space hammer

Best is to core drill holes and grout in posts. Way more sturdy and long lasting.

Hey guys! Lots of good stuff here so far! Many thanks for all the input. We are going in this weekend to clean shop, organize, and kindof inventory our tools and supplies to see what we need. We already sold off a large lathe that we didn't need, and moved around some equipment while we had a forklift handy. I'm going to take some pictures of the shop this weekend to post up. Some cool tools in there, including a 55kg Anyang!

Hey guys! Lots of good stuff here so far! Many thanks for all the input. We are going in this weekend to clean shop, organize, and kindof inventory our tools and supplies to see what we need. We already sold off a large lathe that we didn't need, and moved around some equipment while we had a forklift handy. I'm going to take some pictures of the shop this weekend to post up. Some cool tools in there, including a 55kg Anyang!

Hey guys! Lots of good stuff here so far! Many thanks for all the input. We are going in this weekend to clean shop, organize, and kindof inventory our tools and supplies to see what we need. We already sold off a large lathe that we didn't need, and moved around some equipment while we had a forklift handy. I'm going to take some pictures of the shop this weekend to post up. Some cool tools in there, including a 55kg Anyang!

Hey you guys are on it around here! I'm in Alabama, to start. I also should have mentioned that the new owner will be doing a large part of the legwork in terms of lining up work, keeping the books and paying the bills. We have an accountant handling all of the initial business setup, and we'll be using quickbooks to track the finances. I know that that side of things trips a lot of folks up, but I'm pretty confident in the new owner, he's a fairly business savvy guy who has run his own business for 14 years. Doing the actual fab work will just be myself and the one other guy, with one other helper brought in on larger jobs. I will be responsible for keeping us in materials and supplies, as well as measuring and quoting jobs. Quoting jobs is probably the toughest thing for me. I've gotten pretty good at quoting the smaller jobs, but the larger jobs are trickier. Thanks for the replies, and please keep em coming!

Ok, so I'm soon going to be taking over operations of an architectural iron shop. A little background first: This is the shop where I first started working in metal. I worked for the owner for a while then when the economy went bad, he let both of his employees go. I then went to work for a friend if his who owns an iron furniture store. There I did all the custom work, mostly furniture, gates, fences, etc. For the past two years, I've had a constantly increasing march of projects, these days I always have three or four or five jobs in queue. Then my old boss decided that he didn't want to work for himself and found a regular job. Now my current boss is going to buy the architectural iron shop and put me in charge of it. Working with me will be an older guy who has been in the fab and blacksmithing business for 40 years and has done every sort of iron job imaginable. The shop we are purchasing is fully outfitted. It includes mig and tig welders, tables, an excellent bandsaw, a 55kg self contained power hammer, anvil, gas forges, hammers, tongs, clamps, 14 years worth of jigs and fixtures, and all the other little things you need. To give you an idea of scale, when I worked there we did projects like a $30k rail job, a $45k walkway arbor for a university, and a $60k set of bronze lanterns and sign frame for an historic church. We already have the first job lined up for after the takeover, a $35k interior rail job. So, we are undertakIng quite a lot here. I'm going to be going from overseeing $1000-$2000 jobs to doing jobs ten and twenty times as big. All that said, what kind of advice cab you guys give me? Any tips on workflow and organization? Whatever input y'all can provide, I will be grateful for the help.

Google "Oliver upwind burner" that's a very simple Venturi. Also check out the stupid simple burner on anvilfire's plans page.

I make tabletops from regular zinc sheet. It's very soft and easy to cut with shears. It hammers much like soft copper, but I'm not sure if if work hardens or not, all I ever do is hammer seams flat.

6 hours total time ain't bad, does that include installing the actual screen? That always takes awhile. I get $350 for a simple chop and weld firescreen, so you shoul be able to get twice that for one with forged elements like that. I've found Firescreens to be pretty reliable business for us, as everyone has a different sized fireplace, so it's hard for a customer to just find one that fits.

Yea it is popular now. I recently started making tabletops out of it. Haven't tried soldering it yet tho, I just cut, wrap around a plywood base, and nail it down. You use a plumbers torch? What kind of solder and flux?

How did you form the zinc? Your corners all look very nice

I use mcnichols. All sorts of mesh of various types. Bronze will be quite pricey though!

In the last shop I worked at, we made three $15,000 bronze lanterns for an historic church reno. They needed a UL sticker too, and we simply took them to a light shop that wired them and put on the stickers. This was a very thoroughly by the book job too. Light shop charged maybe 200 bucks or so.

Yar, six inch might now be enough for a fifty poundr, i might need to go up to something like 8". I'm not sure how much it will cost yet, it kinda depends on what kinda mood the steel yard guys are in. You'd be unbelievably lucky to come across an 800 lb chunk of steel of any sort for without shelling a bit of change. Stuff like that is valuable. Yes, UMHW is the slick white plasticy stuff. Its much tougher than normal plastics, and I do believe it is slicker and more wear resistant than bronze.

I'm also in the planning and research stage of a power hammer build. I'm going to build a Appalachian style power hammer with a 1hp rockwell motor. I'm probably gonna try for about a 50 lb ram ( or tup ) and as big of an anvil as I can afford. My local steel yard has hundreds of drops from large stock, and I saw plenty of 30" long or so 6" round that would make a perfect anvil base. I'm sure you can find appropriate stuff at the scrap yard too. RR track is a pretty ubiquitous thing at metal working shops around here. I use a piece as a small anvil, and we've got another piece laying around the shop too. Ask around, I'm sure you can find some. For the ram on mine I plan to use something like 2" solid cold rolled. For the guides I'll probably fabricate a heavy box of something like 1/2 by 3, and use UMHW plates as bearings. I plan on taking lots of pictures of the build and I'll post them up if there's interest.