Metal Forming Stakes

Yvette lent me a book a few days ago pertaining to metal forming. In the back of the book there was a section on tools that could be made simply for the budget minded metalsmith. The author didn't supply any patterns though, bummer.

But that is ok!

I asked Yvette to borrow her book just long enough to take a photo of the page and size up the patterns accordingly to have to scale silhouettes of the stakes (shown above). Next time I have a day off, or when I can take some time off, I will run out to Midland Plastics to get some Delrin or HDPE cutoffs in order to cut out a set for her!

Delrin or HDPE is a perfect material to use for these stakes because it resists impacts because it is so dense, but from what I have learned at working at the Betty Brinn Children's Museum, (HDPE anyway) is incredibly easy to machine with a router.

From all the stakes that I have been looking at it appears that the easiest way to achieve the form is to print out my patterns, but out the plastic, and give all the hard edges a once over with a round over router bit.

Here you can see a woman using the plastic to form the metal.