Geoff

That is an excellent tutorial thank you very much.

I use LibreCAD not for major design work as I am a hobbiest. It does help when designing tools (belt grinder) to get clearances and relative positioning correct. fairly easy to learn.

I think this is what I would put down. Hobby smith for 5 years. Hearing protection Eye protection Gloves Workshop Cross pein Hammer Gas forge Anvil Anvil stand Chisels tongs Steel Bucket medium size bolt cutters tool stand smithing magician post leg vice grinder drill press treadle hammer more hammers more tongs more chisels Variety of stock to work from angle grinder welder cut off saw or horizontal band saw Steel work table Geoff

I have built two hammers. One a rusty and the other a treadle hammer. Due to life I only have the treadle hammer at the moment. Stick welder and care, and both are very solid. Make your design as simple as possible and the welds as easy as possible. I am not a certified welder. Taught myself mostly with some tips and hints from mates. I only have an ivnerter stick welder and used that and slightly damps rods. Care and going over welds will give you more than enough strength. Make sure you don't leave slag rather grind off the weld and redo it. IMHO If it looks really bad it most likely is a bad weld, rather redo it. I think many homebuilt hammers are made from good quality steel that is not brittle like cast and so have a much higher safety factor than many people give them credit for. Just for interest has anyone here had a failure of a home built hammer that completely ruined the hammer and caused serious injury. If so please give the details so that we can learn.

Thanks for the warning about heat treating. I had thought about it but wanted to try the hammer out before I rehandled etc. I also want to make sure that I do end up with something softer than the anvil hammers are easier to redress than anvils. Especially when they cost you nothing.

Firstly, thank you all for the recommendations and discussion. Here is what I started with. Here is what I ended up with, straight peen. It weighs in at about 3 1/2 pounds I guess. I still need to polish it up some more. The only flap disk that I have is 40 grit, and no matter how light I went at it I could not get a nice smooth polish to it. I do need to rework the handle as well. Tomorrow, life willing, I'll get to play with it. I am very happy with how it turned out. I also have two nice pieces of steel to make two new hammers when I manage to get there.

Thank you all for the helpful comments. I'll digest this for a while and let you know what I do and how it goes. Geoff PS This is a great place to bounce ignorance off people who have a huge amount of experience and learn a lot. Not being near any experienced smiths, this forum has been incredibly valuable for my hobby. Thank you all once again.

Hello I am looking for collective wisdom and experience. I am wanting to modify a hammer I use infrequently as it is about 7 pounds, to some some thing more manageable. I was thinking of remaking it into about 2-3 pounds. But I need to decide do I make it into a cross peen or straight peen hammer. So please tell me what you prefer so that I can decide. At the moment I am tending towards a cross peen as I think I will use it for sreading stuff more than drawing out. But as I am a beginnner I think it is better to ask for advice. Thanks, Geoff PS is it spelt peen or pein?

I have done some more mods on my treadle hammer conversion to inline. I also decided as it is the heaviest piece of equipment I have to attach my post leg vice to it. I like the result. The 'new' treadle hammer is far better. It seems to have more whip and is nicer to use. It doesn't look pretty and neither does the post leg vice. I have to refurbish the post leg vice but that will have to be another day and I can use it like it is, which I could not do without it attached somewhere.

My problem with most of these ideas is the problem with grabbing the hot end as the handle dangles down. Has anyone a suggestion or good idea that they are willing to share. I do understand that this may allow certain persons to accumulate far more than the excess they already have but the rest of us will just make our own. I would also like to add for us who do have to utilise space carefully how do you make it mobile. I have one simple stand that uses the bottom of a office chair that works well but the storage part leave a lot to be desired. Good thing this thread as it makes me think about it some more. Geoff Warragul Australia

Thanks. I could not remember where but I did look at metalwebnews and found some ideas there that I used in my bender. I think I also looked at some plans for the Hossfeld (sp?).

Sorry for the delayed response, just a busy life. It took me a long while to get my head around this bender. What helped a lot is watching some online video. I can't even remember where I found them. Hopefully the pictures below will help explain how it works. The 3 pictures below show how it is used to bend curves. I used a small die as that was what was handy. First pic the the bender setup to do a bend from the back, second from the front and the third the bend half way. I left it like that. I next did a sharp bend similar sequence, back then front prior to bending and back then front after the bend. If you would like more info please ask. I am not an expert but I'll try and answer from my experience. Basic info. 10x40mm flat bar for the arms. holes are 5/8" spaced 25mm. I should have spaced them wider or made them smaller. 54mm between the inner arms and the outer arms have about 1mm clearance from the inner arms. I am thinking of building a smaller one as this one will not do hinges. But I may build something more suited to that. Then there is the scroll attachment.

I always thought that the fuller was to make the blade lighter and yet still give strength. Sort of like an I beam. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Hi Bob, Yes please do send some pictures they will be very helpful. Geoff

Thanks for the kind words. I never thought of the obvious. I'll try that next time I use it. Pushing into the wall should help. Yes I am planning on making more tooling. I want to make a scrolling jig as well. That may be a bit more of a challenge.

I am almost finished making my bender. Not too pretty but it works. I could not find something that I could afford locally. The arms are 40 mm x 10 mm flat bar. The holes are 5/8" and the bolts are 6" long. The large round die is a cut off from a piece of a pump. The small round dies is 7/8" The square is approximately 2' cube welded together. The examples are mostly 8 mm rebar. The two flat examples are 1/8' x 1 3/8" and 5 mm x 30 mm. The 5 x 30 was a challenge to bend as I had the bender clamped in my vice and the bench was moving. I am going to have to think about how to mount the bender. I am in a rental home so I cannot drill holes in the floor. Next year when my own place is built then I can.

Made a small pair of tongs today. Used http://www.anvilfire.com/iForge/tutor/hm_tongs/index.htm as the starting idea. I used 8mmx10mm stock cut a piece off and welded it to the reign. I used high amps so that I got good penetration. Then I forged to shape, drilled and riveted. Lightweight tongs for helping making rose buds.

Not the best pictures but here is the rebuilt treadle hammer. I did a bit of forging with it today. It works pretty well. There is 8 mm total variation from absolute linearity. A lot better than the standard Gade Marx that I had. I don't have quite as much vertical movement as I had hoped and I struggled to get the springs tuned. I may have to make some changes to improve it. Here is a closer picture of the linkages. Thanks for looking.

Well I finally got a chance to play with the magician and here is the result. I used it for necking down my first rose bud. Got all soppy when I gave it to my wife. Told her "Here is a rose that will never wilt just like my love for you." My wife says the photograph doesn't do it justice. The how to is here http://www.anvilfire.com/iForge/ go down to number 40 Rose Bud by bill Epps. Very easy to do and looks good.

Here is a picture of the guillotine tool and the fuller that I made for it. Now I have to decide what other tooling I am going to make. Cut off tool and side set? tennon tool, swages round and square. Some picture of what others have made will help and comments of what they use the most.

I am planning building a smithing magician. Can people who have done so please inform me of what tooling they find the most useful. I have in my scrap bin four pieces of 1/2" by 2" plate about 5" long that I was going to use for tools/dies. My options at the moment are fuller, tennon, and I am not sure. Please tell me what you use and what you have made. Thanks, Geoff

They are sold in Germany as well. So I guess they are made there or nearby. If they are not hard enough then it is possible to reharden. Geoff

I am in Warragul, Gippsland, Victoria. About 100km East of Melbourne. Yes I also like squat. I foudn out I need to improve my hammer control. I made a small ding in the anvil Really annoyed with myself. I guess I have to accept it will not always look brand new. :)

I have no idea who the manufacturer is. Could be produced locally in Australia. It is squat but that gives a wider face for the mass that I have. My wife says it looks like a boat not like a real anvil. The ring is well under control now that I have spikes holding it down. Without them it was loud. The 'stump' is hollow. Only 3 sides actually. I left the other side open so that I have access to the hardy hole from the bottom. If something gets stuck I don't want to have to pull the spikes to be able to whack it from the bottom. The height is just above knuckle dragging height. I like it that little bit higher. I found that recommended height was a little lower than I felt comfortable. I think I am about mid palm to wrist height. I do knives and small stuff so the height does not tire my arm out. Thanks for the link to radiusing on anvil fire I'll check that out. Any other advice will be listened to but not always taken. :)

Thanks for the advice Monstermetal. I did a fair bit of searching last night to try and decide hwo to dress the edges. I read somewhere on IFI that I should just break the edge and then use it for a while. It is easier to take more off than try and put some back on. I will eventually radius one edge or part of both. Geoff