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I Forge Iron

SJS

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Everything posted by SJS

  1. Very cool will have to make a few of those... :-)
  2. Those teeth are often 1095, or other straight high carbon steel. They will start sparking and be ruined faster than mild steel too. The straight high carbon steel also might explain the heavy pitting since high carbon low alloy rusts so fast...
  3. Personally estwings trash my tendons faster than a wooden handle. And a fiberglass handle is only marginally better than a steel one. YMMV:-)
  4. For a lot of historic patterns it is easier to weld them up out of several different pieces, because that was how the were made. It is often difficult to good results using totally different techniques. It is doable, but avoiding forge welding often causes you more work than its worth, or you don't really get the look you were going for. Ask me how I know;-) I have done a lot of historic pieces attempting to use modern methods and materials, to make it easier:-) it has been my experience that if you want it to look like it was made in the past, you need to figure out how they would have done it, and do it that way. And a power hammer can help:-) YMMV;-) and punching the eye on a good sized axe ain't easy either... Historicly smiths weren't interested in making more work for themselves, they were interested in conserving materials and getting it done... Forge welding was every where in the past, start with little carpenter's belt axes and tomahawks, and work up to a broad axe like you pictured above.
  5. Actually I was thinking about an S shaped chisel, that might be real nice. Dressing the edge to a polished flat instead of a SHarp edge would cause less stress to the joint. fun stuff ;-)
  6. What do you have in the proper size stock? That is probably the "best" thing to use;-) Knowing what it is, is definitely a plus, but doesn't rule something out... Especially if you can trim it and do a heat treat test. If you can trade some fancy steel that would be overkill for something easier to work with and more commonly used for hammers great. If not adapt... :-) just don't leave the hammer soooo hard it spalls on you, not fun, ESPECIALLY in a crowd at a demo... :-(
  7. If you have the room bigger is always better;-) You can do small work in a big forge, but it is painfully hard to do big work in a small forge. I would think 3x5 would be better...
  8. I like to use fancy air hardening tool steel like H13, and S7 for my struck tools so I always use a brass or copper hammer when I hit them. I use my regular forging hammer on the hot cut hardie:-) but I don't cut through (most of the time;-)
  9. My advice is to join ABANA, UMBA, IBA, and SOFA, and go to as many conferences and local meetings as you can. There should be plenty of guys in the Chicagoland area who might like a striker, and be willing to share space. Once you prove your not a goob;-) http://www.abana.org/ Conference is August 13-14 in Delaware, also look at local affiliates link for more options http://umbaonline.ning.com/events/Pontiac Conference is in Pontiac, IL in July http://www.indianablacksmithing.org/ conference is always first weekend in June as mentioned before, there are several IBA Satelite groups who meet in Northern Indiana and wouldn't be too long a drive for you. http://sofablacksmiths.org/ conference is usually the last weekend in September. IF you miss every other event, hit Quadstate. You can supply a complete shop by dropping a wad of cash in the TAILGATE SALES AREA!!! Which is probably the best in the world!!! The local meetings at Troy, OH have open forge time, and access to a power hammer or two. Puttin the cookies on the lowest shelf;-)
  10. The line of the of the foot as it sweeps out was what reminded me of an Armatage that I saw it was about 285, and was lovely EXCEPT for the fact that the face had become separated and a big chunk had come off... Lady still want premium price for a lovely door stop. My copy of Anvils in America is still packed in a box up front, and don't have Postman's Mousehole Forge book...
  11. Isolating the heat isn't really necessary if you use a set of bending forks one clamped in the vice, or stuck in the hardie hole, and another to make the bend. You can also just clamp one leg in the vice, and use a bending fork just past the jaw and swing the triangle around. If you get a little distortion you can hit it with a hammer on the inside of the triangle, back flat against the face of the anvil... Leverage, and heat can do a lot. Then you just need to figure out where to hit it to fix what you don't like. Sharp consistent bends require a lot of practice with the hammer or specific bending tools or jigs...
  12. Looks like an Armatage mouse hole to me, but I bow to others knowledge. The foot on the heel is interesting...
  13. It is lovely;-) Looks like a deluxe knifemakers forge, just eyeballing the working area...
  14. As I remember James Naysmyth did some destructive testing of forgewelds back in the mid 1800s and found that the best you could do with most welds was 80% the strength of the parent stock. The Arsenal in England was a happen place back in the day. Naysmyth in addition to inventing the steam hammer, and the shaper, built a 75' gap bed lathe and other cool machines to manufacture arms for the royal navy. Google has his biography available for free cool stuff...
  15. Coal forges have their place, and fire tending and the marvelous heat control you can get with a coal forge are great... That being said gassers are flat easy to use, you need longer tongs, or to have an air blast to deal with the dragon's breath, but for heating small pieces and doing twists, and NOT burning things up!!! They are great!!! I know you don't think you will ever do anything like production work, but there are some simple jobs that you can stack a bunch of pieces in a gasser and just pull one right after another, tending more than one piece in the fire with a coal forge isn't easy even for someone with lots of experience!!! It is disgustingly easy to pull out half of a "sparkler" where you thought your project was... :-) Gassers are a bit more expensive to build than a coal forge in general. Thomas could build one for much less than what you would pay for an antique one easy, even if he bought all new parts at retail, heaven forbid;-)... Fuel cost average a bit lower for gas, unless you make your own charcoal, or get several tons trucked in. Do what makes you happy, and doesn't result in property damage;-)
  16. To get your heat zones and to keep your fire contained you need something to lay the coal against to get your depth. You can use a flat table and bricks or chunks of angle iron to get more depth without having just a honkin big pile of coal. Heck you could use pine 2x6's that you soaked in the bottom of a slack tub till you needed them, and then water the edge of the fire occasionally to keep them from burning too bad, that would get you some nice depth to your fire...The nice thing about a flat forge table is you can run long straight pieces through the hottest part of the fire and NOT have to put a convenience bend into it. So it really depends on what you want to do, and if it deeply offends you to have to use "furniture" in the fire to help contain things;-) Firepots are great for most work, and if you build a deep enough fire you can run straight stock through depending on how much of a lip there is on the forge table... Like most things there are plenty of ways to skin a cat... As a side note, I have an old centaur forge, horse shoer's fire pot, set into a big flat table, and I use some furniture welded up out of angle iron to help contain the fire and give me more depth... Play with things learn to use what you have to its best advantage, and figure out what its limitations are. Then go play with someone else's toys and see what they can do. All of this is very subjective, meaning most of the time it comes down to opinions. There generally isn't one best way. There's one or two wrong ways, then there's your way, there's my way, there's the Boy Scout way, and the Army way, but unfortunately there isn't one objectively significantly superior way. It really comes down to what works for you. You are only limited by your ability to adapt;-)
  17. I think the steampunk outfit to go with the hammer would be pretty cool too, I like the waistcoat and brass goggles idea... that would flat rock;-)
  18. Hard coal is harder to light, and you will need to keep an air blast on it to keep it going, the good news is if I remember correctly it has more btu's than soft coal. You can make it work. You could also mix it with the Poco and stretch the expensive coal with the free stuff. Some stoker coal will smoke you out, but I don't think that is as much of a problem with anthracite... I have used bad soft stoker coal that with NO air blast had green and orange flames 10-12" tall coming off of it and it smoked more than any coal I have ever used, it was awful, but it was free and there were a couple tons of it given to the historical association for the blacksmiths shop... You didn't need to worry about the fire going out cause you were talking too much, of course I was sick for a week from all the nasty stuff outgassing from that stuff. :blink:
  19. Judson I give you a hearty AMEN. Practice, practice, practice, and there is something to be said for not moving on before you have a solid grasp on a technique. If you want to play in the fire and be entertained bounce around a master nothing... If you would like to develop the skills to last a lifetime in this art then practice, practice, practice, and focus on each skill, and each project. Do it till it is repeatable, till you can make ten of them and they all look about the same. There are NO shortcuts in life, but a good guide can help you get where you want to go quicker, and without falling into a ditch;-) And as for heavy hammering... It is a useful skill, but it has to be developed and controlled. Learn how to swing a heavier hammer after you have mastered the lighter ones. Learn to raise the hammer HIGHER and accelerate over a longer distance to deliver more energy, learn how to use the edge of the hammer and the edge of the anvil, learn how to work quickly and efficiently. Learn to use the hottest part of the heat for the heavy forging and refine things as it drops below the heavy forging range. Put the hammer where it will do the most good. As to the original question, s-hooks, and j-hooks are simple nice skill builder. Smooth 3" taper then break the corners for a nice chamfered look. Simple handles, hinges and latches are also fairly easy to do and useful. I like to make tools, so making chisels and punches, then making tongs. Making hammers require help early on, not that you cant do it, but you are better off with the help of someone who has done it before, and a striker is very helpful;-). Almost everything can be turned into an enjoyable skill building exercise, just pay attention to the process as it is unfolding and keep improving...
  20. V.A.R.P. is useful concept that Clifton Ralph has taught at conferences in his Power Hammer classes. It stands for Volume Area Resistance and Power. VOLUME: If you increase the Volume of steel you are forging it will increase the amount of Power you will need to forge it. 2" square has 48x the Volume of 1/4" square, 1" square has 16x the Volume of 1/4" square , 1/2" square has 4x the Volume of 1/4" square. AREA: If you reduce the Area you are hitting it will reduce the amount of Power you need. Fullering, sidesetting, and butchering require less power because you are affecting a relatively small Area of the Volume of steel so it is easier to overcome the Resistance with the Power you have available. The same can be said for half-faced blows, and drawing with a pein or drawing dies you are focusing your Power in a smaller area to achieve a larger amount of useful work. Clifton talks about "feeding the baby" where you feed the steel into the power hammer slowly so that each Bite of the hammer does a useful amount of work. If you rush the hammer you will not be able to draw as quickly. RESISTANCE: Two things to consider here in figuring your Resistance, what you are forging, and how hot is it. Pure Iron, and high grade wrought forge real easy at the right temp, mild steel forges pretty easy, spring steels are a little harder to forge, and high carbon and very high alloy steel tend to be harder to forge even at the correct working temperature. The other factor in Resistance is pure temperature, do you have the piece hot enough for the operation you want to do. This is a situation where sometimes many shorter heats to maintain your working temp can save you work over trying to "get the most out of each heat" POWER: This is how much energy your hammer can deliver to the piece. This applies whether it is a Nazel 3b, 100#Little Giant, or a 2# crosspein. Mass x Velocity squared so a big slow hammer might do less work than a slightly smaller, but faster hammer. A note about sledge hammer work, if you feel slow swinging the heavy hammer, you might be more efficient switching to a lighter hammer you can swing faster. I have seen a lot of people think 'I need to use the bigger hammer', when they would have been better off swinging a lighter hammer faster, and more accurately. Heavier hammer blows do penetrate thicker stock better so you are not just affecting the surface. All this is designed to help you think about your forging better. If you are needing to work larger stock by hand you need to keep it hot, use top tools to focus the available energy to do the most work. Don't be too ambitious, Focus...
  21. They don't make them like that any more... Planned obsolescence is the work of the devil. The good news is everything is cheaper, the bad news is everything is cheaper... I was tempted to unscrew the hinge off my saw from the flimsy stamped-steel frame and attach it to some .5"plate. I was hoping that would solve the problem. Planned on making a zero Clearance slit in the plate;-)
  22. If you aren't successful in the end, you probably gave up too soon. Little failures only delay you, IF you persevere. Edison tried over 1200 different material combinations before his team found something that would work in an incandescent light bulb. What we are doing normally isn't rocket science, but it does take practice, and forethought. If someone else has done it, then it is not impossible.
  23. A rounding hammer is fine to start with. You can look at flea markets, antique stores, and garage sales. ALL good places to ask about blacksmithing tools. A lot of blacksmiths have a favorite hammer that they end up doing 90% of everything with. Others use a ton of different hammers depending on the job. Save your pennies and buy cheap old hammers when you can. Investing .25-2$ at a yard sale for a hammer to try is money well spent, and even if you don't like that hammer, you can heat it up and reforge it into something you do like... Antique store prices are a little higher, but still cheaper than new from a Blacksmith or Farrier supply house, and much cheaper than getting a fancy dancy hand made custom blacksmithing hammer. Get involved with a local blacksmithing group, and meet some people ask to play with their toys, and see if you want to cough up 85-125$ for a hand made custom blacksmithing hammer. (They are generally very nice to use, but when you are young and money isn't just squirting out your ears it is very daunting...) Uri Hofi, Brent Bailey, Brian Brazeal, Dave Custer, Nathan Robertson of Jackpine forge, all make really nice tools. Brian and Nathan both teach hammer making workshops at hammer-ins and conferences. If you can get a buddy to swing a sledge safely for you, it is pretty easy to YouTube up, and try making your own. If you have your own set up you can push things as hard and as far as you want. You can do it. Perseverance is one of the most important virtues in blacksmithing, don't be discouraged by how long something takes, it won't take as long the next time... and by the time you have done it 100 times you will be down right smooth and quick. Observe, analyze, adapt, and overcome. If you watch what you are doing, and ALWAYS look for ways to do it better, you will get better... There is a difference between 20 years of experience, and 1 years experience repeated 20 times. Challenge yourself, prepare, and then just do it. You are already vastly different from most people, and I mean that in a POSITIVE WAY. You have pursued a dream and are actually doing something useful, most people barely get to the dreaming part.
  24. I would take a heat and punch it out especially if it was one of the riveted flat and then wallered out rivets. Then you can clean the joint up with the wire brush and flatten things back out nice, and you can size your hole with the punch too...
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