Hand forged beaver trap

[Hungry Horse]

My question is where is the trap welded? I helped a blacksmith make a trap years ago, and don't remember there being any welds involved.

  Hungry Horse

[Justin Urbantas]

all the links of the chain are individually welded, as well as the ring on the end of the chain

[David R. Pennington]

I have a barrel blank welded up waiting to be drilled and another started. These were from wrought wagon tires.

[Justin Urbantas]

how was the quality of the iron?  I have a wagon wheel as well

[Hungry Horse]

I have seen wagon, and buggy, rims that were poor quality wrought iron, and I have seen some that are quite good quality. I am using a very narrow buggy rim at present, that is great. It has almost no inclusions at all. I once had a heavy freight wagon rim, about an inch and a quarter thick, that was so full of inclusions that you had to heat the pieces and fuller them in both directions to beat all the inclusions out.

  Hungry Horse

[JCKelly]

Oh, well, I'll comment anyway.

Somewhere I have buried an old book which says that springs for beaver traps (continually immersed in water) are to be tempered a little softer than those for land-use traps.

Makes sense to me as a metallurgist. If hardened steel under stress rusts a bit, it can crack. A harder temper is more likely to crack, just resting there with the trap set, than is a softer temper.

Sorry I don't know how hard or soft these springs should be. Just something to think about if you have some choice in the matter. 

[David R. Pennington]

We had a few tires to choose from. The one we used was really good iron, although it was too small, so we welded two pieces of it together "road side to road side" to get a heavy enough skelp. It really wanted to weld. The pieces would stick to each other in the fire while I was heating them.

[smylee grouch]

Great looking trap Justin. Now go catch a beaver.