooting out of it - this is the carbon burning out of the metal, and it will not look or act the same if you continue to try and work it after it burns. It's best to either grind that portion away if you can, or just start fresh with a new piece of metal. I've attached my favorite heating chart in the photos - it's extremely detailed and even shows what's happening to the molecular structure of the metal at each temperature range - very cool!
4. Working quickly with the orange heat, use your pliers to bend a small hook in the taper - this is the start of your first scroll. **You can also use a small hammer to forge the scrolls if you like.
5. Using however many heats it takes, continue to heat the taper and bend it in a circle shape until you have a scroll you like the look of.
6. Once you are happy with the shape of your first scroll, flip the metal around and do the same thing to the second taper. Make sure the scrolls are a mirror image of each other - meaning, they are both facing the same direction (up or down), and they are relatively the same in shape and size.

** If you find yourself struggling with the scroll shape, it may help to look up "Fibonacci" - known amongst blacksmiths as the guy who figured out the math for the "perfect scroll" (I included his diagram in the photos for this step). The numbers in the diagram are the most common numbers found in nature (in things like flower petals, sets of leaves, etc), and the sections of a scroll bisect each proportionally numbered square right down the middle diagonally. You can play around drawing this shape until you get a technique down, then try doing it in metal :)

1. Holding one of the finished scrolls, heat the exact middle of the metal between the two scrolls to bright orange, and use your pliers to fold one tight bend until both of the heart scrolls touch. You should now have a lovely perfect heart shape. **If you don't nail it the first time, that's ok - you can reheat the same spot and open it back up flat again, let it cool completely, and do the bend again.
2. To add a little character, heat each scroll one at a time, and use a small hammer to forge the outermost portions of the curves flatter. This adds some texture and makes the piece look more unique.
3. Once you are happy with the heart shape and have done all the heating/bending/forging you want to do, it's time to add a finish of some kind. There are hundreds of ways to finish a metal piece - chemical patinas, paints, acrylic sealers, etc. For this project I wanted a bit of a medieval look, so I finished mine with used motor oil. Pour about 1/4 cup of the blackest motor oil you can find into a heat-proof container (glass, metal, ceramic). Heat the metal up to a "black heat" - which is hot, but not hot enough to create a glowing color in the metal - and dunk your heart into the oil for several seconds. Once it cools enough to handle, blot off all the excess oil with an old rag or paper towel until it's no longer greasy. No need to do anything else to it - the carbon in the motor oil will protect the surface from oxidation (rust).

**I always keep a jug of very black used motor oil on hand when I want a matte black, traditional looking finish. The reason this works so well is because, as the metal heats up, the surface molecules expand and the carbon from the blackened oil can absorb into the "pores" of the metal. When the metal cools, the surface "pores" close up, and the carbon gets locked in place. It's a relatively durable finish, and because it's not a paint, it allows the surface textures of the metal to remain visible and looks very natural.

1. If this is a gift, you may have to get sneaky to figure out how big to make the bracelet band (for the one I made, I had to guess based on pictures of my coworker's wife I'd seen on his desk at work, lol). I used soft leather cord knotted around each side of the heart, just below the scrolls - which placed the cord perfectly in the middle of the heart and worked well.
2. Because I used leather cord, I needed a durable way to keep the bracelet removable, so I added a clasp with clamp ends on it that I could clamp onto the ends of the leather cord.

I hope you enjoy gifting or wearing this pretty little bracelet as much as I did making it. Happy metalworking!