arftist

Bekki Bass: 

Get shipping a new,  hard anvil and stop making excuses. 

There is no other resolution and this thread will get more and more attention the longer it takes.

On 2/10/2017 at 7:35 AM, JHCC said:

 Here's an easier method, if your gouges have a constant radius: put each one edge-down on a piece of soft wood, and swivel to scribe a circle. Measure. 

Or you could measure them with a set of radius gauges.

Very simple cheap tool set that I rely upon heavily in tool and die work.

Makes life easy.

Think of milling as similar to using a router on wood. You can cut slots to make an adjustable motor mount.

You can mill keyways into shafts. 

You can square the ends of bars.

With a dividing head you can make taxes or squares on rod ends.

With a rotary table you can layout and drill circular hole patterns like a car wheel or cut curved slots.

Lots of fun, couldn't live without one.

Be aware, yours is a high speed mill, better suited to small diameter tools and or soft metal.

Not to deprecate your welding ability (really) but that vise will never be a collector's item again, unless you spend 10 times more welding it than it is worth.

I highly suggest you make a deal for the vise as is, for your own use. 

You don't have to worry about the beams in the barn unless it is virtually airtight. 

One of the reasons barns last so long is that both the inside and the outside are subject to the same atmospheric conditions. 

Furthermore you should only need to wet down a small area, not enough to cause an issue, unless, again the barn is virtually air tight. 

On 3/20/2019 at 8:17 AM, Ben Hoover said:

What would be recommended for the best steel for a beginner with limited tooling to use to make said touch mark?

Practice and research.

Kudzu: grease is likely too stiff.

Your press should be so free that from the raised position it spins down from gravity alone, if not restrained.

Use oil instead.

I would use MG 600.

It is the only wire I can think of that will definitely work. 

If you have some scrap pieces you could experiment with 309 stainless which might also work and would be much cheaper.

Check with a forklift repair company.

When you can make your own touchmark.

On 12/29/2018 at 11:29 PM, Marc1 said:

Hum ... at risk of being contentious Frosty, the answer is not easy. It may sound easy if you read the multiplicity of answers from people who have been drilling steel for decades, and each having a different answer and swearing that each one work the best, from candle wax to water. 

Screen full of useless quoting removed

Guess you never heard of a cold air gun for drilling and milling.

3 hours ago, arftist said:

Guess you never heard of a cold air gun for drilling and milling.

Too bad whoever edited this didn't leave the relevant portion. 

It would not have been an issue if you edited the quote yourself

Bend them hot, which is likely the only way they will bend anyways, then use them as is, they will still be plenty tough.

No.

A hammer need not complete it's stroke by design.

A punch press must.

Not to say that it couldn't be set up to do something to metal, it most certainly can but the key is "set up" .

In other words the press must be set exactly to the job required. Improper setup will lead to press destruction.

By the way, that is a very small press.

Robert, that is indeed a hard stop. 

Both of my flypresses have them.

OP, sorry about the inconvenience but if you don't have a collar stop on the screw, you must resort to kiss blocks

Lots of issues here. 

A few facts; silver brazing (also correctly know as silver soldering or hard soldering)  as mentioned, melts at at least 800 degrees. 

The term "joints" has been thrown about, however there is no such thing as a butt joint for soldering. There is a welding joint known as a butt weld.

If one had access to a TIG, one could TIG weld the joint with brass or preferably silicon bronze rod. However, the material is very thin for welding.

Finally, there are silver bearing solders that melt at lower temperatures ( below 600 F.)

 I recommend the use of just such a solder. 

Soldering is easy when done correctly, yet impossible to do when not done correctly. 

To the OP, something is only considered doable when it can be done repeatedly.

Since you can't recreate your beginner's luck, it is you that is incorrect, not Frosty.

Frosty has forgotten more than you will ever know.

I was a machinist in a blacksmith shop with a fair amount of work. In the year I spent there I made at least three sets of dies and they already had many.

Yes, you can do a lot with hand held tooling and flat dies, but if you want to make a lot of pieces fast and have them be good, then special tooling pays.

I do 90% of my work with just combo dies which is why I like them so much, but for some jobs I must be able to change dies to be profitable. 

How did you figure the flow for proper grain orientation?

Do you do any commercial work Jarntag?

Ever do anything heavy enough to require two hands on the stock?

There are infinite reasons why quick change dies are a good idea, unless one owns a row of hammers.

20 minutes ago, Marc1 said:

 

Not available at all locations and expensive to install.

If it needs new windings it isn't worth it.

The easiest way to get three phase is with a static converter, around $100.

The next easiest is a rotary phase converter, big bucks and you may have to add a circuit or a panel.

The third way is to create a third leg by spinning a three face motor with a 1/2 hp single phase motor and regulating the output with a static phase converter.

Wiring instructions come with the static phase converter.

There are two other methods as well but I will leave it to the licenced fellows to decide whether to discuss them here or not.

I truly doubt you can get a 90 cubic foot per minute air compressor for 1000 pounds. More like 3-4 times that.

Other thoughts, 

You can still get parts for a Massey.

You likely can't even get a new o ring for the Russian hammer. 

In my humble opinion neither is suitable. 

Of course I am biased towards mechanical hammers.

The self-contained would be better if only it were not made in Russia, but the Massey is a better made hammer.

Clear as mud?

First and foremost: 

A post or leg vise is designed for hammering ( downward and against the back leg whenever possible.) They are specifically NOT designed for twisting.

Twisting is the job for a heavy machinists vice (which conversely should not be hammered upon[ except very lightly or upon a very heavy vise {at least 100 pounds }]).

This is not to say the light stock can't be twisted in a leg vise, of course it can, but it is a bad habit,  IMHO

My number one post vise is mounted to a plate welded to the top of a 5 inch pipe, 8 feet long. 5 feet of said pipe is sunk into a 5 foot deep pit filled with concrete and the pipe is filled as well, to the top. Ridiculous overkill you say?

I can still flex it. 6 inch pipe would have been much better. 

I also have a massive machinists vise on a shelf welded to the same pipe.

Here I twist as much as 2" square solid steel.

In the almost 25 years since I mounted these vises they have never been in each other's way, nor have I wished the post were elsewhere.

Key: The key to mounting things to a slab is as follows. 

Drill all the way through the slab.

If you ever wish to be rid of the bolts drive them through the slab and plug the holes with hydraulic cement.

Note that a tool which doesn't work is useless. 

A final aside, even a small (2 inch) pipe vise is better for twisting than a post vise.

Did you accidentally rearrange the thrust washers?

Grog generally uses dime sized pieces of hard refractories suck as flue tiles or hard fire bricks. 

Ground soft firebrick would make a nice insulating filler.

To be a professional blacksmith?

Yes, as a professional blacksmith I have a large investment in tools, books and schools.

To start learning? Nope I disagree.

My first anvil, piece of rail.

My first forge, home built (still works)

 my first hammer? $2 ( I have never bought a new hammer and I own hundreds of them.)

My first tongs? Free and broken. Had to weld on a new rein.

Tool stock? Bought many dozens of cold chisels for .50 or less. Same with files although I will gladly pay $1 for a sharp name brand file. (again, I have hundreds of all variety)

Hardy tools; though I have bought many used ones cheaply, I made my first hot cut Hardy from a percussion tool bit.

Flypresses, first one free, second larger one, $25 and a 2 hour ride.

Electric potters kiln for heat treating, free. 

Post drill $5 (I have since paid up to $125 for a particulurly elegant version.

Hossfeld bender, a mate gave me a handle from the scrap yard so I built the rest. Still works. 

Blower, $20 new old stock, neither the seller nor the buyer knew the real value.

Small scrolling pliers ground down from lineman pliers.

Large scrolling/bending tools; attachments welded to very large old fashioned adjustable wrenches

Twisting wrenches, see above. 

Bolt, nail and rivet headers, all made from an old drive shaft from some old machine,  hardenable.

Punches, cutters drifts, etc. all made from stock at hand, often recycled tool steel in one form or another.

This is why I advocate making tools as forging practice. 

The other day on the jobsite the builders needed a tool to finish a hole in the center of a ten foot long wood post ( ten foot long hole) 

We ended up making a 7 foot long 3" wife scorp.  With it the hole was completed in under an hour after days of work with all manor of tools by the wood butcher's.

We forged in in under two hours from 1.25 square bar with myself and two strikers using just an anvil, two sledges and a too small fuller but it got the job done. 

Edit, incidentally, the complex curve of the scorp was formed on the bottom of the horn of a London pattern anvil.

If I didn't have the anvil I would have done it on a wood stump, burning it into the wood as much as needed.