Creating a Hand Forged Metal Wreath

I had the idea of making a hand forged metal wreath last Christmas. I’d been to the wreath making night at the Roberton village hall – it’s always a fun relaxed evening of being creative and chatting to friends over a glass of wine. While I was trying to weave in some nice Ivy vines, I wondered how difficult it would be to do something similar in metal…

The Forging Process

This year I’ve been practising making leaves from a piece of square bar, a process I’ve got much quicker and more confident at, and used the wreath as an opportunity to hone this skill. I made loads of individual components, most entirely by hand with some, such as the ivy leaves, beginning life as laser cut blanks, which I have shaped, textured and added veins to while hot. I’ve then arranged them in a circle, and TIG welded the piece together, bit by bit. The finish is a clear lacquer which allows the natural colours of the metal to radiate, and I've highlighted the flower centres in gold leaf.

Challenges during the making process

The thing I found hardest was working out where each individual piece needed to go, as there were so many options and not necessarily a right / wrong answer. In the end I just went for it in order to avoid spending hours rearranging bits of metal in a circle!

Creating the circular frame for the wreath was more of a challenge than I expected. I first had to turn a section of the round bar into square in order to begin forging my leaf at the end, then forge a neat swirl at the other end of the round bar. With both ends forged as I wanted them, forming the circle was now tricky, from heating the right part of it to bending it around the jig. And, it’s ended up being a bit larger than planned as when you taper the end of a bar, the bar becomes longer and I always forget to factor this in when I’m working out what length I need!

When it came to welding all of the components onto the circle, I was on my own. David had taken the girls to their swimming class which is usually my job, but I wanted to get the wreath done before the Roberton show and that couple of hours was my one opportunity! I wanted the welds to be on the back so they would not be visible, or at least as discreet as possible. In order to achieve this, I had to lay a section out, then turn all of it over trying to memorise where each little bit needed to go, which is definitely not something that comes naturally to me. There was also some welding at awkward angles; I lost count of the number of times I had to clean my tungsten!

What I love about my metal wreath

I’ve got so much quicker at forging a leaf from scratch,  and am a lot more confident in putting veins in my ivy leaves. I also love my little scrolls. All these individual skills added together mean it’s possible to make more complex pieces, and it’s really exciting to see my ideas develop. I’m proud of it; when I look back on my work from a few months ago, it’s great to see how much I’ve improved both as a designer and blacksmith.

I love how the steel blues from heat, and the natural shine you get from buffing each piece gently on a wire wheel (a task I set David to). Gold leaf adds a touch of opulence and compliments the anthracite grey of the steel.

The punched hole for hanging has worked well, this is a job we tend to do together as it’s so much easier with an extra hand and we’ve got a lot better at that too. It’s nice and central, and the metal has pushed out evenly on each side – definitely looks more natural than a drilled hole.

How would I approach another wreath differently?

I’m sure if I’d had time to play about more with the layout I possibly could have bettered it, but given how 'time poor' we are, I suspect this will always be the case!

As we head into Autumn I’d love to prioritise experimenting with a bigger variety of flowers, to keep pushing myself and developing my skills. I think designing a wreath is a great way to bring together lots of individual ideas I've practised.

I’d like to try adding some larger forged leaves, I’ve started off with 10mm square bar, perhaps I could use 12mm or even 16mm bar in order to vary the size of the finished leaves.

I’d love to make some miniature versions of this, maybe 6” diameter or so, keeping the time and therefore cost down, making a more viable item to sell.

If you would like to commission a hand forged metal piece, or book a beginner Blacksmithing day, contact Black Fox Metalcraft to discuss your ideas.