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I Forge Iron

Dahlia's Daddy

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    Mt. Angel, Oregon

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  1. I would agree with ptree about the seals not holding up to the movement a powerhammer makes. And they are not cheap to replace. If you have easy access to hydraulic cylinders a press may be the way to go. If you don't have them yet, get the Ray Clontz/Clay Spencer tire hammer plans. Best 30 bucks you'll ever spend. Unless the price went up. And then it'll still be money well spent. I got contact info from the saltfork craftsmen website. While there are parts that are machined on the tire hammer, it really is a minimal amount and easy to do (hence affordable to have someone do it if you can't). If you are comfortable with your welding skills it should be a feasible project for you to do.
  2. Surplus center has a 5hp Leeson motor for around 200 + shipping (last time i checked), but it is an ODP enclosure, not a TEFC. I had the same issues trying to find a TEFC 5 hp motor, they get very expensive very fast, at least single phase anyway. I ended up going with a 2.5 hp 1750 rpm WEG(brand) motor I found on ebay. I'm fairly sure that a 2hp motor running at 3750 rpm isn't gonna be strong enough for the pump. At 1800 rpm you should be fine. Half the rpm would make it a 5.5 gpm, and a slower press, but cheaper build (per Batson's book). A 4" cylinder is also going to move faster than a larger cylinder on the same pump, so that can be taken into consideration. Also check the max rpm rating for the pump you have. A fast running 2 hp motor might be nice for a belt grinder/sander if you have a need for one of those.
  3. Something I've seen done for a post vise stand is using a large round piece of steel as the base, probably 1" thick and about 24" dia. minimum, It can be tipped and rolled around, or you could use the hand truck still. With the vise mounted closer to the edge on one end you can also stand on the plate. Use a pretty hefty piece of material for the post or else the vise will vibrate quite a bit.
  4. I would either find a place to treat it for you, being such a large section, or use it as-is. If you plan on upgrading your setup eventually anyway, money may be better saved/spent elsewhere. Try putting a 2" piece of material in a gas forge and see how long it takes to heat up, might wanna have a book handy : ). 4" will take significantly longer, if you are lucky enough not to damage something in the process. Something that large being orange hot is going to radiate a significant amount of heat too and require a way of handling it. Even mild steel will make an adequate anvil if it is a large section, especially starting out. Annealed 4140 (which I imagine it would be, although it is possible that it is already hardened) is going to be harder than mild steel too. Wouldn't hurt to use it as-is either, if it ends up being too soft for you you can always grind and file it down a little and then go the heat treatment route.
  5. ​Look for a spring return control valve with an open center. The spring return makes it so if the lever isn't being held out of its center position, it returns to neutral, closing off the work ports of the control valve. Open center means that the fluid is still flowing through the control valve, just not going through the work ports. Since the motor will be continuously running and turning the pump, the fluid will need a place to go (back to the tank). As for the control valve inlet/outlet sizing it would probably depend on what size pump (gpm) you are using more than anything. Batson's book has a breakdown of the plumbing sizes you should use and I'd go by that. You could always go with the bigger ports and reduce if you feel it is necessary. It would allow you to change your mind later if you went with a bigger pump that didn't exceed the control valve's rating.
  6. Larger sized hoses may actually be better since you would have less restriction to the flow. Any time a fitting is used, it is going to slow down the overall flow too. Hydraulic lines aren't very stretchy, so the fitting will reduce the ID and then it gets bigger after the fitting again. 90 degree fittings with larger sweeps are a better option if possible as well. I haven't built my press yet but have been doing A LOT of reading. Pick up the Womack Industrial Fluid Power vol. 1 book if you can, their website is very helpful as well. The book explains a lot of the how and why of how fluid power systems work. Their books cover air, hydraulic, and vacuum systems, and are very well written and easy to understand (at least volume 1 is so far!). I believe the later volumes cover things like solenoid controls too. The books will also familiarize you with symbols used in circuit drawings, which may or may not be helpful to you. I personally am going to go for the H-frame up-acting press in the middle section of Batson's book. Takes up a lot less space, and on wheels it could be moved around if needed pretty easily. I'm going to build the power pack off the machine on its own cart too to keep my options open further down the road.
  7. Small "job shop" type foundries use to be commonplace actually, until a majority of them couldn't compete with the mass producers. It could even be a possibility that a smith made their own tool for all we know. Now foundries are typically down to a science where alloys, heat control and pattern production are concerned. Sand cores can be produced using the "3d printing" technology using core sand as the printing medium and there are alloys we have now that no one would have probably even known of 20 or 30 years ago. It is amazing how far metalworking has come in the last 100 years. I feel that even 100 years ago I couldn't learn all there was to learn about metalworking at the time.
  8. Is it possible that the middle depression could've been worn into the surface (possibly made of wrought iron)? You can see the line at the transition from one radii to another where maybe it was a step that got worn down after a lot of heavy use over time.
  9. Wow, looks pretty nice actually. The craigslist picture made it look severely swaybacked, although it's not from looking at the other pictures.
  10. The more metal you have as a base the better, it is going to add stability to the hammer overall. If the hammer moves at all while operating you are losing energy that could have been used to move your metal instead of moving the entire powerhammer. The same things that go for a hand forging anvil go for a powerhammer anvil and baseplate, only there is a much bigger hammer moving much faster. Wood can also be used, and I think making a larger, thick wood platform to bolt the baseplate to may help with stability. On height, don't forget to add the distance of the bottom die. Nice thing about dirt though is that if your anvil is too tall for comfort you can always bring out the pick n shovel and lower your hammer!
  11. Make sure that you used a silicone caulking, I'm guessing that by construction adhesive you may have used something like Liquid Nails or something? Also lightly sand/grind and clean contact surfaces if you hadn't already.
  12. Nice clean looking anvil! If you have a place to put a permanent stand or put a heavier one you could always keep that one for its portability. If you don't want to keep that stand at all the wood part is still perfectly usable, just build new legs. Welding strap iron between each leg would probably make the stand considerably stronger structurally. A solid, immovable stand will make a significant reduction of effort to your work though.
  13. 1/16 (.0625") of slop kinda seems like a lot to me. The dies will be out of parallel because of this, in the very least shim until you get it where you want if possible. Excess slop may possibly work as a lever against welded or mechanically joined parts. Think of how the ram is being pushed though the guide and where the pressure is placed. The pressure being pushed in one spot is going to be a lot harder on your machine than the pressure being distributed over a larger area. Don't rush what you are doing, it is better to do something right the first time and have it last your lifetime (or at least a long, serviceable life) than it is to rush something and have it fall apart the first few times you use it. Although lessons are easy to learn, the loss of time and a possible injury are hard to forgive yourself for just to see something move.
  14. Doesn't look too bad to me, but whether you are getting a good price or not really depends on location too. If there is no rebound or dead sounds when you tap the face I'd pass. If it is a usable anvil and you feel that you are getting a pretty good price for it, then you can probably get your money back by reselling it if you ever feel the need to upgrade. There is always the option, as others have said, to make your own anvil out of a block of steel. If you decide not to get the anvil I would maybe do this and get a post vise if you don't have one yet. It is easy to find a substitute for an anvil, but quite a bit harder to do so for a post vise.
  15. If you are concerned about the heel, just don't be too rough on it. I have a very old mousehole anvil that has a crack going from the corner of the hardie hole to the outside edge of the anvil, and the sound when tapping the heel lightly with a hammer is pretty dead. That anvil was what I primarily used for a couple years as a hobby smith until I upgraded, and it worked great. I think with the old wrought iron body anvils this isn't all that uncommon of a problem. If you are going to be using hardie tools a lot that require hard hitting you can always hold them in a post vise. Building a bolster block is another option for hardie tooling.
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