Ten Hammers

Tyler, where you located ? Southeast Iowa here. Welcome aboard. Nice work.

Ellen, I had some belly surgery a few years ago. Took couple months to get over it ( to go back to work ) and thats ok too. Even though I'm an old fat guy, it took ( I guess ) about 4-5 years to get my abdominals back to where I can lift and haul ( most ) of what I once could. Being on the right side of the grass of course is the important part. Be well. Be lazy. Holler all you want and if you need somebody to cuss for ya, just let me know

Steve

Tumblers work really nice to clean up forge and mill scale ( that may perhaps be on the same piece). Muriatic acid works well in evening up scaled pieces as well. I don't have a working tumbler here at home but use one at work a fair bit ( to remove cutting fluid/mill scale before welding parts). Also de-burs some as well if you leave it in long enough. Shot blasters are used to clean up castings in a foundry ( tumbling shot blasters ). I use a wire brush daily but if I've got some pieces I wish CLEANED, I use the muriatic. It is Caustic, Dangerous and not recommended for use by untrained folks. It is however the king in my opinion. My 5

Just my humble opinion. you could forge some wedges ( good smithing skills) and slide them under the plate to level it. Even a 110 VAC welder should make a good enough weld to attach them to the plate once things are level. Then cut the extra length off so you don't trip on it. My nickels worth.

Welcome aboard Scott. Glad you finally got here. :)

Jeez, wish my first knife looked like that ! Excellent work. :)

I have tried an old cement mixer here at home but didn't really get the results I wanted as quickly as I wanted. I use a tumbler at work a lot and it works pretty well and pretty fast ( but it has a LOT of parts in it ). Yeah, they noisy for sure.

Jens, nice work bud !

Roger, thanks for the pics. You sorta remind me of Yosemite Sam when you pose with the trial shooting ( American Comic Character ). lol. Fun is good, thanks.

http://www.toonopedia.com/yosemite.htm

You know, it would be worth having one of them cheap battery drills at hand and spare pile of globbed tungsten by the belt grinder (or a hand held belt sander or just a fine non-contaminated rock on a side grinder) for this. Good tip, thanks.

PS. Just an afterburner thought. Contamination I would only worry about if I was weldin stainless. I don't have NEAR the experience with TIG as some but the knowledge I DO have tells me to keep stainless stuff clean. Carbon, I'd sharpen on common belt. YMMV

I will attest to Junior's hammer handle installing skills (and hammer building skills for that matter). I have 6 of his hammers and havent replaced a handle yet. A couple have come loose a but my handle oil concoction (boiled linseed thinned with some turp) eventally tightened them up again. I have tried for years to have a maint program for this but never remember to do it till they get loose. This said, I haven't replaced a hammer handle ( on any of my hammers) in several years. I ain't no seamstress either. tools made to be used should be used. The glue gig sounds like a winner. If and when I replace one, I may just try it. Might be on an axe though. BTW, I use glass to trim handles to fit ( like my Dad did ). Just plain old busted pieces of window glass. Keep a sharp cutter and cut the glass as you need it. Works good on many wood projects for a scraper.

to continue, the junk science is a menace in my estimation. Volcanoes contribute more than myself, my family or my friends in smithing will EVER contribute to increased C02. Should alternative fuels be researched ? Of course. If you have a business that manufactures and one of the byproducts of that business is scrap wood, should it be used to heat the business in the winter ? Of course it should. I for one believe that forging steel can be done in 3 ways for my business (heat for forging). Coal, charcoal or LP. I was raised to think soil conservation, water conservation and re-use whatever else you could. Not much got wasted. 30 years ago, junk science told us that eggs were bad for us and that dairy was not good for us. The tirade could go on but not the time or bandwidth for it. be well folks

Biggest part of the problem as I see it is the junk science that is used to promote someone's thoughts. Ain't pickin on you Archie. Will see if this posts and then go on...

Authentic, I will happily agree with your post. No need for scale in finer forging and I could have gone on for long time in my previous post about this. Sometimes just red is plenty to tune up or move something a little. Many things can be moved at black heat. For the purpose of this thread though, I thought I would try and answer the man's question with where I start.

OTAY......you mentioned having 5/8 round light steel. Will assume this is common old manurealloy hot rolled ( probobly 1015-1020 ) steel. Not a lotta carbon in it. Everythings pretty well covered in previous posts. I just have a couple of things. Don't worry too much about the color of the steel in the fire at this stage. Just get it hot and hot until it forms scale on it ( alligator skin if you please). This scale initially will be tight on the steel, evidence being you pulling the steel form the fire and draggin it accross something to see if the scale is loose. Further heat will mean that the scale will loosen eventually. This is the place to forge (when pulling from the fire, the scale should be loose). There are temps that this happens at but we won't be concerned with that right now. Whatever color this is in your eyes, this is what you want. As Hollis said, scale will eventually make the stock lose some mass but no big deal. You can go to this heat with this stock MANY times and as long as you don't go no hotter, you good to go. Heat more and you will eventually damage. If you are using coal and have no forge rake, a piece of this stock would be good for this purpose. Start with a piece a couple feet long. Heat about 6" or so and forge this down flat and go to mebbe cardboard thin (looks like a golf putter in shape). This is then bent at 60-75

Impressive work Roger. Is the handle plug welded to the base ?

Far be it from me to be too careful at times. Black powder is an explosive. Modern powder is an accelerant. If you are not familiar with either, experimenting with them can be disasterous. Someone asks you to "cast a cannon " when what they want is a toy, which is fine. Someone gets killed ( dead or even maimed badly) with a project like this and someone will be held responsable . The breech area of a device like this would be the weak point. There are distinct RULES for cannon crew firing. If you go to an event (re-enactment, CWSA shoot etc) and you observe cannon fire you will notice that the cannon TEAM has a LEADER and he/she will verbally give commands for the cannon to be fired. Static electricity can be a problem. I have fun ( more than most some days). Not knowing the strengths of either brass or bornze that you wish to cast (which by itself can be dangerous but that can be overcome) could put you in a bad spot. Lindsey books have lotta stuff like this info you seek. Please be advised to tread softly on this project. I have fired cannon, mortar and black powder firearms. The technology alone (foundry work) should be studied well first and then proceed to find the strengths of materials needed (different alloys of brass/bronze). The black powder thing alone should be researched through some local folks wherever you are. Your chosing of these folks will be your responsability. If this sounds like I'm serious, I am. The Good Lord has allowed me to reach 52 years by making a lot of mistakes. I wish you well and I hope you have fun.

Crazy old fat guy with the pliers. :wink:

sweet little skinner Jens. :)

to be sure, the fire/wire settings relate to solid or flux wire. Also, the tip size should be fitting to the wire size.

Just some thoughts. The 2 settings you DO have to control with flux core are fire (either amperage or volts) and wire(speed). These must be in fair concert or you will get either lotta splatter or irregular wire flowing problems. The Good Lord only knows how old that wire was that you bought at Wally World. I have had bad wire ( Forney ) from a farm store ( myself and another fella I know ). this was solid wire but fact still remains. You need proper feed roller tension also and wire roll tension as well. Is this a 115VAC welder or
230VAC ? Is is capable of either voltage ( doubtful ) ? Is the contact tip screwed into the gun head snugly or is it loose ? I have seen a few problems with MIG and hope you can get this rig runnin'. Good luck. There are some here with a lot more experience than me.

I have a Hypertherm 350. Bought it new 9 years ago. OUTSTANDING tool. I cut mostly 14-16 ga sheet for production work. I DO also use the torch for building tooling and virtually any other need in the shop. I have gouged welds with it. I have cut a go-zillion miles of steel with it. 5 pack of consumables is about $40.- ( both electrode and cup for this price). I replaced the torch/gun about 2 months ago. This was due to hanging the torch on the edge of cut sheet while changing places with the pattern to cut the next piece. $ 230.- or so for the new parts. I must stress again how much steel this plasma has cut. When time to update I will buy a 600 or mebbe a 1000 but for now, I'm happy. As Junior stated, you need a good source of CLEAN DRY AIR.

Ten

What is meant by "tuning a hammer"?

Well, tuning a hammer is just making it fit your hand and your needs. Kinda like gettin a new chair and makin it fit your fanny and your needs ( height/tilt etc ). I can elaborate in several ways but that is pretty much the way I would describe it.

Ten

Stainless will absolutely weld to mild steel with the proper wire ( solid or FCAW ) and shielding gas combination. Stick works with the proper rod but I have no experience in that. Of course it can be Tigged nicely. can also be gas welded. Forge welding, I don't know but am sure someone has experience in this. Fact is, it can be welded together with modern technology but someone else will have to answer your specific question.

I wish to thank you for the pics of your shop and for taking the time out of your day to post this. Your knowledge is very useful and well recieved here in my small production shop. Perhaps I can return the favor sometime. Welcome aboard.

Steve ( Ten Hammers ) O'Grady
Leprechaun Forge
Bloomfield, Iowa U.S.A.

Sure would like to see a pic of this forge bud.....