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I Forge Iron

nonjic

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Everything posted by nonjic

  1. They are not for scrap ! most are sold and awating refurbishment :D Mooney, stayed away from the auzzy 2500 ton press. A gamble to much for me at the current time, and ive not got enough chips to play at that table! (and more to do closer to home than hours in a day!) Im very impressed you have got so many hammers !
  2. The 'mod' 3 is staying in the UK, The 1 cwt Masseys were called a 'with slides' hammer, and whilst they have 'clear space' around the die area are not a 'clear space' hammer.... Phil, In the first pic the cream one is a 3cwt. Then its 2 x 20's ,the 2 cwt, a ten, a fifteen, then a tiny glimpse of a 5 cwt, with another 10 cwt out in the bay. So close but no cigar :)
  3. Shes a 2 cwt, thats the smallest size of 'Clear Space' hammer that was made. Bought this one from ebay about six or 8 months ago.
  4. I think the collective for a group of hammers is a 'battery' managed to get the photo last week in my shed!
  5. If you are really quiet in the factory, when every one else has gone home, and stay upwind you sometimes catch a glimpse of one...... I managed to sneak a bit closer, camera in hand...... they rarely stray far from their battle scarred parents. I managed to get this snap of her out in the open she looks like a two, the smallest of the breed... A good feed and water over the coming months and Im sure she will stay, Ill update with her progress when time allows :P :D
  6. I *think* they rotate so if you drop somthing between the gear and pinion from the top it will be thrown out , not pulled through.
  7. Found one of your cards at work the other day Ric ! guess I must have stood still to long :) Seems a bit odd in this day and age not to have, as a minimum, a page with your contact details, and a few pics of your work to direct potential customers to.
  8. cool looking hammer, to my eye the spring looks very strong realtive to the eccentric pin on the plate. It might be worth considering sliding a boss over the pin, and welding it to the backing plate, so you have less unsupported pin sticking out.
  9. Ive been taught the basics by Howard on a week long course a couple of years ago. Hes forgotten more about it than many will know ! Sunk a couple of ales with him and hes a lovely guy, if a bit of soul goes into each blade, as I suspect it might, I would be proud to own a blade by him. Dr Jim has literally written the books on bladesmithing, we have never met but he has taught me a lot. Again, a blade from this maker would be an honour.
  10. Hi Phil, I agree the die shape is far from optimal. It looks even stranger on the big hammers made in china ! ( 20 cwt's with dies that look about 8" front to back) I have made a few sets of 'wide dies' for them, and was going to introduce it as standard on the hammers I was selling, but there was never enough hours in the day to implement it. It got to the point there was not enough hours to sell imported hammers at all ! Heres a 75 kg I did with wide dies. These are about as big as you can go before you have to snick the corners off the top block (ie, make it loosely octagonal) Sorry for poor quality of video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MArnpt7eC1w
  11. :( shame. dont be disheartened, stick with it !
  12. Grant - still missing your wisdom mate.... For the day job, good enough is to customer spec, does not need to be better than that if I want to pay the rent! Does not stop me from machining a part with a nominal +/- 0.020 tollerance, and trying to hit dead size, with the same feeds and speeds so there is no time penalty though :D Good enough is a moving target in my bladesmithing. I have very high standards, unfortunatly just not the skill set to meet them ! there is allways a point where a piece starts to 'go west' , I now resist the urge to just sling stuff in the scrap pile, and finish it up - take the improvements onto the next one. The journey on the pursuit of excellence has to have mediocracy as many of its steps. Untill my hands are capable of creating what my mind sees I just have to keep taking the small 'good enough' steps, and allow myself a smile at the bits that have improved. Somtimes looking back at the progression of past works gives confidence that the moving target is one day achievable.
  13. 4th portion down is missing its central band altogether ! (should have 3 bands on it) Not sure off the top of my head what the missing band does ! Ill have a look at my 'slider' model when I get chance which might give me a clue. It must have got broken at some point, and instead of repairing it they have removed it. I would get it running and see what it does, or doesnt do :D
  14. It might keep the internal deformation (grain flow, and percentage reduction from each side) of the bar more even. Just a guess. I can also see it reducing the possibility of 'fishlipping' the faces you are working (in exageration, a flat bar could look like an ' I ' beam if constantly worked on one face) sure look cool. Sadly I just end up with a mess when I do it ! I shot this quick vid at one of my customers factories, its a titanium alloy hip joint preform. I think you get the moves and make it look easy if you do it 8 hours a day :D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euV2pc7CPdM
  15. Somthing very odd about the valve, be interesting to see how it operates !
  16. The 33# anyangs I sold in the UK required 1ph , 240v 2.2 kw (3 hp) I can easily draw the end of a 1" sq bar into a 6" long taper , down to a point, in one heat, in a very timely fashion. I have kept a 33lb anyang for myself, even though I dont sell them anymore. Ive had my one 5yrs+. Its faster than my 2cwt Massey for small tapering and pointing work due to the increased frequency of blow. I dont 'have a horse in the race' anymore , but have kept a 33# anyang in the stable. It wouldnt be there if it diddnt work. Lots of hammers pass through my shop :D
  17. couple (ok, 3..) reasons I heat treated before grinding, - I tried the other way round, and grinding soft thin steel to a near zero edge is very tricky, pressure against the platten bends it! - Grind before heat treat resulted in banana blades, - Grinding before heat treat left a blade that was so thin you could see the 'colour' fall away from it on the way from forge to quench, (even with the quench 2' away from the forge) , I use a thermocouple to get the blank to just the right temp, so no margin for cooling between forge and quench. Im sure the edge would be below austentising temp when it hits the oil. (im sure funky temperature gradients in the blade when it hits the oil contributes to the banana effect!)
  18. I would expect to see more contrast with the 15n20 at that stage of a billet, after etch. Are the thin lines in the top pic the 'interweld' layers ? (ie the funny decarb / flux lines?) Just to note that I have not actually welded with 1095 (usually used 20C) - but im guessing it should be similar in contrast. Like others have said, try heat treating a bit, etch, and make sure the scuz is well cleaned off before making a deffinate call on it ! Neat looking welding by the way :D
  19. The blade is from a piece of sawmill bandsaw blade (its not 15n20, ive welded some of this particular blade up in the past and it etchs dark, possibly manganese content ?) I cobbed out the profile, normalised once from a bit shy of 800c , then heated to 780 c / 790 c (cant hold exact temps with current set up) , held it for 5 mins, and quenched into hydraulic oil heated to 80c. Tempered it twice, 210c for a couple of hours, then a smidge cooler for a couple of hours. Pulled the temper to purple with a gas torch on the tang and transition point. Nothing to scientific, but a basic formula I use for unknown steel that seems to give good results. - it certainly cuts. If id forged I would have run a couple more normalisations at reducing temperatures to put the grain structure back where I want it. Did all the bevel grinding post heat treat.
  20. Thanks for the nice words! The handle is Mauser Birch and ebony. The ebony polishes up almost like bakelite !
  21. Like others, I was shown to precurve the blank downwards, and let the bevel push it back up. Lots of factors affect the amount of precurve - I usually start of with something bananna shaped in profile ! Its rare I will get the amount of precurve spot on, so it tends to be a combination of precurve, and 'wacking the spine or the edge' as necessary. I have got a very heavy hammer with hide inserts that is usefull for the adjustments ( tends to be a solid thump needed, not really 'forging' )
  22. First knife I have made in well over a year, Its a late christmas present for my girlfriends father. I have gone 'back to basics' and concentrated on blade geometry, and trying to get a reasonable level of fit and finish. The blade is 'stock removed' ( which leaves me a little cold :mellow: ) from a piece of 2 mm thick bandsaw blade, its a full flat grind with distal taper. I left about 0.005" at the cutting edge, before honing on a convex secondary bevel. Just falls through food :) To ensure the grind was really flat after 'freehanding' it on the grinder, I did the finish ' hand rub ' with wet and dry paper using a hardened and ground backing block. This ensures no 'cheating' and ripples or rounded out bits on the knife. diddnt go to crazy with the finish, went from 400g jflex on the grinder, and then 80, 240 and 400 hand rubbed. I will try and do more kitchen knifes this year, they are deceptively tricky :D
  23. If it moves half inch or so up and down, and then sticks there is probably a broken valve disc stuck in a port. Assming its just gunked up from sitting you have a few options, -Try and get a jack under the bottom of it, and give it a shove upwards, -Try and give it a pull from above from the top nut (chain block, stacker truck, bar through it and a couple of little jacks etc) -Take the top nut off, and bully the 7 vavle portions out one at a time. Note, the top valve portion is 'adjustable' , so you will see a larger nut around its stem. If you undo that nut by whatever means, you can slide the cast iron portion up and out of the way. All the other valve portions have cast iron 'spiders' that you can get chain hooks under to bully them out. Ie, get the top piece shifted and it gets progressively easier. Note, dont bully them to much, They are cast iron and fragile ! Have fun....
  24. I know why they put the forges on the sides of rivers in the old days, but it does make for a lot of work now ! Im working on re-foundationing and re-installing a 10,000# one at the moment - the new lump of concrete is getting on for a couple of hundred thousand bucks ! :D
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