mick maxen

I would like to get as much information about Pilkington Hammers together as possible. If anyone has any brochures, sales or maintenance info would you kindly post it on here or send me a copy. Contact details via pm. Thanks in advance, Mick.

A few more photos. Its always fun to take photos of the flames coming out of the stack,to see what might be there. A fire breathing, fire genie ? Mick.

We had a good time and introduced Giles to his first hands on smelting experience. We started about 2 pm and pulled the bloom at around 7 pm. There is something quite primitive about pulling the bloom out in the night. Some photos from Mondays smelt, Drying out the stack and some art work by Giles. I think its a female snake. Now we have the proper blower set up and are starting the charges of ore and charcoal, Adding some ore, We had good slag runs, The bloom forged down under the 2cwt was 14 kilos, This is a slice through the centre of the large piece. Its about 1 1/2" thick, We had hoped to try and use the stack again but due to a mix up with the clay mixture, it was a fight to the end to keep it together. In the cold light of Tuesday morning, the stack was looking past its best and very shortly after this was taken, it fell over, Another fine smelting day spent with friends. Mick.

As long as the welding is OK you will have no problem turning damascus on a lathe. Make sure you anneal the piece though to try and elinate any hard spots. The link is to some of my turned damascus work. The steels used are 15N20 and 20C. Mick.

John, It was good to see you and Giles on Sunday and catch up with what has been going on in the blacksmithing world. I have a question, the centre of the daffodil that you had displayed, was it made from tube with the edges curled back ? Mick.

Hereford College is another place to look for a blacksmithing course. Also have you considered joining BABA, The British Artist Blacksmiths Association to find out more about whats going on in the UK regarding blacksmithing. Basher on here is in Kent and worth going to see. He runs many courses as well. Mick.

I think you should call it Rudolph. Mick.

I have a stock of 15n20. It is new steel, annealed and in flat sheets. You can try contacting Uddeholm but they have a minimum order value of 500 kilos per steel type. Let me know what you want. Mick.

I plan to be at Terry's gathering in July. Mick

Try here for all manner of pipe fittings in iron, brass or copper, http://www.bes.co.uk/ I have just run a new air supply to my forge and found that if you buy the 50mm rain water plastic pipe from Wickes and get the elbows for the 40mm waste pipe, the type that you glue up. You can gently warm the 50mm pipe with a blow torch and the 40mm fittings will push in and make an air tight seal. Mick.

Hombal, You have a few options. For Monckton beans, try R A Blackford in Uckfield, 01825 732183. They are listed in the BABA address book as suppliers. Or CPL for Sunbrite Singles, this coke is bigger than the Monckton Beans. Failing the above, go to the South of England Show in early June, http://www.seas.org.uk/shows.asp?ID=2 and speak to the fellas at the blacksmithing area. They will know. I might even be there myself if I can make something for the Blacksmithing Competition in time. Mick.

Jammer, We are running a short stack furnace to make iron. To get cast iron you would be running a much taller furnace and trying to make steel. The furnaces we make for iron are about 36" tall and about 10-12" diameter or thereabouts. With a shorter furnace the iron ore will travel through the reduction zone (very hot area)where the oxygen will get displaced from the ore and hopefully drip into a puddle of slag to make a bloom. In taller furnaces for steel making, the reduced ore will have further to travel to the bottom and once the oxygen is removed will take up carbon from the charcoal and make steel, if all goes well. There are many ways of controlling the temp. Controlling air flow as you mentioned. Also the size of the charcoal has some influence as well. We try for pieces that are no bigger than 1" which to a certain degree controls the rate of drop in the furnace and heat. The ratio of ore to charcoal also influences the heat. We try for around a 1 to 1 ratio. Less ore to charcoal means a hotter furnace or more ore than charcoal means a cooler furnace. The downside to a cooler furnace is that the slag will be very thick and gloppy with a chance of freezing up the furnace. It can sometimes form an arch above the air so not letting anything into the area where the bloom is forming. We aim for a bright yellow colour in the furnace and also bright yellow and very runny slag. One of the things that is very important is to dry the furnace completely before charging. We will usually run the furnace with the air blowing for about 2-3 hours, loading it with wood. Then when its very hot, will add charcoal for about 1/2 hour and then start charging with ore and charcoal. All our observations of heat are done by eye. Mick.

Here are a few photos of a section of the flat pancake bloom. The piece is about 6 x 5 x 1 1/4" thick. Mick.

ramsies 11, You are right we did break up the stack. This was to get the bloom out. We did try to wiggle the bloom out and keep the stack but this is about the 3rd or 4th smelt using this stack so we decided that it would be best to build another one for the next time. Here is the stack before we started to patch it up, This photo shows a glass over the air pipe so we can see how hot it is running and also see when its getting blocked up or the level of the slag is up to the tuyere, Mick.

I can't add anything by way of photos from this smelt, but it was another good time had by all at Owen's. The smelt run without any dramas and just some fine tuning to get it running how we wanted it too. The pancake piece in the photos weighs 11kgs and is about 12" diameter by 1 1/2" thick. We did not have anytime to cut it up but it will be very solid now its had a go under the 200cwt hammer. To give you an idea of the product, here are some photos from a smelt we did in April last year. This time we let the bloom cool down and then cut it up. This bloom weighs 18kgs The bloom in two halves, 1/4 bloom, Mick.

John, This might interest you, scroll down to post 53. It is how I managed to do it using a jig. http://www.britishblades.com/forums/showthread.php?90077-A-Pipe-Hawk-work-in-progress/page4 Mick.

I use a gas forge for all my pattern welding work and flux will eat everything it comes into contact with. My solution is to use a piece of stainless steel, as Herb says, on the forge floor to rest the work on so it does not come into contact with the goo. Mick.

Jeremy, I have never thought about making one with pattern welded steel. I have made them before using all mild steel and a combination of mild and stainless for the clouds. Beth, I think the colours have been enhanced by the lighting or photo editing, but the copper has all shades of yellow through to almost purple. To get the colours all I did was heat the copper up to an almost salmon pink colour, let them cool till the colour goes to gray/black, them dunk them in cold water. The steam seems to blister of the oxides in places to leave the interesting colours. The copper used for these was from buzz bars from old electrical supply cabinets a friend of mine used get hold off. Now that supply has run out, I have got some new cooper bar and it is almost impossible to get the colours. Now I have to shot blast them on a low pressure to reveal the copper colour. Mick.

Paul, there are so many old anvils here in the UK that are better than buying a new cast one. I have a 300lb Peter Wright anvil I am looking to sell if you are interested. Mick.

Here is something I made a while ago and its the first time I have had a chance to photograph it against a reasonably white wall. It is made from mild steel and copper and is called Sun & Clouds. The width is 34" and the circle dia is 13". Mick.

Thanks for all the kind words about my work. Mitch, the steels I used for these are 15N20, which is the shiny steel and 20C which is just a high carbon spring steel. Matto, bench sized pieces are a bit out of my league as well. I think it was Achim Wirtz and a couple of other people who got together and made the worlds largest damascus billet. I have tried to find some info on it, but failed. From memory the billet was something like 2.5 tons and was brought up to a welding heat over the course of two days. All this was done in a steel factory in Germany using their equipment. Beth, these are very tactile. The photos only show the top face with the pattern, but the base is etched as well. So you can follow the lines from the face around the sides and see that they match up with the pattern on the base. Mick

Here are 5 paperweights I made recently, all using mosaic pattern welded steel. The size of the faces range from about 1.5" to 1.25". These were made as square bars of patterned steel then squished under a press to give them a more organic shape. As you can see there are two pairs. The centre one is a combination of the two, using the same bars with some added layers to give the cross pattern. Mick.

Looking good Giles, I am still interested in one. Mick.

Prokopto The contrast in colours looks better in real life than in the photos, especially when the light catches the piece. The contrast comes from the etching and how I polish them afterwards. There is no secret about it other than my heat control and not letting anything burn may have something to do with it. The finish I give these before laquering is with 2000 grit paper just to highlight the bright parts of the pattern. The photo below shows a similar sized trinket box but made from carbon steel and nickel. The contrast on these when the light catches them is quite beautiful as the almost pure nickel has a different lustre to it.

Try contacting Hector, http://www.evado.co.uk/Hector%20Cole/index.html# he is our top arrowsmith in the UK. Mick.