nonjic

Air hammers can get very hot when they run for a while, its the friction of the piston rings inside, and the air.

wont hurt it beth, but it will get annoying very fast! (sorry never replyed to your email, Ill sort it monday! - things bit hectic at the mo!)

You need all of the paperwork to clear customs. They should have sent you a fax copy of the Bills of Lading to prove the goods had left china, this then gives you 3 weeks or so whilst the slow boat is sailing, to pay, receive the Original Docs from the exporter(which are in essence ownership of the goods), and arrange to pay your import charges, Tax, port charges & organise transport etc etc etc. You can specify your own shipping agent to clear it all through for you. I hope you dont get hit with to much demurrage for the time the goods are sat in a warehouse dockside!

This is my first one im working on, its a low layer of twisted Wrought iron mixed with file, in a 'San-Mai' construction over another piece of file. (Its just very rough ground in the pics wating for heat treat) I only decided it was going to be a seax once I was forging, so as a result ive ended up with a shape thats kind of in the middle of 'broken back', and the (for me) more elegent long seax. I have left the blade a bit deep so im unsure as to the transition between blade and handle now. Wish I had done a bit more research before starting!

make him one out of silver steel (W1), looks really nice welded up with wrought iron ;)

looks good! - nice welding. I would radius that sharp looking corner a bit more. You have got a stress raiser there at the transistion between blade and ricasso. The other think I would do (but its a personal thing, nothing wrong with how you have got it) is to alter the profile of the blade slightly. I would drop the tip 1/3rd of the top of the blade by a couple off mm's towards the point. That way the blade will balance with the drop off at the end of the handle. If you look at the knives made by the pro's 99% of the time the top of the blade and handle follow a smooth arc. Hope this helps a bit! look forward to seeing it finished. good luck with the heat treat :D

I think I would just use it for a few hours, and see if the out of alignment issue actually effects the work from the machine!

Hi Michael, All I can think of is to try and make your politicians aware all the good work being done at Hereford, and play on natonal pride. It may pay to contact some of the 'wealthy' large home owners (which all have lots of traditional ironwork, probably needing restoration) and put a case to them, who are likely to be in contact with the politicians and decision makers. I know that a very famous, very wealthy irish race horse owner recently commisioned from england....... If you want to go the 'college' route I think you will have to affiliate with another college, simply to spread the massive administrative burden of running such a place. If it is a full time college the running costs will be huge (a couple of lecturers minimum on

Just to confuse things I often weld on a small stub (say 3/4" sq x 2" long) and hold onto that with the tongs! :D

thats why shes called 'JayCee' as in jcb...... and myloh, told you I was jealous of your hammer on the phone last week, now ive got the same one! :D

gotcha greg! but a plumber always has leaky taps.... this might be of interest to your mate, its the anvil block for my 2 Cwt. Someone has bolted some 'wings' to it for handling, and welded an extra block to the bottom tool, but it gives the idea!

Greg, remind your friend that he can 'drop the suffing box' on the hammer, and turn the ram so its at 45degress to the frame, it makes it much easier to work long bars through the machine. Make sure he sets the anvil to suit :D

Just as a coincidence I just bought the identical hammer for myself today (for myself = mine!, not for resale, ive been looking for one for a while) ! stole it from ebay, the guy had mis-described it (diddnt use a single key word a blacksmith would use in a search, called it a stamp!) Ive paid not much more than scrap price and it looks a good un! (not as nice as the canadian machine but that condition is extremly rare) Here she is, 'Jaycee'

thanks for the nice words everyone! The 10" version of this one is on hold for a bit, I just discovered the joy of anglo saxon esk historical pieces! Im working on a nice (ish) seax now, and since ive started researching Ive realised what the ancestors were capable of doing patternwelding wise (makes most of us look like a bunch of incompetents ! ) Think Im gonna enjoy this challenge !

Size 2 cwt , Weight of falling parts 245lbs, blow energy 200 KgM Glad to have been some help with it Gregory, dont get to much hammer envy now! (I was already on it Philip!)

that might be a very, very good idea :cool: (now why diddnt I think of it ) Ill have a look at an arrangement drawing and see if there is any reason not to do it

The blade was 1 1/2" longer before I tried to straighten it a little to much immediatly after quench! It was going to be a 'cutting competition' knife (10" blade x 5" handle x 2" deep) Im going to do another one similar (but try not to snap it in heat treat this time!) but I will go for 3/8" thick at the spine, instead of the 1/4" this one is!!) - the 2 x 4 timbers wont stand a chance :D

Your steel looks really good and your well and truely on the right track! (gonna be sweet little knives! I tried the twist it all at once method and could not get any consistancy at all (and twisted a couple clean in half). That why i started to do it bit at a time. It takes longer, but if youve got 10 hours work in a piece whats another 1/2 hour? Dont be afraid to try getting your twists even on some mild steel before you try again on a nice piece of damascus! Your work will come on in leaps and bounds now youve got the fundimentals sussed (and twising is hard on a billet, good test of your welding!) Ill take a couple of pics of the first piece I tried to twist, youve never seen a more scrappy piece of steel!

This is my 5th knife finished (I do handles occasionally!) its 8 1/2" blade 20c & 15n20 with G10 scales, stainless pins & front & aft lanyard tubes turned in the lathe,. 250 ish layers, a random / dogstar pattern

I clamp the bar in the vice, and twist an inch or two at a time (ie 1 - 2" per heat) I then clamp the portion ive twisted in the vice and go at the next inch or two on the next heat. You can then go back and even it up when the whole bar is twisted with a small pair of stilsons (pipe wrench) Allways twist at a full welding heat, never be tempted to give it an extra half turn when the temps dropped a bit! this is my best twisty piece to date,. you just have to go steady with it

Ill do a sketch of a mufler or baffle next week, and if the gallery is fixed post it up here for you James.

you can attach the baffle plate to one of the back 'holding down' bolts. Im sure if you were a semi competent tin basher you could make a mufler for it (it would have to start narrow to clear the flywheel on the back of the machine. Anyang & Striker (branded Striker in the west, but actually Shanxi No.5 hammer factory), Same basic design of hammer (the 'C-41') different factories. Both factories originally set up by chinese ministry of machine building IIRC. The photos of industrial wasteland remind me of photos of Birmingham & Sheffield 100 years ago. Sad.

you can just fit a baffle about 1/2" away from the port behind the flywheel. 1/8" plate with some holes drilled through would suffice. If its the same as the anyang there is a void under the anvil cap. You could pour molten lead in (I know, toxic, all safety precautions apply). to take some of the 'ring' out of the blow. If you dont fancy the lead idea try filling it with some bitchumen (roofers tar)

Someones going to be very happy with that.

bi metal blades weld up lovely. I knock the teeth off them with an angle grinder (wear resp. protection!) My saw takes 10'6 x 1.25" M42 bi-metal and they allways get welded into a billet when they are changed!