metalmangeler

It would be some work but you could make a jaw insert that pivoted like a power hammer flatter then your jaws would line up irregardless of the material thickness you were clamping. Also it would be an improvement for clamping a taper.

My main income has been shoeing horses since 82. I have been very actively building my blacksmithing buisness since 96 although I started forging much sooner. Blacksmithing is now about 40% of my income I think. Being the only employed person in a family of 4 makes it difficult to transition to only blacksmithing, but I am getting there.

It looks like no one wants to commit on this one so I'll say what I do but there sure could be better ways. I make my spring swedges by forging them, so if I was making a 1/2 inch swedge I would make the blank then heat it and forge it over a 1/2 inch cold rolled bar then after it was cooled I would grind the edges of the hole so that it would not cut into the tenon that I wanted to forge with it. That said we know that the spring swedge will shrink some as it cools so it would be slighty under 1/2 inch. If I made the tool by drilling rather than forging it I would put a card spacer inbetween the 2 halves and my hollow would be slightly under sized once again. I think that most of the time having the tenon under size will make assembly go smoother. :)

Hey Stretch are you comparing a 25# to a 100# or are you saying both at the same rating? I am not argueing just clarifing.

Mostly I use a self made 2lb. rounding hammer with a wood handle for forging in the shop. I have a good sellection to chose from, this is the hammer that I prefer. All my hammers have wood handles.:D

Glad to see you here I hope that you find it worthwhile, Alaska seems to be pretty well represented here. Mark

I almost always use better steel for triangles. It is scrap from farm machinery so affordable.

You could try rubbing wax on the file backwards and then soak in acid, I never tried it only heard that it works.

One thing that helps me not have to grip my hammer so much is I put some pine tar on the handle it only takes a drop. I do this when ever my handle feels a little slippery, of course you will have to retrain yourself about the hand/thumb grip.

Looks to me like Mats has at least 3, there is an air hammer in the tong demo. that he is brushing the scale off of the die. As long as you are setting up to make a hammer might as well make several.

Hi IJohnson Have you welded in a gas forge before? If not something to consider is that your forge does not need to bring steel to sparking to be at a welding heat. Seems like a major bummer to have a brand new forge that is not doing what it should. If you have not welded in gas before try to get someone who has to give it a try. If you have lots of experince well this doesn't apply.

When in the shop working people regularly startle the day lights out of you because you never hear them come in.

My NC tool Co. Catalog lists your forge @ $495. Since you didn't pay shipping and didn't have to wait I think you came out good.

Rich metioned the refactory when I have a gas forge that seems cold the first thing I think about is the liner. If it is not right that is likely your problem. (If you have been coating the bottom with flux or it is just worn out.) If you are planning to do a lot of welding in there you may want to use something on the floor to protect it from your flux like kiln shelf or very thin fire brick. I of course am not much above sea level here though. Hope you find a simple solution.

I did my floor concrete most of the shop and the forging area is pit run with a small foundation under the air hammer. But I cann't find the floor any more so it may not matter what you do. :rolleyes:Stepping down to the forging area was probably to help keep the gravel there rather than on the cement.

While in the shop today I picked up my heat treating info. for H-13 the tempering curve for air hardened from 1850 F is at 52.5 Rockwell untill 780 then it gets harder untill 900 (R 54) it comes back down to R 52.5 at about 980 and hardness drops form there, 1040 is about R50 1100 is about R45 1150 R40 1170 R35 This information is form a graff produced by Latrobe that I got with a bunch of H-13 in 1990. I doubt that the material has changed in that time, so I would not temper at 1150 but if it gets to 1000 or something I probably wouldn't know the difference. When I have paid for expensive tool steel in the past I try to get heat treament informaton from the seller. They should want us to succede as then we will want more of their steel so this is a win win situation. I never tried the M-4, Mr. Hoffi why is it that you don't use it for your tools if it is the best?

Peyton the critical temp for H-13 is 1850 F I belive with out going out to the shop to look at my heat treating info. If air cooled from just nonmagnetic it will not be harder than your hammer. Make your tool slow cool as best you can, if back of tool is hard heat back of tool to nonmagnetic. let air cool then heat working end to 1850 (I can see starting to glow in my gas forge in lighted shop or use temp. stick) then let this end air cool. some tools you can do both at the same time, by bringing short tool working end up to heat the hammer end is up to a lower heat that works out well. It looks like you are in a picturer with Tom Clark I think what He does is make the tool bring to heat, bury in vermiculite with only the working tip exposed to air that way the tip cools faster and is hard and the hammer end cools slow enough to be softer. Stretch you are right I under stated how high you can temper H-13 which only makes the point I was trying to say more true.

The best thing about H-13 is that the tempering tempetures get well into 900 F. so for punches and stuff that is likely to get hot it still works the second time. S-7 is similar but wont handle quite as much heat.

If you can not find a beekeeper near you who will sell wax at a good price you can buy it from the bee supply co. Mann Lake has deep brood foundation in their 2007 catalog for $140 for 25# this is after it has been made into foundaton which can easly be remelted for our purposes. A little less than $6.00 a pound. Direct from the keeper should be less. You might also try Dadant, Walter T. Kelley Co. or AI Root. These places sell in as small as 10 sheet increments. Which depending on the size of the foundaton would be about a pound. I also keep bees and have always kept all my wax which I mix 1:1 with parafin to finish iron work with but if someone started offering $15 for a # I might change my attitude.

If you put hot wax on cold iron it will act like dipping a candle the iron needs to be at least the melting temp of the wax a little less than 150 F.

I have been following this for a while. One of the big questions in my life is how to set my price. I don't like the formulas listed as they assume that my skill is stagnet if when I started forging gidgets I spent an hour to make a gidget, but now I can make 2 in the same time I don't think that they are now worth 1/2 as much. Also if I spend $10,000 on a power hammer that is an investment, and I should be makeing money on that not just producing more for less. Basicly what I do is try to make things that look like they took longer to make than they did, the people want to think they are paying me $5 an hour I want to think that they are paying me more. Then I try to find what the market will handle this seems to be a real guessing game. The problem is that a hot item at one craft show is not the same item at the next show, so if you change prices that may not be the reason that your hoofpicks are not selling at the flower show.

I have been useing propane forges in buildings for about 15 years. The comercial ones that I use all are pretty lean and have never shown CO on my detecters. I have two from Rex Price and if not tuned lean they will start putting out CO pretty quick, so pretty much what Thomas Powers said. My climate is different than his and I close my doors this time of year. I do keep a window part way open to replace O2. Also I have a hood over my main forge to vent the water.

I too would like to thank you for making this site available to all of us. I think that I am spending to much time here but am picking up to many nuggets to drop out. Mark

Hello Doc Looks great. Far more beautiful than any repare I have done on my chiped anvils. I have used mig and build up rod before but didn't post as I know that this is not my field of skill. However they seem to be holding up quite well. I rarely work cold stock though. Did you preheat the anvil? if so how hot?

Many of the blacksmithing books that I have include a section on dies of one type or another, it seems like a number of people here have powerhammers. Where exactly is the point that it stops being blacksmithing? I want to avoid the evil but get as close as possible(human nature).