Tonight I made a bending fork for my hardy hole.

I happened to notice that I had a bit of 20mm box section which was a reasonable fit for my hardy hole – a fraction big, but nearly there.

I cut a couple of lengths of 20mm solid bar and welded them (poorly) to the box section.

I threw it in the forge, got it nice and red and hammered the whole lot into the hardy hole and struggled to pull it out.

I repeated this five or six times, in different orientations. After doing this, the bending fork slides smoothly into the hardy hole in any orientation with minimal rattle, minimal play. I can also clamp it in my big leg vice as well.

So… I’ve made my first bit of hardy hole tooling. It would be much better if I had used 20mm bar rather than slightly too thin box, but it has held together for a bit of pounding and I managed to bend hot and cold bar quite nicely. I’ll probably remake it at some point using solid bar but for now it works fine.

I’ve got a few other bits of tooling to make. I think a spring fuller, creaser, cutter, etc will be there in the near future…