Fred, as with most everything in this hobby the file work is what makes the end result. The die just saves time and energy, and forms the body of the sight. As with forgings and dies it is oversized. Take a rectangular wrought bar and and put about 3/8" of the end of the bar on the edge of the anvil and hammer down making it thinner which will also spread its width, then take another heat and hammer it 90 degrees. This forms the the back of the sight which you see when sighting down the barrel. Next put the die in the hardy hole. Take another heat and the portion of the metal you bent at a 90 goes into the deepest cut part of the die. At a bright yellow heat drive the bar into the die, stopping just short of hammering on the die body itself. This forms about 95% of the sight body. Finally take one more heat and use the flatter to finishing setting the piece into the die. When the flatter comes against the die body this will become dead flat and is your base of the dovetail. The dovetails are also cut into the die and therefore are already forged in. Remember that you are forging the sight upside down. The recess where we cut the sight notch itself is cut with a ball mill. This forging with practice is done in 3 heats, total time elapsed about 10 minutes start to finish. Cut the sight blank off the remainder of the bar and about 30-40 minutes of filing and your done.
Mark Brier
