knots

I have one exactly like it other than the following exceptions: Mine has the original cast iron legs. However it does not have the nice fly wheel . it has a single cross bar with cyllndrical weights.

Go to Google Books and search Waterbury Farrel ( Foundry) . On page 139 of their 1896 catalogue ( I think that date is correct) you will find this press with a short description.

My Waterbury Farrel is a die test screw press. This screw press was designed for tool room use to test dies to be used in fly presses. The screw is 2 3/4" in Diameter and is a two start screw with a pitch of 1 1/2" . As it turned out this machine works just fine for me even without the faster pitched screw. I actually think This press is a better match to the way I work than a faster screw would be. It is a bit more sedate in it's action while still having a very powerful stoke. The master die makers for whom this machine was designed were probably much more deliberate in their work than fellow production workers, and probably often worked alone, but still needed a strong fast press action. Mine weighs 1,700 pounds.

I am uncertain when a screw press becomes a fly press. Perhaps someone can enlighten us on that point. But the catalogue calls it a tool room screw press. I think that it is a good compromise between power and speed . However press rating is not given in the catalogue , I have seen no literature supporting the the 20 ton rating claim . Having said that: If there is hard data I would like to know about it. Any way you look at it this press is no wimp. I suspect that the fly wheel would make it even more effective than mine.

I would go with a porcelain slip or add extra alumina to the kaolin. You can get it cheaply from the pottery supply houses. I expect it will be very friable. Cracks in the coating expose the wool to hot gas which damages it quickly. The only coating that I know of that will hold together as a thin layer is Plistix 900.

I like the refractory inner liner with 2" kaowool or some other high insulation value material for the outer layers. Its a little slower to heat up but much more durable. I also use scrap kaowool or soft firebrick rubble for the outer layers.

All the forges I have built with wool as the inner liner needed constant maintenance. If you are just forging blades I guess it's ok but when you have bendy pieces going in and out, protecting the liner is difficult.

Well I called the Plibrico Company, the manufacturer of PLISTIX 900, this morning. their telephone has been disconnected. It appears that another good company has gone belly up.

My problem with most commercial products is that you have to purchase the products in quantities that grossly exceed my needs. The unused product has a short shelf life, consequently I usually throw away more than I use. This seems very wasteful. So I need to find or create a dry product . All that I need is to seal my forge furnace, so the Kaolin slip idea is still an attractive alternate. MD your recommendation of mixing alumina with kaolin is the basic formula for porcelain clay body or slip except that bone ash is some times also included as a flux . Bone ash is a source of phosphorus so it makes sense to consider adding it in some proportion to your proposed mix. Could be that the addition of bone ash would reduce the friability and tendency to crack. I think I will order some up and run a few tests.

The Kaolin clay slip seems like a convenient coating supply solution. Since the commercial coating/sealer products usually come in quantities greater than are needed for most forge furnaces and have a short shelf life they are expensive and seem wasteful . Has kaolin slip been used and proven effective for coating ceramic fiber forge liners over time. What would the service temperature range be. I have something like 50 pounds of the stuff and know from experience that shelf life is not an issue if protected from contamination and kept dry.

Tried to call and e-mail Carolina Glove to place an order - no response. Have they closed up shop ?

I still need some kevlar gloves. The ones I have been getting lately form my welding supply are not holding up well and so I am looking for a good source of gloves that are high quality industrial weight. What brand gloves should I be looking for and where ? Preferably Made in the USA.

I am looking for recommendations for a good quality mask for gas welding. I wear glasses. I am 60, my vision is not that acute anymore and I need all the help I can get. I have tried the standard square goggles. They are not comfortable. Dont fit well over glasses. The elastic strap loses it's stretch in a few months. The field of view is small , though I can live with that. Currently I am using a grinding hood, full face cover with a head band. Its comfortable and doesnt restrict my field of view but the optical quality is very poor. It scuffs quickly and the round shield causes distortions.

Thank you

After I bought my first auto darkening welding helmet I almost trashed my old welding helmet. However since I do a lot of bending with oxy acetylene it occurred to be that a more comfortable solution than goggles would be to cut the bottom of the old helmet off at about nose level and install an appropriate shade lens. That works well for me since I to wear glasses as well. Trimming the bottom makes the helmet lighter and cooler to wear. If you have an old one that is hanging unused on a nail there would not be much to lose if you don't like it.

Good luck

Ceramic supply houses have an anhydrous form of borax that works.

Joining pipe at angles is easy enough, especially at 90*. For example you're making a "T" joint with 1 1/2" pipe. Buy a quality bi-metal hole saw 1 1/2" dia and use it to cut the pipe that "Ts" into the other piece. The big trick is measuring so figure from the center of the pilot bit and you'll be pretty close but if you're doing precise joins you'll have to allow for the kerf of the hole saw.
ere are lots of ways to do these things but I like my hole saws, probably because I'm a lazy old coot.

Frosty the Lucky.

I have VFD on my drill press. Being able to slow the spindle down takes a lot of risk out of using hole saws in these kind of set-ups . The resulting cuts are usually a lot more accurate. I suspect it also increases the life of the saw blade as well.

I would like to a hole drill into the outside of 1 1/2" NPT elbow so that it lines up with the center of the pipe. I need to introduce a propane jet and this seems like the neatest way to go. How do I control the drill bit so that it doesnt walk around on the curved surface? I have thought of welding on a small piece of flat bar so that it would be normal to the bit in the hope that drilling through the strap would serve as a guide. Is there an easier way to do this?

Thanks

Last time I did that I welded a sleeve onto the pipe elbow that would receive and hold the propane supply tube. The sleeve had a set screw for to hold the supply tube. The set screw allowed easy removal of the supply tube, hose, and regulator. So I prepared the sleeve, with the pre-machined hole, welded the sleeve to the elbow and used the sleeve as a drill guide.

I will post a photo of the assembly in the gallery section. and here if I can figure out how.

Maybe these fullered corners have practical origins based on limitations of the materials used to make ancient blacksmithing tools.. Consider that steel was a precious commodity until the mid eighteen hundreds when the Bessemer process was patented and it becomes clear that the common material used by blacksmiths for their tools was unlikely to have been, exclusively, steel before that time. They probably used the equivalent of wrought iron for hammers, set hammers, and general tooling. If that was the case then reforging their tools would have been needed as an ongoing maintenance chore. In the case of wrought iron set hammers the set face corners would have likely deformed in a way that the fullered corners would have corrected.

It would be interesting to find some tools of this era and test this theory.

Also looks like the hardy hole is further back than normal. Looking under the heel. Is there evidence that the hardy hole was relocated ? Normally the Hardy hole would be tucked back closer to the body of the anvil. Also the photograph shows a notch on the side of the anvil a few inches from the end of the heel that would be about where I would normally expect the heel to end.

Maybe an old repair ? Interesting anvil. For sure a keeper.

I think I did it. I needed to resize the images, they were to big.


I give it a long think about how to do this baby. A friend offered me the railroad (2 pieces of 4 feet each, I still have one intact). In this way I got surface area to work on, weight and volume and if I want I can allways weld it to a piece of H or I beam and make it heavier and bigger. I'll put it on a oak stump (heavy thing) and that's that.

Miguel Guerreiro

So any sugestions on how to make it better are welcome

'
Now that is an interesting concept. I haven't seen seen the double rail thing before. You would get a better/more solid forging surface if you could grind the rail top really flat and braze the plate to the anvil body.

Once years ago, in desperation, I used a radial arm saw to grind the dovetails into a set of power hammer dies. Used a 6' grinding wheel. You have to take light cuts and push the radial through from the front rather than pull it through. Did a good job of grinding a flat surface. This process creates lots of sparks and swarf . I would not recommend doing this inside. The resulting spark/swarf debris welded itself to the shop concrete block wall. Wear breathing protection, full face mask etc.

I have modified pickax heads for stakes, first I forge the curve out of it so that it is straight, then make one end round the other more square, grind it smooth as every bump and blemish will transfer to your metal, weld it to a another stout piece of steel to form a tee, then do the final polish. I have used all kinds of shapes to make my stakes, any and everything that looks like it may be handy. Here is a fellow that shows his basic tool kit http://davidhuang.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=1418

You can also cut a pickax through the eye for V shaped stakes. Or reforge the V into a variety of forms.

What is the best source of heavy duty plastic squeeze bottles for oiling machines. I have been looking for bottles with long spouts or ones fitted with pull out extension tubes without success. McMaster Carr has bottles but not what I am looking for. Other specialty sites as US Plastics don't seem to have them either.

Years ago my parents bought their home place down in Texas. The property had, at one time, been part of property owned by a driller. Way in the back there was an area which had a lot scrap metal that had been left behind including a big old drill bit that looked like a tuning fork. Probably weighed something over 200 pounds. Probably to small for oil. I could see how those fork tines in a larger version could have been run through that bridge opening when sharpening.

What a prize that anvil is.

I like the Idea of finding local blacksmiths. Look at www.abana.org you should be able to access a list of affiliated blacksmith groups. Hopefully there will be one close to your location. If that fails do a web search for blacksmith groups in your state.

If you can find a group to join you will see what others have done and meet some fine folks in the process.

I am not sure what you are thinking, but when my power hammer is jumping up in the air and walking across the floor because the 650 pound anvil, welded to the 1.5" thick base plate isn't heavey enough to hold it down, at a rate of well over 200 bounces per minute, I garantee that more energy is going into the slab than a treadle hammer could ever generate. The footprint of my machine is 24"x40". I got sick of it following me around and bolted it down.

My comments are limited to "Smaller Power Hammers" and treadle hammers. Your machine is out of my league. Hope the bolts hold.

I hope that I am not beating a dead horse here but I think that there is an important distinction between power hammers and treadle hammer construction that needs to be considered when talking about the supporting floor structure.

Most of the smaller power hammers used by smiths are constructed with the sow block cast integral with the hammer frame. Consequently they have a large foot print over which the force of the ram blows are distributed. Most treadle hammers are built with the anvil pedestal without rigid attachment to the rest of the treadle hammer frame . I don't remember ever seeing a treadle hammer design with a full foot print base plate. For this reason I think that Kraythe's concern is valid. In most cases the power hammer example seems not to apply directly.

After all, the strength of a treadle hammer blow power depends on the velocity and weight of the ram, and is delivered indirectly to the floor below through a relatively lightly constructed pedestal and small base plate. A treadle hammer with a 35 to 40 pound head can deliver a powerful blow. Seems logical to me that caution is is a very good idea.

The ply wood base would probably do the job but a supplemental steel plate would be in the way less of a trip hazard.

Now there are some smaller power hammers which have a Floating Sow Block. As it happens my hammer is one of those. I would venture a guess that a four inch thick concrete slab foundation, under my machine, would have been pulverized in short order . I cast a 12" thick, heavily reinforced concrete inertia block to support my machine. The power hammer and inertia block sit on my brick shop floor. All very solid.

My shop has a brick paver floor. After using my treadle hammer for a week or so the bricks below started to be driven into the ground.

Most treadle hammers have a smallish plate below the anvil pedestal. Mine had a 7" x 10" plate and it took no time for the brick floor to be packed down . I solved the problem by placing a larger 3/8" x12" x 22" plate below the original plate.

For your concrete floor my 7" x 10" plate would probably have been enough if the floor is properly reinforced, however It may not be. Think of it this way. Say your treadle ram is 40 pounds - If you had a steel plate on your concrete floor and you were hammering that plate with a 40 pound sledge hammer , how big would the plate need to be to distribute the impact load being imposed your floor to avoid cracks.

If you are really worried about the floor cracking use a bigger plate below the anvil pedestal. You could build the hammer with a standard size plate but space it up a half inch to accommodate a supplemental plate below.

OK, I now have my 7 1/4", 48 tooth Bosch Steel cutting blade # CB748ST. The Blade packaging says that the blade will cut " up to 25HRC" .

What is the typical expectation for HRC of hot rolled steel plate ?

There are no hints how to judge when the feed rate is correct. Generally I would expect that a forward pressure that would allow the saw to maintain blade speed without laboring would give the correct cutting speed. Comments ?

I prefer electrolysis for rust removal.

Hmmm. I have a couple of old battery drill chargers . Wonder if one would work as a DC power supply for electrolytic rust removal.

Well it sure burns great, and appears to support what you say about "more" air and not "less"

Do you have any other images/details of the "side blast ceramic ribben burner"

I dont have a needle valve on my gas, which also makes it hard to tune.

I have ball valves on my forge furnaces. They are either on or off. The way to control gas volume is with your regulator.

For a given orifice size increasing the pressure increases the flow, and decreasing the pressure reduces the flow. Using an adjustable regulator with a blown forge furnace and controlling the air volume you should be able to tune the burn to a fine degree.

Now with atmospheric burners I still use the regulator but the fuel gas orifice must be carefully sized to the forge furnace volume, and to induce air flow through the burner. I used a smaller orifice and higher pressures for my atmospheric burner to increase gas discharge velocity.

A while back I had a conversation with a water system engineer . While talking about corrosion he asked me what blacksmiths use to treat/kill corrosion. My standard response was phosphoric acid. He said that for water supply systems citric acid is used exclusively. This makes sense for the food or water supply infrastructure. But what about other day to day applications in a black smith shop ? Any body ever try citric acid for rust treatment ?

I walked into a paint store the other day and requested citric acid based rust treatment. They never heard of it.

I use an auto body type air hammer to drive some chisels and punches that I made. (standard .401 shank, you can buy cheap sets and forge your own ends.) It works well for that, but is in no way comparable to a power hammer.

fciron - What specific tasks do you use your modified pneumatic tools for . The smith I referenced used his on hot iron (forging temperature) to fork or split the ends of bars or cut notches in plate.

I got this information second hand so don't know what his chisel looked like. Maybe a reverse arc cutting edge to keep the chisel from sliding off.

Nice forge. Simple is good.

I have two pipe forges that I built using Kaowool liners. I solved the curved forge furnace floor problem by lining it with heavily groged fire clay refractory patch. This material is a mixture of fire clay and ground up fire brick.

Since the floor is an arc of a circle Flat materials such as tiles or brick just will not fit if the Kaowool is wrapped all around.

What I did was, using a piece of plywood as a base, I nailed 3/4" thick scrap strips down to make a form 3/4" deep. Then I pressed and rolled the wet fire clay / grog mix into the form and let it dry to leather hard. Then carefully transfered it into the Furnace. The leather hard fire clay will conform to the arc of the floor. Let dry. I mean, really dry then fire up the forge. The heat of the forge will fire the new floor in place.

Depending on the quality of the clay/grog mix it could be very flux resistant. I bought min material at an estate sale so don't really know what was in if, but when mixed it took on a deep grey color. That is a hint that it probably has some graphite mixed into the recipe. My floors have held up much better than the insulating fire brick I used in my little small project forge furnace which has a fabricated sheet metal shell.

You gage arrangement is interesting. Always wondered what happened to the tank pressure as the fuel level goes down or the ambient temperature changes.

I have several of these rotary hammer drills lying around from my past life in the construction industry. Spent a few hours driving one. From my experience I would guess that it would not be particularly successful. However If you have an old dead bit not much to loose by trying.

My guess is that It would run to fast to have much control, and that these machines kind of dink rather than really hit it a good solid blow. I bet a good ole hammer on the anvil would move the metal a lot more efficiently. If I were to try using this kind of tool at all it might be for texturing the steel.

Now a pneumatic hammer would be a better choice but I still believe that it would not be a good match for forging. One possible use for a pneumatic tool would be chisel work. I know of at least one smith that uses a pneumatic chisel to split iron. The big problem with even strong pneumatic tools is that their stroke speed makes them hard to control.