clinton

I have a 6 inch post vise that I picked up last year and it is missing the mounting bracket and spring. So I want to forge new parts for it as it will be in my shop and I want the parts to be forged not fabricated. This seems like a pretty straight forward operation, Take a piece of stock that is the appropriate size, slit and drift a hole then flatten the other side. My other thought was to create the slot by folding a piece of bar stock over then forge welding it, but this would not require a piece of stock with enough material to do the flatting on the side that bolts down. I did have another vise that was split and spread out into a Y shape to bolt down, so that is an option as well. I think this one may be drop forged

You think that is bad look at this one, I think this guy actually sells these "anvils" bid is at $215 now. I would rather have the two piece than this piece http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220687619017&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Yep sometimes you just get lucky, I picked up a set of Yater blocks last year and they are like brand new still have the shipping info written on them including a return adress to Wally

I am going to make a stand for my swage block and I saw a design that I liked on here the other day, where the guy used heavy blocks bolted together and made a vertical slot to stand the block on edge. So I got my brother to go with me down to the local lumber yard (yes we do still have one) and we found a large chunk of unwanted Doug fir nice and dried out. This thing measures 21 inches x 9 1/2 and is about 5 1/2 feet long. going to barrow a beam saw to cut into two pieces about 2 feet in length

I put mine on a seprate post and built a platform using 3 layers of 1 1/8 plywood, but it also required a jack shaft For belts check out hit and miss http://www.hitnmiss.com/index.html

Thanks Dillon- Wow seven people striking now there is some serious huffing and puffing I made four of these nails and my plan was to get my two brothers and my dad to do the striking, then we would each take one home, but there was too much other stuff going on with the family reunion that it did not meet everyone's schedule, maybe next year I will take the forge and swage block with me (better make some more nails)

No problem whittler I am sure there are others that have the same questions as well, this is a simple design and a fairly easy build, I changed a few things due to the fact that I had material that was not the same dimension that was called out in the drawings, so I had to change other parts accordingly. As far as the noise concerns here at my place I just do not work too early or too late, and the cops are too busy tracking down drive- by shooters in our town to respond to some noise making, just keep my head down to avoid stray bullets

I am not sure what you are missing, yes you step on the treadle the top head comes down and strikes the anvil, the return springs return to the top again. The leaf spring does not bend it just swings up and down through the pivot point. The spring does look short on this type of hammer and if there is no work piece in between the upper die and the anvil it will strike the anvil all the way on the back side. If you put a work piece that is 2 inches tall in between it will strike in the center, a larger piece and it will strike to the front side. This is the downside to this type of treadle hammer, the Clay Spencer hammers use roller blade wheels as guides and the top die moves straight down, no arc swing to it.

Brian- yes there was some huffing and puffing going on, it is a good work out. And yes it did stay centered pretty well, I have seen some go way off to one side, Tom Clark was doing one with three or four strikers and when they were done he pulled it out of the swage block, held it up and when he showed the crowd he said, "Now we have a shelf bracket" My swage block was too high and as I said before it was not bolted down, I will be making a proper stand for it this week.

I had some big nails that I forged on the powerhammer awhile back and with the help of Fewood we forged the head on one. It came out pretty nice, this is the result of two heats, we could have taken one more heat and got it a bit flatter, but we were pressed for time. We also "attempted" to make a crane Brian Brazeal style The striking was fun but my swage block was not bolted down so we were loosing lots of energy as it bounced across the shop

That boy is a dumbass. I got a good laugh as well, love the part where he blows on it to cool it off- very effective

Are those "Duck bill" tongs? Does anyone on here make a Cant hook? Link to bailey's site showing Cant hook http://www.baileysonline.com/itemdetail.asp?item=15785&catID=163

Looking good wood, that continental kit is clean looking, For an airstream? The sculpture is nice, the base seems a little on the small side it looks like it may tip over.

great pictures Lyle, thanks for posting. It looks like Darren is learning alot and his tools look great. I see those ultimate tongs are coming in handy, I need to make a pair for myself, Brian gave me one side of a roughed blank when I was out there. Good work Darren, you are going to go home with some nice tools and a ton of knowledge

Ya I know you are not the "typical ironworker" if there is such a thing. I saw the Blu hammers in Memphis they look nice but I am not too fond of the way that they do the handles filled up with goo, I like a solid handle that I can see and make adjustments if it gets loose, that stuff scares me. 3/4 square for a bottle opener- you must have been moving some metal there! I am getting my shop in order today, Fewood is gonna stop by and we are planning to do some forging

Looks good Ironstein- I know how you guys run at the sign of rain, three drops and all the ironworkers are gone. What size material did you start out with for your bottle opener? I found that 1 x 1/4 is a good size 3/16 works well also

Hilti makes the best blades that I have found, they also have two types, the one that has a red color to it is the best blade out there. Make sure that the blades have the fiberglass reinforcement in them, you can see the lines running through in an x pattern on some blades, other blades have little chunks of fiber in them. blades with the x pattern reinforcement last longer. and yes the thinner blades are better also as stated before

Well ya got me there Grant, the material is 4130, was going off memory on the RC 35 must be right. I can not find my notes now but the gut that sold me the material did give me the rc on it. I will try to go test it this week I do have access to testing equipment at the local college. When I ordered the material I told the guy that i wanted 4140 and when it got here the invoice said 4130 so there may have been a mix up somewhere. They are holding up nicely so far, but I do not think that I will get any more die stock from that place, it was cut out of plate and looked like a banana on one side (too much machine work to square up)

This is a Commonsense Power hammer, manufactured in Berkeley California. It was originally ran off a line shaft drive system, so there was no motor installed, it would get power form an overhead pulley. I had help in the design process to mount the motor and build the jack shaft assembly from a member on this site. (thank you Chuck) This hammer wants to run at 275 rpm so I had to use the step down pulley system (jack shaft) to get the proper rpm. It is a 75 pound hammer and yes it can do some serious pounding, I need to do some more work on it, the bearings are no good, once I install the new bearings I think it will run a lot smoother and hit a lot harder.

Thank you Brian and ofafeather for the explanation I think that I have a better understanding of the cause of the "fish lips" now. Hard concentrated blows in the center of the material- do not hit over the edge or too far out

I am with monster on this one looks good, and Brian always says that same thing, "do it ten times"

looks good guys, great pictures as always LDW. When you forge a shanked tool how do you keep from getting fish lips at the end of the taper? The tools that I forged have bad fish lips, what causes that?

It could be cold rolled steel, 1018 is the classification over here, the paint on the ends is probably a size marking that the supplier uses, cold rolled does have a shiny appearance to it but will start to rust in time

That is a great step by step layout, thanks for sharing it. Also it is nice to see a post that is on the subject of forging (wow forging on IforgeIron) imagine that