mike-hr

Go to Central Virginia Blacksmith Guild - CVBG Home Page - Gunters anvil repair is under the how to tips section. I used it on a German Trenton anvil, and was quite happy.The repair is just a wee bit softer than the original face, so it's chip-resistant. Ironwolf has done many using this process, the ones I've seen were show pieces.

I made a welding table about 15 years ago, 3 x 4 feet of 1/2" plate, with .120 wall 1-1/2" Sq. tube frame, six inches in from the edge. The mistake I made, is welding the plate to the frame. I skip-welded 2" every 12", and the plate warped very symmetrically all the way around the edges. If I had to do another one, I would bolt it to the frame with coutersunk allen head screws. This would also double the life of the table, after 25 years, you could turn the plate over, and have a new top.

This sounds strange, but to do an upset like that, first taper the bar, if it's a 1 inch bar, do a taper to 5/8 or so, 3 inches of taper. Have an anvil or big chunk of steel on the floor, use the bars weight to do the work. Start off with 5 feet of material so it's easy to handle, cut the excess off later. By tapering the bar, you direct the force of the upsetting blow to the center of the bar, and won't mushroom the end. When the end starts to mushroom, correct it by chamfering more. When you correct the wiggle in the bar, the bottom edge will pronounce one edge proud, most likely. You can use the proud edge to direct more force to a thin area in the upset. I took a week long class this spring on traditional gate construction. We spent a day on upset heel tenons. It was a loong Wednesday , but it all made sense after 60 or so heats. Find a way to do localized heating, use a wet rag on the bar with a gas forge so you don't wiggle the bar more than you have to.

Could you oval the pipe on the X-axis, so when you curve it on the Y-axis, it magically comes out round?

Howdy Cliff, nice to see you here! We're going someplace warm for the holidays, let's meet up after the new year and have some more fun.

My hammer has flat dies which I'm very comfortable with. I occasionally wished it had drawing dies, so I could control direction of flow. I started using an incline die which sits on the bottom flat die, and a round hand held fuller, for fancy tapers and spreading. I like being able to use the flat dies as a base for other tooling, It would be difficult using clapper tools, etc on curved dies. I used these tools and a texture die to make the vines and leaves for this gate detail. (Please excuse the cast iron bauble at the top of the gate, it wasn't my idea)

Howdy, If you come through K. Falls, you're welcome to stop by and play a while.. Mike

Several folks have brought strange rocks found along RR tracks to hammer-ins, they turned out to be sprues from thermit welding. They looked more grainy than yours, though.

I read a quote a while back," A painter paints because he wants to, an artist paints because he has to." I don't call myself an artist, but I get mighty jumpy if I don't have a project going... Smithing has been a good outlet for me, I can combine brainpower and sweat, and sometimes get a nice product. I enjoy figuring out difficult projects, because I know I'll build some character along the way.

I keep a handful of pallet strapping pieces cut to 8 inch lengths near the welding table. It makes great shim stock for leveling and spacing. It also makes good consumable putty knives for scraping old grease from equipment. I use the small stuff as a hardy spacer to get a better fit on loose bottom tools, just bend a short length to 90 degrees, and lay in the hardy hole.

Howdy, I have a Perfect hammer that I run most every day.. Mine is an 80 pound ram, and it says Patent Sept 1907, where yours says patent applied for.. There is a book called 'pounding out the profits' that has a short history on the company, but not much. I think they made a 35 and an 80 pound hammer, I don't know which yours is. The value where I live, on the west coast USA, would be $800 - 3000, It just depends how bad someone wants it.

Look at your hammer. Is the face flat, or does it have a slight rocker when you hold a straight edge to it? A flat face has only one plane you can hit on, that won't leave a mark on the edge. If the corner of the hammer digs in when you swing, you need to identify it's happening, then fix it.. maybe forge several tapers with your elbow raised or lowered a bit different each time, and see if there's a difference in the work.

Shop for as low rpm as possible.. I do almost all milling and drilling from 50 - 250 rpm

Many thanks, Irn!

Gulp! Wow! Most folks have to go to college because they can't do what you can....

IForgeIron Blueprints Copyright 2002 - 2011 IFORGEIRON, All rights reserved BP0369 Heading Blocks and Bottom Tools by Mike-Hr and McRaigL We’re going to make this heading block tonight. It is basically a very small swage block, or a remote hardy hole. Once we discuss the construction of the heading block, we’ll use it to make a hardy tool. The question came up, ‘Why is this block necessary? Can’t I just use the hardy hole in my anvil to make this tool?’ Having this block as a stand alone item makes team striking quite easy, and a lot of fun. The striker or team can rotate around the piece, which helps the tool upset more uniformly. We’re going to demo bottom tool making at an upcoming hammer-in, and I’m a lot less worried about someone mis-striking and hitting this block than my nice anvil. Another point is that London pattern wrought anvils may be weak around the hardy hole. I’ve seen a few anvils broken at the hardy hole. Using this block just seems safer. This is a 4 inch long piece of .250 wall, 4 inch sq. tubing. In the middle is a piece of .180 wall, 1-1/2 in sq. tube. It has an inside dimension of approx. 1.140 inch, so it will act as a relief hole for the one inch square hardy hole we’ll weld to the top. I filled the void with various pieces of 1x2, 1x1, 1x1/2, to create a solid mass. Here’s the block, with the two cover plates, both ¾ x 4 x4. One plate has a ¾ square hole, the other has a one inch square hole. There are several ways to make square holes, I made these by drilling a hole in the middle, chasing the corners with a 1/4inch endmill cutter in the milling machine, and handfiling the final radius away. I Mig welded the puzzle pieces together, and welded the plates on the ends. The heading block is finished. We’ll make a socketed holder, so we can flip the block over, giving us either a ¾, or 1inch swage hole. (two blocks in one) I made the socket so each axis has a 1/8 inch gap. The block won’t get stuck if it deforms. We made the stand from a scrap truck rim, a cover plate, and a length of 4-1/2 inch O.D. pipe that carries through to the floor. The top of the heading block is the same height as my anvil, so I don’t have to re-program my body to hit things on it. Part II. Let’s use this thing to make a hardy tool. To make a one inch shank hardy tool, we start with 4 inches of 1-1/4 square, and forge a taper, leaving about 5/8 inch square on the end. We took a near welding heat, quenched the top inch, and started whacking on it. We did some two man double striking , and switched from North-South orientation to East-West every 10 hits or so to help the piece sink down evenly. It looked like this after the second heat. The shank is starting to take shape, and it’s getting thicker. We chamfered the end each heat to minimize mushrooming. After the 5th heat, it’s ready to turn onto a tool. We squared it up a bit, and chamfered the end. We’ll turn this into a 1 inch round swage. We started with a round nose set hammer to establish the channel. It gives the 1 inch round a place to sit when we form the swage. After we were happy with the depth of the swage, we tilted the round bar to ramp down the edges of the block. Here’s the finished piece after case hardening. The piece rotated on its hardy axis a few degrees toward the end. We didn’t switch North-South orientation while forming the round depression, and I think the 15 pound hammer made more headway than the 8 pounder. Maybe someday we’ll heat it up and square it with a big wrench. Thanks to Mark Asprey for the heading block idea and coaching. View full article

Allow camping on site. Folks tend to let their guard down after supper. We've had some of the most memorable demo's doing informal projects late at night. This also saves on motel bills. Have a workshop so folks can make a project they might not be able to do by themselves. Is there a machine shop, power hammer, or extra strikers on site? Take a big pinch of the gate fee, and buy large chunks of red meat, and a bag of corn chips. Have a beginner station so folks who've never forged before can get their hands dirty. It's a long drive for us to get to meetings. If my wife and son go, they use the opportunity to go on day trips to local fun spots while I'm forging.

Thanks for the pics on that. I'm interested also on how hard it was to remove the 'can'.

IForgeIron Blueprints Copyright 2002 - 2011 IFORGEIRON, All rights reserved BP0347 Vise Adjustor by Mike Hr Here's a piece of flat bar clamped in the vise. Notice the handle at 12:00 and 6:00. This is a plate I cut that sits on the screw between the vise jaw and the round washer. I measured how much the vise closes in a quarter turn, and made the plate that thick. Here's the same piece clamped in the vise. Now the handle is at 9:00 and 3:00. Occasionally I want the handle to be in a different orientation to be more convienient to use. View full article

I'm in Klamath Falls, where are you? There's about 20 smiths I know between me and Crescent City. We can find someone to start you out, I'm sure. Mike

My hammer is an old 'Perfect' brand, 80#. It has a stack of leaf springs that connect to the toggle arms. I can often get single hits by de-tuning the springs, so it's sort of running in-efficiently. I've also got real good at pulling my hand-held top tool out of the way after the hit, so I won't kill the piece if it does double tap. I need to make a brake for it someday, Been playing with this idea about using the front disc brake from a motorcycle mounted to the backside of the main shaft. The whole cycle front brake system is self contained, just connect the squeeze handle to the treadle linkage so it releases when I step on it. I'm working on a new old power hammer I aquired, it's called a 'JDH foot and power combined' hammer. It's a 25# mechanical type, but you can unbolt the eccentric and swing it aside. Then theres a couple springs and arms that hook up, and the foot treadle converts to a leg powered treadle hammer. There's a drawing of one in the book 'Pounding out the profits'. I have the mechanical hammer working, but have to reverse engineer the springs and linkages for the treadle side... Anybody have one I could look at?

I always wear earplugs when arc welding to keep the popplers from dancing on my ear drum. Never try to grab a continuous chip coming from a lathe, mill, drill press. Resist the temptation to smash a golf ball in the power hammer..

The shaft that the brass gear rides on, is tapered. It will only come out one way. Measure both ends with calipers, the taper is only a few thousandths. If I remember correctly, use a soft punch from the side closest to the brass gear and tap gently. The one I took apart had 1/4" ball bearings, available at a bicycle shop, but if the bearing races are pitted, new bearings will only help moderately. I have a disassembled champion 400 somewhere in my shop. If you get stuck, don't force it. I could take pictures of the parts you have troubles with.

IForgeIron Blueprints Copyright 2002 - 2011 IFORGEIRON, All rights reserved BP0312 Making a Cut-Off Hardy by Mike-Hr and McraigL McraigL (Mike) just bought a 204# Peter Wright with a 1 inch hardy hole and needs a cut-off tool. We cut this axle as shown, we'll make the tool from the middle section. We heated the tongs up and adjusted them to fit the piece. The first move is to pull a tenon that fits the hardy hole. It's very difficult to grip the wedged side of a hardy tool. Using calipers to check size. It fits in the hardy hole, Mike's giving it a few taps to seat the piece. It's really convenient if all your friends have the same size hardy hole. Mike can come to my shop and make stuff to fit his anvil, and not have to drag it along. We changed tongs to fit the 1 inch square tenon, and started the wedge with an incline die. It's almost there. We thought it over and decided to orient the cutting edge 45 degrees from square, for more comfortable working on the anvil. We used a handled chisel to cut off the swell on the end. The bevel left by the chisel also helped establish the finish grinding angle. We used the remnant on the end to perform tests for junkyard heat treating. The little chunk didn't harden in oil, but did great in water. We normalized 3 times, then heated the whole piece to non-magnetic, and did a feathering quench of the leading 3/4 inch in water, filed a shiny line, and used the residual heat in the body to run the temper to a brown/blue. When the color got to the cutting edge, quench the edge for 1 second, file a new shiny line, and let the colors run again. We continued this process until the piece ran out of heat to temper with. Some folks call this process 'triple drawing'. Mike ground the edge to a one sided 'butcher' face, and we got a real nice cut on some 3/4 inch square with it. View full article