nonjic

this is the 'w' blank I was happy with. took a lot of work to get it to this point. I was hand forging the bevels on and a lil crack appeared on the cutting edge (in line with the pattern). less than a 1/4" but enough to make me think the billets not 100%, so back to staring again. theres 3 types of scrap in here, 'landrover' leaf spring, mild and bi-metal bandsaw blade. After it went tink forging I gave it an 'angle grinder' grind, and an etch to see what could have been! Ill get it next time !!!!!!

looks like youve got to much air going into your burner. try choking it down a bit (it if doesnt have choke plates cover up a bit of the air inlet to the burner with some electrical insulation tape for a couple of heats, just to see if it makes a difference.) the big dents look like you have hammered some scale / crud into the metal. cant really see why annealing / normalising the spike would have the slightest differnece on its level of scaling in the forge (grain size etc after forging yes but no difference once the metal is above critical temp) - if anyone knows better please correct me.

sounds like a lot of horseys for a tiny helve hammer, think it would run on a lot less. Thing is, a 3hp will cost (practically) no more than a 2 horse, so may as well errr on the heavy side.

cheers guys!!! you can see the weld down the middle of the blade, where the pattern does not match up, it runs from the point (tip) of the knife to the guard. Forged a wicked 'w's blank today (in a mr fisk style) so the next one should be intersting!!

or you could tie a piece of paracord to the lanyard, and jig it loose from the crevise and haul it up to you when you reached the next ledge a strong knife is useable for things other than cutting if its the only strong metal object youve got to hand.

doubt there would be much call for them in north yorkshire,..... one of the advantages of relocating! on a side note.... the abuse of bears for chinese " medicines " is one of the few topics that makes me very, very angry. and IMHO anyone who traps large animals for fun using these barbaric devices is scum, & will get a glasgow kiss from me rather than a handshake. (im not suggesting thats what you do / intend to do phil !)

i'ld 3rd a punch press for that one. looks like an aladins cave though whats the dooberry to the left of it??? I can see motor and pully...

Ive bought (well, scrounged) & used Thermal Ceramics wool blanket. Thermal Ceramics - Our Global Network - Locations - shows the global distributors Im sure you can only buy a full roll, so might be worth finding a few people to split it with! the price per sq foot will be very cheap though! edit. hello JJH :)

the 'tyre' hammer design looks very good, and simple. A gentleman called Clay Spencer runs workshops building these for what looks to be a reasonable price. I am sure the plans are available for sale somewhere (I am sure it will 'google')

jk, unless you are an engineering god I would not try to design / make one of these yourself. you can buy a Beche clone (anyang / striker) for less than the materials will cost you to build one from scratch. There are a lot of little subtlties to the design of this seemingly very simple hammer that makes them work. If you dont understand them the hammer will not work properly. ever. If you are looking to make hammers as a commercial enterprise contact me by PM and I may sell you a design & manufacturing drawings for a hammer, depending what your plans are.

looking good donnie! - im with you, the forging is the fun bit, finishing is a chore but ultimatley satisfying...! - ive forged some hammer heads but never an axe / hatchet - might be next on my list (as soon as i get a decent billet of 'W'ues' !)

or..........you could be the only person in china to import a bigblu or an ironkiss :)

thanks dodge! I really cant remember what the metal is, possibly a bandsaw blade and some slices from a machine guard about 1mm thick (im working mostly with scrap whilst learning !) it wouldnt harden properly in oil so ended up dunking it in very cold water, so guess its a bit carbon lacking. it did harden though! its quite a deep etch in ferric chloride, (5:1 solution) - it had about 3 dips of 15 mins, then when it was all finihsed a 2 min dip and rubbed lightly with wet'n'dry paper to take the black of the high layers so the contrast showed a bit better. hope to be able to show somthing good soon, my welding has moved on leaps n bounds since this one was forged december last year, the novelty with this one is I actually finished it :)

ive been playing with patternwelding for a few months now, very on and off. the only knife I ever got round to finishing was a 1" blade for a giveaway competition..... untill now .... I promised a knife to my best mate about a year ago, and eventually have been guilted into finishing it! its a low layer damascus (poss 60 layers ish), with a final weld down the length of the blade. water hardened & tempered. The handle is a hardwood called irroko (irroco?) stained dark, finished with wax - brass pin & guard, nitrile rubber in the spacer stack so its nice & grippy, blades 5" - just needs a final stone dress to sharpen it. Overall im quite happy with it, so.. (drumroll.......) my first proper knife:) in the hand (excuse the fingernails, I made meat from one of my fingers so couldnt clean em...... my excuse and im sticking to it!

I drill a lot without any coolant of any type, no problems (up to 3" dia) . on the radial arm drills we have a squeezy bottle with some soluable coolant in that we squirt at the bit every now and then to cool it off a touch. With correct chuck speeds, and a good solid steady feed pressure you can drill all day without coolant. I do like a proper cutting oil / grease when tapping holes though. 1 broken tap in an important job will cost more than a lifetimes supply of lube!

if your going to the effort of building a frame (and anvil) to hold a jack hammer youve done 95% of the work to make a kinion type hammer (which is almost infinatly more useable), and an air cylinder and some valves are cheaper than a jackhammer. its a no brainer really hydraulic press from a log splitter on the other hand...........

glenn, the squirt of oil you place on the drill can not quench the metal (to do this would require taking the metal from above critical temp, to below in a very short space of time). A cutting oils purpose is to prevent the swarf / cuttings sticking to the cutting tool . This should not be confused with a flood coolant (water souluable oil) which main purpose is to keep the cutting tool cool. (you can use plain water, but everything rusts!) The main problem when drilling carbon steels is running the tool too fast, bad quality tools and poor grind geometry (and insufficent feed pressure when drilling, so the tool rubs instread of cuts) Stainless steels will work harden (one of the metalurgists will know why, I dont :)

crikey... so now the chinese arent just taking the us dollar through a massive trade surplus, their after the small change now for processing and selling it back .... :rolleyes:

ive been useing washing up detergent on a new (grease free!) pot cleaning sponge, rinse very thoroughly then dry it untill its squeaky dry with tissue. Im sure the other ways are better, but sometimes you have to work with what ya got !

German, top hammer. cant really go wrong with them. the design is very simple, and been ripped off many times, (russian, chinese hammers are mostly based on their very simple 'horizontal' valveing). Check the dovetail areas for cracking, same as all used hammers. should be good for working 5" dia bar. if it doesnt make your eyes water when you give it a proper slap it is tired, and will need re-ringing etc, it starts to cost real money then. if its been installed for a while they can be a real sh&t to dig out, the anvil will be less than 1.5 ton, but the 'sticktion' from the the block sealant (tar or whatever) can result in needing 20 / 30 / 50 ton to crack it, or you need to dig right down underneath the anvil to break the seal. If its in the ground at the moment get the current owners to agree to 'load' it for you!!!!

For basic hand hammered damascus Jim Hon......ras DVD (sorry, forgotton his name, sure some kind person will know!) is hard to beat. Its a bit of a 'slow burner' to start with, but covers all the basics very well. Defacing / destroying currency is a crime in the UK - (might be a monarchy thing, dont want to upset the queen, you could end up in the tower of london )

ive had no problems with bi-metal bandsaw blades (about 1 1/4 high) and pallet strap, with either etch contrast of weldability. I use ferric chloride about 5 : 1 with water. You get a better etch if you clean all the black crud off every 15 mins or so. When the forge weld sticks properly it really should become a near homogeous piece of steel, and not delaminate. A good test of your forge welds is to take a stack of say 10 pieces and weld them so youve got a squarish billet, then reheat and forge AGAINST the welds untill you have a wide and thin billet. They should hold fine. (this is the starting point of some interesting damascus patterns).

With damascus (pattern welding) start with as many layers as you can if you want an intersting pattern. Even 'low layer' damascus is 32 / 64 layers. Basically, If you have the correct conditions for the weld to take (heat / atmosphere / flux / pressure etc) then 20 layers will pretty well weld as easily as 4 layers. I have found the errors start to creep in after the 1st weld. If you are welding in a gas forge (the only way ive done it) when you think your billett is ready for the 1st tap on the anvil (or press squeeze!) , take it out, flux it again, and then let it 'soak' for a couple more mins in the forge. Then weld it. Steel isnt a great conductor of heat, so whilst the outside might be at welding heat the middle of the 'stack' might not be. there are some excellent DVD's out on patternwelding (including ED C who posts on here). A couple of $ and hours watching these will save hours or weeks of frustration!

the motion of the ram is vertical, but the connecting rods motion is 'rocking' , prehaps 10 degrees either side of vertical when the press cycles. I think that the missing 'spacer' should be like a shallow 'ball and socket' joint. The missing piece should be made of phosphor bronze. (we call this a pitman knuckle end bearing) this ball and socket arrangement transfers all of the energy of the press to the work, (10 or 15 tons maybee?) - it should be a nicely bedded fit. If it has worn out in the past the old owners may have just removed the piece which is not good. If you make a striaghtforward spacer that has no clearance something will smash when you cycle the press. john.

there should be 2 covers on the other side of the hammer that you can take off, then tap (push) the valves out in the direction of hand levers (ie, when they are out you should be able to see right through the cylinder !) Free the ram with a block and tackle / fork truck / hydraulic jack or similar (ie push it up!) then put some heavy matting on the bottom die, if it starts rouge hammering it will take some of the shock out of it ! - Never sand or shot blast a hammer - 1 little piece of grit will destroy a bore in 30 seconds (and you can never get it all out!)