Slitters, Punches, Drifts, etc

Someone aske me to expain why, when punching or slitting a hammer eye, you end up with a "plug" that comes out of the hole. I could have answered in the original thread, but I figured by starting a separate thread, I might add to the ease of others finding this info in later years. What is slitting and what is punching? Slitting is using a chisel to cut a hole in the middle of a metal bar (whether a tiny hammer blank or a 20 foot section of rail cap.) Usually these slits are used in conjuction with a drift used to open and then shape the hole. Hence the common technique, "slit and drift." Punching can refer to several types of holes used for different purposes. In …

Hey fellows, after I published my guide on how to forge a rams head wall hook some people asked me how to make the punch for the eyes of the rams head. Due to the fact that there isn´t any video covering this very type of punch yet, I decided to make one on my own. I hope it can give you an idea how you would forge one on yourself. Please bare with me, it was -10°C and gloves where an absolute necessity in order to be able to forge anyway. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCkMiVZR8Pw&feature=youtu.be Here a little written description: 1st heat: forge a square taper 2nd heat: dress up the taper 3rd heat: dress up the tip of the punch …

I ran across a post titled spring tools and figured I'd give it a go. I really enjoyed making these punches as they showed the progress I've made in the past few months. I still want to make a few more. So let me know what you think. Bob punch, Eye punch, Square punch, Round punch, Hot cut chisel, Small fuller, I still need to heat treat the business end

Being in attendance at yesterday's NCABANA meeting, I was able to purchase these punches and a few dies. These are from pill pressing machines for big Pharma (I think that's what I was told.). Boxes and boxes of these were up for sale, and by the looks of it, it was worth it! With an RC hardness of 60, I was told these were to be formed to fit different needs using a power hammer only! Either way, awesome nab!

I'm rounding out my tool collection and forging a set of 1/4" to 1" square drifts for finishing holes. I'm planning on using them for joinery and such, or anyplace I need a square hole for farm work. The thinking is to hot punch a hole first and be able to drift it progressively larger into the square size needed. These are a mix of junk pile steel and purchased W-1 steel. The corners of the junk square stock vary in sharpness, but the new W-1 is very sharp. My questions are: 1) When you make a square drift, how sharp do you want the corners on the body of the drift? Should they be left as purchased or rounded slightly? I could see there being issues with sharp…

Went by Brians last week and stayed long enough to get some pics of him and Todd making a punch for putting the eye in a handled tool. I tried to get all the steps. Todd came down from Wisconsin and was a delightful person to be around. Here are the pics. https://plus.google.com/photos/106506050631612810521/albums/5800311375976463297

Hey guys, I am new to the forum and new to smithing. I am blessed to have easy access (about a 50 yrd. walk) to a ton of spring steel, and would like to forge a few punches and chisles. As far as punches, Im sure this is a simple, classic newbie question, but should the tip be pointed and how steep should the taper be to the final "punch size"? Thanks for any and all assistance in this matter.

I need to make some hand tools and will have to order some stock as only mild steel is locally available. I will be working on mild steel only to begin with. Sizes will be 3/4" to 1/4". I am considering 4140 but am open to suggestions. Price is a concern. What size stock should I order?

Hey everyone just found this forum so sorry if this is in the wong section.... I want to forge my own pritchels and fullers/creasers. What kind of steel is best for this? If I were to use scrap metal what kind of parts should I be looking for? I am a horseshoer so i would be using these tools on steel in the cherry red to dull red heat. Thanks in advance

Found the shaft from some kind of auger at the scrap yard. Spark test seemed to indicate it was a higher carbon steel. So I tried to make my first punch with it. While drawing out the taper I noticed a crack forming in the tip. Any thoughts as to why this happened? Did I get the steel too hot? Thanks!

Well I got an order for 48 wall hooks with 96 holes in them and finally got off my dead butt and made (with the help of a friend since we didn't have a power hammer at the fair) a short round punch with the realy flat point like Brian has shown us. I made it to grip in a pair of tongs with a tong clip and I think we punched about 60 of the holes with it and I only had to sharpen the point once (one too many hits on the first side). I made the punch out of sucker rod and had a pan of beezwax beside me to cool the punch. I AM A BELIEVER! I promise to use this technique on making punches in the future whenever possible. I had made and used some of the slit punches and they h…

I have made some drifts based upone the thread Brian Brazeal had input on and really like the slit punches I have made and used. I have however had a little issue with the geometry of the dirfts going to round and to square on teh doamond. You need the start of the drift to be the same size and shape as the hole finished by the slit punch in order to easily center the drift. Drifting to the square, square with teh bar works almost magically. I really had to work on the grind shape of the round drift to keep from making odd shaped holes with the transition from a say 1/2 inch slot to teh round. if there was any corners to the round I ended up with those in the final hole. …

Made these up today. The skull needs some modifications, and/or to be remade since I ground off a tooth :( I want to try again anyway to get a taller skull.

I had an idea recently that one could split and drift a square (diamond?) shaped hole with the same tool. But the geometry of such a tool has thrown me for a loop. I'm sure it's rather simple concept to some but I've struggled any advice would be appreciated. Has anyone seen/made/used such a tool? (pictures would be great!) Is there a specific name for such a tool? (Or is it just a chisel when cutting and a drift when drifting?) I'm sure the usefulness of such a tool is highly debatable but I've set out to make one anyways if only as an exorcise. I've had limited success so far and I don't think a lengthy post is desired here, but I've detailed my experiences in my t…

This video shows how I make eye punches for animal heads. I use a forging method called piping where the surface metal is pulled over the core. Enjoy.

I was at the forge today trying to slit a piece of axleshaft, when my homemade slitter broke clean in half. The slitter was made from a piece of 5/8" coil spring. The flat taper was about 3" long, and broke 1" before the transition to round. I don't understand why it snapped. I wasn't wailing on it, and it was straight vertical to the workpiece. Maybe my heat treat wasn't correct? I used veggie oil to quench, and tempered it to a straw-ish color. Upon closer examination, I think I see vertical cracks on the cylindrical portion

So I'm going to attempt my first small hammer head, and I've read a lot into how to slit and drift it, and there are a lot of ways to skin that cat, apparently. I think I'm going to try a combo slitter/drifter, just so I only have to make one tool. A lot of people have posted saying they make them with the intent of making seperate handled tools later. Is there a reason that having a seperate slitter and drift is advantageous? I can already guess why having a handle might be nice . Also, I've seen slitters with both pointed and convex ends. I'm inclined to make mine pointed since I can more easily just find a center punch mark with it, but again, I was wondering if ther…

I am thinking about making a combination hammer eye punch/drift. Why a combination? I do not want to make two tools to make a tool. The tool I am after is a handled slot punch, suitable for many things, including making hammer eyes. So in essence the "punch" portion of this drift only has to function a couple times. Now, the directions I find for a hammer eye drift seems to be: 1) start with round, about 1 inch. 2) shoulder to form a hand grip, or taper back to allow a dressable area for striking. 3) taper to about 1/2 inch round over 12 inches 4) form the round taper into an oval taper, without growing its length 5) grind to finish if necessary. So, to form …

I am posting this on behalf of Brian Brazeal. I am sure he will later post a description of these photos how to make a drift for hammer eyes. Alec / Brian

I took the time to design a fixture for starting the slitting of stock right on center. By eye and chisel I am only able to do this so accurately, but mechanically it can be done within thousandths of an inch. Once the split is started it can be finished off by a number of methods but the start of the split many times depicts how good and centered it ends up. The following fixture can accommodate rectangular or square bar stock in a range of .30” to1.45” wide. It requires a bar that is parallel and having the edges being square helps for better results also. All holes were precisely spaced and drilled using a mill. I didn’t have any reamers so I double drilled …

Don't have any..... needed some...... made em....... I had some 1x1 round S-7 drops laying around and forged three slitting chisels out of two of them. The sizes are 3/8, 1/2, and 5/8. I'll hopefully get a 3/4 out of the S-7 and then a 1" out of some axle I have. One is still getting the handle paint but these two show what I made. The handles are 28" of 1/4 round and ended up being about 12" long.

Is there some sort of tool available which I can place my finished hooks into and punch a hole into the material say 1/16 thick? It is tough to align the punch with the hole in a punching block and then hold the punch, the work piece and hammer at the same time. The punch must be flat with sharp edges and the punching block in good shape to "cut" the material, forming a clean hole. I have this battery cable crimper you set the cable end into and hammer on top of a plunger to crimp the end to the cable. There has got to be something like this to punch holes??? I punch a 1/8 inch hole into mild steel, sometime hot and sometimes cold. Perhaps I'm just doing it wrong?…

I did a breakdown of how I forge and heat treat a center punch on my wife's blog. When I get a chance I'll post the whole thing here, but for now here is the link. I hope you enjoy it. http://ironoakfarm.blogspot.com/2011/01/fiery-friday-making-center-punch.html

I made this from the still limited material I have on hand. I'm hoping it'll work for a punch along with another piece. This is my fisrt item made and it's still not filed. Also with this piece I learned how to twist the metal.

I'm trying to make a hot punch. I made one out of a piece of half inch rebar. How does the forum temper and heat treat them? The first time I tried to use it the point deformed. Any advice would be great.