youngdylan

Hi Ciladog Welcome on board and thanks for the tip and pictures. Kinda curious about the valving arrangement on your hammer. You seem to be using top and bottom limit switches; care to tell us more? I've built a couple of air hammers using essentially Kinyon valving and I've recently posted some info on mod's to the valving that may/may not be of interest to you. Hope to hear more from you, I've always got open ears for a fellow tinkerer.

Hey thats hammer porn. Sexy machine + some of the close up shots's kinda remind me the camera work you see in some, ahem, "adult" videos Nice hammer, what the whole thing weigh?

Nice. I like the hammer in your hand, is that from the bike toolkit

These are typical of the speciality dies I use rather than spring swages. The finials are forged from 1.5" 316 stainless (giving into the dark there Grant). They're roughed out on the Anyang with 1" radius fuller dies, shaped on the kinyon with the dies below (they only work about 3/4 of the length of the finial) and the "tail" drawn out on the Anyang then cut of on guilotine tool. All done in one heat. Reheat them to orange and anneal to prevent corrosion problems with chromium carbides. Note how the dies are made with the business ends from 4340 and they're well radiused everywhere Where ever possible I use dies rather than wibbley wobbley swages. Takes just about the same time to make dies as it does spring swages. It's a few more seconds to swap over dies than swages but this ain't an issue with more than one hammer. They're then rough "ground/polished" but I leave in the hammer marks and then get them electroploished. They come back all shiney and rustproofed. Because of the hammer marks they've got an almost faceted jewel like quality to them. Ive got to do a batch of over 300 in varying sizes and they'll have some of the blown glass ones mixed in with them. Because of the quantity it was well worth spending a bit of time at the start playing around with tooling Note also how they're fixed to the stems, I've drilled and reamed a 12mm hole in the base and they'll be glued onto the 316 satin finished stems. It is the 21st century and we've kinda moved on from forge welding!!!! Doing it this way gives a nice crisp line around the join and it's one less place for corossion around welds.

Wow, never spotted that! Went staight over my head and my antanae are normally very finely tuned to that sort of thing. Respect!

ain't that the truth sounds suspiously like "fashion"

I'm on a real horns of a dilema with that one. It's good that tools are cheap but its a real b****r the reasons why. I don't know the guys on your side of the pond but I've got real healthy respect for the pioneers from the 70/80's over here. There's time I don't know I was born what with the internet, mobile phones etc etc.

Looks like we're not a million years apart in age I got into bikes in the late 70's. 6" over tele's with screw in (!!!!!) slugs and no raking of the headstock was the ways chops were built. Oh yeah, and that stupid thing about as little front brake as possible (1/2 width hubs and single leading shoe brakes) CRAZY! Glad 3' sissy bars have gone too At that time Harleys were SO expensive and exotic over here. Like most, I'd love to get my youth back but maybe with the bikes from these days .... and with modern waterproof fabrics.

Hi Bob Feel like I know you already! guess there's definitely some kinda mathematical rule about smiths and bikes. How'd go smiths = bikes. Do you get "MasterBikers" over there

Thats another good thing (besides the metric system) over here. Shipping rate is per pallet space (4'x4' and upto about 1Tonne). Typically from £50-90 for most parts of the country. Thats a small power hammer nationwide Sent some gates 6'x6' led flat for £200 to London

My tuppence on the master thing, I kinda see it used mostly as an advertising thing to hoodwink the uneducated public. I guess thats one of the reasons why it can be looked down on. Over this side of the pond (were it all started) the apprentice/journeyman/master thing has more or less died as a formal sytem of titles. Thanks to the smithing revival of the 70's/80's the sytem has started as an informal backdoor thing, I guess it's a pretty natural system of hierachy but we don't really use those terms over here (apart from in adverts or on websites) That said, and for once without taking the p***, I do know that history is a lot bigger for some of you lot than us (we trip over it daily) and I guess that does explain some of it's usage. It's kinda odd that there's no issue with the apprentice but ther is with the journeyman/master words. Me? I'm personally not a***d about ever being called a master. Respect from my piers, paying approval from my customers and the odd muttered grunt of approval from the old genuinely time seved guys (and gals ... gotta say that or Beth will be down on me ) really gets me all glowing inside.

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I've never fully "mastered" metallurgy, I just lucked out a few years ago at an old fashion stand around, freeze tour t**s off, get bored sensless auction and bought about 400kg of EN24 (4340) for £40 and about 100kg of H13 for £30. All in small billets from 25mm to 200mm dia. There were other flavours there but I went for these because they were the only ones I'd really heard much about. Was about 5 years ago (before scrap skyrocketed) and I'm still dining out on it. Most of my tooling these days tends to be made from 4340 or H13. I know its totally geekish but I really love these steels, espicially the 4340. Tough as old boots, "weldable" and never cause me problems with heat treating. I also love the punishment H13 can take hot. I've got a pile of leaf springs and other "who knows what" steels which I give a "trial by combat" to find out what they're good for, but it's always good dealing with a known quantity. Kinda find it funny when people go to the trouble of unwinding coil springs when for a few £ they could buy a nice straight length of 20mm EN24T. A lot of smiths over hear like EN9; a "basic" 55points carbon steel. Didn't know about the scale with 4340 ... thanks. Do you know what the french for 4150 is. Actually the original anvil/ tup in my KA75ish were lumps of 4340 I just happened to have lying around. Replaced them with mild because the anvil needed more mass and my "pile" was starting to get low. I sorta built it just because I'd got some lumps the right size. ... and whilst I'm rambling, kinda curious why you went for a "small" anvil with the KA75. That said, it's got a very good reputation. Xxxx I even copied it.

XS750, now thats a blast from the past. When I got my Trident the other choices were a Norton Commando and a Yam XS1100. Often not regret not getting one of the other two cos they've got relatively bullet proof reputations. The Trident is anything other than bullet proof. Amongst many major f*** up it's thrown 2 rods over the years. Still love it .... only just. So come on then Grant were's the picture of you, bikes are optional. Put mine in cos they go a big way to defining me. Hate being branded a biker but love doing the distance on them. Year before last it was manchester to Greece on my 883. One year I'm gonna do the the dream and hire a hog and do some miles crossing the good old US.

You do realise this forums giving me an identity crisis. When started I was determined not to stoop to the imperial level, all my post were going to be in millimeter, metres, kg, Newtons etc etc. Steel was going to be EN19, EN24 ..., copper alloys CA104, CS101.... Bit by bit I find I'm going over to the dark side and doing inches, 4140, 4340. Not good.

I've got a bad habit of asking a whole list of questions and people often zone out so I throw a swerve ball in at end. I think a while back I must have had sentance with 1/2 dozen questions in, probably power hammer related. I ended it with "why does the tortoise have such a streamlined shape"

Are these the OC swages of great repute? I take it the business end is 4340 or something of that ilk?. Are the "spring" bits welded on or are they forged down, if not are they mild steel and what rod do you weld them on with. You still didn't answer my tortoise question from a few days ago

Yeah, the catching and snagging on sharp corners is a b****r. Plenty of relief needed, no way round it, well maybe a lot more experience would help me. I also find that I get more snagging as the work gets colder, maybe's more "bounce" it so it jumps out of the "groove" and snags on the way down. I do find though, that snagging can be an issue with spring swages as well, say for swage-ing a nice cross section handrail. It's always a PITA when you get your mojo going and then it snags and marks the work right at the end.

Nice work Sam I've just looked again at your avatar and it's clicked with the feet. Nice One. Probably abit too subtle for the Dinosaurs 5000 years ago crew

Na, nothing so interesting. My 30 year motorcycle history has been in order: Triumph 5TA (+sidecar, got round size restrictions for learners) Cossack (Russian machine, one of the most leftfield vehicles I've ever owned) Triumph Trident (still got) Suzuki GSX1100EF (absolute stomping beast of a steam engine, ugly as sin) 883 Sportster (gutless, underpowered, underbraked and uttery underwhelming) FXDC Dyna (only had a year but getting quite attached to it, useful touring tool, 5K mile trip round Europe last year) Come on then Bob lets see ya!

Yeah, the flow of metal can sometimes puzzles me and there are sometimes i end up squeezing rods of plasticene to try and get a hook on things. .....could do with some S.T.O.C.K. flavouring to the more esoteric aspects of metal flow.

First two are as I was 15 ish year ago (and would love to be again) last one is the grim reality of now, just before setting of for a solo trip from Manchester down to Stromboli ..... Google it!

Yeah 309 rings abell. I've got some 312 and 309 rods but I can't remember which I used, whatever one it was, it stands up pretty good. My alchemy metallurgical knowledge is pure seat of the pants stuff, suck it and it see and all that, if it takes the punishment it the right one to use! You just can't beat "needs must" when running a small workshop!

Thanks Danger Gotta say your's is pretty cool to + I'm very jealous of the space in your workshop and that you've got space to work on your sickles. I've got a 73 Triumph Trident T150V that I've had for 26 years. Only problem is it's got a conrod sticking out of the crankcases. Got all the gear I need at the workshop to sort it out but no space/time. Went against the grain last year and bought a new FXDC; it's absolutely stock apart from a bit of off the shelf chrome. Doesn't seem right given the gear I've got in the workshop. If it's ok I might pick your brain about some of the curved stairwork you ..... no competition to you, I'm in the UK!!!! Bike photo's from about 15 years ago!

Kinyon's don't have anywhere near the ooomph of a Massey and bolt on dies aren't really the thing for production work ...... BUT that said it is so convenient being able to knock up a couple of speciality dies without the hassle of machining tapers. I've got a bridgeport -ish mill and it's still hassle to set up to machine them (maybe ok doing batches). I'm a total fan of using speciality dies rather than spring swages. I didn't realise they forged quicker because I've never compared them to the same work done with a spring swage. I like them because they don't bounce around so much and you often end up trying to steady the swages with one hand. I've got two Kinyons types and an Anyang 40kg so on a job it's geat having 3 hammers some of which have speciality dies and being able to flit from hammer to hammer in one heat. The Anyang moves the meat of the work and the Kinyons do the "shaping" How long a run are you doing? Might be work making some special dies that you can fit bolt on dies to for small production runs or testing out protypes or evolving the optimum die faces and general experimenting. When you've sussed it you could then go to the expense of making proper dies. The other advantage of fabricated dies is cost, you don't need so big a chunk of alloy steel, useful if you're just experimenting and might have to try a few different options. I usually forge/machine/grind the "business end" out of a small piece of EN24T (4340???) and weld it to a mild steel base. I've got speciality stainless steel welding rods for welding mixed metals, can't remember the grade but can find out. That said most time these days I just mig weld it together. Holds out pretty well for the small scale and batches of work I do.