Dale Peters

Hammerkid, your forge is looking good! However, if it was me building it (and it's not) I wouldn't attach the vise to the forge. If you should get rambunctious with twisting or hammering while using the vise, things could interesting very quickly. I have a welded firepot in my coal/charcoal forge. IIRC it's 3/8 plate. Works quite well.

I also have a Salt Fork swage block and so far haven't used it much due to the type of stuff I make. But, I do plan to make spoons and ladles eventually and it should be handy for that. I built a combination swage block/tool stand and I get a lot of use out of the tool stand part... so even though I don't use the block much, it's not really in the way.

Here's mine.

Good job! I like it.

I subscribe to Sirius radio and listen mostly to Outlaw Country and sometimes bluegrass. I like the Outlaw station because they play music you'll never hear on a regular country station... sometimes for good reason.

Very nice! I might have to make one of those for myself. Is that steel pipe for the long piece?

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope everyone has a good 2008.

I don't think all hay rake tine is the same. I've found two sizes. I'm not sure of the diameters (I'd have to go out to my cold shop and do some measuring). I've used the thinner ones to make flint strikers and they work great. I found some that were a little thicker that I couldn't get hard enough to spark. I've got a new supply of the thinner ones, but haven't had a chance to try them out yet.

Congratulations on your hammer, Apprenticeman. Looks like you did a fine job on it.

The last time I visited my local scrap yard was about a year ago. (I took off a year to pursue other interests, but I'm back.) I was paying 15 cents a pound. I use to go frequently, often just to see if they had anything I might be able to use for some future but still unplanned project. What they have on hand one day probably won't be there the next day. I'm always on the lookout for angle iron, pipe and plate steel. That stuff is always useful for welding projects. Small solid round and square steel in any usable length for forging is a little harder to find in my scrapyard, so I buy most of 1/4 to 1/2-inch stuff new. When I scrounge at the scrapyard, I try to find stuff that "matches." For instance, shafting that fits closely in pipe (preferably heavy duty), or tubing that fits closely in another size of tubing. You would be surpised at how often that comes in handy. I recently finished a treadle hammer and I built the slide system with shafting and heavy-walled tubing that I picked up a couple of years ago, before I planned on building the hammer. I've been doing this for the past 5-6 years and have collected some useful stuff, but I don't consider my scrap pile to be all that large.

I use 7018AC most of the time with my old Lincoln Idealarc 250. I use it because it's been the easiest for me to get a good bead with. For my Hobart 185, I use .030 flux core. I bought it new and it can be set up for mig, but I never bothered to get the gas for it. So far, flux core has been all I've needed. I've been thinking about taking an evening college class for welding. I think my welding skills are decent for being self-taught, but I think I could learn a lot from a class.

Marc, I also had to use a kickback spring. You can see it in the first photo. Even with four garage door springs, there wasn't quite enough "oomph" to pull the hammer back up. The extra spring is enough to get it started back up, and like yours, it doesn't come into play until the hammer is near the bottom of its stroke. It doesn't take much effort to get the hammer moving on its downward stroke. As far as the weight, it is probably heavier than it needs to be. The main part of the hammer is only 40 lbs, but by the time I added the extension, the rods and the die holder, it gained weight pretty fast. I like the idea of using a leaf spring as a shock-absorbing connecting rod. I'll keep that in mind in case this one is hard my joints. I'm no spring chicken anymore. This evening I started on building fullering and flat dies for it. While the flat plates you see in the photo might be useful for cutting and other hand held tooling, they're especially good for crushing cans. There's enough room for squishing three at a time. I also plan on making some hand tooling. If anyone has any suggestions for tools they use a lot, I'd appreciate it.

The arm is a leaf spring and may flex some, but the pivot point at the back end of the spring and at the bottom of the support bracket (attached to the top cross beam) acts like an elbow joint on an arm. As the hammer is pulled down, the pivot point draws back (closer to the support column) and forward again after the hammer passes the center point of its path downward. I found that the push rod bracket had to be past a certain point (closer to the hammer) or it was impossible to lift the hammer with the springs. I'm not very good at explaining things, so I hope this explanation doesn't confuse the issue. I was lucky the leaf spring had an "eye" on one end. It made it a lot easier to attach it to the hanging bracket.

Thanks for the comments. I've enclosed more photos to help explain how I built it. Ian, the rod swivels at both ends. The threaded rod at the top adjusts the height of the hammer over the anvil. It's 3/4-inch by 12-inches so there's plenty of adjustment. Some people use a commercially made adjustment wheel (the correct name escapes me at the moment), but I'm cheap so I built my own. The clevises and the swivel are all cut from heavy duty rectangular tubing. Jacob, the lower die has a 1-inch square bar welded to it and it slips into the die holder. I'm hoping it stays in place without any additional work. As you can see from the photo, I welded four pieces together, then to the anvil to make the die holder. It fits snugly and doesn't move much. If it doesn't stay in place I guess I could drill and tap a hole in the side for a set screw.

Another can crusher is born. I finished my treadle hammer this weekend. The hammer assembly weighs about 80 lbs. The anvil is a piece of 7-inch round on top a piece of 4x6-inch 3/8-inch wall tubing. It may not be as heavy as it should be, but I think it

Both inside and out -- I have a charcoal forge, JY tire hammer, anvil, and post vise outside under a carport attached to my 13'x22' shop. I also have a couple of propane forges, anvil, two post vises, and a soon-to-be-completed treadle hammer inside the shop. I have a wood stove in the shop for heat, but the propane forge also works well to heat it up. Now, if I would just get out there to do some actual forging!

Scott, I really like that idea. I think it would come in handy for drilling pipe stems for tomahawks and handcrafted smoking pipes, lamps, etc. What do you plan to use it for? I have a couple of post drills laying around doing nothing, I just might put that on my project list.

I went to an auction today and this is what followed me home. Three gear reduction boxes for $7; a butcher(?), two fullers, a flatter and a hotcut for $10; a belt driven blower for $13; and a sprocket and chain for $1. I plan to build a tumbler sometime and I thought the reduction boxes might come in handy. I might be able to use the sprocket and chain for that also. The blacksmith tools have seen a lot of use but I figured two bucks a piece was a pretty good deal. The blower seems to be in good shape, just needs cleaned up.

Nice knife, One Rod. I like the rustic hand crafted look, and much prefer it over the shiny factory look. (This is a compliment!)

I set mine at wrist height. My back isn't in the best of shape anymore and setting the anvil a little higher than recommended makes it easier to stand up straight while working, and therefor easier on my back.

I agree with Thomas. I bought an old tombstone-style Lincoln Idealarc 225 9-10 years ago at an auction for $50 (including leathers and helmet). It makes me look like I'm a good welder. You just can't beat 'em. About a year ago I bought a Hobart 175 wire welder and I really like it too. But when I want to stick some heavy metal together, I use the Lincoln.

Sorry, "solid" was not an accurate way to put it. It's the emergency spare tire found in most cars today and it does have air in it. They are recommended by 9 out of 10 tire hammer builders... sorry, just couldn't resist. The following is a quote from ptpiddler (I hope he doesn't mind) regarding the use of the emergency tire. The quote was from a thread from Feb. 26, 2005 on Forgemagic (or maybe it was still Keenjunk at that time, I can't remember). "Some builders have asked why we use the emergency wheels and not regular rims and tires. I did a project where I had to take the tire off the rim of an emergency tire--I could not get it off with my tire changer so I called my local tire store-- they said they had tried but could not get one off--I finally cut it off with a sabre saw. The tread is about 1/2' or more thick-the side walls are really thick too. Also the emergency tires have a radiused tread where as regular tires have a flatter tread. The radiused surface works better for the tire hammer because the drive hub is rotated into tire surface at an angle and the hub would make less contact with a flatter surface and tend to dig in unless you use a crowned drive hub and that means more work would be required to build the hammer-so just use the emergency wheel as they are usually free." Whenever I plan to build something I like to collect as much information as possible before I start, so I do a lot of cut and paste. If it's a good thread on a subject I'm potentially interested in doing some day, I'll save it all to a Word file for future reference.

The bearing is a agricultural type pillow block bearing from Tractor Supply. The housing was about $15, IIRC, and the bearing itself was between $10-15. The tire is one of those solid spare tires. They're recommended because they are a lot tougher than an air filled tire. The coil spring is one I found in my local salvage yard's iron pile, so I don't know what it is off of. I've picked up a number of springs over a period of time and just used the one I thought fit the best. The spring provides tension for the toggle arms and helps "kick" the hammer up on the downstroke and down on the upstroke. Just as you can have too weak a spring or too little tension, you can also have too strong a spring or too much tension on it. I like to periodically scrounge around at the salvage yard even if I'm not looking for something in particular. You never know what you might be able to use at a later date.

WLBrown -- Here

Well, let's try those photos again.