Hand Forged Iron Snails

There is something about snails. I keep coming back to them at the forge, and I cannot fully explain why. Maybe it is the whimsy. Maybe it is the quiet contradiction of forging a creature that looks so light out of a material that feels so heavy. Iron is slow. Snails are slow. Somehow that pairing just works in my head.

Snails are a good project practice some basic forging techniques. Drawing, Tapering, and splitting/fork.

I 1st started making them tail -> shell -> face. But once the shell was curled up, I had no good place to grip the piece. The body and the back end were too short and too awkward to hold safely with tongs and they kept slipping and moving with the hammer blows.

I actually started designing a custom set of tongs just to hold a snail’s butt safely and securely. 🙂

Then I tried flipping the whole sequence. Now I split and shape the eye stalks first, then work the body, then curl the shell, then shape the butt last. I can hold the snail between the mostly formed eye stocks while working on the rest of the body.

A few of them are listed in my Etsy shop if you want one of your own. You can find them at APolymathLLC on Etsy.

Sometimes the fix is not a better tool. Sometimes it is just doing the steps in a different order.

What is something you used to overcomplicate before you found the simple version? I would love to hear about it.

Be Curious, Be Creative, Be Kind.

Tags: blacksmithing, nature, for sale, etsy
Difficulty: Intermediate