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I Forge Iron

iron quake

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Coeur d' Alene, Idaho
  • Interests
    Blacksmithing, Flyfishing, Organic Farming

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  1. Any of you own or ever use a Prentiss or Reed vise with the swivel rear jaw? I'm told these were made to hold tapered objects. How do they hold up in a blacksmithing environment?
  2. I don't use a coal forge but how about a cheap propane plumbers torch?
  3. Picked up this swage block yesterday 15"x18"x4.5" and 225 pounds. Any of you know who might have manufactured it, or how old it is?
  4. S7 works very well for hammer dies. I costs about the same as 4140 and you don't need any quenching medium, as it's air hardening. A 3x3x6" is $79 through Hudson. You can temper with pretty good control in your kitchen oven at 550f and get good results at 55Rc. Perhaps a bit harder than you'd like but it works well for me, as long and the features are not to fine. I don't know why you'd ever use H13 for a hammer die. I can't see the die ever getting to a temperature you'd see deformation with S7 or 4140 / 4340. A great material for true hot work however. There is a great heat treat paper on line on the Tidewater Blacksmith site if you need the information presented in simple easy to follow manner. http://tidewaterblacksmiths.com/heat.html
  5. The guides are not the issue if you're talking about mounting in a location centered on the ram "tup". The frame which the guides mount to is the limitation. On my 100 its ~ 3.25" so you could have a 6 diameter top tool mounted on the center line. I don't know why you'd want to do this however. if you are looking to form bowl shapes then a hydraulic press is a much cheaper, faster, safer and more repeatable option. You can press round sections of sheet or plate into a bowl shape with simple tooling and do it COLD. Form the shape and apply any texture you like after the fact if you like. Otherwise a smaller concave bottom and and convex top tool is what you want I guess. Lots of folks on this site forgot more than I'll ever know about this whole thing so keep asking.
  6. I think this idea has a lot of merit for small parts.
  7. A lot of hammer ram tooling connections, retract up beyond the bottom of the guide assembly, which I think is a disadvantage for custom dies and operations like you're suggesting. One hammer in production today, that I know of that doesn't is Sahinler, which I think is advantageous. I wish I owned one right now.
  8. Super Cut bimetal blades are fantastic. I've cut 1000's of cross-sectional inches with them in horizontal and vertical saws. Order them direct and they ship the same or the next day.
  9. Big Gun has the best idea. Super Cut bandsaw bimetal blades are fantastic and they will ship the same day. A wood plug will work just fine and needs only bridge across the center of the tube not the whole diameter, i.e 2x4. Adjust the blade guides as close to the work as you can and set the feed rate pretty slow, the rate will increase as the saw gets to horizontal so beware. A saw that pumps coolant will help you as well, any saw big enough to handle the material will have that.
  10. Bolt on with two bolts works very well. I changed to bolt on dies in my 100 LB LG and never have a problem, and that's using 3/8 SHCS. The thing I like best about it is, I make tools steel dies welded to CRS base plates. The tool steel is small enough then that I can do the heat treating myself, but could't if I had the lower section with the dovetail as part of the die. I machine the tool steel portion heat and quench in oil if they are 4140 or air quench if they are S7. Tac weld the tool steel to the mild steel base plate. Pre heat the assembly to ~600 F, then weld the assembly together using .035 hard wire in a MIG. Then temper and stress relieve at 400-550F in the kitchen oven for an hour or two. Flux core wire or some stick alloy, would probably be better than what I use but it works for me.
  11. I purchased a copy from Pieh Tool and thought it completely worthless. Pieh told me to send it back and I did, they then refused to refund my money. So I would't buy it or anything else from them…ever.
  12. If you can get your hands on some Deltaforge 182 from Henkel, you might be very impressed. I've been using it to punch and drift up to 1" square holes with great success.
  13. Rubber, plastic materials have few uses in a smithy. Try to keep to metal, wood, stone and leather. There are exceptions always of course.
  14. Take a couple steel bars across the feet and lag the ends to the stump. A couple short lengths of 1/4 x 1" with a hole in each end and 4 lag bolts will do the trick. If you can heat them up and form them around the feet thats better but you don't need to.
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