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Questions about making tools.


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Greetings, My very first punch is sitting in my brick pile forge annealing right now. I have to say I had heard that high carbon steel was harder to smith but WOW, I ended up pulling out a 4lb sledge dressed up to do the heavy lifting before going back to my Hoffi hammer. However, I manages to straighten the coil spring steel, heat it yellow hot, work it square then taper slightly on the back and all the way down to the target size on the tip. Then I hit it into octagon and then into round. Then I rounded the back where the hammer is to hit the tool. Finally I heated it to non-magnetic and then cut the propane and buttoned up my pile of bricks forge tight to anneal it. Good so far? I am planing to harden it and heat treat it tomorrow. Of course since I am a newbie it took me probably 2 dozen heats and 2 hours. I hope I will get faster. I need to work on a Square drift punch to make a better nail header and a slit chisel but they can come tomorrow.

So while on this was all going on, I had some questions about making tools and about the tools themselves that i was hoping you could all chime in on.

1) What do you think about how I have done so far?

2) I was wondering what makes a punch a certain size? I know the tip is supposed to be flat and I think the diameter of the tip including the rounded corner constitutes the punch's size. They really aren't designed to be put down hardly at all through the metal it seems, just the depth of the metal itself, whereas a drift reaches its "size" at the maximum width of the tool and is tapered on both ends from that width so it can be driven through a piece of metal and makes the exact hole size desired. Am I right about this?

3) I have been using the sharp edge of my anvil as a cut off tool. That is kind of crude so I think I need to look into getting or forging a hardie cut off tool. What I was wondering is where I could get high carbon steel from scrap that would be big enough to make a hardie shank. Or should I instead make only the blade of the cutoff tool out of high carbon steel and the hardie out of low carbon and weld them with my flux core wire from my mig welder?

4) I was thinking of making a fuller for my hardie. Does the fuller itself have to be or should be high carbon tool steel?

Thanks in advance for the answers.

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1-You're working, that's the important part. You never get anywhere on the internet all the time, best to go out and do it.

2-You are correct, the punch should be sized to the thickness of the material IE to punch a 1/4" round hole in 1/4 thick plate, the punch should be 1/4 round for 1/4" then taper thicker.

3-It is crude, try making a hot cutting hand held chisel as your next tool. If you anneal/normalize a piece of spring, then cut shoulders into it the size of your hardy hole (make it shaped like a T, that will work a bit easier, flux core out of the little welder will NOT be sufficient to build a hardy.

4-It could be mild steel as long as you work hot steel over it at the right temperature it won't matter.

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I find jack hammer bits,digging bars and large crow bars to all be good sources of steel for things like hardies and fullers.They can usually be found of a size and shape where half the work is already done for you and I get them for far less than the cost of new steel at flea markets and yard sales.
Jack hammer bits can be bought for scrap from tool rental places.I paid $8 for a five gallon bucket full last time I bought some.Most just give them to me now.

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My current hot cut hardy is a 2" piece or 2 x 2 x 3/8" angle (mild) that Jr Strasil (irnsrgn) included with the Trenton I bought from him. IIRC, he said he HTd it to what mild can be HTd, but as Sam said, as long as you cut hot steel on it, mild works. So far, I have only used it maybe half a dozen times but I haven't had to re-dress it yet. YMMV B)

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If you are not yet ready to make a traditional hardy then just use a piece of leaf spring and cut shoulders on it so that it fits your hardy hole on the diagonal. It'll do a pretty darn good job.



Wouldnt the leaf spring have to be at least the thickness of my hardy? Outherise it owuld fall through.
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Wouldn`t the leaf spring have to be at least the thickness of my hardy? Otherwise it would fall through.


I think what is being suggested is that you cut an approx. 6" long piece of leaf spring(mine are about 3" or more wide) and then cut a tang on it that is wide enough to fit diagonally across the hardy hole of your anvil.This tang should be centered in the width of the leaf spring to form a shoulder on either side which will keep the tool from dropping through.

I do like Dodge`s idea of using a piece of thick angle though.A piece of square bar stock or even square tube welded on would hold it in the hardy hole just fine.
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If you haven't looked at these threads yet.
Tools from spring. Good thread about punchs etc from coil spring.
My link

Slitter Geometry. Good thread about punchs, slitters and drifts.
My link

And Hotcut Hardy. Good pictures of making a hardy that sits in the diagonal.
My link

Hope this helps.

Also, it sounds like you are doing fine. You only used half as many heats as I did making mine. lol.
Would like to see a picture of your punch if you have one. :D

Adam

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My first hot cut was made from a semis leaf spring. I just heated up the tapered end, straightened it out, pounded it down a bit and then ground it sharp, I left it normalized and didn't bother with hardening it.

If you go to a big truck depo/gas stations repair shop they sometimes have broken leaf springs, cracked wheels, brake drums and other odd bits laying around from semis that they have repaired. They usually sell them to scrap guys so if you offer them what they are usually getting then it will be yours! Those leaf springs are really big, from memory 1" thick and 4" wide. They are usually in a bolted together stack with just one of them broken.

The leaf spring was long enough that I just leaned it up against a stout post and made an angle on the spring so that the sharp bit was straight up, it worked fine and was easier to make then a real hot cut hardie, but I didn't have an anvil at the time so that would have been pointless anyways.

Caleb Ramsby

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for a hot cut i made it out of leaf spring. welded it to a flat piece and then welded on a piece of 1" sq. tubing for the shank, made chisels out of coil and just hardened the working end, leaving the striking end soft, i only ground one side so i have a straight cut instead of a "chisel cut if you know what i mean, hope this helps. jimmy

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When I had to whip up an improvised hot cut, I cut off 6in of spring, sharpened one end into a butcher (sidecut) hotcut (keeping the side I wasn't grinding wet to keep the HT).

Voila, stick it in your vise and hammer away. Slides down after extended use, so I've since bent a piece of mild steel into a saddle. Works great!

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SCORE!

Went to home depot tool center and asked if they have any bits for jackhammers that they are about to throw out. They did. I grabbed 13 of them which have a 1 1/4 " octagonal shaft with a wider collar and out of phenomenally good steel. I am going to have to cut one tonight with the OA torch and see about creating the hardy.

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For the hot cut, One I used when I started out before I could make a proper one. I cut the tang end off of an old file, with about 2 inches of the file( you could also use a shaped piece of leaf spring). Welded that to a piece of mild bar the same length as the tang(the tool steel was preheated before welding). The two together made the size of my hardy. Then just sharpened the end. Never bothered to heat treat it. It lasted about a year without much problems, just had to resharpen it 2 or 3 times. The file part ended up braking in half after I decided to quench it one day after cutting a bunch of 1/4" x 2" flat bar. The next time I used it it snapped in half.

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SCORE!

Went to home depot tool center and asked if they have any bits for jackhammers that they are about to throw out. They did. I grabbed 13 of them which have a 1 1/4 " octagonal shaft with a wider collar and out of phenomenally good steel. I am going to have to cut one tonight with the OA torch and see about creating the hardy.


If you haven't started working yet, estimate your length and start necking down that area square to prepare for upsetting the shoulder. This way you can pinch off a 1/2 inch square on the edge of your anvil instead of getting the torch out. You will also have a bonus of a start on the next hardy tool you want to make.

I made a mistake of sorts and cut the stock to the estimated volume and then had problems with fish mouthing on both ends... not the end of the world but be prepared to cut at least half the mouth away to prevent a cold shut.

Phil
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I think from memory "Fishmouthing" is when you forge too cold and/or don't forge square/octagonal/round.
You get internal shearing. It results from outside seperating from the center, making it look like a fish mouth or pipe in cross section.

If I have it wrong I apoligise in advance. :)

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My first punch! Started with a coil spring with about 1/2" diameter metal. The spring was cut with an OA torch, heated to yellow, and straightened (wow I had to slam this thing with a 4# at first. Then I did the basic forming on my anvil. I heated to yellow, squared, tapered slightly on the back (to center hammer blows) tapered greatly on the tip. Then I rounded both ends of the taper so the center body is flat and wont roll off my table. Then I Annealed it by putting it in my brick pile forge, heating it to non-magnetic and then turning off the burner and buttoning up the forge to cool slowly. The next day I ground the back to clean up the sharp bits (to avoid damaging hammers, then I ground the tip to just under the size I wanted. Then I rounded off the edges on the tip and put it back in a hole drilled in 1/8th inch thick stock. It seems to be the right size, the tip is just on the bottom of the hole with the rounded corner filling the hole. I am wondering, though If I need a different dept if I were to use it on say 3/8ths inch stock .I dont know.

Now I have to do some fine tuning, harden it, temper it and it will be ready to punch. Its not perfect but for a first attempt I suppose it ist bad. One imperfection is that it isnt absolutely straight. It is very very close but not perfect. I was wondering what the secret is to straightening tapered stock so that it makes aperfect cone and not a cone with a tip more to one side. Any suggestions?

All comments and suggestions are appreciated.

Next tool will be a 1/4" square punch to make a new nail header, then probably a slit chisel and a new nail header. Oh and a cutoff hardie out of a jackhammer bit.

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post-14357-011467600 1286095340_thumb.jp

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Glad you are finally heating and beating; the rest just takes practice and a keen eye. My mentor told me a punch for making straight holes such as for putting rivets into should be parallel where the punch goes into the steel, not tapered, and should have a bit of a shoulder where it meets the shaft of the tool and the face of the punch should have crisp edges to shear through the steel. Nice first effort.

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Glad you are finally heating and beating; the rest just takes practice and a keen eye. My mentor told me a punch for making straight holes such as for putting rivets into should be parallel where the punch goes into the steel, not tapered, and should have a bit of a shoulder where it meets the shaft of the tool and the face of the punch should have crisp edges to shear through the steel. Nice first effort.


Hmm that is contrary to what I read. Can anyone confirm that to be true?

I have read and was told that drifts should be tapered on both ends to fall through the hole. Their size is on the largest size in the drift so if it was a 1/2" drift, the largest diameter or width would be 1/2". The goal was when you punch these through metal, they size the hole exactly and fall out. Punches, I have been told, should be sized based upon the tip size of the punch and they should at least have a soft shoulder if they are flat tipped. I was told that punches should be tapered. Now if this is true then that is fine, I can turn what I have into a drift with a bit of grinding. However, I would like to get the right geometry.

I have been looking all over the internet for confirmation on this and lots of people sell them but I have found no definitive guide. Does anyone know a printed or electronic guide that is good for describing tools including detailed explanation of their geometry?
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If you want to punch a tapered hole then use a tapered punch.If you want a hole of consistent diameter,like one you would use a bolt or rivet in(think tongs)then you want a punch with parallel sides rather than tapered.The resulting hole would be the same as if you had drilled it rather than punched it.

Put a bolt or rivet into a tapered hole punched into something like tongs and those tongs will quickly become loose as the pivot pin in that type of hole has only a small bearing surface and will wear quickly.

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Ahhh why would you think that there would be a standardized system of tooling? Blacksmithing tends to be very non-standard; more like various "schools" of tooling---like hofi hammers and the punches he uses vs other folks and what they use. You might be able to find a mil-spec on some of the equipment---but again that is a rather limited source.

If you read "Practical Blacksmithing", Richardson you will find it full of folks debating and suggesting better ways to make and use smithing tooling from back in the 1880's-1890's.

Even nowadays you will find people using and extolling slitter drifts and punch drifts.

Best I can say is to search for someone doing exactly what you want to do and see what they are using---and then improve on it!

Lastly: jackhammer bits tend not to be "out of phenomenally good steel" but a good tough *medium* carbon steel. Yes the Machinery's Handbook says that S 5-7 would make good jackhammer bits and some "junkyard steel charts" then listed them as being so; but Titanium would make *GREAT* car bodies and frames---know of anyone that has one made out of Ti?

As a "consumable" bits are made out of stuff much cheaper than the phenomenally good alloys.

BTAIM I made my hardy out of a jackhammer bit that broken off the chisel tip---just hammered the broken shaft into square and made sure it extended below the base of the hardy hole---to tap it out if wedged and it's worked great the last 20 years or so.

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This is a few discussions about one way of doing things. This is ONE way, not the only way.

The right way is the way the job gets done.

There may be a more efficient way, or another way, or the way someone else would have done it, but if the job was done it was the right way.





Phil

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This is a few discussions about one way of doing things. This is ONE way, not the only way.

The right way is the way the job gets done.

There may be a more efficient way, or another way, or the way someone else would have done it, but if the job was done it was the right way.





Phil


Ya lost me Phil.
I have heard the saying"There are many different ways to get to town and they all arrive at the same destination",but I don`t know as I agree with "If the job was done it was done right".
I`ve made a lot of money re-doing jobs that someone considered done but then needed to be reworked by someone who understood how to do it correctly.One paid $800 for 20 hours of work just last week.No material or parts,just labor,done by a hand that knew what right really was.
Could you expand upon your statement?
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