frogvalley

Wow this gets everyone riled up. Ok define fabricating. In the context used here it would seem that it is defined as assembling things from individual components, the implication being machine made parts or chinese made parts or simply" made by another" parts. If you are welding (with an arc welder) your own handforged parts together, it is forge work without question-not simply fabricating. Forge welding or arc welding to assemble does not change the underlying work, neither does welding (arc or forge) as compared to riveting. Whether one uses a rivet or tenon or weld or whatever means of attachment , it will still be a hand forged piece if you actually forged the pieces. If you arc weld, and I do, I prefer to see the weld dressed, ground, sanded etc. to blend well, however on sculptural forgings, that is not important in many cases, only on reproduction work and "traditional" pieces. If you are just welding together unforged stock, that is fabricating. I love my power hammers and MIG welder and oxy-acetylene torch. I also walk barefoot occasionally. For arts sake. Thats just my two cents.

Using a welder and a powerhammer are necessities of a profitable shop. I was once a strict pre-industrial tradtionalist, no amenities like electricity, all the work done with hammer and anvil and my arm. For some art pieces and special occasions or strict traditional reproduction work, forge welding is great, but you cannot make real money by forge welding alone. Too time consuming. MIG TIG Oxy-Acetylene and Stick are the only ways to fly. When the new processes became available, smiths embraced them. IMHO

Let me know how that turns out. I believe that will work fine for a cutoff hardie, I am planning to do the same, with one exception, to one of my extra/old ones. My plan is to forge the head or hammer end to fit the hardie hole so it will be one piece and a little shorter. Wedges are too tall as is, so a little shorter is great. Welding on a shank will work fine too, all of my hardy tools are homemade, most of them welded shanks that were cut and forged from other stock, some are one piece forgings formerly axles or solid driveshafts. Definitely reharden them, but not too hard, softer is better , it will deform eventually but can be reforged, but if it chips , that metal is gone/lost. I do a flyby night hardening on mine, I work them until done, then just let it cool until just barely red and quench. So anyway...

I too would change the burner from top down to a side burner. And I agree about not sealing the door. I just have an opening in front and back, the back has a loose brick for a plug and the front stays open almost all the time, ocassionally I put a brick in it partially blocking it. You can see mine sitting in my shop at www.frogvalleyforge.com. It ain't pretty, but I've run a dozen tanks of propane through the pig(that's her nickname) with no trouble. Naturally aspirated or non-blown burners should never be closed tight. They must have at least as much flow out as they do going in. That is a lot more volume than you think.

I too had problems adjusting my modified "reil" burner to work well inside the forge I designed. The flare tip adjustment is the first thing I had to get right, it is critical and difficult to do outside the forge as everything changes once you install it in the forge , but the next thing was the actual shape of the forge and the way the flame entered the chamber. Backpressure from the forge is a big factor in adjustment of the burner. I like the vortex created by a tangentally mounted burner. The burner I have is mounted as a sidearm and not a top down burner and has less backpressure than my early experiments. My experiences led me to change the angle that the burner comes into the chamber several times. I use a mig tip as well, the difficulty of aligning the hole in the pipe of the original design was just too great, I switched to the mig tips and visually its much easier.

You can set acetylene tanks on their side. My supplier agree and I do it all the time. You cannot move them from laying on their side to vertical and use them immediately however. The acetylene is dissolved in a liquid acetone goo, so the tank is almost full of acetone. It has a tendency to get up in the valve at the top, so let it set upright for an hour or so to let everything drip back down. You don't want that in your regulators or hoses. I refill at least once a month, usually twice a month, both Ox and Acetylene for over 8years. Transport is my Jeep wrangler with tanks moslty flat piled carefully in the back , or in my cherokee laying down one the back seat or all the way back. Keep things vented with windows open and don't smoke around the tanks, in case of a minor leak things tend to build up in your air conditioned vehicles, not so in a jeep with no doors of course.

I am about a fifty fifty user of coal and propane, we have two coal forges and two propane. Just about equally split for production of our art pieces. There is nothing cleaner than propane for forging. However, its a bit impersonal. I like the smell of coal burning and use it whenever I am doing demonstrations for the general public or one of our "Studio Tours", people seem to identify blacksmiths with that aroma. And of course I have been told that sweat and coal smoke are aphrodisiacs. LOL

The appalachian power hammer, or spring helve hammer, is one of my favorite designs. It reminds me of old style hammers and beam walking engines. I built one a number of years ago, not from the plans, but from the top of my head, and mine is much bigger, almost 7 feet tall. Springs are from a Jeep CJ 5, unrolled ends and are about 48 in long. About a 75lb ram. Its slower than other hammers, about 150 top end right now, but while using other power hammers, I never like to run them up to the 350 rating anyway. You can see it here http://www.frogvalleyforge.com , scroll down to see the hammer and other shop tools. Not shown is our Fairbanks 25#, thats new to us. Anyway, if you are still considering one of these machines because you like the gracefulness of a helve hammer and the ka-chunk ka-chunk of a mechanical you can contact me. Mark