Fuller Swage

[JNewman]

I often have to draw 1" round down to 1/2" round about 30" long. I usually draw the material down to 1/2" octagon on my flat dies using a kiss block and then throw a 1/2" swage on and round it up. The flat dies draw it out fairly well but the whole process could be speeded up a little. I got thinking about combining a drawing die with a swage, here is what I came up with.

I would feed the 1" in the left side rotating 90 degrees each blow, the right side is to smooth and straighten it out. Has anyone tried a swage like this? It is going to be a little bit of a pain to forge or I may get it CNC cut. If someone has tried it and it was a complete disaster I won't bother.

[Timothy Miller]

I tried something like that once It did not work well for me. I have been meaning to revisit it since i got a bigger hammer. I have seen dies like that used by the Drew company to draw out the center section of caulking irons. So i know it must work but it think it may take more power than conventional drawing. I dont think it would be too hard to forge just turn down a bum bell shaped pattern in your lathe and forge it into your die blank. Then ease the edges with a die grinder and file. Make sure you flip the die set over a few times wile you are forging it to make the impression equal depth on both sides. And also make sure both sides are equally heated as that can lead to an uneven impression. I am sure you know a lot of this already if not all.

[JNewman]

I knew i couldn't have been the first to come up with this idea. If you feel it was just a not enough power issue that shouldn't be a problem my hammer has lots of power but does run slower only 140 blows per minute.

I got rid of my metal lathe in favour of keeping a second hammer, I had no space for both. It was a beat up really old South bend anyways, I had no change gears and it would not take any sort of heavy cut. So I think I may forge the master rather than turn it. What I am thinking is use a spring fuller to rough it down , then use a larger radius spring fuller and a kiss block to finish it. Even if this ends up a little rough rotating it and taking light blows while finishing the swage should make it reasonably smooth. If the concept works but the swage is too rough or if I get too busy and need the die I may just get it cut on a cnc mill, I would think they could cut the two sides out in an hour or so. Thats much faster than I could make the master, forge the swage and then relieve the edges, and then forge or drill out and relieve the finishing swage.

[Timothy Miller]

I would be lost with out my lathe. I use it to make swage blanks frequently. What is the ultimate product?

[JNewman]

Tongs are the one product I would use this for right away although I do a fair bit of swaging for other things. I often make tongs like these in batches of 6 pair and there are several other long types I make as well. . I can easily rough out the round part of the reins in one heat but I cannot swage them in that heat. Because they are now much longer I have to light the second burner in the forge to get a long heat and it often takes two heats to heat the whole length of the reins. If I could rough and finish in one heat it would save a lot of time and I could avoid running both burners in the forge.

[youngdylan]

I knew i couldn't have been the first to come up with this idea. If you feel it was just a not enough power issue that shouldn't be a problem my hammer has lots of power but does run slower only 140 blows per minute.

I got rid of my metal lathe in favour of keeping a second hammer, I had no space for both. It was a beat up really old South bend anyways, I had no change gears and it would not take any sort of heavy cut. So I think I may forge the master rather than turn it. What I am thinking is use a spring fuller to rough it down , then use a larger radius spring fuller and a kiss block to finish it. Even if this ends up a little rough rotating it and taking light blows while finishing the swage should make it reasonably smooth. If the concept works but the swage is too rough or if I get too busy and need the die I may just get it cut on a cnc mill, I would think they could cut the two sides out in an hour or so. Thats much faster than I could make the master, forge the swage and then relieve the edges, and then forge or drill out and relieve the finishing swage.

Would it still work if the "fullers" on the left section could be roated through 90^o It might be a relatively easier shape to make using an angle grinder and dynabrade belt sander.

[youngdylan]

I would be lost with out my lathe.

I second, third and fourth that.

[Timothy Miller]

Couple of probably impracticable ideas. How about forge welding on the handles I know I got flamed for that idea before. Getting a roll forging machine to roll out the handles. Perhaps upsetting the end of a bar in a press to make the mass for jaws.

[JNewman]

Couple of probably impracticable ideas. How about forge welding on the handles I know I got flamed for that idea before. Getting a roll forging machine to roll out the handles. Perhaps upsetting the end of a bar in a press to make the mass for jaws.

Back when I only had a 50 lb hammer I used to forge weld the reins on the tongs in the picture. The volume is not yet high enough to tool up for the other two options especially the upsetting because there are quite a few different tong styles. Some of the tongs I am doing I get to just make a style of tongs and propotions are left up to me, others I get a drawing where an engineer has drawn something that could be totally out of proportion but that is what they want. I just quoted some last week that they want them made out of an alloy that is only made as plate, the hinge area of the tong is 1 3/4" diameter for a set of tongs that are only 24" long and they want a 3/8" bolt and nut rather than a rivet but they want the threads peened over.
With the big hammer I am making them faster than I ever have and if this swage works as planned it may take a while to pay off but I am always looking for a quicker way to do things.

[nuge]

Looks like you could knock it out pretty quick step drilling in a drill press finishing with die (or angle) grinder. At the least you could do a good enough job to know if the die will work. Please to keep us posted.

[DennisG]

This is what I made last summer. Goes from 1" down to 1/2". I use is mostly to "true up" a length.

All I did was take a piece of flange cut off from a beam at work, drill the holes, radius the edges a little, weld on a U shaped piece of 2"X1/4" flat bar, then cut it down the middle on the saw. Clean the cut edges and done. Added the piece for a hardie mount so it stays on my anvil.

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

Sorry for the crude sketch. The center part of your left impression needs more room or you'll just forge a four leaf clover. Looks like you understand proper relief, 45° and tangent.

Be nice to do it in a pair of dies, 2X faster than a swage.

[JNewman]

Sorry for the crude sketch. The center part of your left impression needs more room or you'll just forge a four leaf clover. Looks like you understand proper relief, 45° and tangent.

Be nice to do it in a pair of dies, 2X faster than a swage.

I thought about extra relief in the middle but hoped that enough of the reduction in diameter would take place before the bar made it to the middle. However I trust your STOCK answers. What do you mean by dies rather than swages?

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

I thought about extra relief in the middle but hoped that enough of the reduction in diameter would take place before the bar made it to the middle. However I trust your STOCK answers. What do you mean by dies rather than swages?

You know, real dovetailed dies to go in your hammer.

[youngdylan]

You know, real dovetailed dies to go in your hammer.

Kinyon's don't have anywhere near the ooomph of a Massey and bolt on dies aren't really the thing for production work ...... BUT that said it is so convenient being able to knock up a couple of speciality dies without the hassle of machining tapers. I've got a bridgeport -ish mill and it's still hassle to set up to machine them (maybe ok doing batches).

I'm a total fan of using speciality dies rather than spring swages. I didn't realise they forged quicker because I've never compared them to the same work done with a spring swage. I like them because they don't bounce around so much and you often end up trying to steady the swages with one hand. I've got two Kinyons types and an Anyang 40kg so on a job it's geat having 3 hammers some of which have speciality dies and being able to flit from hammer to hammer in one heat. The Anyang moves the meat of the work and the Kinyons do the "shaping"

How long a run are you doing? Might be work making some special dies that you can fit bolt on dies to for small production runs or testing out protypes or evolving the optimum die faces and general experimenting. When you've sussed it you could then go to the expense of making proper dies. The other advantage of fabricated dies is cost, you don't need so big a chunk of alloy steel, useful if you're just experimenting and might have to try a few different options. I usually forge/machine/grind the "business end" out of a small piece of EN24T (4340???) and weld it to a mild steel base. I've got speciality stainless steel welding rods for welding mixed metals, can't remember the grade but can find out. That said most time these days I just mig weld it together. Holds out pretty well for the small scale and batches of work I do.

[Mainely,Bob]

IIRC the rod for dissimilar steels is 309.
Then again I`ve been known to repair CI with 7024(when no nickle rod was available) and have it hold long term. :blink:

[youngdylan]

IIRC the rod for dissimilar steels is 309.
Then again I`ve been known to repair CI with 7024(when no nickle rod was available) and have it hold long term.

Yeah 309 rings abell. I've got some 312 and 309 rods but I can't remember which I used, whatever one it was, it stands up pretty good. My alchemy metallurgical knowledge is pure seat of the pants stuff, suck it and it see and all that, if it takes the punishment it the right one to use!

You just can't beat "needs must" when running a small workshop!

[Timothy Miller]

Just a thought I had last night about this thread. What if you made blocks of wood or even Plexiglas in the shape of the dies and ran clay threw them? Well you'd have to polish the plexyglas it to actually see. Its probably too much work but a cool idea nonetheless. You might gain some valuable insight as to how the metal is actually moved. Every die I have ever made has been sort of a black box kind of thing. Not really understanding exactly how the metal was flowing inside of the die. Even though I understand die work on a basic level.

[youngdylan]

Just a thought I had last night about this thread. What if you made blocks of wood or even Plexiglas in the shape of the dies and ran clay threw them? Well you'd have to polish the plexyglas it to actually see. Its probably too much work but a cool idea nonetheless. You might gain some valuable insight as to how the metal is actually moved. Every die I have ever made has been sort of a black box kind of thing. Not really understanding exactly how the metal was flowing inside of the die. Even though I understand die work on a basic level.

Yeah, the flow of metal can sometimes puzzles me and there are sometimes i end up squeezing rods of plasticene to try and get a hook on things.

.....could do with some S.T.O.C.K. flavouring to the more esoteric aspects of metal flow.

[JNewman]

[

This is what I made last summer. Goes from 1" down to 1/2". I use is mostly to "true up" a length.

All I did was take a piece of flange cut off from a beam at work, drill the holes, radius the edges a little, weld on a U shaped piece of 2"X1/4" flat bar, then cut it down the middle on the saw. Clean the cut edges and done. Added the piece for a hardie mount so it stays on my anvil.

Dennis you should relieve the sharp corners more on the holes so you don't get marks on your steel. The bottom 45 degrees is the part doing the work. The steel squeezes out the sides and if there is a sharp corner it can cause cold shuts.

[JNewman]

The plastercine idea is interesting not sure about using plexiglas though that sounds like as much work as making them from steel by the time I were to polish it enough to be clear. I had not realized that there was that big a difference in dies vs. swages. All the more reason for me to get around to modifying a set of dies to hold small dovetailed dies similar to Grants anvil. I will have to get a Carbide dovetail cutter made. I do have some dies with swages cut in them. the one problem I did have using them is having the work bounce out of the groove and then get caught by the corners. I am assuming it was bouncing out it may have been pulled out by the top die I didn't feel there was as much relief in the dies as there should be but because there were two side by side I don't have room to relieve them more. Talking to guys that used to run this hammer they mentioned that they often had a helper using a hooked bar hold the steel being swaged down. I though about building a spring loaded hold down but just switched to spring swages instead.

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

This should explain it. With a swage like this you can turn the work without letting up on the treadle even when swaging stock that is 50% bigger.

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

I've used a sort of "candy-cane" hook before that was fastened to the sow block to hold work from jumping.

[youngdylan]

the one problem I did have using them is having the work bounce out of the groove and then get caught by the corners. I am assuming it was bouncing out it may have been pulled out by the top die I didn't feel there was as much relief in the dies as there should be but because there were two side by side I don't have room to relieve them more.

Yeah, the catching and snagging on sharp corners is a b****r. Plenty of relief needed, no way round it, well maybe a lot more experience would help me. I also find that I get more snagging as the work gets colder, maybe's more "bounce" it so it jumps out of the "groove" and snags on the way down.

I do find though, that snagging can be an issue with spring swages as well, say for swage-ing a nice cross section handrail. It's always a PITA when you get your mojo going and then it snags and marks the work right at the end.

[youngdylan]

This should explain it. With a swage like this you can turn the work without letting up on the treadle even when swaging stock that is 50% bigger.

Are these the OC swages of great repute? I take it the business end is 4340 or something of that ilk?. Are the "spring" bits welded on or are they forged down, if not are they mild steel and what rod do you weld them on with. You still didn't answer my tortoise question from a few days ago