basher

Nice hammer. I have the foundation recomendations and blueprints etc that came with my Alldays 100 weight. I can email pictures of them to you if you want.(I only just got the 100 but run a 200 alldays and a 100 Pilkington (Old alldays). I am going to raise the 100 weight on new bought oak sleepers. A layer of sleepers and 50mm board on top brings the hammer to a good working height for me.. For a one piece hammer like this ther is not the need for a seperate concrete block. I put a cast block in for my 200 but that has a seperate base. I have seen people waste an awfull lot of money putting weird steel bases under hammers. There would be no problem with a high strength concrete., or making a thin steel boz and filling it wioth concrete..... I am going with wood for mine, I may cut the floor around the hammer to isolate it from the rest of the pad. I would love to see how you have the belt drive done as the gear on gear noise of these hammers makes thewm noisy. I would add a spring or two to the back of the treddle as I find the weight only return on an alldays a little slow. Email me at owen@owenbush.co.uk if you want me to photograph the info I have on the 100.

Its a hard one, I oficialy have enough stuff but the off button is hard to find.....

I have thought about this , make sure that your motor controle valve allows for the continuation of the flow of oil around the motor circuit as the motor tries to stop but the inertia of the large weights involved keep pumping oil, very easy to have a situation where huge pressures are generated.

My latest Kitchen knife . Inspired by seaxes, bowies, Khyber knives and Criollo Knives (Gaucho's knife) and yatagahn . I have always been fascinated by these large "gentlemans companion knives" that form a part of so many cultures attire over so long a time. Equally at home in the kitchen or on adventures in the dim distant past, or for that matter a (slightly steam punk) dystopian future..... ] 13.5 long 2.5" wide blade , Patternwelding in the saxon style . Wearing walnut sterling silver and a little copper. The knife weighs 15oz .This one will have a sheath..N european type with fittings of silver or copper?

Jarn Hond (Iron Hand) This single handed Norse sword is patternwelded from 4 bars of steel, 3 twisted bars of 7 layers twisted clockwise, anticlockwise and then clockwise again. The 700 layer edge shows subtle patterning in contrast to the twists. My favorite patternwelding has elements that can be seen from a distance and then subtle patterning in the steel that draw you in, bling bling , wait a minute whats going on there! Material for blade and fittings is 15n20 and EN42J (1080ish) The guard is made from patternwelded steel, forged and heavily etched to emulate striped inlay, and is the bit I'm super stoked about .I have tried this a few times over the years and this was the first time I got the scale of the stripes rite without messing with them. I simply do not have the patients for wire inlay work so this is my in the style of could have been done like this version of inlay! The blade is 31 ¾ inches long, 5mm thick at the guard, and 1 3/4 inches wide. The sword is 38.5 inches long over all. Point of balance is 5 inches into the blade. The sword weighs 2lb and 10oz. The fittings have given this sword its name “Iron Hand”. The handle is leather over wood. I deeply etched the fittings so there is a textual diference as well as colour and depth. All steel blade with bold and fine pattern. close up of the Tip

I started with mechanical, still have a soft spot for them and thing they are elegant tools (often quite beautifull too!) but I prefer air hammers. much better to work with more versatile. If you have power supply issues you get more hit for your HP from a mechanical. apart from that its (self contained) air all the way for me.

O1 would not be my first choice for a punch I would mach ratherr use en9 eny time. The reason I would not want O1 is its tendancy to air harden. the potential that It may do that if the end gets too hot and cools rapidly, with the risk of shattering. I have found that all hot tools need some reworking, somtimes every heat (when punching deep holes with a thin punch). H13 is a good steel but needs specialist HT. I also Like En45 as its quite red hard and has a high hardening temp (900C) so is less likly to harden on you when cooling the punch off. I then to draw the temper on the struck end y striking tools to a dull (visible in a darkned room) red , more of a sub critical anneal. I repeat this when ever I have to dress them to prevent work hardening. I have hersd good things about the s series steels that farriers use for punches but have no personal experience with them.

I dont think its all that odd, I doubt its straight water. But spring temper temps are way way higher than most of us go. and tempering in the 400 to 600 C range makes sense. I temper crossbow prods at 430C. In this state the behave elasicly within their elastic limit and can be altered by bending them beyond that. you are tempering all the way up untill subcritical anneal (high temp temper of martensite) up in the 700C's for normal carbon steels. A lot of spring alteration is done post HT. I also know of one person killed from straightening a spring under a hydraulic press......so what industry does in a repeated and knowledgable way is not the same as having a go in the shop.

tis true, there is some peeking out though....I wanted to try a few leather wrapped handled for seax as Petr has done some for me and I liked them. I am spoilt for burl wood and this was what I had cut in the right size.

Here is the latest seax I have finished:- This is a 5 bar seax blade. It is constructed from vintage wrought iron, then 2 layers of 7 layer alternating twist and another layer of wrought iron and 700 layer random pattern Damascus at the edge. The blade is handled in elm and Lether and copper and sheathed in leather. The sheath has an ajustable strap to alter the angle of the dangle.

Tis a dragon slayer......I love the freedom of a hero piece (and 3.5 lb is not outside of the relms of a viking sword of this scale)

FYRDRACASLAGA (Fire Dragon Slayer) By Owen Bush and Petr florianek. A Dwarf made hero’s sword for slaying fire dragons. In our discussions and musings, Petr and myself tend to think of our work as that of the Dark Elves (from the Nordic heritage) or Dwarves (from the world of JRR Tolkien) Working magic and craftsmanship together with the raw stuff of nature, these mythical artisans forge the weapons of legend for the gods and for mortal heros. The sword blade is made by myself and the handle, sheath and fittings are made by Petr Fliorianek (Gullinbursti) The sword blade is forged with eleven bars of steel, 3 fine twisted layers and 4 pin stripes along with two bold twisted star bars and high layer random pattern at the edge. The pattern plays with the juxtaposition between bold pattern and the finer flowing patterns of the edge. The stars patterns are set like jewels to catch a dragons eye…..come closer….come closer….. The blade has a shallow lenticular section. The guard and pommel are made in bronze (tin bronze) the style is dwarven. The pommel shows ancestor rage face and the guard has dragons to ward off evil. Runes of the pommel ferrule say ‘OWEN’ and ‘GULLI’, short for the Nordic Mythical Golden Boar Gullinbursti which is Petr’s avatar. Runes of the guard ferrule say ‘FYRDRACASLAGA’ (Fire dragon slayer) This is repeated on the strap on the scabbard. The scabbard is linden (lime wood). It is wool lined and covered in linen and then leather. There are bronze dragon heads and wrought iron fittings The rondell on the scabbard is Elk antler with a wyrm carving, there is a single garnet for its eye. The sword weighs 3lb 6oz and the point of balance is 14cm into the blade. Blade is 76.5 cm long and 6.5 cm wide at the hilt. Sword overall length is is 92cm. The sword feels powerful and purposeful. I am proud of this one Petr has (once again ) done a wonderfull , using his mastery at bring this mythical blade to life. I hope you like it.

I would be much more interested in hearing about your stats from the same forge with a different burner. I have switched from blown burners to Venturi burners a few years ago, I find them better and simpler to use. The company who makes the burners (Amal) has a gas air mixer made for ribbon burners, I have one but have not devoted the time to playing with it yet or figuring out the burner. I am always interested in saving money,( it's not unusual for me to have 5 forges running at the same time here) but find convenience/ease of use to be my priority .

Here is the latest blade I have made its a comission , going onward to Petr Florianek to do some handle and sheath magic on... The construction is as follows. Wrought iron on the spine then 2 bars of alternate twist and straight. These bars are made up of 7 layers 4 of which are actually 40 layer’s. Its a subtle twist pattern. There is another layer of wrought iron and then that is tooth welded with 360 layers of steel at the edge. the blade is a tad under 20" The Tip The Blade close up closer up

the weight is 1 lb 15 Oz, 9.5 inches along the edge. Thanks for all the kind words

Here is the latest Axe I have finished. I started it last year whilst working along side of a student who made a dane axe from riggers shackles. A damascus Dane axe, low layern Body folded and punched and then a high layer edge . Materials 15n20 and en42J... The material follows the shape of th eye and although the axe is folded I completly forge welded it and re punched through the material. The higher layer edge is wrapped over the lower layer core material. I wanted tight subtle pattern in the edge and a bold body.

They are great grinders, available here (in the UK) as loser grinders made in germany under licence over here they cost megga bucks.. I have 1 and have adapted a bunch of other grinders for the longer belts. I see them on US ebay quite a bit.

I ended up with a beaver. one cheaper kind of bridge port knock off . I am very happy with it . it is worth remembering that the mill is only about half the cost . the tooling is just as much if not more than the machine.

I have a b2 and know a couple of smiths withe them. Theuy have advantages and didagvantaged over the newer model. the round mounting means you can get a littel inventive with the tracking but lacks thye indexing that a swuare arm does. They are great tools and with the od bearing change will last indefinatly. I have boufght a few things from Bader over the years and their service is second to none. even when dealing with them from the UK.

It is quite normal for a blade to saber with a nose dive if quenched into oil. it can be a hard thing to predict though. I often harde sword blades in rectangular section and then grind in the bevel after HT. or pre curve the blade a little to take acount of the nose dive. I have managed to get saber out by holding the blade edge down in two vices and aplying pressure with a fly press, all of this done at Tempering temperature, I would not advise it though its literaly a make or break fix. The only easy way to deal with it is to grind the blade straight.

It will totaly depend upon the spec of the press, in general 12 tonns is about the minimum that is really much use for forging. Unless you are punching and the ram is fast under load. I have a friend who had a very similar press to that and it was not much cop. they are also oftern spring return which makes the ram return very slow.

well looking around I see that this is exactly what you did......How did it go?

W2 can have a varying manganese content, some of it is very shallow hardening , some more like 1095 (still pretty shallow hardening). This has worked a few times on UK W2 and on Don Hansens lower manganese W2 from the USA. 3 decending normalisations at 830C,800C and then 750C (more of a sub critical anneal). Then harden from 770C with a 10 min soak. into water around 40C for a count of 3 seconds and then strait into pre heated OIL at 80C untill blade has cooled to oil temp . temper imediatly. There is still a risk of the blade cracking with an interupted quench but I have god good results with water then oil. Some people seem to do OK into straight water either as an interupted water quench , into and out of then into the water again or just with a hard core full unterupted water quench. If you harden into water in any way then you risk the dreaded cracks..but can get some much more interesting Hamon... Some W2 wil get a nice Hamon into a faster quenching oil, but the edge needs to be a lot thinner to get this material to harden to any depth. I have got some good results quenching from 770Cwith my UK fast quenching oil (much slower than parks50) at 120C (Hot oil is very very dangerous and this temp may not be safe with some quenching oils). OIl givs a very slight reverse Sori as well (at least the way I do it.). I would definatly make a small tanto sized blade as a test blade before doing your bigger blades. photograph your clay'd blade before you quench so you can compare Hamon and clay lines as well as any sori changes Good luck.

I do block the ram but find that the spring assemblies on the hammers I have are so heavy that a crain is still needed to lift them into position, it could be done without a crane if it was a two man job (just , with leavers) .

I am reading this with great interest, the amal gas air mixers I use supply a short choke mixer for use in ring burners, my imediat thoughts were that this would cross over to ribbon burners as well. I have had one sittingaround for a year waiting for time to have a play. are these burners quieter than your non ribbon burners? I am becoming more and more fed up of losing my voice over the roar of gas forges.