metalmangeler

I recently had a couple tie rods break on my air cylinder, and of course the o rings went. Anyhow when taking it apart it became aparent that the tie rods were pretty good steel. I am guessing that I need to use 4140, 5160 or something like that. Do I need to heat treat these as well? Has anyone replaced these with A36 and had that hold together? Thank you. Mark

Most of my dies are 4140, I tried to use them without heat treating it did not work out that well. Now I heat treat as a normal plan, if they are too hard they just need a higher tempering temp. to be safe. If using unheat treated 5160 for tooling under the hammer it will likely be harder than unheat treated 4140 just a thought.

Weren't hardies called that as they were often made of hard steel rather than just iron?

Thanks Ken I have been unable to look here a few days, or I would have responded sooner. Looks to me on the video at least like it might be doing better than the original. I normally only go down to 50# if I am using crown dies or such. The recomended presure was 125# which is what I use most though I do adjust for different things. Thanks again. Mark

Ken I have been using a couple bulls similar to the one you are modifing. I am wondering if you expect that your system will hit harder than the original one? Also from what you have posted before I think that you expect to use less air is that correct? From your youtube videos I have seen some of the control features of your linkage, I am just wondering about things I could not see. Also I am wondering with your 150# hammer what size compressor do you need to stay ahead of the hammer in drawing mode, and what size diameter is the cylinder? Will the same kit do either one? Sorry if this is too many questions, really curious. Thank you. Mark

I like how he dressed the edges I expect that you can forge out a lot of the hammer marks?

Sounds like she may want you to build a new shop. You really do not want to make a fight out of this. Normally anvils in the house don't really do much good.

really nice.

Good buy on the anvil, I would use it just like it was my only anvil until I had another one. It will not be a efficent as a larger one, but the better you mount it he better it will serve you.

I was at the Seatle gift shop wholesale show a number of years ago and met some people from OR I was told they got around a lot of regs by listing their business as an art business. Might be a way to start then you have more people on your side than if you are an evil industrialist. That said my business licence is under manufacturing here, but I would change if I thought it would make any difference.

You ask about hand forging H13, it can be done, I really like the tooling I have made using this steel. Especially for handled chisles and punches. I would think hand forging 1.5 dia. round will be more than you really want to do as well as not end up with a properly forged part. If you use modern welding to make this into a spring tool you need to consider that H13 is an air hardening steel and you will need to preheat and likely post heat your weld or it will likely fail very quickly. In forging tools from H13 you will need to be able to temper the struck end softer than the working end or your tool will not be all that it can be. For a spring swedge I would not use this steel because I would not expect to get a spring swedge hot enough to get much bennefit from this expencive steel. The real place where this stuff shines is from tool abusers getting things to hot.

Maybe I should not add this as you were not looking for this, but imporoving forging skills should be a top priority this will not cost near as much as the grinder. Things to think about are brush that scale off rather than forging it into the steel, also keep it from building up on the anvil and getting pounded into the blade from there. Use a flatter as needed and it should help reduce those hammer marks. Make sure your hammer faces are properly dressed. After you get the grinder of your dreams the forging skills will save you $$$$$$$$$ in belts and time.

I will coment on ridgeway's statement, I use pickup tongs for forging depending on the item. One of the aspects of pickup tongs is that the pivet point is normally farther from the jaw end, this means that the tong jaws will grip a larger range of sized objects. For some jobs the shape and size can change quite a bit in one heat especially under a powerhammer. It is nicer to have a jaw that give more leverage and a more precise fit, but it does not always work. I can not think of any time that I habitually used a different tong to get steel out of the fire than the one I planned to do the forging with, it would just be ineffiecent.

I like the tip on this one better than your little slicer, I think you would have better control.

Chris I think that you should get over to see Rich as soon as you can. He has always seemed to me to be most helpfull and knowledgeable. I am sure his intent is not to break your stuff. Though if he were closer and offered to help me and it involved breaking a few of my blades I would take him up on the offer as I am that sure of his insight and that insight is of much more value than a few of my knives.

I like this knife, the size especially and the entire package.

Beutifull.

Thank you. To attach the handle I just drew a tendon on the handle end, then notched the tendon for glue retention, and drilled out the antler and epoxied it. I like to also pin them, but since the tines were so small (caribou tines are often flat one way rather than being round) the tendons needed to be small, I thought that I might have a problem with my pin so I skipped it. In hind sight if I had made the tang rectangular in cross section rather than square-octogon I would have had the opotion of pins.

These are 1080, 15n20 twisted, 32 layers,and caribou antler tines. The blades are about 2 inches long.

Nice job, I seem to really bog down when doing custom work. I sometimes think I should just refuse, so I am impressed.

I have not been looking here lately. Really nice hammer especially with the modifications. I thin you and Trip did a nice job on those hammers as well.

Pugh Man you do realise that you need to forge weld the billet before you twist it right?

Pretty low layer count. I think it looks really nice.

This is a farriers anvil. If it is not to costly it should work pretty well, though not as well as a blacksmith anvil unless you are going shoeing.

I am very impressed with the work you are posting. Keep it up and I may have to stop making a living and devote myself to learning more about pattern welding. :)