Robert Simmons

So why are you not using chunk charcoal? No smoke! It's what was used for the first 2000 years of smithing---all the viking pattern welded swords were forged in charcoal forges and the traditional japanese katanas are forged in charcoal forges to this day!

I had thought of that but again remember my only possible workshop is the garage. I tried doing some charcoal in just a grill and heating it up hot. The only thing I managed to do is nearly melt the grill *smirk*. The carbon monoxide detector in my garage spiked like crazy even with the 1000cfm fan on. Furthermore the hardwaood charcoal snapped and popped and threw off sparks like no tomorrow. It was like getting stuck with a million needles not to mention the fire hazzard to my house. My garage is 5/8ths fire code drywall and heat resistant paint but even that has limits.

Of course solid fuel also puts off polutants that I am not so sure are good for my ashtmatic lungs. My asthma isnt that bad and I would like to keep it that way.

You come across to me -- and again, as Bob suggested, maybe this is just the imperfection of the written word -- as being pretty worried and frustrated about the possibility that you might not be doing things exactly "right." If that's not the case, then I apologize for misreading the situation. But if it is, I'd like to tell you to try to relax and -- as someone else said -- have fun. Smithing is very much a creative exercise in which there's frequently a lot of room for differences in process, tools and materials to get the desired end product. There's a lot of art in this craft. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, and don't worry too much if someone says they have a different way of doing things than yours. Hear them out, ask them why, maybe even experiment -- but don't let it stress you out. At the end of the day, most of this stuff ain't rocket science.

I wouldn't say that is quite accurate about me. I am just simply trying to pick people's brains and learn the ropes so to speak. I suppose I could just putz around and figure things out and to an extent that is part of the learning process but I dont want to waste a ton of time discovering the square wheel wont work if others have already tried it.

So with the punches and drifts, I was looking for a description of their geometries so I could recognize which was which and the uses of each. Since I have conflicting information, I am just trying to reconcile it all.

Thanks for the encouragement to others. I appreciate all the information handed to me on this forum.

Just excellent information. Thanks guys. I will use my new ryobi 8" grinder and cut off the fish mouth. Why only one side?

I am wondering if ti would be easier if I rounded up and then squared the Cutting part of the tool first before trying to bevel it. Also do you think it would be a good idea to set the flat side of the final tool down a bit more so it is more in the middle instead of way off to one side? I wanted to have one flat side and one bevel side.

As for the heat, I was running the propane at 15psi for a while until the bottle started to freeze. It was as hot as my little forge will get it. I will have to get more BTUs to get it any hotter. I have plans for a better forge based off of frosty's design but not the finances alas.

Finally yeah, tongs need to be next. I started working on some small ones but I need some bigger stock to do large ones.

Robert,
I have read most all of your posts. You have been given the best advice that I can imagine. It seems that maybe you havnt quite understood the advise or something has gotten lost in the translation. You now have a very generous offer on the table to take a little road trip to build a forge that will do the job for you. May i suggest you swallow that lump in your throat called pride and take the man up on his offer. We all want to do things for ourselves but sometimes we need a little guidence. I dont know your personal skill set but if you have had this much trouble getting a forge going with all the information available, imagine your frustration trying to get your first forge weld. Dont give up just get some help.

I have not been at all heedless of the guidance an I have been in communication with several members of this forum via email. On the contrary I have listened carefully to many things said here and adopted a ton of stuff said here. I simply can not travel a long distance with my work schedule and family and whatnot. I respect and appreciate the offers of assistance in person and I would like nothing more than to take them up on that offer but my family and job must come first. This is but a hobby and if I must stop annoying people and not post here anymore and not do smithing anymore, it will be a minor loss in the grand scheme of my life. Perhaps it is a selfish indulgence to spend hours in the garage in the first place.

I would love to have an ozark pattern anvil, the best forge, a coal forge and ability to use it, the best tools, a power hammer, a great post vise and so on. Alas I can not afford any of that and I have to make do with what I can afford and do. Sure, I can build a brake drum forge but using coal in a residential subdivision is impossible (heck even some of my neighbors bitch about the noise as it is) and selling my house to move out to the country for a hobby is a bit extreme. I would love to have a spot in the country but again, I am not stacked with money, I get by with a modest budget for amusements. Yes, I am a green newbie smith, I have never claimed to be otherwise. However I can only do the best I can.

Your post, and others like it, seems to admonish me to imply I am being stubborn, but the reality is that I am only working within the bounds of finances and time available to me. I apologize if that annoys people. Honestly posts like yours make me wonder why I bothered getting interested in this to begin with.

yes. I am a newbie. Is that a bad thing? YOu have to start somewhere right? Or am I just annoying people with questions?

Wow. It has been something of an odyssey to get it this far. Certainly a learning process. I appreciate all the information provided in this thread. I have been working on the hardie and the steel in the bit has been quite tough, certainly more resistant to forming than mild steel. However, in its defense, my anvil is only a small farrier's anvil. Id love to get a good blacksmith anvil but I am afraid finances don't permit at the moment. I have chronicles the effort up to now in pictures.

I started with a jackhammer bit and cut it on either side of the collar because my small forge cant take the whole thing. I then heated it to yellow and then cut the propane and buttoned up my brick pile forge tight to let it anneal (or normalize, I wonder what the line is between the two in time cooling). Perhaps that was an unnecessary step but I was worried about the stresses the steel had been through and also it was a good way to burn off lubricant that could not be removed via cleaning.

After annealing I began to forge the hardie shaft. I first squared off two opposite points of the hexagon and then knocked down the flat sides slightly in order to get a near square that was very close to fitting in my hardie hole. This took multiple heats and I experienced something I never have in my admittedly short time of smithing. When striking along the flat side, the metal wanted to jump up off the anvil after each hit and I had to set it back into position. Anyway, after I had it close I was ready to try the final fitting. It was close but not exact. So I took the shaft and put it over the hardie and then slammed it down into the hardie as an improvised swage block. It took three successive heats but it finally seated in the hardie and quite tightly at that. I figure if it is too tight I can grind off a bit from each side if necessary.

During the driving of the hardie shaft in the hardie, I noticed that I had managed to upset the metal on the top which suited me fine as I wanted it a bit wider on the sharp side than the original bit. I also managed to knock it off center as you can see but I think I can fix that with a heat or two. If I had proper tongs It would be easier but I have to make do with vise grip clamps at the moment.

Then I started working on the taper for the blade of the hardie. At this point I learned first hand about fishmouthing Apparently the outside of the material is moving but the inside isn't. I am not sure how to fix that or prevent it from happening again. I could always grind off the current fishmouth but if I dont know how to prevent it, I will just end up in the same situation again.

And that is where I am now. I had thought of tapering the shaft a bit more on the bottom inch to make inserting in the hardie as well as increase the length and be able to knock it out of the anvil if it gets a bit stuck again. I had also thought to first round the stock above the colar then square it and finally taper it with one straight flat side and the other side beveled.

Comments or suggestions are appreciated.

Ya lost me Phil.
I have heard the saying"There are many different ways to get to town and they all arrive at the same destination",but I don`t know as I agree with "If the job was done it was done right".
I`ve made a lot of money re-doing jobs that someone considered done but then needed to be reworked by someone who understood how to do it correctly.One paid $800 for 20 hours of work just last week.No material or parts,just labor,done by a hand that knew what right really was.
Could you expand upon your statement?

See then, its a good thing. If the jobs had been done right in the first place you would be out of business. Someone else did you a favor messing up. ;)

I am now thinking of perhaps taking the KAO wool I have and coating it with something to turn it into a fire brick. I hear there are KAO wool rigidizers that make the KAO wool stiff so that it can hold its own weight. If that was the case I could coat it with a rigidizer, put another layer on and rigidizer and finally on the top I could put a thick coating of an ITC coating to make it more thermally efficient. It would be pretty easy to cut holes in the top and I could put in three to four inches of insulation without really buying much at all. I just have to figure out the right materials to essentially turn soft KAO Wool into a hug insulating brick.

Castable forge flares are also a thought. I wonder if anyone has done those.

Thanks for the clarification. I am happy to see I didn't totally waste my time. of course I now have to get it shaped and ground before it can be sharpened. I have a 1" hardie hole and the bit is hexagonal with 1" width at the flats and 1 1/4" width across the points. I was thinking of whether I will have enough metal after I flatten two of the corners. I hope I will have enough. I suppose I could do an upset to push in more material but I was thinking that if I didn't have enough to make it fit absolutely tight, It wouldn't be bad if it was asymmetric octagonal where the corners are cut by a small amount of space. It would probably still sit well in the hardie, what do you think? I absolutely intended to make use of the collar.

Any preference to double bevel versus single bevel hardies? What about curved hardie edge versus flat?

Thanks in advance.

Oh, by the way, as for spring steel, I have a couple of coils of that but its maybe 1/2" diameter rod when flattened so I don't know how I could use that to make a tight fitting square hardie. I have been looking for sources of 1" or bigger rod spring steel for scrap but have had little luck.

Glad you are finally heating and beating; the rest just takes practice and a keen eye. My mentor told me a punch for making straight holes such as for putting rivets into should be parallel where the punch goes into the steel, not tapered, and should have a bit of a shoulder where it meets the shaft of the tool and the face of the punch should have crisp edges to shear through the steel. Nice first effort.

Hmm that is contrary to what I read. Can anyone confirm that to be true?

I have read and was told that drifts should be tapered on both ends to fall through the hole. Their size is on the largest size in the drift so if it was a 1/2" drift, the largest diameter or width would be 1/2". The goal was when you punch these through metal, they size the hole exactly and fall out. Punches, I have been told, should be sized based upon the tip size of the punch and they should at least have a soft shoulder if they are flat tipped. I was told that punches should be tapered. Now if this is true then that is fine, I can turn what I have into a drift with a bit of grinding. However, I would like to get the right geometry.

I have been looking all over the internet for confirmation on this and lots of people sell them but I have found no definitive guide. Does anyone know a printed or electronic guide that is good for describing tools including detailed explanation of their geometry?

OK so are you telling me it will make a crappy hot cut hardie? That is disappointing if true. I have been unable to find 5160 of sufficient size to make a 1" square for my hardie. I have been looking for coill springs off Semi trucks but have had no luck. I have no idea what I could salvage that would have a thick enough chunk of 5160 to make the hardie. I suppose the 1040 would be better than just mild steel ?

Thanks for all the info. I am strong enough to wield the 4# with pretty much ease but I don't think much heavier would be feasible. I was thinking of having my 14 year old help with either the 4# or a 16# if need be. I do get concerned about the 16# impact on my small 70# farrier anvil. I would love a bigger anvil but I am afraid that will have to wait until finances permit. I would like to have an ozark pattern some day.

Anyway back to the bits, unfortunately i dont have a trip hammer (in fact I am not sure I could use that in my improvised workshop anyway as it might crack the garage floor with shock.) I wish I had a shop in the country somewhere and could afford a big blue. At any rate I think I need to master the hand hammer first before going for power tools.

Anyway it will be an adventure. Thanks for the advice.

-- Robert

My first punch! Started with a coil spring with about 1/2" diameter metal. The spring was cut with an OA torch, heated to yellow, and straightened (wow I had to slam this thing with a 4# at first. Then I did the basic forming on my anvil. I heated to yellow, squared, tapered slightly on the back (to center hammer blows) tapered greatly on the tip. Then I rounded both ends of the taper so the center body is flat and wont roll off my table. Then I Annealed it by putting it in my brick pile forge, heating it to non-magnetic and then turning off the burner and buttoning up the forge to cool slowly. The next day I ground the back to clean up the sharp bits (to avoid damaging hammers, then I ground the tip to just under the size I wanted. Then I rounded off the edges on the tip and put it back in a hole drilled in 1/8th inch thick stock. It seems to be the right size, the tip is just on the bottom of the hole with the rounded corner filling the hole. I am wondering, though If I need a different dept if I were to use it on say 3/8ths inch stock .I dont know.

Now I have to do some fine tuning, harden it, temper it and it will be ready to punch. Its not perfect but for a first attempt I suppose it ist bad. One imperfection is that it isnt absolutely straight. It is very very close but not perfect. I was wondering what the secret is to straightening tapered stock so that it makes aperfect cone and not a cone with a tip more to one side. Any suggestions?

All comments and suggestions are appreciated.

Next tool will be a 1/4" square punch to make a new nail header, then probably a slit chisel and a new nail header. Oh and a cutoff hardie out of a jackhammer bit.

I am looking to use some jackhammer bits to make a hot cut hardie, Today I went down to the home depot tool rental place and asked if they had any jackhammer bits that were no longer serviceable and thus scrap. I scored 12 of them which amounts to a lot of tool steel. So now that I have them I am thinking of how to handle them metalurgically.

I think if I just heat them yellow and hit them with my hammer they will probably laugh at me. That may or may not be true. I know that when working spring steel, I have to upgrade to a 4lb hammer and smack the crap out of them. So I assume the jackhammer bits should be about the same.

So I am trying to think of a strategy to handle this. I had thought that perhaps if I anneal or normalize them three times perhaps I should have an easier time working them. Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Normalizing is easy enough and if that is sufficient then that is the route to go. If not then with annealing them i have more questions.

If I were to anneal them I would need to have some medium in which to anneal them nicely. Currently when I anneal I throw the part in my pile of brick forge, bring it to yellow, turn off the burner and button up the forge tight to help it cool slowly. However, I have heard that it is best to pack them in other materials that form around them. I had considered sand but I think the sand would melt around the steel at yellow temp so that may not be smart. What would be awesome would be small BB sized beads of refractory material you could pack the part in to cool but I know of nothing like that on the market. So any suggestions there?

If I am barking up the wrong tree or someone has a better suggestion, I am all ears and appreciation.

-- Thanks,
-- Robert

Hmm ok, what is fishmouthing? You are suggesting I narrow it down first and then cut it?

SCORE!

Went to home depot tool center and asked if they have any bits for jackhammers that they are about to throw out. They did. I grabbed 13 of them which have a 1 1/4 " octagonal shaft with a wider collar and out of phenomenally good steel. I am going to have to cut one tonight with the OA torch and see about creating the hardy.

If you are not yet ready to make a traditional hardy then just use a piece of leaf spring and cut shoulders on it so that it fits your hardy hole on the diagonal. It'll do a pretty darn good job.

Wouldnt the leaf spring have to be at least the thickness of my hardy? Outherise it owuld fall through.

Robert, the large amounts of castable that you seem to want to use are going make your forge much, much slower to get up to temp. Even insulating castables tend to have only about half the insulating value of ceramic wool, and dense castables like Mizzou are closer to 1/4. Unless you tend to run the forge for long periods at a shot, that's really going to hurt your efficiency.

Perhaps but i am struggling on how to get a roof that is large enough to cover more than spanning over one brick. I need osme sort of solid roof and I am not sure how softw bricks could be made to do that with the burners going through the soft brick. If you have any ideas, I would love to hear them.

Greetings, My very first punch is sitting in my brick pile forge annealing right now. I have to say I had heard that high carbon steel was harder to smith but WOW, I ended up pulling out a 4lb sledge dressed up to do the heavy lifting before going back to my Hoffi hammer. However, I manages to straighten the coil spring steel, heat it yellow hot, work it square then taper slightly on the back and all the way down to the target size on the tip. Then I hit it into octagon and then into round. Then I rounded the back where the hammer is to hit the tool. Finally I heated it to non-magnetic and then cut the propane and buttoned up my pile of bricks forge tight to anneal it. Good so far? I am planing to harden it and heat treat it tomorrow. Of course since I am a newbie it took me probably 2 dozen heats and 2 hours. I hope I will get faster. I need to work on a Square drift punch to make a better nail header and a slit chisel but they can come tomorrow.

So while on this was all going on, I had some questions about making tools and about the tools themselves that i was hoping you could all chime in on.

1) What do you think about how I have done so far?

2) I was wondering what makes a punch a certain size? I know the tip is supposed to be flat and I think the diameter of the tip including the rounded corner constitutes the punch's size. They really aren't designed to be put down hardly at all through the metal it seems, just the depth of the metal itself, whereas a drift reaches its "size" at the maximum width of the tool and is tapered on both ends from that width so it can be driven through a piece of metal and makes the exact hole size desired. Am I right about this?

3) I have been using the sharp edge of my anvil as a cut off tool. That is kind of crude so I think I need to look into getting or forging a hardie cut off tool. What I was wondering is where I could get high carbon steel from scrap that would be big enough to make a hardie shank. Or should I instead make only the blade of the cutoff tool out of high carbon steel and the hardie out of low carbon and weld them with my flux core wire from my mig welder?

4) I was thinking of making a fuller for my hardie. Does the fuller itself have to be or should be high carbon tool steel?

Thanks in advance for the answers.

Robert,
Before you dump a bunch more cash into this, give me a call (my number is on the contact page at www.diamondbackironworks.com). I am not trying to sell you a forge, I think we can get what you already have running properly without too much trouble. I'm in the shop usually from 8am to 5pm EST.
Dennis

Thanks. I can get it running and get it hot enough to get metal yellow but it takes a hell of a lot of gas and I dont think it honestly has a prayer of welding. It also takes maybe 5 minutes to achieve a heat from red to bright yellow on 1/2" bar stock. So clearly I will be spending a fortune on gas. Given that I don't have a lot of cash right now, I don't have a choice but if I did I would like to have a forge that just works. I didn't get into this to be a burner design expert.

Like I siad I am very frustrated. I would rather use a coal forge but as I live in a residential subdivision in a city, it is out of the question.

-- Robert

Whether you buy or build, I suggest you rethink your plan to make a large capacity forge.

Currently the "brick pile" forge I am trying to run has a chamber the size of two bricks and that is all. Its tiny, not large at all. And I still cant even get it up past orange with 5/8ths steel round in it.

I wanted to join this hobby to hit metal, not become a forge engineer. WIth the money I have spent on this already Id be halfway to a brand new forge.

Oh and I absolutely cant do KOA Wool. THe risk of ceramic fibers combined with my asthma puts it out of the question. I have to use castable or bricks. I dont want to lose my life for a hobby.

I appreciate the offer but right now I am just too frustrated. Right now I was hoping to have made some stuff now. The only thing Ive made in 2 months is a dent in my wallet and a total waste of money at that.

I have been having trouble getting a forge going for 2 months. I have spent countless hours on it and I cant get any of them to anywhere near welding heat. I have now spent easily 600 bucks on parts. I am debating throwing in the towel and buying one. Of course that makes all the stuff I have useless and I will have to find around 1000 bucks or more I assume to get one. Unfortunately this could be months down the road but what the hey.

http://www.piehtoolco.com/contents/en-us/d808.html

Does anyone have experience with any of these forges. I want it to weld and be versitile.

Thanks in advance.

Now i just have to figure out what to do with all the fire bricks and other crap.

-- Signed, Frustrated...

I've read that members on this forum have made steel from wrought iron by packing strips or small bits in a metal container with powdered charcoal...the carbon from the charcoal is absorbed into the iron and I think there are even formulas that tell you how long it will take for the carbon to migrate through a certain thickness of iron at given temperatures.

Here is a good discussion

Adding carbon is easy. Any coal fire will add carbon if you hold the steel near welding temps and there are ways to add carbon at lower heat. Its adding the alloying elements that increase the hardness and defeat corrosion, such as chromium, that i wanted to do.

With the ready supply of modern tool steels that we have available it wouldn't be worth the time to mess with it IMHO.

I would have to say that to do what you want, you are going to be doing some foundry work. We use to make our own alloys at the dental metals foundry that I worked at. All carefully measured out, and melted together. Some elements had to be added at certain stages / temps in order for the melt to come out right. You just don't toss it all in at once, and melt it.

That is my problem. I dont really have a ready supply. I wish I did but most of the vendors in my area that carry it are asking stupid high prices for it. Even trying to locate a coil spring from a Semi truck, I got a stupid response of $50 for a 6" high broken spring and that is just high carbon, not tool steel. I imagine it is easier on the east coast.

I have been trying to think if there are scrap tools on the market that i could reforge but most tools I see have a lot of toxic zinc in the steel and also I havent been able to find anything with the kind of mass I need to make hardy tools or even a decent split chisel.

If people have suggestions on what I could look for to get some good tool steel without paying a fortune, I am all ears.

how the heck do you guys find these auctions. I have tried all the major auctioneers in denver and I have never seen any blacksmithing stuff whatsoever.