basher

We are still as smiths firmly part of the ironage , or at least the age of iron. but we have the luxury of standing on the shoulders of Giants both ancient and modern who enable us a firm foundations for our own hammering here in the 21st century.

From a personal point of view:- My craft has given me a progression in learning complex skills over the last 20 years . It has kept me interested in my work ( a rare blessing) , allowed me to mix with like minded craftspersons the world over. many of whom are now my good friends. I am proud to be a blacksmith and bladesmith and lucky to be able to have pride in my work. There is avery instant gratification that comes form the act of Making. I say Making as opposed to smithing in-particular because I think that whilst for me personally the attraction has always been manipulating hot Metal, there is an equal satisfaction from turning your hand to making anything from the materials around you. Human beings are tool users, evolved to use their mind and hands to manipulate the world around them solving material problems to their benefit (or pleasure). Smithing and other Making fulfils this innate human need, in a way that a lot of our interactions in modernity do not. In particular Hot metal is a great medium to be expressive with as it has vast possibilities for form. Steel is a wondefull material to work with because it is able to be soft when hot or hard or springy or brittle when heat treated correctly it allows us to make tools that can further influence the world around us. I find the historical use and progression of iron and steel very inspiring, ancient people working complex materials in a competent way far advance of their scientific capabilities to understand he materials they are using. wonderful Romano-Celtic , Saxon , Iron-age , Medieval and Industrial age uses of Metals show incredible intuitive craftsmanship millennia before our modern understanding of the material science of iron and steel.

Frosty has it , better learned than mashed at. lots of ways to skin a skunk , don't worry about peoples ideas of what is the wrong way to do it, look for peoples very different ways of doing in rite and somewhere in there you may well find your way.

I try and have most of my stuff bolted down, but I have a lot of stuff movable with a pallet truck.

There is some precedent for these knives, its not viking though , but Danish iron age. Some good outlines of the blades I am talking about here further down the page. https://nordiskaknivar.wordpress.com/tag/viking-knife/ I have seen pictures of the originals but alas i cant remember or find where. here is what I say about the ones I make. "Commonly known as the Viking Blacksmith’s knife, this knife is is also known as a Viking Knife, Blacksmith’s Knife and also a Viking Lady’s knife. I have based the design of these blades upon some iron age bog find knives from Denmark, having altered the shape a little from the original to make them more ergonomic and feel good in the hand." I like them as a form and for me they are a useful teaching took as I can get a student with no experience to forge them in a day...

Lots of speeds and tonnages work. I went and visited a lot of presses before building mine. I ended up with low tow tonnage and high speed 12 to 18 tonnes (I have it bypass at 12 tonne )and 2 inch per second (lots of Hp though). and that works for me. I would seriously try and have a go on some existing presses before building one. All the best owen

Well I finally got it up and running again. Played with the VFD speed control and managed to get it striking hard (very hard) and also nice and gently as well . there is a nice spot at around 45 hertz that seems like a good compromise.I have it coupled to a 6hp motor that may well just be up to the job (7.5 would be better If I am to run it at higher speed, there is one on ebay at the mo). I am going to pull the big end apart . the offset crank is a very large diameter with a V large bearing surface (i think its steel on steel) and there is movement there . I think I can easily tighten it up but want to look at at the bearing surfaces first. anyhow I have had this 2 years in July.......and want it installed and running by then.

I do my Hammer punching and drifting in carbon steel with a fast 12 tonne press , I get more from it at 12 tonne 2" per second than I did at 18 tonne 1.5 inches per second.....My tool,ing would last longer and could be thinner if it were faster. I used an uncle all press (riverside) at the ABS school some 20 years ago and was very impressed with it. does it have the daylight for the punching tools you want to use?

I couldn't hazard a guess at the value of my tools... mostly bargains I have a good nose for Power hammers anvils etc,new for old would run many hundred K. always had public liability (an obligation) never contents(a choice) as my quotes were too expensive for my income.

Thanks Ric, Jeremy, the toothed pattern was made by cutting individual slots into the edge bar and then fitting individual teeth into them, the whole piece was then forge welded together....

Well I have this hammer up and running, seems to work fine on a 3hp motor at 300rpm at the hammer fly wheel and is incredibly well counter weighted . I have been running it slow to lap all the slide ways in .I will paint it now and re assemble, I think it will be a good hammer.

I have thought this may work, and I went to the expense of buying a variable potentiometer foot pedal...However I was lucky enough to see a hammer in belgium that ran from a vfd with no clutch, it was pretty lame and had slow response time. I think lack of momentum was the issue, not much beats a fly wheel. I think it would work well with an oversized , over powered motor.

Have you considered anti scaling compoind either dipable or paintable before Ht. have a look here. http://www.advancedtechnicalprod.com/index.html

It is still just yard art, I currently have 2 project hammers getting fixed up and enough working ones so I believe it will just stay where it is for the while...

Cool looking fabrication. I think you are missing a trick in having the hammer fall under its own weight. Almost all the helve hammers out there have a spring linkage of some kind so that the motor is pulling the ram down giving more force to the blow, the spring is there so that material thickness differences can be accounted for and also to get a little more travel from the head as it whips, I would also run some kind of clutch in the drive chain so that you can alter the hit speed with a foot pedal. That looks like a great base for what could be a great hammer.

Probably not more than that as unfinished sword blades , a few finished blades a quizilian knives /axes/etc in states of disregard.... I had a cull and cast a few sword blades into my power hammer block when I installed it, and I scrap stuff now!!! Experimentation and progression often leave a trail of failures in their wake. never done that ...... but I did make a "fence of the fallen" for a Merlin garden at the chelsea flower show, swords spears axes all melted together. pre digital age so I have no piccie to hand.....

I looked at that .... thought it may well be but couldn't see the fisher logo on the ebay pics !! good job. I wonder if it came over during the War ?

I would recommend finishing swords as soon as you can after starting them . I probably have between 10 and 20 sword blades (quite a few patternwelded} that were started and then left at some stage of unfinished . Some will be returned to but some have been discarded over time as what I want from a sword has changed over the years.

I am very interested in seeing what you come up with, is there any surviving literature or instructions as to how the steel face was mated to the cast iron regarding pre heat temp of mold and steel face, cast iron temp before poor ,steel surface condition fluxing etc? Is the body grey or white cast iron? Are you doing this at quad state this year? I find Fishers fascinating, possibly because I have never knowingly seen one in the flesh, they are rare here in the UK, partly because the smith in me has a loyalty to forged anvils and I like that they are different from that (rebelious- apart from the crowd) and lastly because they have such a loyal following. I would have thought O1 would be a great steel for an anvil face, easy hardening (comparatively) is there any information how a deep hardening steel like O1 was quenched on the originals? Good luck with your project.

Having a punch that exactly fits the eye will help with straightening, I quite like long axe punches as you get a much better idea as to how straight the axe blade is in relation to its eye.

ACW ? I would be interested if anybody has made any swords from any place or period. But I guess I was alluding to the American wars Part of the reason I like Making Saxon and Viking stuff is that it draws me back to the past in the place where I live .

Good to see those swords, thanks for posting. Good to see peoples different takes on the subject. It realy does help to have some work to put to peoples names to as well. SoCal Dave, I have not seen that show and It doesn't sound like I'll watch it. Ill probably be happier in my ignorance of it. here is one of my swords A hybrid messer /house sword made for a western martial arts instructor in the UK. He named it Dusk...... keep those long and pointy bits of steel coming. Does anybody make Civil War or War of independence swords?

I would love to see the swords that members of IFI have made. Short swords , long swords, ground swords or forged swords. Viking , Indian, Japanese, Chinese, celtic , European or American, Fantasy or Klingon, wall hangers , cutting swords , blunts and sharps , dress swords or heirlooms. Tactical or historical remakes. Great successes or dire failures, swords in pieces or the sword reforged. inky binky little swords or ...dare I say it Great Big Swords. One handed and Hand and a half swords or two handed even Bastard swords. Iron, Bronze ,Mild steel, Mono Steel, Damascus , Patternweld. crucible steel. Wootz, Bulat , Bloomery steel or Tamahagane, Mithril or Valarien steel .....Wooden Or vorpal. Or Guards or handles you have put on other peoples sword blades.... or blades you have made for other peoples handles. Finished swords or swords in progress, or discarded projects. They say the Pen (or more appropriately the keyboard) is mightier than the sword....Here in the sword section I would respectfully disagree.... Lets see some of those swords.

I would always allow a little extra thickness on a sword to allow for small corrections in warping to be ground out. However.....You can not leave the edge thicker than the thickness that will fully thru harden in the steel you are using.......leave as much thickness as you can get away with whilst getting good edge hardness.

I have had a couple of these forge welded double pointy anvils in the past and they match exactly my JB cast double pointy ones almost to the mm. so I recon they may be pre casting brooks. or not? either ay they are a good shaped anvil.