FieryFurnace

LOL Yeah the tire hammer doesn't have a lot of space between the dies....tools have to be kept short. My other hammer has more room and I'll probably use that one for all of the tooling. Apprentice......hmmmm well I need to get enough work to keep my busy all the time before I take on one of those! LOL

[ There is no entitlement, in my humble opinion. I have been blacksmithing for 6 years on my own. The first 4 years or so was spent learning on my own, through books, and through this website. The reason people helped me on here was, not because I was entitled or had a right to their help, but because I tried things, posted results, asked questions, and then altered my method based on the advise given. I worked hard to PROVE that, if you chose to give me advise, I would use it! There is NOTHING that rubs my skin the wrong way more than watching some student in a class, back-talking, ignoring, and constantly disputing the teacher. That teacher is taking his time to instruct the student and he doesn't HAVE to. I don't care if my teacher calls me the dumbest student he's ever had, I am going to take that information and better myself based on it. Not get mad and get this "you owe me" attitude. I think that a smith should be WILLING to share his knowledge with students that have proven that they are truely willing to learn and to work hard. No student should expect that, no student should act as if he has a right to that information.

Could you post an upclose picture of one of the leaves? I was trying a few weeks ago to make long slendor leaves and didn't come up with anything that looked good. Your's look GREAT to me. What material did you use?

LOL

I'm leaving Monday to go spend SEVEN days of class with Mr Brian and LDW. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO EXCITED!

Thanks all! Iron Quake, look for the BP before starting to build. I like the inlines but there are some design features from this hammer that make a lot of sense, so you might want to consider carrying those features over to the inline if you build one. If you are wanting to do chasing and reppouse and have a treadle hammer for hard hitting, this hammer will do both.

I snapped these pictures while forging out 4-inches of some 2-inch solid square 4140. That's the biggest stock I've ever heated or hammered. It took about 10 minutes to heat it up the first time. I'm thinning the stock down to make some swage tools for the new treadle hammer, as well as some spring tennon swages Anyway thought y'all would enjoy. The pictures are from working under the Kinyon air hammer. I don't have any taper dies for the tire hammer yet. Not sure what happened here. And here I am.......uhhhhh not really sure there are words to explain!

This is a treadle hammer built specifically for chasing and reppouse. All major pivot points have bronze bushings and oil holes for extremely smooth movement. I built the hammer for a total of between $400 and $450 and about five days of work or less. That price includes the cost of the materials I had on hand as well as the welding, cutting, and grinding supplies. The immediate outlay of money came to $290. I am guessing the hammer weighs somewhere around 300 pounds. The hammer head is steel tubing without any added lead and probably weighs 30 pounds. I am not going to list all of the information here. I intend to organize and double check all of my pictures and information and then write a blueprint thread for the hammer. It may be a month or so before I can complete that task. The hammer is based off of the measurements of Mark Gardner's chasing and reppousse hammers. The materials I used are different sizes, but the important measurements are (as far as I know,) all the same as Mark's hammer. He gave me permission to share the info in a blueprint on this site. I am SUPER pleased with the results of my hammer, it works great, and I look forward to putting many hours of proper use on this new tool. It works so smoothly that I can operate the hammer with my pinky finger. Thoughts?

Bravo! I often make a really good piece to start with, and then it goes downhill from there....that happens occasionaly with everyone and the newer you are the more often it will happen. The important thing is that you got a much cleaner curve on all three of your hooks, and especially on that first one. Your finial scrolls look much nicer as well! I like the finial scrolls on the far left and far right hook the best. I like to sometimes leave the finial a bit more open like the one on the right, and sometimes close it up really tight more like the one on the left. I also sometimes like to curl them around more drastically, sort of tucking that tip inside the circle. The places for improvement would be as follows: Towards the ends of your hooks, you are having one of two issues. You are allowing too much material to hang over the edge of the anvil when you first hit the material, or the end of the material is too cold and isn't moving properly. If you alter one or both of these, it will start to eliminate the flatter area on the tip of your hook. On the mounting bracket area, are you punching or drilling those holes? It looks like you tried to keep the mounting bracket area the same width as the stock when looking at the hook from the front! (I could be wrong.) Allow the metal to spread out wider than the original stock, and practice using your hammer to control where and how far the material spreads. Also, thin it down more drastically. Make it about 1/8-inch thick or maybe 3/16-inch. I usually make my mounting brackets so that the screw holes can be 1/2 or 3/4-inch apart. Good job! It's great to see your progress! Keep it up!

I just finished my new chasing and repousse treadle hammer. I've been working on it for four or five days now. It is patterned off of Mark and Mindy Garnder's style of chasing hammer. Anyway, I got the final piece put on and since I've been dying to do some more chasing ever since I took Mark and Mindy's chasing class several months back, I did a funny little piece freehand right then and there. I didn't have time to scale or sand the material so this is like NO FINISH at all. I normally wouldn't leave so many obvious tool marks either. I had to get done and get to the house. However, I had a lot of fun, the hammer works great, and I am SOOOO excited about getting it put in position and doing some REAL chasing and repousse pieces. I'll be doing an extensive thread showing how to build the chasing and repousse hammer once I complete all of the info.

In my experience, grease slowed my hammer down. I have a Kinyon air hamer with brass guides. There is one guide on each side of the hammer head with the front and back open. I used grease for the longest time. When I switched to oil, there was a NIGHT AND DAY difference in how it operated. It hits faster, harder, and has more control. It could be different on an electric drive hammer.

Here you go! Hope it helps! :D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Rd8QBfchI&feature=youtu.be

You'll need to coat that bare metal with something. Go over the black with clear coat. I would polish the bare metal a bit first though. The entire thing is awesome. My only thought would be maybe it would take up too much wall space. However if the person it is made for has the wall space, it will be the eyecatcher of the entire room.

That would be fun! LOL You'd have to have a pretty large piece of metal to do that. Make sure you have the ability to heat that larger pieces. I'm working on editing the video I was talking about making. It will probably be tomorrow morning before I post it.

That is undoubtedly the best way! I was thinking more like 20,000 though! :D Nick: the tip is where you have to start. You were on the right track before, however, getting that good curve is where the heat and hammer control come in. It's not easy at all! I'll be in the shop some today......I'll try to do a video on how to make that curve over the edge. It would probably be helpful for those that don't have an anvil horn. Stand by!

Could you weld the black pipe to your current "anvil?" It appears to me that you are starting the bend in your hooks at the bottom of the hook. Start your bend out on the tip of the hook. Place a bit of stock over the far edge of your "anvil" and tap it down. Feed more material over the edge and tap down again. Continue doing so until you get that constant curve that forms the completed hook. That's DEFINATELY not the easiest way to do it, but without a horn or round shape to use as a horn, that's they way you'll have to do it. It is 100% about control. To get a good bend that way you will have to use good heat control and good hammer control. It would be an excellent exercise though. In my opinion it would be easier to control the material if you did a full taper instead of just the ribbon.

I would not suggest 1/4-inch material for starters. The guy that showed me the first few things I ever learned, told me to use 3/8-inch stock. Three eighths is a happy medium: it doesn't loose heat so fast, there is enough material there to play with and to see what is going on, and there isn't so much material that you beat your brains out trying to forge it. I'd suggest going with 3/8 round or square. In addition to practicing tapering and scrolling (which is a smart idea,) practice spreading. This can easily be incorporated into hook making as the screw hole bracket. Practice spreading the material evenly to both sides. This will prove a great help once you resume leaf making. Here is my old J-hook video where I show how to spread the material for the screw hole bracket.

One of my older videos and not my best, but maybe it will help. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG-fIPeLjyI You've got a lot of material left in the edges of your leaf. This can be "pulled" out using the edge of the hammer or the peen on a cross peen hammer. You are practicing tapering which is good. To make a leaf you need to know how to taper (how to control the length of your tapers,) how to neck or fuller the metal, and how to spread. From looking at the tip of your leaf, you are heading in the right direction with the taper on the tip. Try to get it a little sharper next time. It looks like you did a good job thinning down the material behind the leaf. That is the necking or fullering part of things. Your ONLY real trouble was spreading. From the center of your leaf, use the edge or peen of the hammer to pull that material out until it is paper thin. This will take some practice and hammer control, but each leaf will develop more profile as you develop your eye and coordination. To get that nice leaf profile, you'll want to pull more material out at the base of the leaf and less towards the tip. It is difficult to describe, and hard to see on video. Try to locate a blacksmith near you and get a live demo. Your best bet is to go on ABANA and find some contact info for guild members near you. I did that when I was first starting and got some great advise from a guy about all sorts of stuff.

Most any type of die that imprints the metal or forms/shapes the metal in any way is going to lengthen the bar. (If you displace metal, it's got to go somewhere.) How much it changes the bar depends on the die type. A die that simply imprints a chisel line in the steel is not displacing much metal and will not create a significant change in the stock. If you are making a ball in the center of a bar with the bar tapered down to the ball on either side, your stock will lengthen. It sounds like you are all about production. You want to turn out fireplace handles fast. My best advise is to make the dies and do a test piece. If they create an unacceptable change in stock, change your design and send the "useless" dies to me! :D Best of luck!

Yeah I'm wanting to go up to quad state this year.....so I can wait 'till then. I looked up shipping if he split them up and was around 80 bucks a piece. Hopefully someone closer can get a deal and put them to good use!

I'll check but I don't think he wants to ship them separate.

Well, I priced shipping and the cheapest thing I could find was $250. WAY too much for me to pay on top of the $100 the guy wants for the vises. If anyone is in Iowa within driving distance, these look like a good deal. http://www.ebay.com/itm/170786031266?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2648 I wish they could come home to me, but I can't afford to pay $350 for the two of them. Thanks for all of the help! As usual, the combined knowledge of the membership of this forum has proven a great source of assistance.

(Aimed at Beth's post #5.) Now THAT'S a tennon! LOL Of course ladies can be smiths. If a woman turns out nice work, then by golly, she's a blacksmith! (I hope it wasn't a mod that said that though, because some of us are liable to dissappear! LOL OK that was a joke!) Linda Metcalf (Elmer Roush's wife) can turn out some very nice designs. I took a class under Clay Spencer and Julie Clark was in that class. She did a very nice piece, and forged the socks off of nearly all the other guys. (Including me!)

The owner has, so far seemed very honest, replying quickly to my questions, and sending four pictures of the screw when I asked him about the condition. He said the screw works smoothly in and out. The boxes look good on the outside. The screw pictured goes to the six inch vise. There is also a 5.25-inch vise that has a brand new looking screw. Both vises are in great condition overall, from the pictures. He wants $100 plus shipping. I was thinking I might be able to get both for $200 tops. Seems like a good deal to me.....but only if the screw is useable. Sounds like it might be. I figured rebuilding would be a bit of a pain and didn't think about the box being in similar shape to the screws.

The title says it all! I've found a 6-inch vise, but I'm wondering, how much life does the screw have left in it? The wear is pretty noticeable but does this thing have another 50 years? Is it practicle to rebuild the worn down threads with mig weld and then file finish? (It is a set of two vises for a pretty good deal!)