Planing stop. Where on the bench?

[Dan Duperron]

Kees,

I'm curious why you started out with a round bar instead of square? Perhaps you didn't have any square around? It seems it would be easier to create a square tapered section starting with a square, but I'm no blacksmith so maybe there is more to it.

Peter Ross makes this stuff look easy, but I know it isn't. I'd like to try blacksmithing someday.

-Dan

[Kees Heiden]

Indeed, I didn't have any square stock lying around. The trick is to turn the stock exactly 90 degrees back and forth on each one or two hammer strokes. I don't have a problem creating a nice short taper, about the width of my hammer, but extending it over the a longer piece is somehow very tricky.