mike-hr

Looking at Monsters' Hawkeye pics, I noticed that the drawing dies look to have different radius's. I have an old JDH mechanical 25# hammer I need to finish, it has similiar dies, the top die has a smaller radius. Intuition tells me this would work good to make curved hockey sticks, but it seems like it would be difficult to do an even taper without constant correction. Was this die set-up good for plow work or something?

I'm waiting for some paint to dry, so I went over your numbers, the second set looks good.
The formula from Machinery's Handbook is Driving Diameter x RPM , then divide that by Driven Diameter. The actual speed of the hammer will most likely be a bit slower with slip factor. Ive made flat belt pulleys using black pipe for the diameter and plate steel for the ends, not too difficult if it will fit in the lathe.

I would think the floor footprint would be a bit larger with the beam hammer over the upright type. Jeremy's hammer is beautiful. Personally I worry about the flat belt running so close to the floor. I wonder if the shop dog would have an abbrieviated tail after a few days.

I got ahold of a chunk of 2-1/2 half round mild steel, welded a hardy post to the flat side. It makes a great bottom fuller for what you're talking about. The 'Tom Saywer' scenario works good also. "I'll let you swing the 8 pound sledge if you bring some beer over"...

goofing with thermit is reaallly dangerous. It can kill you, dead. Please stick to reading about it, and don't mess around. If you need some steel, buy some at the steel yard. Really.

That's a very nice vase, way to go!

What are you quenching in? Air, oil, water...

I guess a fellow could bring in body mechanics into this discussion. You mentioned the metal had a pattern after forging. Are we talking about a row of half circles left from the edge of the hammer? Dressing is important, but you may need to work on raising or lowering your shoulder, or planting a hip against the tail of the anvil to reduce hinge points and plant a square blow.

I'm using 55 gallon drum lids. I was told (can't verify) that drum lids are a lower carbon steel. A buddy gave me a stack of them, they cut real nice on the Beverly shear. I'm having better luck with them, than with store bought sheet metal.
On a slightly tangental note, does anyone know how or a youtube link to 'Hem' the edge? Don't know if that's the correct term, I've seen examples where the last 1/8 inch or so is folded/spun back onto the piece, leaving a more finished look.
FE, look for us downstairs at Weaverville. McraigL and I are doing a workshop on chisels for making animal heads to compliment the Darryl Nelson demo. We have a portable shelter made from lodgepole pine poles, with a green canvas roof.

In these strange economic times my wife is bringing the scratch to make the big payments from her massage therapy gig. I admit, I feel bad sometimes, I've spent over 10 years working on my 'artsmith' moniker. I also never turn down welding up broken manure spreaders to track excavators, and parts in between. Last week we were down to the hated 'can't buy milk for breakfast' level. I have this strange enthusiasm for the work I do, I made a full size folded over wing great egret for a spec driveway gate I may get to do. When it was finished, i brought it in the house where the light was good and said to myself,"we don't need milk tomorrow, this thing looks great! Our town will eventually need someone like me, and I'll be there." I pulled a package of mystery meat from the deep freeze, turned out to be some kind of pork, I think, we ate good that night. I get a strong adrenaline hit from doing good work that the monthly balance sheet can't kill. There's a good circle of friends that come round the shop, to learn, and share. Having a friend or two around can help kindle creativity that would have remained just in thoughts otherwise. A bottle of single-malt scotch hiding in the stand up steel rack don't hurt either. The worst thing you can do is lose your childlike chance to imagine things. That's where the gold is.

I made a freehand trimming bar that fits in my scissor spinning setup that uses a 3/8 inch toolbit. I ground it to a simple vee shape, like a threading bit. I wait until the piece is just about finished, I think you said the same thing there, the bell shape adds some strength to the piece. What i had to get over is, These pieces I'm working on have a 8-12 inch O.D. when done, and even though I'm just cutting through a piece of sheet metal, the tool bit thinks its cutting on a 10 in shaft..I slowed the rpm down a lot, compared to the spinning process, and am doing okay now.
FE, are you going to the hammer-in in Weaverville in March? It would be plenty fun to bring our mistakes, and compare & contrast...
mike

They make good hammers. You may decide to add some more radius to the faces to your own liking.

Are you short-sheeting yourself and want to hear you need a big shop? I think you need a 24 x 36 foot pole barn, insulated and sheetrocked, 12 foot walls. It will fill up faster than the humidity, trust me, but it will take a couple years before you have to pick and choose what equipment you buy at auctions to run you out of walking space.

Forging is about changing the shape, and volume, of steel. That little door is going to set you to cussing the first time you put a bend or a split in anything. I would lop the whole end off, install some channel iron at the bottom entrance, and use boiler bricks , 2 upright, 1 horizontal, for the door. When pieces start getting big, slide the bricks out of the way, and keep working.

That's some real nice offset joggles there.. I like it.

My shop woodstove is a WWII era 'Warm Morning' top-loader. On real cold nights I take a shovel of coal ashes and clinkers from under the forge and throw on top of the wood fire. There is probably 15% coal that can still burn in my forge waste. Makes me feel less guilty about keeping a clean forge fire.

Build a big set of those fishing string supported clacking back and forth curios like the small ones found on every insurance saleman's desk in the world, except build in a stand that allows the inertia to explode shaken up beer cans placed in between the balls.

Sink one into a hardy blank, and have a nice spoon swedge.

Tools...My second machine shop employer was a Czech emmigrant, raised to be a metal worker from the seventh grade. He is one of the smartest people I know. He had me making a 14 inch sawblade the hard way, on an ancient lathe with a wore out headbearing that wouldn't take a square facecut no matter what I tried. He came around the corner and was watching me leaning on the tool post, trying to take the sag out of the cut. I complained about my troubles to him, muttering under my breath what a pile of dung this lathe was. He grinned and told me, "Oh, Mikey, anyone could make that cut with the right tools, but it takes a genious to make it with the wrong tools."

FE, Is your water and sewer bill combined? If so, The city has to assume that all the water that went through the meter, also went down the sewer. Often you can take a picture of the broken pipe and bring in receipts for the fix, and they will re-rate your bill for what it was last month.

Grant, if your saw coolant froze, I reckon it's the right thing to do to write the soluble oil company, and tell them they are doing a great job....
High 19F low, -8F so far this week. The shop and house woodstoves are getting a major abdominal workout, sweatin' to the oldies!

My BBQ and garden tools are mostly made from spikes. You can buy them new from Mcmaster-carr. A friends father in law found a keg of new HC spikes in his barn and gave them to me. Last year I lucked out and sold a couple art pieces to a train engineer. I showed him some utensils I made from spikes, the rest of the year he would show up at my shop once a week with a box of spikes he got out of the scrap box at the train yard. There are integris ways to get spikes, just don't pick them from the right-of-way. I've sold a pile of spike axes, bbq tools, etc, never got asked about how I got them. I would never get them from the right of way, that's asking for trouble.

Even though my anvil is in the shop, we're in the middle of an arctic blast this week, and the anvil is real cold to the touch in the morning. My morning ritual is to build a fire in the forge, and start heating up scrap blocks, like 3/4 x 3 x 6 ish, and lay on the anvil, one clamped in the vise, a couple more on the anvil, until the tools are warm to the touch. I feel it's worth the effort, a cold anvil means more heats to get the job done.

We have a big Schrader, I think I could fit the microwave oven in there if I wanted, It has cast iron doors. The reason the inside of the box doesn't warp, is, it's lined with fire brick. I think what ever mild steel door arrangement you fab up will warp eventually, unless you make channels and put those 1 inch thick firebrick 8 inches up, like the rest of the box. I wonder if you could order new cast iron doors from schrader? Cast iron is warp resistant, that's why automotive exhaust manifolds are made from cast.

I look across the door opening in a dim light, and fiddle with the needle valve until there is a slight hint of orange breath coming out the door. I take this to be a slightly rich flame. Turn the valve towards closed until the orange breath goes away, that's neutral. A rich flame makes less scale, but makes CO, a bad thing. My ribbon burner makes copious amounts of CO until it's at working temp, then I can get zero CO on the meter with a neutral flame. The 3 psi doesn't mean much, it's variable with the jet size, and the cfm of the blower pumping into the system. You need to watch out for pre-ignition, when the flame is burning before it gets to the ceramic block. I put a dab of axle grease on the inlet pipe. If it starts smoking, close off the gas for a couple seconds, then turn back on. The forge will light itself again but the flame is on the correct side. Not much calculus involved, but works for me...

I live in potato country, and used a lot of digger chain for punches and chisels. It's got a narrow heat window to forge in, put it back in the fire if it's not red. Mark Aspery said it behaves like 1090-ish steel. It's hard to heat treat, I was breaking 2 or 3 tools out of 10 with an oil quench and blue temper, then Mark got us using the triple draw water quench method. I would recommend doing a full anneal in ashes on your new tongs, and never quench them when they get hot. I now make chisels, etc from S-7 and use the digger chain for dinner triangles. The high carbon triangles ring lots louder than mild steel.