jason0012

Bob was the Smith i have seen do this without a mandrel. My process, power hammer or hand, is as follows. Coil your skelp of 3/8×3/4 or so around a 1 inch or so mandrel. Coil the whole thing. Taper the ends so they lie nice and square. Starting at one end, weld first with an end bump and then across the face in a bottom swage or v block. I use the v block a lot. Rotate as you hammer in the direction of the coil. (So it twist tighter as you turn) by the time a 1 inch id coil is reduced to solid seams, it will be reduced enough to clean up to a .40-50 cal. Bob was quite specific, if you can still see the seam in the final forging, it likely has not welded...

I recently saw a post about a process for forging a hammer from round stock. This is the easiest I have yet found. The original post was on Facebook from a European smith. He was using 12mm material. I started with 5/8. My first attempt was just too big. The next two were in 1/2". My recent attempts in 5/8 have worked out quite nicely. Square might be easier. I found that having a template to work to, at the anvil, helps a lot.

That is an ok price. In my opinion little giants are getting a bit out of hand on price. I would think $4-5000 for a 100 would be more reasonable. It looks like it is in good shape and is a good production hammer. You wont regret having it and it should be able to earn back 6500 pretty quick.

Facebook is pretty easy to use, but they have automated systems looking for items they consider dangerous. Etsy has odd pay schedules that I have yet to figure out, but is a pretty decent low cost way to go, but the traffic is not the best. I tried ebay for a bit but had a lot of trouble with thier policies. They put 30-90 day holds on several big orders that I just could not afford to ship. After that I cut ties with ebay. Best of luck, I have a fairly reliable $500 or so in monthly sales online, which is not close to making up for the venues that have been suspended/ lost, but it is something.

I once took the ram, guides and whole arm assembly from a 25 lb little giant on a flight in carry on

Kerrihard. Ah the days when sears carried good stuff...

Harbor freight has nippers for something like $12. Heavier and cheaper than farriers nippers, since I first saw them I thought they would make great intro level tongs.

A very important textbook, full of good solutions...

Back around 1987 I checked a book out from the local library. It was a really good book on blacksmithing, though I did not really know enough to understand it at the time. It described a forge, hood and chimney built from old water heater shells, with a really good description of fire management, evaluating scrap, and making blacksmith tools with a whole chapter on punching and drifting. I do not recall the author or title, and it was a rebound book so it was just a shiny grey binding. The author was from the southwest somewhere, and talked about learning from mexican smiths. He had a Spanish sounding name that I do not recall. It is not much to go on, but I would love to find a copy of it, or at least know what this book was...my library has no records from before 2012 ( I already checked)

Here is the dumb move. Do not do this! I shudder to realise, in this picture my finger is against the sow... A tool like this is much safer

I had a bit of a problem today and got a big gotcha from the 250. With power hammer tools you have to be aware of where your tools are and where the hammer is going to push them. Sometimes it is not what you expect. I was punching eyes in some hot cuts today and when edging a tool to knock the punch out, got my right index finger in between the tool handle and hammers anvil. I got a smear of grease and bruised finger, but that could have been much worse. Tool handles should have a decent amount of spring or give, be always aware of where your fingers are, and never put fingers through the loop! Stay safe everybody...

I am thinking iron pipe outside, parallel to the low pressure, with a branch through the wall where the forges will be. It should T off the line before the low pressure, and inside the wall have a shut off and regulator for each branch, then the forge hoses will tie into the regulator on the inside. Am I missing anything?

The latest with my hammer is an upgrade to the clutch. There is virtually no literature on the 250 so I am not sure how common it is, but the clutch tod runs inside the frame. It connects to the treadle by means of an arm on the underside of the frame. Adjusting clutch throw requires getting both arms inside the frame, with wrenches, from underneath. The parts are ancient and well worn and I hate to have turn a 7-9000 pound machine on its side for adjustment. So I added an external rod. The funny thing is, it looks mighty similar to a normal little giant clutch rod. A lot of its funky behavior settled down with this modification.

I had a dozen items on ebay. Sold two today and funds were put on hold. Pending delivery? I am no longer on ebay as a result- and they were really not helpfull. Is there a better sales site?

Trip hammers just got displaced by better technology, like 8 tracks or beta max. They work , and worked steadily for centuries, but a steam or mechanical hammer is more versatile. Just ad the modern preference for air hammers pushed mechanical hammers out. I always wanted to get to see some good info on them. I have hunted for, and come up short, into on commercially produced trip hammers. Pratt and Whitney built them at one time. That was probably pre civil war. I have seen a few (very few) photos of them

I have always run my forges from bottled gas supplies through a propane rated hose. Now I am looking at permanent installation in my shop with a 1000 gallon tank outside. It is currently plumbed for the hvac only. I am going to need to run a branch line to run the forges, either copper or iron pipe from what I can tell code is indifferent. What I am a bit fuzzy on is the connection between the hard line and forge. Am I ok using the rubber hose, or is there something better? ( more legal) I se absolutely no mention of hose at all in the code aside from the metal flex hose used for residential appliances.

I would pick the little giant. The blue is an air hog. A 5hp compressor may not be enough. Little giants did not originally have a break on the flywheel. Many of us have added them to gain control for tooling. A 50 pound lg is kind of small but will do a lot of work. It will run on a motor as small as a 1 1/2 hp, though bigger is better. My experience with utility hammers like the blue is that they run well if ( big IF) you can feed them an absolute crazy amount of air. They have awsome control- far beyond self contained hammers, but getting there costs a lot of input power. The ka75 is one I often forget about. I wouldn't mind having one myself come to think of it...

I have been fighting to get some order in the new shop and the power hammer tools have been hard to keep track of. In the old shop I had about 200 nails driven into the wall that they hung from. Here that isn't an option. I have two shelves, two tables, an as yet unused coal forge, and various buckets and milk crates. It can be difficult to find what I am looking for when I need it. Picking up today I found about 30 hacks! I do have a habit of just making more, which doesnt help much with the clutter

For anyone with a newer 250 than mine, how much vertical adjustment does your hammer have ? I am looking at putting a more modern style cross head on mine. It looks like there is plenty of clearance.

3 1/2 inch is pretty big to sledge out by hand. I guess it's possible (?) But that sounds like an awful lot of work. If you could locate someone with a press it would be well worth buming some time in someone else's shop. For stock that size my 250 pound could do it, but I dont like working that big under the 100. It is really kind of big for even the 250. A press works big stuff more effectively. The easiest approach might be to lathe down your taper and weld on a hardy shank

I have wondered how much overlap there is here. NOMMA membership has been on my to do list for quite a while.

My die block is in. 4x9x15 4140. Now to cut 5 inch blocks out of it

I am tempted to add a cross head with vertical adjustment, just not sure if there is room. I would love to convert to a rear clutch, but a 3 1/4 shaft is pretty big. I would feel a lot better to have new Babbitt anyway.

Odd, the video posted yesterday, now it looks like its gone. 20190404_100021.mp4

This video is from the first time I powered the hammer. The clutch was locked up from many years of storage, but it gives a fair sense of the hammers operation. Video did not work