Zsartell

I had e-mailed Clay and asked about the details of getting a tire hammer class together and he said he estimated almost $1600 for each person if all supplies were bought new. Since it will probably take 6 - 8 months to get something like that together I have decided to build my own tire hammer and hopefully have it done in 3 months or so. I just sent away for Clay's plans and have enough money to start the bulk of the project. (the money is all from profit of me selling forged items!) Unfortunately since I am saving every penny for this tire hammer, I have decided to miss the SOFA event this year. I really want to go, but saving for my hammer (and a house) is more important right now.

The only other power hammer I have used is a Big Blu 75. Has anyone ever used a similar Air Hammer and the Tire Hammer? I am curious how the Tire Hammer will compare to the Big Blu 75 or perhaps any other small air hammer.

I do this sometimes with 3/8" stock. Sometimes one fold over won't do it and I do it twice. This helps saving time when trying to neck down the stem as well since you aren't starting with 1/2" stock and trying to get to 1/4" or less.

Aeneas, I think I will make a video on forging, quenching and tempering a cold work chisel. This should hit a couple of different techniques all in one. I've found that a lot of smiths have read how to quench and temper a tool, but many still are not sure how to do it until they see it for themselves.

MadDog, I tried to make this video as clear and precise as possible. I'm glad everyone can enjoy it without any problems understanding it. Flattening on the diamond is something I should have said, but like a lot of things that come natural to you it got overlooked. I had thought about calling this a key fob, but I have seen a lot of people that still do not know this term, so I figured key chain is close enough.


Thanks everyone for your kind words.

Frosty,

Yeah, I plan on doing some more. But it might be a while. Anyone have any suggestions for projects?

I mounted the camera to a tripod and worked it myself.

Yeah, I wasn't totally impressed with the narration, but I've been trying to finish this thing for a month and figured it was good enough.

Thanks..

Hello, I made this video of how I make a generic leaf key chain. Please let me know what you think.

Blacksmith Forging a Leaf Key Chain - Video

M_brothers,

Sounds great. I think now we need some pictures of it in action.

It looks like a great setup. I think you've done a smashing job.

The only thing I see that might be a problem is that your chimney looks a bit big. A smaller tube might draw better. The best ones that I have seen only had about a 7" diameter tube, gut then again i may be just blowing smoke.

I already need to make enough tools. Now I'm going to have to make Wii to keep up, I don't think so. Have you ever tried to forge integrated chips and lasers?

I'm with you Thomas, there are too many kids out there that would love to "Forge" their own sword because they can do it on the video games and once they realize what's really involved they realize they'd rather be stuck in front of the brain scrambler playing video games. It's a sad thing for sure.... Kids now days need to get up off their butts and do something constructive. It reminds me of the people that stare at you when you are working and ask "Why?" What do you mean "why?" I'm doing this because I enjoy it and because perhaps I haven't tried it yet. I used to get that all the time when I used to make pulse jets. You'd think that kids would be a little more interested in home built jet engines.

I built a forge from a 15" steel truck rim almost five years ago. Except for replacing the tuere because of a design flaw it shows almost no signs of wear. I can't say that I've used it day in and day out, but I have gone through many hundreds of pounds of coal. I plan on building a new forge someday and if I happen to have 1/8" on hand that's what I'm going to use. If I have to go out and buy some steel, I'd probably buy some 3/16" and be very confident that it would hold up for many years to come.

To sell my shop would be to sell my soul. When I have kids and die it goes to them. If I die before I have kids, then it gets distributed to a few of my good friends. It's worth a lot more than I paid for it in sentimental value.

I don't usually have this problem, but that may be because I use smaller and easier to maneuver tongs. If you are having trouble you may want to use a piece of pipe in the fire and put your small pieces in the piece of pipe.

I have worn contacts since I was 14 and love them. I have also been welding and fabricating for many years and have found that contacts actually give you another layer of protection. I wear my safety glasses (the ones that actually fit your face, not the cheap ones) and can still seem to get things to get past them and into my eyes. Just yesterday I replaced my right eye contact because I had a piece of steel, slag or scale stuck to my contact. Now this has happened to me a few times before and will probably not be the last. I figure I would have been much more angry if I hadn't had my contacts in and that chunk of whatever it was had hit my bare eye instead.

That should work just fine. I've done long pieces in my coal forge before, you just have to control the heat with water and keep an eye on how much you are twisting and where it is twisting. (It's easier than it sounds)

I usually find it just as enjoyable to make the tools as it is to make the product that you need the tools for.

If you are going to use junk steel, make sure you stay away from anything galvanized. Breathing those fumes can kill you and remember some steel that is painted on the outside has a zinc coating on the inside.

Here is a fancy one I made last Christmas. It has a 3/4" round pipe under the holly leaf.

I purchased the burners from a well known source. I did not make them myself. The heat exchanger is something that preheats the air coming into the burner. They have been proven to reduce the amount of gas needed to operate your forge. I understand that the heat exchanger has nothing to do with getting up to heat, it is just something I want to try out. I know that I am just dealing with an improper fuel to air ratio and that I need to do more tweaking. I know it will get up to welding temps easy, but there just must be too much air rushing into the chamber. I just need to "finish" my forge and get to know how it operates. One of these days I will get some pictures of it. for everyone.

I had a few free minutes last night so I decided to try and cover a little less than half of each of my venturi's (with duct tape). It made absolutely no difference in how my forge sounded. I also kept the pressure down a bit and tried a faggot weld with 20 mule team and Boric acid. I got absolutely nowhere. Actually this time I believe that my temperature wat too low. I waited until the piece kinda disappeared in the lining of the forge, but it did not stick at all. I think I am going to finish my heat exchanger, put the air adjuster on that and go with bigger jets and put the jets closer to the burner tube. I built this forge mostly for forge welding billets and by golly I'm going to make it work and with the heat exchanger I'm hoping that it will be efficient as can be.

I have a feeling I am making this more complicated than it needs to be. I tend to do that....

Twenty mule team straight works fine in all three of my gassers. You sound like youi are on the right track with enlarging the tip size and reducing pressure. Have you pushed some water down the tip to see if it is delivering gas straight down the venturi? that can cause a poor mix if it is off. The other part That may be an issue is what was the metal you tried to weld? Mild steel is harder than most common higher carbon steels. Let me tell you what works for me. Preheat the forget and while you do that put a fair size chunk of metal in and heat it up. When the metal is a good red lay it on the anvil. A cool or cold anvil will suck the heat right out out the contact side of the metal you are trying to stick together. Oreperation is like gold grind all contacting pieces clean and shiny. Fold the piece over or tack weld one end only, wire it tight every two inches or so the rest of the length of your billet. When the billet gets a little bit of color pull it out and flux it on all sides. For very thick pieces I bring up to a red color and turn the forge off for a few minutes to let the heat soak through,,,turn forge back on and brush and flux again..let the billet get to the same color as the inside of the forge and bring it out quickly to the warm anvil and tap it a couple of times on each side, I weld about two inches at a time..cut the next wire wrap off,, brush and flux and repeat. After the whole billet is one piece you can be more aggressive with the hammer,,,,I run down the length of it a couple of times,Always at a welding heat, then I square it up hitting on the sides. Then draw and cut stack reweld etc until layer count is what you want. I work billets at welding heat and continue brushing and fluxing with every heat and for each weld I grind to clean shiny contact surfaces, This may be old stuff to you but it works for me.

I have thought about changing my flux ( and we have used a boric acid mix with my friends forge that is acting just like mine), but I have never had a problem with it when forging in my coal forge.

I have never really had any problems forge welding in my coal forge, but I am determined for different reasons to forge weld in my newly built gas forge. I really like the idea of an even heat of a gas forge. This is something not easily obtainable in a coal forge. Also I want the ability to heat up larger billets with an even heat and be able to let it soak without having to worry about the ends getting too hot and burning off. I built a 7" x 12" round venturi gas forge with two sidearm burners just so I could forge damascus. I really didn't want to go with a blown style burner because I like the idea of not having to use electricity and it just seems safer to me. Ok, lets get to the problem. I have been unsuccessful at forge welding a 1/2" square bar to itself. I turn up the gas pressure so that flames bellow out and my flux (normal 20 mule team) indicates it's ready to weld. One thing I noticed the last time I tried is that my test piece got stuck to a scrap piece of 3/8" square that I had recently put in there to assist in propping pieces up. I had to do some twisting and banging inside the forge to get the thing to snap off my test piece. This made me sure that it was at welding heat. I took it out of the fire and gave it a few modest hits to set the weld. Then I welded it again just for kicks and when I tested it, it hadn't even come close to sticking together. Since I know it is getting hot enough, I must have a problem with scale forming inside the forge even though I have flames bellowing out. This is something my smithing friends and I have been pondering over for the past couple of months (we have been concentrating more on getting over 2400 degrees). I did notice that I actually was getting more scale buildup inside the forge at a higher pressure than with a lower pressure. What I haven't tried is using a larger mig tip to supply the same amount of gas at a lower pressure and therefore a slower speed. This slower speed should reduce the amount of air being sucked into the burner. Also I plan on placing the mig tip lower into the tube, closer to the bottom of the venturi to see if helps draw less air. At this time I am running the venturi openings wide open for testing purposes (and because I haven't made a choke for them yet) and my pressure settings are not very accurate and have had to rely more on what the forge sounds like than the pressure. Has anyone else come to this conclusion or am I making this much more difficult than I need to?

BTW: My forge is made with 2"s of Kaowool, a lining of Santinite and a lining of ITC-100. I'll post pictures later when I get a chance.

I agree, a registry here on IFI would be great.