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And all forged on Massey Hammers! - Chris Massey (a fella Im still in regular touch with) was a serious mountaneer, and did lots of forging development work on the ice axes !

Yup, I play at general smithing, and am quite serious about blade work! Based up in Manchester, there seems to be quite a few folks from the UK on here, Rollcall!!!!! :D

Hey James! good to see you on your trip! (bet you diddnt recon on helping to unload 20,000lb components off a lorry from a self contained hammer did you, and it was supposed to be a vacation! ) Im ashamed to admit ive never been to the V&A, its going on my list now ive seen those photos! Ill try and make it over to see you guys at ABANA one year :D

That sounds a bit scary! at least you didnt do what I do, and dump a full sack of damp coke onto the fire to 'dry out' when you finished for the day Im nearly out of the good stuff, my friends misunderstand me when I say im stuggling to find a good coke dealer in Manchester :huh:

I think that is quite lovely. Its a very 'balanced' piece. The carving is inspiring me to have a go at it! (ive got some scraps of ironwood, and recently bought a little 'dremmel' grinder with a flexy shaft, which will allow me to make some dust The steel almost has a 'wrought iron' look to it which I like with the blend of high and low layers :)

Hi! So long as the control valves rotate when you depress the footlever it does not matter what the linkage from the treadle to the bottom valve boss looks like! If you 'dog leg' it a bit to give you more clearance working long bars it will be fine. Post up some photos so we can see your setup, and I will be happy to do you a couple of sketchs as suggestions, Best Regards, John (UK Anyang distributor)

if you just use the cement it will take forever to heat up, and the outside of the forge will end up extremely hot! You perhaps need to read up on heat treating a little more. You are confusing some of the basic terms. Tempering is the last bit of the heat treat process, heating to about 200C after you have quenched, to 'relax' the steel. You can put clay on the back of the blade before you quench it, this leaves the back of the knife soft steel. you still need to temper it after quenching. Your photo is to big to see! perhaps re-size it - I would smooth the blade out before you heat treat it, its 10x easier when the steel is still soft! Look forward to seeing it finished!

Thought you might be interested to see this one. Its the first time ive made a knife 'stock removal' I had a piece of O1 left over from a job at work and wanted to make a knife that would be handy in the Kitchen, but you could put it to heavier use around the camp site if needs be! Its from 4mm stock, full flat grind and canvas micarta scales over red liners. Stainless pins. Its getting quite a bit of use in the kitchen and cuts well (convex secondary bevel) - Im going to refine the edge when my DMT diamond hones arrive, it will slice thin paper, and just about shave hair, but I know I should be able to get it sharper! I really made it for a bit of grinding practice! - Ive got a multibar sword to grind and need to get my brain & hands calibrated with each other! It sure was nice grinding a piece that wasnt a scale ridden fluxy lump!, I made a very similar knife in feather damascus last year and made a template then which I used for this one. edit, blades about 6.5" long!

From speaking to other (much more experienced!) makers the best way to fit the guard is a couple of hidden pins between handle and guard, and a couple of blobs of superglue. Then shape the handle and guard as one piece. When its all 'finish' sanded tap the guard off the handle and etch (dont forget to drip some wax, or put a bit of bondo into the slot to stop it etching bigger!) You can then re-assemble the now etched guard back onto the handle block in exactly the right place with the hidden pins & a very thin wipe of epoxy (remember you cant sand excess glue off afterwards!) I cut a corner and shaped the guard / handle just held together with superglue, no pins. When I glued it back together is slipped, only by 0.010" or so, but looked awfull, hence needing to sand it all back in line again! live and learn. I am quite pleased with the knife in general, but I know it could have been lots better ! :)

Thanks for the nice words everyone! Im just not happy with the guard as it is looked stunning etched up (a section of 3 bar, wrought iron & steel twisted damascus), now it just looks dull and grey! Hidden pins on the next one to allow accurate assembly (I cut a corner on this one and paid the price!)

Finished this one up over the weekend, and thought I would share! The blades about 4", very low layer 15n20 / 1080, forged from a scrap of twisted bar (the 'handle end!')finished the blade about a year ago, but only just matched it to this piece of wood! The guard is tricky patternwelded wrought iron, but due to an assembly error had to be sanded flat so just looks rubbish! Im reasonably pleased with how it turned out, but theres some room for improvment 'crisping' the lines of the knife up,. All comments welcome!

As mentioned I would check rings, seals & valve clearances, then valve settings, then top tool weight (sometimes on a low pressure 'hold up' (the return after the forging blow when it pumps back up to the top a bit of extra weight can be the 'straw that breaks the camels back) I would then look closely at the valves and see if there is any 'tuning' holes that could be plugged, or drilled out. There may be a compensating plug / hole on the compressor piston that can be plugged up (self containds always make more air than they need when new, and some of it is bled off to atmosphere) If the hammer is pretty worn all over I would consider drilling a hole in the ram cylinder near the ram guide and piping a couple of PSI in there from an extrenal compressor to aid the lift, or a direct air feed from the compressor piston. Im not familiar with the hammer design so cant comment on specifics, hope the ideas above are a starting point. I would have a guess that some new piston rings, and repacking the ram gland will be enough........

Depends on your budget. If you can afford good quality steel from a reputable supplier go for it! Then its just learning techneque, forging the tip, tang bevels etc! If you dont want to learn on more expensive materials try and find an old truck coil spring. You can cut 6" sections from it (Zip disk in a 4 1/2 grinder will make short work of it), straighten and forge flat, then onto tips, tangs & bevels. Advantage of a big spring is you will have quite a bit of the same material which means you can play around with the heat treatment etc and compare results, which isnt the case if you start forging old files and suchlike (which are another favourite source of good knife steel) Have fun!

I speak to lots of blacksmiths in the UK on a daily basis, and most working in the 'mid range' have said their forward order books arent so healthy, but there is work there. The 'big' shops doing the very high end work have still got 6 - 12 months work on the books. I spoke to a few people in '09 who were looking at making their sole income from smithing (well smithing and fabricating ironwork, you know what I mean....) as 'card in' employment is sketchy at best at the moment. I saw a very slow few months with power hammer sales last year, but I think many people (and the media) were talking the recession 'up', sales are right back up again now, the same rules apply with smithing as all businesses, make yourself more efficent! Ive also notice general levels of activity (enquiries, and orders) are on the up on the industrial forging side of my business. Hopefully we have seen the worst of it now.

Fire cement is good, but it does not really matter what type of clay you use, all you are doing is slowing the cooling on the clayed portion of the blade, so as long as it stays put for the first few seconds of quench it has done its job in that respect. From my very limited understanding of the 'hamon' I think that use of the correct steels (simple, shallow hardening ones 'w' series preferably) and correct thermal cycling, and temperature control are much more important that the composition of the 'jacket' on the back of the blade. I can see that im going to become a bit addicted to differential hardening of blades this year, whilst you dont get the instant 'bang for your buck' that patternwelding gives I feel that it many ways it shows greater understanding and knowledge of steel. (and ive got a bit of the 'good' american W2 on its way to me from a bladesmith in london, and a week long sword forging course with Howard Clark this year :D )

for the minature I just used pre mixed fire cement (putty like consistency)! (its sold as XL fire cement in the UK, its used for patching domestic fireplaces, available from all good DIY stores! ) worked lovely, just not very traditional edit, linky to product, great for patching gas forge linings after to much flux aswell! http://www.plumbworld.co.uk/xl-fire-cement-2kg-172-241?CAWELAID=205022606

Im a little ashamed to say I dont know the composition of the clay I used on this one, A local (and massivly skilled) bladesmith who specialises in traditional Japanese work (tamahagne etc) left it for me after a days forging (he taught me the basics of clay, charcoal & water quench, which ive always struggled with blades cracking in the past) The annoying thing with this piece is its a very striking, but photo shy hamon! Ill try the 'black card' trick next time I get the light tent set up! This knife is going into a 'KITH' (knife in the hat) competition on British Blades Forum,.

no !, the one I posted before was a minature, this is a full size one! , I'd been meaning to make this big one for a while (need the hammer control practice!) Ill try and get some photos in the hand (its a big knife!) Heres a picture of the big un normalising on the side of the forge,. (gives a better sense of scale!) and heres a pic of the minature I based it on,. I think there might be a couple more of these in me over the next few months, they are light relief from the more technical stuff im working on, and I like the contrast of very 'finished' blades against forged handles. Ive got a couple of ideas for different handle ' styles' ive not seen before ;)

Finished this one up about a week ago, It is forged from an old file, I clay backed it to give the hamon, (that does not show very well in the pics!) The blade is about 6" long, full flat ground with 1200 hand rubbed finish . All comments / questions welcome! (mods, I can not get the gallery to upload the pics so ive hotlinked them from photobucket. Pls delete the thread if this is not acceptable!)

The Massey hammers use a very complicated vertical valve, which gives a fully variable single blow. Its an object of joy to use as the ram moves in exact proportion to the handlever at any speed (including dead stop at any point in the stroke). Kind of like a hydraulic ram! It does this by channeling some of the air from the compressor piston into an internal resovior. Im not aware of 'high pressure' or 'low pressure' operating designs on self contined hammers. The HP differences must be down to the different valves. The 75kg (165lb) anyang uses 10 hp. 55kg Massey 7 hp. Dont know why the sahindler is so high??? Whats the ram weight on a '3B'?

Sounds like your well and truely on the right track with the air circuits etc. I am afraid I cant offer any advice on them as I know squat about them (that style of hammer is very rare on this side of the pond,) On the guides I would back them off a bit and move the ram through its travel by hand (or fork truck, you know what I mean) - check its moving 'square' to the guides, ie nothing bent or damaged. I would then set the guides against the tup with some 0.010" shims in to start with and try again. Try some molly grease on the guides. Check the slides havent worn more at the bottom of the stroke than the top,. If they have is there anyway of turning them over (top to bottom)? The slides want to be parallel, or a slight 'toe out' at the top. I think if they are worn I would be tempted to put some phozzy bronze one in as replacements. Some pics of the hammer might help I.D the problem a little more accuratly.

Ive moved lots of hammers. Just take it steady. The way to shift heavy stuff is to get the crane hook over what you percive the 'balance' point of the machine to be, then rig down from there. On the nazel the simplest way will probably be a strap under the chin of the hammer (behind the ram) with a bite on the sling at the back of the compressor piston. It does look rather 'ar$e' heavy, so it might be worth taking a small (1 ton) chain block (block and tackle) to attach one end to the crane hook, and the other end somewhere near the motor, you can just level it when the lift starts. Your major PITA on this one will be getting the block out of the ground. If thats been installed properly there will be timber wedges between the anvil, and the concrete. These swell and are near impossible to shift sometimes. Ive spend days on one anvil, and had to resort to breaking the concrete with a JCB to get the dang thing loose. This is my trade secret tip....... if its got timber wedges holding the block in. Get the biggest coach bolts you can find, and weld big washers onto the top of them. This gives you a 'self tapping' eye bolt (drill the smallest pilot hole you can get away with). You can then use the crane to rip the wedges out. Put a blanket or something over the top when you start to pull, coz if the bolt rips out it will fire off vertically. It aint pretty, and is never going to pass a risk assesment but gets the job done! If they have poured tar or rubber round the wedges you can torch the whole lot to soften it up. Make sure the fire is out before you lift the block (I got this wrong once, and nearly burnt a factory down!, an whole different story......) If they have sealed the block in youve got to break the seal under the block before it will lift. Think welly boot (or do you guys call them 'gum boots' ????) stuck in mud. Have fun anhoo, any questions fire away!

Nice looking piece of kit! - Good buy Franky, you will only get one shot at setting the working height of the bottom die when you install it (lotsa old hammers are designed to be to low for the kind of work we use them for) when no ones looking get a piece of stock of the size you think youll be putting a lot of through the hammer and 'pretend' to forge it for 10 or 15 mins on blocks of different heights, you back will let you know when its right! hopefully we might see that one running on the telly one day? edited to add,. good luck to the guy whos been forced to sell, sounds like theres a sad background story.

Hello Demid, Welcome to the site! I like you steel, If I did not have to work for a living I would spend all my time making mosaic patterns, they are such fun. Look forward to seeing more of your work, do you have photos of some blades you have made? (I always think the steel looks better in this context!) That is a 'brave' sized billet to weld up for a public demonstration! I would worry about getting the whole thing hot when its that size in someone elses forge !!! What did you think of the 25kg anyang hammer? (it looks Like one of Mr Angele's in that colour )

oooooh, your welding the stainless cable in with the spring aswell?? that takes some hocus pocus ive not ever thought of trying yet....