[Looking4] Used forming stakes

I’m looking for some forming stakes of good quality that don’t cost
a fortune.

Where did you find yours? Any suggestions of where I should look???

You guys are the best!

Kelli
Passion Flower Designs.

I'm looking for some forming stakes of good quality that don't
cost a fortune. 

First, find a cooperative blacksmith… Stakes aren’t that difficult
to make.

RC

Kelli:

If you are still looking for forming stakes, I have two, one was
used once, the other, a sinusoidal stake, has never been used, but
I’m looking to sell. I’m at “work” right now, so can’t give you more
but if you are interested, I can e-mail you tomorrow.

By the way, I have a lot of forming equipment that I bought this year
(mushroom stakes, hammers,?Delrin rods, anvil,–most from Allcraft,
Otto Frei and Rio)? thinking I was going to concentrate on
forming/silversmithing, but my direction has changed–I’m getting out
of goldsmithing/silversmithing completely–so all of this is for
sale, at good prices and most of the equipment not only has never
been used but is still in its original wrappings. Would you be
interested in seeing a list?

Regards,
Pat

This site has stakes, forming blocks and hammers at a reasonable
price. Ironmonger Armory

David Luck
www.davidluckjewelry.com

I hate asking for anything. But I don’t have a lot of money and am in
real need of some forming stakes and hammers. I will take anything,
old, rusted, falling apart, needing work and will pay shipping to
Florida. Don’t know if I can afford much more than just the shipping,
but if you have some old stakes you no longer use and would like to
give them to a good home where someone will love and care for them,
please contact me off list. I really wan to take my fabrication to
the next step.

Michele

Hi Michelle,

This may or may not help you, but I’ll offer the advice anyway.

There are alternatives that you can make that will get you by until
you can afford better.

For the cost of postage you can go to a junk yard and pick up old
jack hammer bits, an old tow ball, a shot put that can be welded onto
a length of steel.

You can find a lot of useful shapes in a junk yard, you can even go
to the local hardware and buy jack hammer bits and other metal tool
bits that weren’t intended to be forming stakes, but will do.

All you need to do is mount them, modify them if you like, and
polish them.

Regards Charles A.

Sign up for a blacksmith workshop, Go to a junk yard, you can get a
couple of truck or car rear axle shafts and they will show you how to
remake them into some hammers and stakes.

Michelle - another option would be to make some stakes. A ball hitch
for towing a trailer makes a good round stake, and they are available
inexpensively in multiple sizes. See Walmart in the RV section.

Also sheet metal forming stakes are cheap and often are bundled with
hammers. See Harbor Freight or your local flea market. These are the
items that body shops use to fix your bent fender.

This stuff will require a bit of work to finish and some ingenuity
on how to mount them, but it will get you shapes to hammer on
cheaply. And you will have the satisfaction of beginning to make your
personal tool collection.

You don’t have to spend a bundle to get tools, just look around you
for useful shapes. Start visiting junk yards, hardware stores and
look at things folks throw away.

Judy Hoch

Judy,

Finding the ‘tools’ in the rough is the easy part…finishing them is
a bigger challenge for some of us. How do you finish the trailer
hitch to remove the metal edge around the middle? And wouldn;t a
person need a welder to attach various ‘tools’ to some kind of stake
to use them? Please advise

brenda

Don’t overlook any orthopedic surgeons you may know. They are a great
source for free titanium parts that they replace. I have gotten some
great hip joints and knee joints for students use from a few surgeons
I know. They have to autoclave it first ( by law in this state) but
it takes a very short time to sterilize “used” equipment…you may
offer to do this task for them in exchange for the used items-
dentists as well are a good source of used handpieces, carving tools,
etc. as most of the things found in dental labs are used in jewelry
making - from investment to stainless picks, and diamond sintered
burs that have enough life in them for jewelry but that they think
are unusable in a practice ( for one thing sintered burs, etc keep
revealing new diamond when it gets abraded…dentists seem to replace
these burs far before they are totally down to the “wire” with no
diamond material left ). Electroplated diamond burs are not the same-
the diamond coating does wear off readily and the cost is a tell tale
sign of a sintered vs. an electroplated bur…Dental schools will
often have an abundance of carving tools, picks, other tools etc- it
often takes a contact though to get them to give them to you rather
than throwing them away ( which is what happens to most if not all of
them) because of the sterility issue. If you have an autoclave or
access to one I would advise using it on all used tools. that come
into contact with mouths, blood, etc anyway… for your own
safety…Try craigslist in your area if you don’t know anyone- some
dentist or surgeon or their techs may respond blindly, and they may
want to help since they too know the tools are still good but will be
tossed out… worth a shot for free tooling !.. rer

Finding the 'tools' in the rough is the easy part...finishing them
is a bigger challenge for some of us. How do you finish the trailer
hitch to remove the metal edge around the middle? And wouldn't a
person need a welder to attach various 'tools' to some kind of
stake to use them? Please advise 

Finishing rough metal is much like finishing rough silver or gold, -
file, sand and polish. You will need a bigger file, coarser sandpaper
and some good stuff called Lea-C or similar. If you don’t have a
grinder, they are cheap, you have to file a lot. A package of
sandpaper isn’t expensive - you do need the stuff for metal. I think
you could actually hand polish, but it would take a lot of time - put
a hard felt wheel on a grinder or on your buffing motor, and charge
with a pretty coarse polish. Look to the auto supply places for finer
polish. And the whole thing doesn’t have to be shiny - just the part
you want to use - at least to start.

As to welding something together, yes you will need that but folks
are always happy to help out. Find the guy or gal on your street that
works on his hotrod (I’m dating myself) on the weekend - they have a
welder and for cookies or just plain thanks will probably help. Think
outside the box - you don’t have to make something that looks like a
stake - make something you can hammer on - whatever the shape.

This is a business that takes a lot to get started and we all
remember that. If you don’t ask, you probably won’t get someone to
help. When I started, I had squat for tools but made do with an old
ball peen hammer that I polished and a left-over chunk of steel from
I don’t know where. My dad was dangerous with a screwdriver so there
surely wasn’t any help from him. I joined a rock club and found
kindred souls and they all wanted to help, and I surely needed it.

If you want to do this, you can. Just keep asking. After many years,
I now have a nice collection of tools, but I sure didn’t start with
them. Every time I sold something, a percentage went into my tool
budget. Everything I have, I paid for with what I earned selling my
work.

Judy Hoch

Even better, this is a good job to outsource to an industrial
polishing workshop.

Industrial polishers are set up to polish… that’s all they do.

They are relatively cheap too. You just need to get the stake to the
shape you want, maybe a satin finish (friends of mine have put less
work than that in).

Regards Charles A.