Bending Horseshoes

While many pieces of metal are bent into horseshoe shapes, horseshoes themselves are often subject to destruction. This is a form of braced bending as the leg is used to twist the horseshoe out from its ‘U’ shape into an ‘S’. From there you can go a step further into making a heart out of the shoe. Dennis Rogers give an example of this…and the only hand padding he uses are a couple tissues!

What is never done, though some people try, is to simply open a shoe by pulling opposite ways on each end. That is pull both the legs of the shoe outwards.

Requires tremendous grip strength to keep the shoe from spinning while you push and pull in opposite directions. Be aware that this feat is going to leave some heavy bruising from the pressure. Also, in my personal opinion, while all steel bending is tough, horseshoes are the hardest.

The first horseshoe I ever bent.

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