jason0012

Why do some smiths dislike Bradleys? Well, for some jobs the Bradley is not the best hammer. I have run a 100# upright since '95 and it is one of the best hammers I have ever run. That said , some jobs it is not in its element. It has about the same stroke, and flexibility of the 25# little giant I used to have. Punching, splitting, drifting, upsetting, and any work that involves lots of tooling or big changes in cross section are kind of touchy on this hammer. Not impossible mind you, but more difficult. My Bradley also has about 8" of adjustment to its stroke that the little giant didn't have. I am quite used to changing the space between the dies on my hammer, a task those air hammer enthusiasts wouldn't be accustomed to. The Bradley really shines though when a lot of metal has to be moved fast, it draws like no other hammer! The massive guides make it possible to put some very specialised tooling on the Bradley as well. It may be the only hammer that was truly engineered from the beginning to handle the strain of combination dies! Bradley hammers were designed for production work, all day, everyday. Mine is 107 years old and still running strong! They do take up more floor space than a little giant, but for the full time shop will run a little giant under on just about every job. With any machine in the shop, the more you know about it the more you can get out of it. The absolute worst thing about Bradley's seems to be their obscurity! My hammer runs on a belt the local supplier called a "Tobacco Belt" it is a rubber/canvas composite that is smooth on both sides. It really doesn't squeak much but I have broken a few belts! One of my observations in the video was that the operator was standing next to the belt. I do hope there is a gaurd on the belt. It is absolutely no fun getting hit with the belt off of my hammer, I would imagine the 500 would whomp you a hell of a lot harder! I always run mine from the other side( seemed weird at first) It took getting smacked in the head a few times to make me switch. The only dressing I have used was the spray on type. The hammer seems to gain some HP with a squirt of the sticky stuff. The belt grabs better and it seems that the hammer runs faster and hits harder. I only rarely notice belt slip, and it usually when the hammer is very cold. I did notice when I first set the hammer in my shop that the drive pulley was glazed with some sort of rosin that seemed to cause it to want to slip. I worked it over with the 41/2" grinder( just scuffed the glaze) and all the old garbage seemed to peel off. The pulley is now bright and shinny bare metal.

I gotta get one of those! I love seeing the big Bradley. There was an indian company making a similar hammer a few years ago though i cant find it on their website anymore. The hammer was called the Rattan and the biggest was 288#.

My only hammer at the moment is a 100# bradley upright. I have about 6 pairs of dies, but the big die is a 3x8 combo die. It has 6 inches of flat , so the center is still there. I do tend to favor the 4x7 flat dies though- Cliftons influence I'm sure. the combo die is really nice on some jobs though. As fast as the Bradley runs( about 400 bpm) that fuller side can move a LOT of steel -quick! the downside I have seen with the combo die is that they tend to work loose far worse than the flat dies. Even with a center pin working out on the end tends to pop the keys loose.

I had a full wrap around break on my 25. Unfortunately I don't think I have photos anymore. I sold that hammer in 1997 ! The design I used came out of the Alabama Forge Council newsletter. I believe that it was a variation on the Clifton Ralph design. The band anchored on the left side of the hammer on a 1/2 inch pin. On the right side it was anchored to a pivoting arm . The arm had its own spring and pivoted off of the gaurd. The band was lined with 1 1/2 " belting, glued and riveted in. The band wrapped the flywheel to within about 3 inches, and wrapped over the top. Grease was occasionally an issue and the band had to occasionaly be wiped clean. The break would stop the hammer instantly, and gave treadle hammer level of control to the machine. I carved wizard and animal heads under that hammer( that requires very,very short tools!) As I also used that hammer for my production forging it got quite a workout, running at about 520 bpm. I do miss the control of that hammer, though it was very under powered.

I was once offered a 2000# chambersberg self contained pretty much for free. When I priced moving the beast it was close to $40,000 for trucks and cranes! As I never had intention of using it I had to pass. Quite the beast that one was -100 HP and 84,000# !

I am not sure i would say they are better but they have some advantages. Fewer moving parts, and fewer castings for one. While the machining on an air hammer frame is complex, a factory could set up for it pretty easy- quite a pain to do in the field though. A self contained hammer produces its own air so a monster compressor isn't needed and has some of the big advantages of a steam hammer, namely an infinate stroke and control. Fewer moving parts means less maintenance as well. Self contained hammers seem kind of limited on speed so tend to not hit as hard as their mechanical equivilent( somebody will disagree I'm sure) The true advantage of mechanical hammers is the availability of old machines at super low cost. Most require extensive rework but are well within the capabilities of the average smith. Old machines are not nearly as easy to find as they once were, and not everyone wants to have to rebabit, turn , grind, and mill their way into hammer ownership. For the professional production shop the maintenance and ease of operation of the self contained hammer definately makes it a winner, esp since really inexpensive chinese hammers have appeared on the market. Back in the day, the enormous expense of building a good heavy hammer made these machines available only to heavy industry, and therefore they were only built in larger sizes.( A 200# Chambersburg was quoted from the factory for $150,000 back around 1997) For this reason many of us were unable to enter the world of the air hammer until recently. As much as I would like a 300-500# hammer in my shop there simply isn't floor space!

Sounds to me like I should just shell out the 2-3K for a Burking or Bader and be done with it. I might save more than the cost of the machine in belts, let alone the aggravation of constantly changing them.

Don't feel bad about selling knives made from the time tested specialty alloy RTS steel( rusty old truck springs) Countless knives have been made and sold of this time honored material. If the steel were no good it wouldn't have held that old truck up for all those years! Watch for cracks by the way. Any alloy of spring steel from 1060- 8260 will make an excellent knife. The alloy isn't so important as getting the heat treat right, so experiment on a sample piece of the spring first.- Wierdest spring I have run across was old blister steel, it was an old buggy spring.

Mechanical hammers are cost prohibative to manufacture. The foundry business isn't what it was 150 years ago ! As for new mechanical hammers there is the Indian made Rattan hammer. Kind of a funky version of a Bradley upright, in 80,120 and 280 # sizes as I recall. I just doubt anyone would pay new machine prices for an old fashioned iron banger, but hey, somebody must be buying those $900 Buffalo blowers that Centaur is selling..... Different hammers are good at different kinds of forging. Mechanical hammers aren't necesarily better than air but do have some advantages. There are advantages to air as well. In fact even old gravity helve hammers had enough jobs they did well that they saw use well into the 20th century! The big advantages of mechanical hammers over air are primarily the power consumption and speed at which they run. I recall Bill Peih trying to convince me that a Kuhn air hammer (150#) was more efficent than my 100# Bradley. Both hit about equally hard though my bradley runs about 350 BPM and the Kuhn about 150. The Kuhn used a 15 HP motor and the Bradley is overpowered with a 5HP( a 3 would work)In breaking down damascus, or drawing long tapers I would not trade. For punching, splitting, or any kind of tool work the air hammer would deffinately win. Air hammers tend to be a bit slow in my opinion, I really hate to have to do any kind of production work on one if it is any were near its capacity. The absolute best hammers I have ever used though were steam hammers. They can do anything but the trade off is they suck a lot of air. The power consumption on a steam hammer tends to be astronomical. And yes the Kinnyon hammers are in fact steam hammers. I have yet to run a home brew that runs anywhere near fast enough though. 300# Chambersburg with 120 hp of compressor behind it has to be the absolute most awsome hammer I have run. Not very cost effective, efficent, ect, but xxxx it was a fun hammer!

I never considered giving each machine its own rate. I charge by the hour and find it to generaly be adequate. If a project such as forging 5" round requires 3 people it gets billed for each of their hours. takes longer to soak up heat? Well I am billing by the hour. Now, I currently only have one hammer and no longer run the big beast of a gas forge, so all my work is on the same tools pretty much whether I am forging a tiny coat hook or a 100 ton crane hook. the 500# hammer and big forge would have made those big jobs easier but I dont get into big stuff offten and they seemed like over kill (shop space is limited) When I started I was charging $25 an hour, now I'm up to $100( it has been a while) I figure I get paid for about 1 in 3 hours I spend in the shop which seems pretty average.

Afew years ago tried hiring some folks. It was a pretty miserable experience. All at one time I brought four people into the shop. Quite a shock going from 1 man to five!( though the four was more like two in reality) I had hoped it would help get a project done faster. That was proven so wrong that I now operate as one man shop again! One of the guys I had working for me never showed up to begin with, called a month after the project was done to ask when we start- he hadnt answered his phone for the three months that I was building this project! The second showed up the first day and told me he was taking a different job -as a roofer(?) To his credit, he is still working that job so I guess it just appealed more. The third employee was my next door neighbor who was actually an excellent worker though she had strange hours that she was available. Number four though was the real dissaster. He was someone I had worked with for several years at a fab shop, and knew fairly well. I trusted him to be a responsible person. The first day, he didnt show. Day two and three pass. Day four, he answers his phone loud music in the background, and sounding quite drunk. (it is 8 AM) He informs me that through some baffling series of events he has found himself way-layed to New Orleans where he is currently enjoying the tequila at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville! But, he will be in the shop Monday, he swears! Meanwhile I have 16000 half penny s scrolls and 32000 c scrolls to make, in three weeks! Well he did show up Monday. With the one helper I had managed to get one of the balconies finished and was outside primering it. I reallised about the time that I had the first coat of paint on that I had heard absolutely no sound from the shop, for two hours ! I look in and my welder is sitting on the welding table cross legged , smoking a joint ! Hasn't done ANYTHING! I had offered at one point to partner with this guy, he turned me down flat though and a good thing! The project did get done and all went well in the end but I sure learned a lot about hiring other people. The thing that really burned me was that none of these people were strangers. The pothead was someone I had worked with for years and actually considered a good employee at that fab shop ! The only one of the four that really seemed to bust ass for me was the neighbor! She only worked nights, and always unsupervised, and was the one of these people who was a complete stranger coming into my shop ! Every morning I would come in to a huge pile of finished parts . Needless to say she was the only one of the four ever invited back on another job. I now tend to want to work alone only calling for help when instalation time rolls around.

My worst dissaster on a job was a basement railing. It was a job I was doing for a friend of my wife. We had just moved into a new house, and new shop. I wasn't sure I would be able to do the job at all at the time. On top of this I did the job at cost ( friend price ) All went ok, the upstairs and stair rail fit just fine. Then the basement..... When I had originally measured the basement stairs had a pitch of 37 deg. When I showed up on site with the railing the carpenters had pulled a fast one ! 47 deg ! The builder had decided that the basement stairs could be shortened up a bit and failed to tell me ! I ended up cutting the whole rail apart ( all pickets ) cleaned rewelded primered and painted and getting it back in the house in 24 hours ( whew !)

I was reading a post where a new smith was asking about grinders and thought I might ask a slightly different question. I have been making knives for many years now, and recently upgraded from the old 1x30 to a 2x42. The lousy sears model was a stop gap addition to the shop while I decided which real grinder I wanted. I have however used it quite a bit and never gotten around to getting a better one. Now for my question. I go through a LOT of belts on this thing, and I mean a LOT of belts. This of course gets pretty expensive. 2x72 belts aren't much more expensive but nearly twice the length so therefore obviously a better value. What has me stumped with belts is that I seem to be working cheaper to file and sand by hand!( shop rate $120 an hr) Are the expensive belts really worth the money? I am using 3-4 belts to grind a 5 inch blade( forged to nearly finished size)then another 120 & 220 grit. At $5-$8 a belt that adds up fast. I see 2x72 belts listed for as much as $15-18 and have to wonder, could I really grind more than one blade with one of these? I should add that the sears belts are definately not the best quality and being an odd size not generaly available anywhere else.

Get a copy of Alex Weyger's book and do ALL of the filing projects. That's how I learned precision filing. Filing to a line is largely about getting a feel for how much metal is coming off, and where. That comes with a lot of practice and sore arms.(power tools are wonderful) On the upside, working by hand you have much more extensive control over how much material is being removed. I always found I tended to leave too much steel on blades when filing and cut too deep when using a grinder. After 23 years I still have to watch very closely when I start aproaching those lines.

I'm not 100% sure I'm right in this assumption but as I understand don't tire hammers use a Little Giant style arm arrangement? Assuming that, you want the horizontal arms level. If they hang, the spring isn't holding them and some of its travel is wasted in picking them up. Much tighter and you are adjusting travel out of the spring and choking the hammer. Did that help?

When I started out I demo'd at a few fairs. After a while it got pretty rough hauling all the tools, watching the crowd and keeping an eye on my tables of goods for sale. I did make ok money and after a while the show promoters usually wanted me to pay for the booth. When I had to pay I simplified quite a lot. I quit demonstrating. It made shows a whole lot easier, actually helped sales too. Since I wasn't messing with the forge the whole time I could pay better attention to customers. A good book of photos seemed to be an acceptable substitute . The best demo alternative I have seen was a video demo a fellow at one show had. I never got that sophisticated. In the end I put a rule into effect- I'm in business I can demo and get paid for that, or I can set up to sell and pay some fee for that. When a show promoter or organizer got confused on this I would politely remind them. One should get paid for demonstrating. You really cant make much that's worthwhile while showing off to the public, answering questions ect. On top of that most of my production items require tooling I could never take to a demo so I'm loosing shop time when I set up at a show. Shows where I would sell and not demo would generally bring in a minimum of $2000 a day. I would be lucky to make $500 when demonstrating. Now I haven't done a show or fair since about 1998 so the economy may be different now.

5160 might have some chromium but it moves pretty easy under the hammer and doesn't tend to red short, or seem succeptable to thermal shock like some higher alloyed steels. Heat treating 5160 is fairly easy, it machines well and is easy to find in scrap making it an ideal starter material for a beginner. And if one insists on using new material 5160 is pretty inexpensive, just call some spring shops. Oh, and it can make a first class blade ! I never found 5160 to be a bear of a steel to work. Ok, perhaps I have gotten stock that was too big to work by hand , but that's not the steel, just my being stupid trying to forge 1 1/2 round ! A beginning knife maker will at some point have to learn to work alloy steels. 5160 is a good place to start as it is very forgiving. As cuttlery steels go it is exceptionaly easy to forge. I always considered 5160 and 4140 the "easy" steels in my tool steel rack.

I would fall behind the recommendation of coil springs as a starter material. When I was just starting I made most of my knives from lawn mower blades and old files. Simple high carbon steel is really easy to forge. It moves well under the hammer and the end result will make a good blade. Seems silly to work at making blades and not get something useful in the end. I would suggest starting with files. You will face far less material resistance working a blade down from a 3/16x 7/8 file of 1095 than you will forging it from a 3/4 square of mild steel! Spring steels and simple carbon steels are usually not all that resistant to forging and not worth being afraid of. I have recently been forging blades from high chromium(52100) and its a whole different story! Just wait until you try some stainless, ATS34 is loads of fun!

I have welded with table salt before, if its a stand in flux you need. I found it flows at a much higher temp than borax so the welds have to be hotter. I have also welded without flux( the parts must be hot enough for the scale to be liquid) . The weirdest welding flux I have used was clinker! ( that was on a dare)

"The complete blade smith" by Jim Hrisoulas, "The craft of the Japanese sword " by ...well the name escapes me at the moment, but included some good photos of the process. I was really hoping someone here had tried this. I am really baffled by the strongly negative response this subject received. I have seen some pretty absurd ideas discussed by smiths over the years, but don't see why experiments with a flux that has been used for over a thousand years should elicit such venom. I will simply explore this on my own and quit making such waves!

Are you trying to make a thread that is one turn in 4 x 4 lead? Like a gun barrel only inside out? A lead that extreme would probably be easier on a shaper or mill than a lathe .

I have asked about this in numerous forums before. I have never encountered anyone with any experience in the subject. Just to help anyone who has missed any reference to straw ash as flux, Jim Hrisoulas made reference to the practice in "The complete blade smith". Most texts on Japanese forging processes will make cursory or passing reference to the rice straw ash flux. Not all such descriptions are written by smiths and sometimes the authors seem baffled by the very procedure they describe. I have seen photos of it being used in nearly 1/2" layers applied with a spatula or as a liquid bath. Both look very questionable to me, though must obviously work. I had hoped that the forum might have someone familiar with the process present, or someone who had actually studied Japanese forging. I am rather shocked that there are smiths who react so negatively to such an inquiry. Why does this question offend so? And why would one assume I don't know about borax? I wasn't asking how to make a weld but rather how welding with straw ash would be acomplished.

I have read and seen some photos of welding with straw ash. I don't think I have heard of anyone actually using ash. I was wondering have any of you tried this. How is the straw prepared and then aplied?

Of course its worth messing with. Why a shop without a lathe is like a shop without an anvil!

I wont touch the wisdom of this project. I don't know your skill level or how careful you are. I can say something about square threads though. Square threads are cut either on a mill or in a lathe. Thread milling is something I wont get into. Suffice to say it is a fast process in manufacturing used to produce repeatable threads on many many parts fast. The tooling involved is beyond most small shops( but not impossible) Square threads are also cut on a lathe, just like 60* threads. Big difference is, they are square( I know, thats not real helpfull) I would recomend a basic lathe or machine shop text for a full description, square threads come up often and are included in most machine shop classes. They can be aggravating, esp internal threads, but aren't unmanagable. Square threads are very seldom cut with a tap. Tap cutting a square thread is only possible in a through hole, and requires a set of three taps. The first tap is standard form, the second roughs the thread to final depth, and the third finishes the face of the threads. Oh and the three piece set is VERY expensive. I would recomend using a lathe, or trying to rethread the barrel to a more standard size. If you use that route please consider the strength lost when reducing the chamber diameter. Proceed with extreme caution.