How do you all do your hemming. Do you hold the shoe by the toe, and angle your hammer to the right to hem the right branch, and to the left to do the left branch? I find it awkward to hem the left branch this way, so I hole the shoe by the heel to hem my left branch hemming. That way I can still tilt my hammer to the right, which is easier for me. Any suggestions or comments? Regards
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's probably against the rules. but I hem on the horn from toe to heel after I turn and crease and then make a finish pass in the crease. No hammer angle required.
Making a shoe. When do you hem a keg, David? When you're widening part of it with your creaser? Regards
Not usually, it just puts the final touch on the crease and you're doing this when the color is almost gone from the shoe. Besides that you're likely to run the edges of the shoe at a black heat anyway as a final hammer finish. No? Hemming a keg? Paint the lily? Hey whatever works for you!
Its the usual trans Atlantic translation thing. I imagined you were talking about taking the sharpe edge off the foot surface of the shoe which I do at 45 degrs on the bic. If you are talking about fullering I run the hammer up the section before i turn the shoe, to the end of where the fullering will be on the outside branch an all the way to the heel on the inside. If you find this difficult to get your hammer over to the side nearest the bic when drawing then open your tong hand away from your body.
I think I'm getting too much carbon monoxide. I've been out of size 0 kegs since August, so rather than order a bunch so late in the season, I've been making them. Seeing as shoeing slows down after August and trimming picks up, I've been able to keep up by making a few here and there, and using the ones I had made ahead. Well I was down to three pair so I decided to make a few this weekend, and in the process try David and Toms suggestions on hemming. I made a few and then thought to check the size. 00!! As long as I can remember, a plain stamped 0 took me 11 inches of steel, 10.5 if creased. Now, that length makes a 00. I made a few creased shoes from 11 inches, and the size was spot on. WTF? Tomorrow I'm going to compare the crease and web size on a few I had and the new ones, to see where the difference is. If one or the other is not different, I'm sticking with the carbon monoxide theory,. Regards
