Even bigger shackles! | Blacksmith Show and Tell | Forum

Almost outsmarted myself on this one. I was really trying to upset WAY to much material. But I got away with it as you can see! Upset a little, flatten it down, upset a little more and flatten it again. Finally got it.

Hard to get a feel for these in the pictures. That's about eight feet of 3" 4140! For scale, the ram on the hydraulic cylinder is the same 5" diameter rod shown in the punching pictures. The "paddles" on each end are about 8" round.

Even after all that, the paddles were just a little undersize. That's why we're slugging them with chunks of 2-1/2" round to "blow" them up a little. They later got 3-1/4" holes punched in them anyway.

Sorry I don't have further pictures of the process. The punching was exactly like the small ones shown in "Punching some shackles" The slugs that were pushed out were 3-1/4 diameter X 3" long!

These were bent in a rather tight hairpin with straight sides. They're what's known as "sinker shackles". They use them in the middle of a mooring chain with a big mushroom anchor hanging from them. Used on the big floating drill rigs. Probably what caused the big oil spill!