Jose Gomez

That's rough...you work hard, try to do your best to stay honest, get ahead, then hit a stumbling block like this. There are not a lot of people that understand exactly how bad it stinks to be in your position, but it sounds like you have done all that you can to make it work. I just bought a 7.5 HP Ingersol Rand compressor to push my 155, and now you have me sweating a bit...good luck on getting it back up and running.

No matter what you get it's going to be better than nothing. And once you have one you'll wonder how you did without. good luck, and kep us informed on how things work out!

Always buy the best tool that you can afford. Then, once you have the capability, use it to it's fullest potential to expand what you can offer to the customer. A new tool means new abilities. This means you are capable of tackling a wider group of jobs, and most likely produce a higher quality finished product. So if you do it right, even the most simple machine should at least pay for itself. The trick is to make sure that the tool lasts long enough to not only earn back your original investment, but continue to work long enough to pay for a better replacement. I started 17 years ago with a miller stick welder, and 6 or 7 jobs later managed to earn enough to buy a nice little mig. Now i'm buried in welders, power hammers, and tools. But I Usually have the right tool for the job. That being said, though the price is right you must understand that the machine you are looking at has extremely limited capabilities. Input Power115 Volt - 20 Amp Output Power70 Amps / AC Duty Cycle10% @ 70 Amps / 20% @ 50 Amps Use Rod Size1/16" to 5/64" Welds18 Gauge to 1/8" Steel At it's maximum capacity it can only weld light materials (1/8 or less), and you can only weld for 1 minute out of every 10 minutes if you don't want to over heat it. Make sure that it's plugged into an outlet that has a 20 amp breaker (some outlets are 15 amps) or you won't get much welding done. If this will do what you need then go for it. If not then you might look into this Clarke 131E Arc Welder - 120V, 130 Amp, Model# WE6519 it's a lot more machine for a little more money.

Another purpose of the leaf spring on the top of the rusty/crusty/dusty style helve hammers is to supply a flexible linkage used to couple the drive assembly to the ram. If a rigid bar or beam were used in place of the spring the hammer would only be able to strike at 1 precise measurement. Meaning, without the spring, if one were to attempt to forge on stock that was large enough to prevent the hammer from reaching the bottom of it's stroke the machine would bind up and essentially just clamp down on the work piece. The spring is in place of the rigid bar in order to suppy the drivetrain with a flexible point that allows the hammer's flywheel to complete its revolution without binding entirely. This spring is not necisarry on treadle hammers because the ram is couppled directly to the linkage that is driven straight up and down by the smiths foot, not in a circle like the flywheel of the spring helve hammer. If a rigid link is used on an Appalachian Power Hammer it will not function properly.

Don't forget to attach some feet to the end of the angle iron legs to prevent the legs from being driven into the ground if you are doing a demo on soft soil. It's odd when your anvil keeps getting lower and lower as you work on it!!

Sorry for my delayed response, I let your posts slip by without noticing. Hillbillysmith, I should have said manuals. I gathered the information from several manufacturers

I agree with Mr Richards that a propane forge is much more simple to forge in. I normally throw a billet together, toss it in the forge, bring it up to heat, flux it with straight anhydrous borax, reheat it to welding temp, hold it at temp for a little while to allow the core to catch up with the outside, pull it through the power hammer once gently on each side, wire brush, re-flux, re-heat to welding temp, then back to the power hammer. I always work the billet at welding heat and try to minimize the amount of thermal cycles that I put it through. Scrap materials work well, but I have also grown accustom to using 15-n20, 1084/1095, 5160, and a wide array of metal powders. The one thing that I have learned about making Damascus is clean, clean, and then clean again, spend the extra time in the beginning to grind off any sign of grime, or you will be crying about it when you find the shuts during your final grind. We have all been there. Don

When I said I love my big blu I ment it!

NICE!!!! Congratulations!! They are well built machines, hit hard, and run like a swiss watch. The guys at Big Blu are great to deal with. I don't know what kind of forging you do, but if you didn't already get a pair, I highly recommend the crown dies. They really open new doors. With the QC system swapping dies is a snap, so no more pounding out keys for you. You made a great investment, and you have one heck of a nice shop. Best of luck to you and I'm looking forward to seeing what you kick out with your new hammer!

Moving outside was probably a good idea, especialy with the ton of stinky smoke generated by self-shield wire. If you are going to weld indoors make sure that you have adequate ventilation. Also be aware that self-shield produces tons of sparks that are extremely good at lighting things on fire, and that fire is very dificult to see through a welding hood, which usually gives the fire a pretty good head start.

Not bad for a first effort. The only way to get good at anything is with ample amounts of practice. Here is some light reading about flux cored arc welding for you Flux-cored arc welding - Wikipedia Hope it helps.

Despite the name, this is not a silver alloy at all, but mainly nickel and copper. It has a much higher melting point than genuine silver alloys. On the other hand, nickel silver is stronger than brass filler, often much stronger, and some nickel silvers will work well on some alloys of stainless steel. Nickel silver does make strong, reliable joints. It has a very wide working range, from 1200 F to 1750 F, and a tensile strength of up to 85,000 psi. Uses include Knife parts, decorative items, jewelry, musical instrument valves and components, optical instrument components, fittings for food and dairy equipment, screws, rivets, and slide fasteners. In the referance manual that I have, Soldering of this alloy is rated as "excellent", brazing is rated as "excellent", oxyacetylene welding is rated as "good", gas shielded arc welding is rated as "fair", coated metal arc welding is "not recommended", spot welding is rated as "good", seam welding is rated as "fair", and butt welding is rated as "good".

Due to the high alloy content and hardness of the hardface rod, you usually can put down no more than 2 to 3 layers of weld. This is because the weld metal is designed with an excessive amount of certain alloying elements with the designers knowing that it is to be applied over a much softer metal which will act as a cusion, and will mix in with the hardface overlay. when the hardface is applied it melts and mixes in with a certain ammount of the softer buildup or base metal. this dilutes the deposited hardfacing material to a useable level. If you apply more than 3 passes you loose this dilution, and cushoning provided by the buildup or base metal. Because of this the hardface will tend to become excessively hard and brittle, and will eventually tend to chip off or check badly (spider crack).

Robb Gunter recomends using 3/16 inch stoody 2110 for buildup, and 1/8 inch stoody 1105 for the face. Grind all surfaces to be welded, Preheat the anvil (or whatever chunk of metal you decide to use) to 400-450 degrees. You can put down an unlimited # of layers with the 2110 in order to build up the surface or replace any missing metal. With the 1105 you have to be sure to not exceed 3 layers, so use it sparingly. after welding re heat the anvil to 400 degrees and pack it in vermiculite or wrap it in a welding blanket (anything that will help it to cool verry slowly). Once it has cooled, just grind to shape and your done. Another way to do it is with Rankin hardfacing wire in a MIG welder. You can use Rankin BB-G for buildup, and Rankin DD-G for hardface. You still have to grind the areas to be welded, preheat, and post-heat, but only to 200 degrees. The wire is a ton faster, but you need to have a machine capable of running .045 wire at 250 amps (Big machine). If you are planning on welding on rail road track you really should preheat and post heat (or at a minimum slow cool) the chunk of track no mater what filler metal you chose to use. this will help to prevent the underbead cracking that is common when welding on steels with carbon contents higher than .5%

You will have better luck if you equip your torch with a size 1 tip, set the acetylene at 3 to 5 psi, and run the oxygen pressure at 30 to 35 psi. This is the smallest setup recomended by Victor torch manufacturing for producing a quality cut on the thickness of metal that you are after. Crankin up the O2 to 80 might enable you to blast through the track, but a small cylinder will only last for a blink at those preassures (maybe not even long enough to get the job done)

Man that's HORRIBLE!! There is nothing worse than anxiously awaiting something that you have worked so hard for, only to have it hit your door step (and the inside of the shipping truck, the loading dock, and anything else that the shipper thought would be fun to bash it into) not only slightly damaged but completely unuseable... Bummer. I hope that Northern Tools does what is right and makes good on the deal by replacing the damaged merchandise, even though nothing will make up for the way that you felt when you first found the damage.. Best of luck, and you'll have to let us know how it pans out so that I know where to shop...

True.... It speaks volumes for the type of people that blacksmiths are... that when given the opportunity and a resource like this amazing forum, they will share all of the tricks of the trade, life lessons, and knowledge that they have worked so hard for. Thanks Glenn and everyone else that help to make I forge iron such an amazing resource.

There is also a change in the way that the puddle acts as the temperature of the coils in the machine rise. When mig welding the puddle will tend to become noticeably stiffer and slightly more agitated, increasing the ammount of spatter. The arc will also tend to pop or sputter as the duty cycle is approached or exceeded. with stick welding the arc may tend to "soften" as the machine heats up. This is due to a slight heat associated loss of conductivity in the coils of the typical Transformer-rectifier style machines most welders are used to. Nowdays it is unusual to find a machine that does not have thermal overload protection, but they do exist. Though most machines are capable of functioning beyond their duty cycles these slight changes in performance can significantly impact the soundness of the weld, especialy with mig. MIG is already prone to cold lap, or lack of fusion, and with the additional problems caused by overheating the machine you give yourself a pretty good chance of ensuring it. Additionally, regularly overheating any machine will lead to loss of overall performance. Unfortunately, this loss typically occurs so slowly that it is difficult to measure untill the day that you realize that, "This machine just don't weld like it used ta!" or "All it does is sputter and pop" or "It'll weld good for a second but then it seems ta get a little weaker". The moral of this story is that any time you push the upper limits of any machine the overall performance is reduced and it has a measurable effect on the overall lifespan of the tool. Though it is unavoidable to exceed the duty cycle sometimes (long or large single pass welds) it should be avoided whenever possible. Your finished product will be of higher quality and your equipment will last longer. Happy Welding!

Thanks Finn! I can't even imagine life without a belt grinder anymore.It's taken me a long time to put all of this stuff together, and I am definitly spoiled rotten now. But no matter how many tools you have you allways need more! So I will keep working in order to support my tool habit so that I will have better tools to work with.... It's a vicious circle I tell you... good thing I enjoy it..I think.

Thanks Ted! It has taken me 17 years of metal working to finally get a roof over my tools. I just finished putting the building up last march so I definitly don't take the shop for granted! I sure appreciate everyone noticing the years of thought, planning, and tool acquisition that go into setting up a functional shop; and the excitment that everyone has shared with me in the setup of my new hammer! As always Ted, safety first!

The more that I get to run the air hammer the more I agree with you Fred. It's a hard hitter with great controll. I've been having tons of fun knocking down everything from 3.5" billits to giant leaves from 1" square solid. It's allso been a blast making new tooling to go allong with it. As for the KA-75, Chris, I thought that after I got the Big Blu that I would phase out the "little" KA-75, but thats just not going to happen. I LOVE that little air hammer. The KA acts like a pnumaitc treadle hammer, delivering 1 blow every time that you depress the treadle. This is great anywhere that you would normally wish that you had a striker, like punching holes, hot cutting, flatting, or anywhere else that you can use 1 well placed super hard blow. It to has exelent controll, dosen't take up much room at all, and with a little practice will move metal FAST!! That little KA has earned a special place in my heart and would definitly add to the capabilities of any shop. And rthibeau... I am starting to wonder if there is such a thing as having too many power hammers... if so I think I'm getting there quick..... So about that 50# LG you have for sale.....

Congratulations Hillbillysmith!! I was fortunate enough to compete at the Skills USA nationals in Kansas City MO in both 2001 and 2002, and somehow managed to pull off back to back second place finishes. Now I am a welding technology instructor and Skills USA advisor at the local college here in Las cruces NM. Best of luck to you at your regional competition, keep up the good work, and don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or if I can help you with anything!

Here is a link to the base just over the hill from me that has a solar furnace capable of 5000+ degrees! Makes for some interesting reading. White Sands Missile Range

You can connect your ground to a large C-clamp, and then clamp the ground to the pipe anywhere along it's lenth. Another approach is to use magnetic grounding blocks, But if you do, place the magnet as far away from the weld joint as possible in order to minimize arc blow.

Thanks JV and Pete! I have allways absolutley loved smithing and it has been an interesting adventure learning the art of damascus. It's really nice having this forum to shair the fruits of my labor with others who apreciate the time and effort that go into the things that we create.