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I Forge Iron

New specialty dies for the tire hammer


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I made these dies for forging tooling. The taper angles are for a specific type of tooling. The dies were made from 4140 with 5/8-inch backing plates. The dies work really good for what they are intended for! Since I took these pictures, I countersunk the bolt holes to get the bolt heads down a bit, and then I also softened up the near side radius on the shallow taper die.

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Nice job Dave. Chisel/slitter taper or endless leaf machine? I recall seeing one of Clays tools (mild) that featured the flat, the taper and the leaf form but I dont think it would hold up under a steay diet of tool steel.

How is the hammer working for ya? The tooling height requirement almost dictates that you make tooling for the aea occupied by the lower die.

Peter

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If these are for a specific tool that you are making lots of, cutting a lower section for edging the tool can be really handy. You cut the lower section as deep as the tool is wide that way you cannot make it too narrow.

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The hamer is GREAT! Especially since my air hammer broke down. :D I don't really use the tire hammer for hand held tooling much. I save that stuff for the air hammer. I do have some nice short tools that I can and do use under the tire hammer, and it has enough control to use hand-held tooling.

Both sides of this pair of dies are taper dies. Just different pitches of taper.

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Good looking dies. I like the heat treat color too bad it won't stay after use. I have had a tire hammer for a few years now and really like it. We were forging a hand hammer this evening and the weld on the top die failed (I didn't weld it originally) There was poor penetration to the 1/2 in base metal. I think I have had it for 4 or 5 years at least. I will be re-welding this maybe tomorrow with 7018 of something similar and re-heat treating it. The tire hammers hit quite hard for the size of hammer that they are.

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Good looking dies. I like the heat treat color too bad it won't stay after use. I have had a tire hammer for a few years now and really like it. We were forging a hand hammer this evening and the weld on the top die failed (I didn't weld it originally) There was poor penetration to the 1/2 in base metal. I think I have had it for 4 or 5 years at least. I will be re-welding this maybe tomorrow with 7018 of something similar and re-heat treating it. The tire hammers hit quite hard for the size of hammer that they are.


I had the SAME EXACT failure about a week ago and I've only been running mine since December 2011. Bad penetration into the 1/2-inch plate. Our dies are S-7 and were profesionaly heat treated. I ground off the old weld, ground a new weld groove, and rewelded with my mig welder. After they cooled I tested the dies by chamfering square stock cold. It still didn't touch the S-7, so I'm not worried about reheat-treating.
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I had the SAME EXACT failure about a week ago and I've only been running mine since December 2011. Bad penetration into the 1/2-inch plate. Our dies are S-7 and were profesionaly heat treated. I ground off the old weld, ground a new weld groove, and rewelded with my mig welder. After they cooled I tested the dies by chamfering square stock cold. It still didn't touch the S-7, so I'm not worried about reheat-treating.


With most air hardened tool steels including S7, it is essential to pre-heat to about 1000 F before welding. Then let cool to room temp slowly.
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Dave - bummer to hear about the broken weld on your die since I was on the team that worked on welding those up. Could be we just executed a bad weld. I did cut one die up to check the welds and it looked good so, I hope, it was not a general problem. Let me know if your repair has problems. I would be happy to re-weld and heat treat them for you.

Ciladog - I am interested in your comment on 1000 F preheat. The Crucible spec sheet does not recommend that high a temperature. Several sources recommend 600 which is what we used since it was also the max temp on our oven. Sounds as if you have some experience that would suggest higher is better?

Thanks - Doug

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Dave - bummer to hear about the broken weld on your die since I was on the team that worked on welding those up. Could be we just executed a bad weld. I did cut one die up to check the welds and it looked good so, I hope, it was not a general problem. Let me know if your repair has problems. I would be happy to re-weld and heat treat them for you.

Thanks - Doug


Everyone has a bad weld every once in a while. The lower die still looks fine.
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My dies are 4140 so heat treating is no problem. I will be taking the time to do it right though. I had to re-heat treat my dies after the first 6 months. I was the one doing the heat treat at the build but not to my methodology. They were too soft and were easily damaged. I refaced mine and then did the heat treat and they were planty hard without being brittle. I suspect that maybe the multiple heat treats had affected teh weld that had minimal penetration to begin with and therefore it failed.
What was used originally to weld your s7 to the steel plates I assume they were mild steel?

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Dave - bummer to hear about the broken weld on your die since I was on the team that worked on welding those up. Could be we just executed a bad weld. I did cut one die up to check the welds and it looked good so, I hope, it was not a general problem. Let me know if your repair has problems. I would be happy to re-weld and heat treat them for you.

Ciladog - I am interested in your comment on 1000 F preheat. The Crucible spec sheet does not recommend that high a temperature. Several sources recommend 600 which is what we used since it was also the max temp on our oven. Sounds as if you have some experience that would suggest higher is better?

Thanks - Doug


I should have said some not most. H13 is what I make my dies from and it tempers at between 1100-1050. S7 has the same temper range. A2 and A6 in the 400 range. So I'm guessing that the welding pre-heat should be just below the last tempering temperature.
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I agree that if you are welding heat treated H13 or S7 that they should be preheated to just below the final tempering temperature to affect the heat treatment as little as possible. This is the manufacturer recommended approach for die surface repair for example. In our case, these were MIG welded in the annealed state to a mild steel plate and then heat treated. Final tempering temperature is a function of the hardness vs toughness that you are looking for. We oil quenched giving an initial harness of Rc 60-62. We used a tempering temperature of 450 F and ended up with a Rc of 53-56 in the finished dies. That is quite hard compared to 4140 or H13 dies but was in line with S7 dies supplied by other power hammer makers. If we see weld failures, I guess we will have to rethink our process.

Thanks - Doug

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I had the SAME EXACT failure about a week ago and I've only been running mine since December 2011. Bad penetration into the 1/2-inch plate. Our dies are S-7 and were profesionaly heat treated. I ground off the old weld, ground a new weld groove, and rewelded with my mig welder.


I believe welding tool steel to mild is a recipe for falure. I've it's possible to jury rig a 1lb SS spool to work in a mig and that works, but you will need 75/25 gas to do it.
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