monstermetal

Well I have started with my "trial run" of bits.. Did over 400 yesterday and today got another 400-500 that are due by Friday... So far im averaging 25/hr if you look at the big picture.. And like Grant said its not the time forging thats an issue.. The forge cycle is 20-40 seconds... is moving the things around, loading and unloading the tubs, doing the paper work so I can get paid.. that is the stuff that takes way to long... Anyway I snaped a few pics of how I got my set up at the moment, I am going to change things up a bit... And a few pics of this weeks run of bits... I should also say that one of the guys came by today and I ask them how they looked, he said that they where way better than they needed to be... I dressed every one of the first two hundred.. he said they have always just sent them out "as nipped" out of the shear... so that should help speed things up some

Now that sounds like a great and very fair deal Nick... Someone will jump on that quick I bet...

Gonna be the mother of all shindigs!! :D

Ive got both top and bottom dies with 1" round holes and set screws to hold stuff in them for my KA

you could talk to me, Id tell you the same thing all the other guys did.. Not a good choice for a chisel.. heck send me the Ti and I'll send you some S7 or H13 or 4340... All great choices for hot work chisels... There is a big diffrence between tough and hard... Ti is very tough stuff with lots of great uses in a forge shop... Ive made many pry and crow bars from a few inches to 5 feet, makes great tongs too.... But stick to alloy/tool steel for thing that is going to be struck to do work or needs to be sharp. Ti is just not hard enough

Kerry is right but at the same time knowing it runs and how it runs is going to be very important to a buyer.. Im not saying do this, but If I was going to do it this is what I would do.. Make sure your pole/stump is bolted to a heavy steel plate on the ground so it cant move and make sure that its at least several inches taller than where the die hangs down too... you dont need anything like full travel just to test the hammer so error on the safe side and limit the travel all you can... as for the position of the leavers you should start with it in the second notch back... the first one is clamp, then the treadle will move it between notches for the "run" section... make sure it does not go forward of the clamp location.. on my hammer that locks up the compressor cylinder and I think it would be a good way to bend a connecting rod.. Be very aware, like Kerry said.. it would be very easy to do a lot of very hard to repair damage with one small mistake...

I don't think it will take anything like 6 hours for a dozen. I think a couple hours is plenty

If you want easy pay me to do it ;)

Yeah I dont know what the market is like today but 5-8 years ago when I was buying that kind of stuff I would have expected the set you have there to bring $500-$800 if sold individually on eBay... I dont use my stakes much but they are sure nice to have around.

Get with it all ready, why haven't you got the parts ordered?

I bought a chunk of 4340 for a new lower die... $281 for a 8" round 9.5" long.... thats a delivered price from Pacific tool steel... I figure it must be around 150lbs which would put it at less than $2/lb seems like a great deal

They had 5/8 in 5 x 5 's of the Baltic Birch but not enough to make a tall enough stack.. This stuff was $200/ 4 X 8 sheet for 1" thick.. It seemed plenty costly but its arguably one of the more important aspects of the install and only 10% of the cost so...

I think that might be a bit of overkill for a 75lb hammer Grant...

Found this in a reprinted Nazel book that said it was 1914 vintage... This page says Beche but it was a Nazel flyer.. Seemed to imply that up until a certain date the "nazel" B hammers where just re-badged Beche's Thought I would share

West coast prices are quite a bit higher than most of whats been quoted... $150-$250 for a nice vise is reasonable here.. There are always exceptions and deals to be had... Ive sold at least 40 vises in the last 5 years ranging from $60-$1200.. Dont worry that your getting taken if you spend $200 on a nice clean 6" vise.. If its real nice its a bargain at $200..

Well today the cost of the foundation officially exceeded the cost of the hammer.. I got the Fabreeka pad ordered and bought $450 worth of what they claimed was as good as baltic birch ( evidently the Baltic Birch is a Russian product and for some reason there is a world wide shortage so its unavailable) The stuff I got is called Applely and is a 17 ply hardwood in 1" thickness..

Id like to see pictures when your done... I have talked about making one for a local knife maker but never got very far..

I talked to the guy at the conference who you are building the second kinyon for ( I cant remember who, my memory sucks) What prompted you to build a pair of hammers? do you have a need for a specific proses? Seems like Ms Demoore and Say Mak should have you pretty well covered?

Well something quite strange happened over the weekend.. The salesman from Fabreeka called me and ask how much I was planing on spending (I said in an email that the quote was three times what I expected)... I told him I was figuring on $1000... He called me back and said "ok" so the price went from $3200 to $1095.... So I am ordering a pad this morning... Still will have to do something for the frame, I think Baltic birch is the thing for that application given what others have said.. Talking with Jim Garret from Nimba anvils over the weekend... he showed me a chunk of pad that a 300 lb Chambersberg came on that he thinks is Fabreeka.. He also said that when they moved Russel Jaqua's 750 pound hammer the oak timbers where rotted away after just 5 years (remember this is wet country) I really think in the long run a grand for the pad is a good investment...

Hey John, Your a big boy and can make up your own mind... But gray and ductile pipe fittings like you would by at the plumbing store are only good for 300PSI... so your asking them to take a load that is 10 times what is intended.. Do you really think the few bucks is worth what could happen if one fails? 10 gallons of 2000 psi atomized oil spraying all over the shop with a couple of forges running? Make sure your insurance is up to snuf at least? :)

very modern and esoteric... nice job...

John... I plan on about a inch and a half under the anvil and hammer frame... (I set the anvil pan up so with an inch and a half under both I'll have a 36" anvil height, I could add another inch or two without being overly high) I have a 4' X 10' sheet of 1/2" UHMW... Maybe going with the alternating material to isolate vibration theory I'll go with an inch of Baltic Birch and a half inch of UHMW?

That was the plan... But the plan changed... there at 12 6' chunks of 1 1/4 in there... about 4 feet between the bottom nuts and where the top nut will be on the hammer.. this supposedly allows for stretch and give so you dont break a bolt... I drilled four 1/2" holes running down the center line of the anvil trough so I could make sure the mud was up against the bottom... I think that was a good move also because it let out the surface water under the pan as well... We about burned up a big vibrator (the wand was hot enough you couldnt hold it in bare hands) and I vibrated the anvil pan with my monster size needle scaler.. I feel pretty good about it....

Yeah, Blindly going forward, still cant find reverse.... I really feel pretty good... 40,000 lbs of mud in the hole today... the concrete guys did a fantastic job.. its dead flat and level.. 4500 PSI mix with long reinforcing fiber... A break down for you.. (Dillon ;`) Concrete cutting... Cash deal discount $220 Excavation $670 All thread / nuts $430 Concrete pump & crew.. Cash deal discount $400 Finishers $600 11 yards of concrete and delivery $1200 So thats $3520.... and of course I put half a ton of steel in the ground with that and probably got 30 man hours.. so really another couple grand that Im not counting.. None of those numbers by themselves seem bad at all... its just when you add them all up that it hurts... So really if I would have done it myself I could have saved maybe $300 on the excavation but he hauled off 11 yards of dirt, not sure what I would have done with that.. And I could have saved $600 I paid the finishers... and ended up with something far less than the perfect job that I got.. Everything else was what it was... I feel pretty good about it... from committing to this route last week to having a finished foundation a few days later I think it went pretty smooth I got to share a story.. I use to be a "do it yourself" kind of guy.. I still am if I feel it makes sense for me to do. So I had bought this house and it had a row of a dozen big poplar trees that really needed to come down... I got three or four estimates that ranged from $6000-$8000 and I thought that was just nuts... no way was I going to pay that... So I rented a 300 series excavator, had a friend who said he would haul the wood for fuel and disposal fees I started tearing stuff up.. I spent a week working really hard with help from several friends.. and when it was all over I had spent just over $10,000 for the privilege.. and of course it really cost me more than that because I should have been making money rather than tearing down trees... The lesson was pretty clear to me.. Sometimes the best thing to do is pay someone who does it for a living and has the same passion for it as I do for what I do...

Your a rockstar Danger...