jeremy k

What kind of dies do you have in your power hammer?

Marc - great idea with the tennis ball to cover the horn of the anvil, I wish I had a nickel every time I was walking past the anvil and the hammer loop on my carpenter pants caught on the horn and stopped me suddenly - or it got my attention very quick. I have never walked straight toward the horn though - that'd be a no no. - JK

If I lived close to the coast I'd grab my scuba gear and head for the reef - JK

Imagedude - I find that working 10ft lengths is about all I want to deal with, course I work alone. A heat in the middle and traveling to the hammer is always interesting, having a helper will or would be better if you need to work full 20ft lengths. Depending on what lengths you want to deal with will determine your parameters of hammer placement. I did orient my 25lb LG so that if I was to work a 20ft stick I could open the office door and run through the door opening - never have had to do that yet though. - JK

PACK yer stuff up and get to the nearest hammer-in - JK

A little mold can be cleaned up with a MILD dish soap and a little elbow grease to get the forge back a workin'

I hope for your sake it's not 'cause your forge has been SOLD - JK

I've always been TOLD that one mans junk is another mans treasure - JK

Rich - good explanation - this can hold true for just about any other forging also - JK

Wine - It's what I like when I "Dine" only cause I like it LOL - hint... a duck has a _ _ _ _ Good luck everyone!!! - JK

Well Sam - If I was the one to spend the time hammering out a sword type blade - I'd dang sure be the one to grind and polish it. I wouldn't want to do that work and have someone else finish it. Just doesn't make sence to me - ok so they get ground differently....... take a little extra time to do it.... take all the time you need - an heirloom is only going to be worth it to the family if it was made 100% by you. Just my thoughts - you can do it Sam - take your time. That will make you that much more proud if it when your done - JK

This is a caution for those building their own air hammers. - I started to hammer texture some 1-1/2" solid bar today for a handrailing job, and found a flaw in my hammer design. This has not been a problem since I built it 5 yrs ago. The issue of the problem lies in the placement of the inline air/water trap filter. When I built the hammer I put the filter in a handy place(hand hight) and also this is where the air hose quick coupler is, although today I found that was in the wrong place. I've forged many hundreds of feet of stock but not any large round bar as today with this hammer. The residual heat from the larger bar was to close to the acrylic filter housing and luckily while forging I happened to see the potential explosion before it happened. The heat softened the acrylic and started to blow the side out under 120psi of working pressure while using the hammer. Here are a couple pics to show the wrong placement and the damage to the acrylic bowl. So I was lucky to happen the see it before anything major happened. My advice to everyone is: while forging - watch your surroundings and what your doing at the same time as much as possible so you can catch problems before they get out of hand. Like I said I've never had an issue with this before until the larger stock size. I could turn the dies around and forge the other way to solve the problem but I will relocate it higher up and away from the heat. Just a thought to keep in the back of everyones mind closer to the front. JK

Doc- Here's a link to the makers of MG740 : Index I called them and ordered a 10lb box. I had to order from one of their suppliers but they were easy to deal with. As far as the hardness of your anvil when done... working red hot metal can be done on a mild steel block for quite a long time without seeing some distortion, so I really don't think that it is as critical as you seem to think, hot metal will move way before your anvil or ASO. Jr. Strasil has a good method and was offering his experience from many repairs, Don't be numb to his advise. - Just my thoughts - JK

John - Good Idea on the splitting of one of the bits,.... three points of contact will help hold firm. - JK

- cutting cast iron? - you can use an abrasive cut off wheel on an angle grinder - pretty quick and cost effective..... plasma cutter - better if you have one handy...much quicker. either way will give you good results - cut off wheels are cheap enough so even if you go through a few it's no big deal. After all the fire pots are not that big so it wouldn't take long to use a cut off wheel - I've cut them for the same purpose with the plasma cutter(although I have one handy) and it worked great. - JK

Jaka - You can make your own punch for doing what you are talking about. Depending on how many rings you want to punch and providing you keep the tool cool during use, even mild steel will work. For short runs, thats all I use. First take a piece of stock for your punch and drill a hole in the end of it about 1/2" deep then grind the outer edge around toward the hole to the size of the ring you want as far as ring thickness and size. The inner ring size will be determined by the drilled hole size and the outer diameter will be whatever you grind the outside to. Then heat your bar stock and punch your ring to the depth you want - cooling the punch every time as you go (smaller punches heat up quickly and can mushroom over easily. -I hope this is understandable for you - if not I could post a pic or drawing. Heres a link to some punching/stamping I did in 1/4" plate for a table, tracks are smaller than your thumbnail. - JK http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/3449/ppuser/280 http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/3467/ppuser/280