church keys

[the artfull-codger]

    Hi A couple of keys I was asked to make for our local church in the village,the stem was turned in the lathe,& the part for the bow was turned to a smaller diameter, then transfered to the mill & a slot milled out 3/4 of the depth of the stem for the 3/4"x1" x1/4" blank to fit in, & this was silver soldered in,then it was marked out & cut out with a piercing saw by hand then filed up with various needle files, the bow part was split down carefully with a junior hack saw,then heated to bright red & forged to shape with the join at the top welded together to form the bow,finally all polished up & a walk over the road to try them.[they worked!!!] These were made 2 yrs ago,I made some others anbut 20 yrs ago & they're still o-k, I suppose the original ones would be a forged blank but these have stood the test if time.