A beginnerʼs very first project: Rebar Tent Stake You have just gotten access to a forge, anvil and vise for the first time. What should you make? A set of tent stakes, far better than any you will get in a store, make a good first project involving the basic processes of bending, drawing out, tapering, straightening and cutting. The repetition of making a complete set of 6 or 8 of the stakes will go a long way toward refining those skills. Equipment, tools, and supplies needed: forge anvil vise hammer tongs talc or chalk cutting hardie or handled hot cutter cutting plate (a simple piece of 1/4 thick mild steel plate will do) file or grinder about 8 feet of small-diameter rebar (3/8 works well) Steps: 1. Begin by cutting the rebar into lengths of about 3 feet. To cut, you can use a hacksaw, or you can put a deep nick into the rebar, clamp the rebar in a vise, and bend the rebar at the nick to break it. File or grind off any sharp edges on the ends of the rebar sections. 2. Heat about 3 of the end to bright orange. The sections are long enough that you can hold them initially without tongs. If they get too hot to hold on the cold end, use tongs to cool the cold end in water. 3. Use the horn of the anvil to draw out and taper the end to about 1/8. Start by making a 4-sided pyramid on the end, then gradually stretch the pyramid out until it is about 5 inches long. Use heavy hammer blows initially, then lighter blows to refine the shape. Keep the cross-section of the taper square. You should be able to do this in 5 or 6 heats the first time, if you put some power into your hammer blows.
4. Using chalk or talc, mark the workpiece 8 from the point of your taper. Heat the workpiece again to orange, in the area near your mark. Clamp it in the vise, with the mark right at the top of the jaws. Bend the rebar down to a 90 degree angle using your hand on the free end of the bar and a hammer just above the vise jaws. 5. Heat the bend to orange, then use a hammer and the face of the anvil to bend the rebar back against itself.
6. Heat the bent end of the workpiece to orange, back to about 2 inches from the bend. Clamp it in the vise with the bent end down in the jaws about 1.5 inches. Bend the rebar again down to 90 degrees just as you did with the first bend. Note that this bend is not in the same plane as the first bend. No problem, itʼs easy to twist it to the same plane in the next step.
7. Heat the bent parts of the workpiece again to orange, then flatten the workpiece on your anvil face. This twists the last bend into the same plane as the first bend. You should be able to do this in one or two blows with your hammer. If you do it quickly, you wonʼt need to re-heat for the next step. 8. Clamp the workpiece in the vise again, with all the bends about 1 inch below the top of the jaws. Bend the free end down at 90 degrees. Again, this bend will be out of plane with respect to the other bends. Again, no problem.
9. Heat one last time, at the last bend. Flatten on the anvil face, then cut it about 1/2 from the last bend. You can use a hardie cutter, a handled hot cutter, a hacksaw or the file-and-break method. NOTE: do not use a hacksaw on hot metal because it will soften and wreck the saw blade. Do not quench the workpiece in water, then use a hacksaw, because the quenching will harden the workpiece enough to wear out the saw teeth. If you want to use a hacksaw, first allow the workpiece to cool in air. File or grind off any sharp edges on the tapered point and on the cut end. 10.Heat the entire workpiece to a dull orange, quickly do any necessary straightening on the anvil face, then quench in water to harden.
When you make the rest of the tent stakes in your set, try to make them all the same length, with the tapers and bends all the same. Try to reduce the number of hammer blows and the number of heats for each subsequent tent stake. For the last three or four stakes, work on all of them simultaneously so you wonʼt have idle time between heats. As your rebar sections get shorter, you will need to hold them with tongs instead of by hand. Make sure your tongs hold the workpiece firmly. On the last tent stake made from a rebar section, you will need tongs that can hold the thin tapered portion. The best tongs for this are flat-jaw tongs with a longitudinal groove in the center of each jaw. You can modify a pair of flat-jaw tongs by heating the jaws to bright orange, closing the jaws on a thin rod, placing on the anvil face and hammering to form the groove. Either air-cool or quench in oil unless youʼre sure the tongs are made from mild steel. These might be a lot heavier than the stakes you get with a backpacking tent, but they WORK. You can hammer them into the ground and they wonʼt bend. A bit of wind on your tent wonʼt pull the stakes out and let the tent fly away. You will love these stakes!
Steve McGrew Incandescent Ironworks Ltd. www.incandescent-iron.com November 28, 2012