Jose Gomez

Links to bunches of posts with info about the KA. http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/6975-ka75/ http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/6116-info-on-the-ka-hammer/ http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/7727-ka-75-what-up/

Thats a monster! I think the repairs are some of the best that I've seen. It looks like the side that was welded was done with a torch! Cool find.

Thanks everyone! I like all of the ideas! I already have a Pinwheel and a Spiderweb pattern (I'll dig up a few pictures and post them), Wormhole and Timehole are cool (Now I'll have to forge patterns to mach the names)....Wellllll now.... Fire Tie dye or Forged Tie Dye....This line could be super fun...My head is spinning with cool inspiration! Thanks! Personally I'm feeling either ground Zero Or Supernova are in the lead with me! Keep em coming!

After a long break sponsored by moving into a new house I was finally able to get back into the shop and do some pounding. I had several billets in various stages of completion so I decided to knock out a few of the partially completed bars along with putting together a new pattern. Here's a few shots of the recent bars. This one is a mosaic bar made of 15n20, 1080, and a few nickel welding rods. I call this one Blast pattern. This is yet another mosaic bar forged from 15n20 and o1 that I refer to as shockwave pattern Here's a little critter that I call earthquake pattern. It is a W pattern bar forged from 15n20, 1080, and a few nickel scraps. This is a shot of the bars side by side just for kicks And finally my newest pattern. It is (suprise, suprise) forged from 15n20, 1080, nickel welding rods, and a chainsaw file for the dot in the center. I have not come up with a name for this pattern yet, but I'm sure that someone here can help. So whatcha think???? any suggestions?

You are correct about the spring being way too lose. Your toggle links (the short links that go from the arms that the spring is between to the ram) should be almost in line with each other and the dies should be approximately 3/4 of an inch apart for general forging. I had the same adjustment problem on my 1947 25 pounder and had to braze a 3/8 inch spacer to the adjusting bolt side of the plate that pushes on the spring. I have also seen other people fix this issue by getting a 1/2 to 3/4 inch longer adjuster bolt thereby giving themselves the extra adjustment needed to get proper spring tension and get rid of the "bang tap miss blues" that you are experiencing.

I just got off of the phone with Josh at Big BLU. He was very helpfull and immediatly explained the operating principal of the upgrade. I will be sending him pictures of my 155 so that we can figure out the upgrades needed and then I'll re run the "test" post upgrade. I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes.

Did we scare Mr. Phillips away or is it that there is no real answer to the upgrade question? 8 days with no response leads me to believe that I will have to call BLU directly in order to get any kind of answer to my question.....Hmmmm

I've been sitting by, quietly watching this thread, since Mike and I made the argument to keep it going. I guess that it's time to jump back in. For the guys at BLU... the hammer that I used to perform the test is not 7 or 8 as you guessed. Here is the "Just got my new hammer thread" According to this, the hammer hit my door in January of 2008, and the "Test" was performed by me in June of that same year. The hammer was a mere six months old then, and at the time of this writing the hammer has been in my possession for a month over three years. If one were to scrutinize my post, they would notice that I stated that I *supply* the hammer with full tank preassure (175 PSI) through a 1 inch hose, after which it is regulated to 140 PSI at the hammer. Therefore the hammer is operating on *precisely* what I was told by the manufacturer the hammer required. Furthermore, it is being pushed by a 7.5 HP Ingersoll Rand compressor purchased from BLU. The test was performed with the stroke set to maximum, on factory flat dies with 1/8" radiused edges. the stock was fed into the dies long ways (in order to achieve the required 2"), and according to my pyrometer the metal was sitting at 2350 degrees F. It has already been noted by numerous others that the dies used in the BLU test are closer to gentle drawing dies (As can be seen in video # 1 at 4:22 and again at 6:42) than they are to flat, but they would have me believe that they have made engineering changes to the hammer that afford them enough power to beat one of their own hammers, manufactured only a few years earlier, By .217 inches. This is an honest question... what have you changed on the hammers since I purchaced mine, and if it truely functions this much better, can these engineering changes be retro-fitted onto my hammer? The original purpose of this thread was to figure out if one's hammer is operating at the peak of it's ability, as compared to others of it's type. Which I am being told, by the manufacturer, that mine is not.

Robb Gunter, Chad Gunter, and Brad Gunter.... A whole family of masters that have contributed an immesurable amount to the art of smithing. Moriarty NM http://www.g3blacksmithing.com/index.html Frank Turley... A master who has taught smithing since 1970 and never misses a chance to share what he knows and loves. Chama NM (Frequent IFI contributer) http://www.turleyforge.com/ Ward Brinegar...Santa Fe Blacksmith http://www.harmonyforge.com/index.html Helmut Hillenkamp...In 2007 Helmut Hillenkamp received the Alex Bealer Award, the highest recognition by ABANA (Artists Blacksmiths Association of North America) for his merits on behalf of the craft of blacksmithing. Santa Fe NM http://www.iron-to-live-with.com/index.php Christopher Thompson...Award winning Sculptor, Rowe New Mexico. http://ctiron.com/ Jim Pepperl... Silver city NM Master Smith LeRoy Simmons...Endlessly humble but undoubtedly a master. Mountainaire NM New Mexico has a high concentration of absolutely brilliant and award winning smiths (Including Tom Joyce) and I haven't even touched Arizona or Colorado!

Many large anvils were forged from several large lumps of iron. If the anvil is as old as you think, I would be willing to be that the "casting mark" on the side is actually a seam from a forge weld. Look for faint Manufacturers stampings on the side of it. The cuts on the feet of the anvil are not uncommon, some smiiths used to check the temper of a newly forged tool by striking it against the foot of the anvil. If the tool mushroomed it was too soft, and if it chipped it was too hard. I have a 780 pound Atwood anvil that's feet are covered with tooling scars. The horns on older forged anvils were commonly a little crooked or offset. Nothing to worry about. Neat anvil. Dont let it get away!

Take a peek at Ariat lace-up work boots. They are the only boots that I have found that not only outlasted my Redwings, but were as comfortable, if not more comfortable. I punish my footwear(daily mud, forging, torch cutting,and 3+miles of walking a day) and after almost 2 years (and 7 pairs of laces) am planning on replacing my current Ariats with an identical pair. There not cheap but I have milked every peny back out of them. And sometimes comfort (As has been said before) is worth the .20 cents a day that this great pair of boots cost me.

Welder Inc... 5GPM is not a whole lot. The main issue that your facing is ram speed. In most typical home made forging presses a two stage gear pump is used. In this setup the first stage supplies low pressure high volume (15 or so GPM @ 500 or less PSI). This stage supplies the volume that a moderate sized cylinder capable of providing sufficient forging force needs to move rapidly until the dies contact the workpiece. (4 to 6 inch diameter cylinder developing 24 to 40 tons with 1+ inches per second no load speed). When the dies hit the workpiece the pump shifts to the second stage. In the second stage the average pump will only typically move around 5 GPM at 2000-3000 PSI depending on what the relief valve is set to. Your pump moving 5 GPM maximum will move a small ram at a set speed fast enough for forging, but the problem is that you will end up spending a lot of time waiting for the ram to cycle. The one cool thing about variable displacement piston pumps is that they are capable of moving from near 0 GPM up to there maximum rated output, therefore they are capable of building and *holding* pressures of up to 3000 PSI. In a gear type pump, fluid pressure can not be stored easily due to the fact that the pump must constantly move fluid or they will over heat the fluid and stall the motor driving the pump, therefore most gear pumps idle at about 50 PSI while constantly recycling fluid from, and back to the resivoir. Because of this, you have to wait for a gear pump to build pressure (1-2 seconds). But with a piston pump a system can be charged to 3000 psi and have this pressure immediatly available. Or you can store massive amounts of fluid under pressure (by using an accumulator). This is the direction that I have gone. I am using a 15 GPM variable displacement pump and an 18 gallon accumulator. With this set up I am pushing a 10.25"diameter 18"stroke main cylinder, and a 5.5"diameter 22" stroke fast acting cylinder. The Accumulator should store enough fluid under opperating pressure to allow me to move the ram extremely fast when it is not under load. With the proper sized accumulator you should be able to complete numerous forging operations and have the system recover between forging cycles. The problem is that unless you have found a great place to scrounge it is typically cheaper and easier to set up a two stage gear pump....hope this helps.

Weld Inc, here is more than you ever wanted to know about the PVB 5 pump. vickers pump.pdf Vickerspump2.pdf

Grant, I have a sneaking suspicition that the o might be a Q which would lead me to think you have a 25VQ P2A, Not too terribly sure, the modle number you gave me is not lining up with any of the literature that im finding, but here are a couple of options for the 25V sieries vane pumps, hopefully one is right. http://hydraulics.eaton.com/products/pdfs/i3157s.pdf http://hydraulics.eaton.com/products/pdfs/i3158s.pdf http://www.knighthawksupply.com/vic25Vdwg.htm http://hydraulics.eaton.com/products/pdfs/x509501en0298a.pdf And here is some info for Weld Inc's PVB5RSY20CC11, Looks like yours is a 5 GPM piston pump. http://hydraulics.eaton.com/products/pdfs/i3239s.pdf http://www.knighthawksupply.com/vicpistonpfb5.htm This is all that I have with me here at work, but when I get home I'll put up some more info that I have on flow rate VS pressures for the piston pumps

Im currently building a 100 ton two station forging press using what sounds like the same pump/motor combo. if you post the vickers model number off of the tag on the pump I can tell you what the pumps maximum displacement is (probably 15 GPM). Also I have a bunch of manuals and tuning info for these axial piston pumps that I'll be happy to send you if you give me the pump model.

you can use a small idler wheel on a lever conected by a cabe to the operating lever. If you think of it like a clock, with the lifting strap connected to the hammer head on the 9o clock side, going over the top of the drive wheel (which should be spinning clockwise), put the idler on the 3o clock side of the drive wheel. That way when when you pull the lever the idler will clamp the cloth belt against the large diameter drive wheel thereby lifting the head. you might have to put a counterweight on the loose end of the lifting strap to keep a slight ammount of tension on it in order to keep the lifting strap taught when the head is dropped.....Hope I'm not the only one I make sense to...

That almost sounds like more work than pouring a small slab!

I recently did a pattern welding demonstration at Christopher Thompson Iron works in Rowe New Mexico as part of SWABA's june campout. One of the many perks of doing this demo was getting to run a 500 pound Chambersburg self-contained air hammer, and a 500 pound Chambersburg utility hammer. These videos are of my first heats on the self-contained hammer (Getting a feel for the hammer the day befor the demo with no spectators). It was an unbelievably fun weekend and I remembered one thing... Don't forget to wipe off the oil that collects on the bottom die before forge welding on a power hammer! Good thing I am religious about wearing saftey gear! Thanks to all who attended and to chris and Susan for being such generous hosts. In this one Im knocking down a 1.5 by 3 by 7 inch billet I've never tried to link to a video so I hope that I got this right... We'll see.

I don't have the room for a compressor indoors, nor do I want to listen to one run all day so I parked mine outside in a shipping container. I ran 1 inch 200 PSI jackhammer air hose (available at any industrial supply warehouse)from my compressor (7.5 HP 25 CFH @150PSI) 50 feet to my Big Blu 155 and a KA 75 (with no acumulator tank). I have had no starvation issues at all.

Thanks Mark! I've worked at this for years to be able to forge nicer tools than I could afford to buy. Bob, your right about the radiator in the pic. It was on my workbench waiting for som modifications when I finished the touchmark and I thought it woul be a neat looking backdrop. Monstermetal..... your right! I love pattern welding and thouroughly enjoy building outstansing tools. I can't wipe the smile off of my face every time I get to wail on this chunk of steel. It fills me with pride in craftsmanship and takes me back to 20 years ago when all I had was the desire to make fine things. So, now that I'm capable, I take every opertunity to forge for myself things that I would never be able to buy even if I could find someone capable of making them for me! It is simply for the joy of looking at the finished project, Knowing full and well that I am responsible for every finite detail, and remanicing about the journey that it took to gather the tools, skills, and the know how, to turn my ideas into reality....Blacksmithing rules!!!

The mark it self is simple, just my initials, So I thought I would have fun and try forging the entire thing out of a 320ish layer bar of twist Pattern Welded steel that I whipped up out of some left over chunks of 15n20 and 1080 just for this purpose. It was forged to the hex shape (under the power hammer) and the mark on the end was forged into the tool by driving the spot heated end of it into an impression in another plate of steel (Thus the minor upsett at the end of the tool). The color difference at the end is similar to a hammon, and was caused by my hardening of only the end of the tool, then etching it, then re-polishing it, then tempering it and presreving the temper color. A very fun project indeed!

This is a portable workstation that I built for a Farrier buddy of mine that just rescued a JHM journeyman anvil from a retired Farrier. The stand was constructed in 4 hours entirely from salvaged material collected from the resource pile (except for the 2 large hold down nuts and bolts). It comes complete with a hammer rack, swinging tool tray (with removable tong rack and punch/pritchel holders), and a hook for a water bucket (hung the bucket to keep it in the same place while he is working, and to help add a little easily removable weight to the station).

Nice. Very clean work. I like it!

Thanks for the lead! I'll have to pick up a copy of anvils in america and see if I can figure it out. It would be nice to know a little more.

Thanks!! Maybe some one knows better than I do... I cant figure it out , but the side of it is actualy stamped..... STO EST WARRANT JK I have no clue who this manufacturer is but I can't make it out from the letters that I can read (or at least think I can read). The one thing that I,ve figured out is that it's stone weight is 7 0 2 Or 786 pounds...what a beast!