Forge Your Own Iron Bookends

Modernize your shelves with these iron bookends. These bookends have a contemporary, industrial look that differs from traditional scroll designs.

A great chef once told me to try to cook dishes without using garlic and olive oil because it would make me a better cook. Although the combination makes everything delicious, it’s also ubiquitous. Constantly relying on the garlic and olive oil combination prevents the cook from exploring a multitude of other flavor combinations. Free from the shackles of conventional cooking, true breakthroughs are possible and signature dishes can be born.

The scroll is the garlic and olive oil of contemporary ironwork. The scroll is perhaps the most popular iron design element of all time. Originally used as gussets, iron scrolls have been used by designers and architects for millennia to both tasteful and occasionally excessive ends. The scroll is a ubiquitous symbol for ironwork, but, like the old garlic and olive oil one-two punch, relying on it as a design element can put your creativity on sleep mode.

Unless specifically requested by the client (which is often the case), we rarely design ironwork with scrolls. I have nothing against scrolls and actually really enjoy forging them since they are such a great exercise in fluid forging and forming. When we do design with scrollwork, we often try to incorporate the bevel scroll because of its flowing lines and three dimensionality. It’s also a very tricky forging, which keeps the smith engaged and challenged.

These bevel scroll bookends are designed to be a modern take on an old classic. The simple L bracket frame and cylindrical standoffs have an industrial feel in sharp contrast to the delicate bevel scrolls which act as the gussets.

Materials used:

1″ x 3/16″ (25 x 5 mm) flat bar, 26″ (660 mm) long, two pieces
3/4″ (19 mm) round bar, 1″ (25 mm) long, four pieces
2″ x 1/2″ (51 x 13 mm) flat bar, 17-1/2″ (445 mm) long, two pieces
1/4″ x 17/8″ (6 x 48 mm) rivets

Tools used:

Power hammer with flat dies
3/4″ (19 mm) round power hammer fuller
Drill press
Hand forging hammer
Anvil
Scrolling pliers
Bending forks

Instructions:

Step 1: Fullering and Bending the Frame Pieces

1. Mark and fuller the 2 x 1/2 inch (51 x 13 mm) flat bars 6-3/4 inches (171 mm) from the end of the bar.

Hammer the fuller 1/4 inch (6 mm) into the bar and then create a 90 degree bend at the fuller mark.

Step 2: Forging the scrolls

1. Forge a 3 inch (76 mm) taper on the edge of the 3/16 inch (5 mm) flat bar and scroll it until it forms a J. Do this in 2 to 3 heats, working back and forth from the face to the horn of the anvil.

1. Once the shape is created, forge a bevel into both edges of the scroll using the rounding side of a farrier-style rounding hammer.

Step 3: Forming the Three-Dimensional Bends

1. This is the tricky part. Carefully bend the end of the scroll in the opposite plane over the horn of the anvil while gradually twisting the workpiece to create a bend and twist simultaneously.

1. The resulting shape gradually twists 90 degrees while it bends into a scroll shape.

Step 4: Forming the Remainder of the Scroll

1. About 6 inches (152 mm) from the end of the bar, complete the 90 degree twist and scroll the rest of the bar parallel to itself using the scrolling tongs and a drawing as a guide.

Step 5: Assembly

1. Line up the scrolls, standoffs, and frames and mark for rivet holes where everything comes in contact.
2. Drill the 3/4 inch (19 mm) round standoffs in the center and drill corresponding holes in the scrolls and frames.
3. Countersink the holes on the back of the frames so that the rivets can spread and remain flush on that side.
4. Using the horn of the anvil for a bolster, hammer over the rivets to complete assembly.

Project forged by JP Shepard and Matt Garton.