The sides of this bar are painted with a fanciful jungle scene complete with monkeys and a parrot. The customer wanted a bootrail that would compliment this motif. Usually I try to avoid forging leaves and vines since they already have been used so extensively in work of the past, but this project cried out for them. It turned out to be a lot of fun and also pushed me in a new direction. The vines are 68" long round tapers ending as spiraling tendrils. They were forged out from 32" long pieces of 3/4" square stock. The leaves are flattened and forged from 5/8" square stock, heated in the coal fire to the heat at which they will stick together when hammered, and forge welded to the vines. I used old fashioned wrought iron imported from France for this project. It is softer than the mild steel we usually use and I think this softness shows up in the finished work. The bamboo is made from heavy pipe which has been upset and grooved at the joints. I then shaped and textured it hot using a special power hammer die which I made for this project.