A very pretty and most useful kind of ornamental iron work came into vogue in Venice, Italy, a long time ago, and as it is easy to do and you need only a few tools and inexpensive materials to do it with, you ought to try your hand at it.

Venetian iron work consists of bending thin, narrow strips of wrought iron into scrolls and other shapes and then fixing them together with little iron clamps called binders.

In this way objects such as egg boilers, candlestick sconces, lanterns and brackets to hang them on, photograph frames and helpful and artistic creations without end can be made.

The Tools You Must Have

You will need very few tools for making Venetian iron work and these are (1) a pair of flat nose 5 inch pliers;25 (2) a pair of round nose 5 inch pliers; (3) a box-wood four-fold, 2-foot rule; (4) a vise; (5) a pair of tinner's snips and (6) a small riveting hammer, all of which are shown in Fig. 27.

25 This means that the pliers are 5 inches long.

The Materials You Need

The work is made of 1/32 inch thick soft iron strips and this can be bought26 in four different widths, namely 1/8, 3/16, 1/4, and 3/8 inch.

In general it is the best practice to use the 3/16 and 1/4 inch wide strips for all designs except the smallest and largest. The strip iron comes in coils of 50 feet and the prices range from 16 cents to 25 cents a coil.

26 Complete manual training outfits for Venetian bent iron work can be bought of Hammacher, Schlemmer and Co., Fourth Avenue and 13th St., New York.

Fig. 30. Materials You Need For Venetian Iron Work

Coil Of Wrought Iron Strip

Binders

Lead Wire For Measuring

Then you will need a package of binders - these are merely bits of strip iron cut off and bent as shown in Fig. 30, they come in four widths and cost about 10 cents a hundred. Also get a couple of 3 foot pieces of lead wire for with these you can quickly form the scrolls and circles you intend to make of iron, then straighten them out and accurately measure off the length of iron you need. They cost 5 cents a strip.

What to Do First

Making a Simple Design

The first thing to do after you get your tools and materials together is to draw on a sheet of paper the object you are to make of bent iron.