Crunch

I saw a Dayton Helve Hammer for sale in the Tailgating section, and it's the first helve hammer that has gotten my interest.

The hammer is here:

http://www.ebay.com/...o-/150882755404

and there's video of it being operated here:

Since I'm completely new to helve hammers (and have never actually used a power hammer of any kind) I had a few questions I'm hoping you more knowledgeable folks can answer:

1. Does anyone have a feel for how heavy the tup in the hammer referenced above might be? In other words, how big of a Little Giant style mechanical hammer this might be equivalent to, in terms of moving metal?

2. Are helve hammers always this short? In the video of this one being operated, the man operating it is tall, but still, this hammer seems like it was built for elves! Why are they so "short"? And, is there any problem with blocking them up higher so the operator doesn't get a back-ache from having to bend over all day? If you block them up, does having all the weight "up high" make the thing unstable and prone to "tip over"?

Are there any particular advantages or disadvantages of helve hammers, as opposed to mechanical hammers like the LG or junkyard tire hammer?

Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for any information.

This is great information, fellas. Thank you for your help.
Jeff

Hello, all, I have few questions:

1. Somewhere here I found, but now cannot find again, a page that talked about parts commonly found in junkyards and what types of steel they are typically made from. I am a new 'smith and this info would be real useful to me. Can anyone direct me to that page, and/or any similar pages?

2. I'm also a woodworker (Roy Underhill's books on making tools, especially woodworking tools, are what originally got me interested in blacksmithing), and I would like to try making some simple tools like a froe, chisels (especially heavier firmer and shipwright's chisels) and maybe eventually a broadaxe and other edged tools. For making very hard chisels that could be sharpened super sharp and that would hold an edge (if not be very tough), I am under the impression that I would need a tool steel with a very high carbon content. Can anyone tell me what types of things I might find in a junkyard that would have the appropriate amount of carbon (and other alloying elements) for this?

3. Alternately, should I simply buy some new A2 or O1 steel and use that instead, to eliminate some unknown variables? And if so, can anyone refer me to good, economical sources for such steel?

Thanks for reading my long post and thanks in advance for any help.

FWIW, my house has lightning rods (we live in the middle of farmland on a coastal plain) and the house has been hit multiple times in just the past 10 years.

Even though the lightning rods are connected with big heavy braided wires and grounded to earth through big rods driven into the ground, those lightning strikes have wiped out one computer, two pairs of telephone wires, one ISDN modem and one POTS telephone. It actually ruined the telephone...you KNOW it took some electrons to make a conventional telephone not work! (Glad no one was yakking on the phone when that happened...did you know most people killed by lightning are on the phone when they get hit?)

My point is that this was a professionally installed system, and yet:

1) It still got hit by lightning at least twice in 10 years...which I thought was what lightning rods were supposed to prevent; and

2) The lightning still wiped stuff out.

So this is just a longer way of saying, Proceed at your own risk, Your Mileage May Vary, Void Where Prohibited, asterisk asterisk dagger dagger.

You would not be happy working 2" steel in a 25# LG Shoot I was not having fun trying to work 2.5" steel in a 100# LG and I was working at welding heat.

Must be a real PICNIC doing it by hand with a helper, eh?

Nice little hammer!

Seems to me that if 150°+ damaged an anvil, you wouldn't be able to leave it outside in the sun during the summer!

160° is generally when things get too hot to touch (at least for me), and an anvil gets a lot hotter than that in the midsummer sun!

Mercer Museum in Doylestown, PA is worthwhile

Thank you all for the replies. I appreciate the guidance.

I have an anvil whose edges are still pretty square (there really is no radius on them). I am a total newbie to blacksmithing, so I'm somewhat concerned about dinging/chipping these edges ... but I'm also concerned about making permanent changes to the anvil by grinding.

I see in Jack Andrews's book "New Edge of the Anvil" that he recommends:

Questions:

1. Is this the generally accepted "thing to do" with a new anvil?

2. Should both the "inner edge" (closer to the blacksmith) and "outer edge" (farther away) be eased this way?

3. This is a double-bick German-type anvil. Am I correct to assume that there should be no radius ground on the edges of the "square bick" on the right-hand side ... in other words, should I leave that part alone?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Very possibly it is "work hardened." :)

Maybe that's why there were all those broken ones!

Super Missileweld Rod

Alternately, if you wanted to TIG it, I bet ER310 would work well. Lincoln recommends it for high-carbon steels because it is very ductile and tough. It is about 25% Cr and 20% Ni and was formerly commonly known as "25-20 stainless."

Excerpt from Lincoln's "Metals and How to Weld Them":





Probably not the most orthodox method of re-welding a blacksmith's post vise, but just throwing it out there FWIW...

Holy mackerel, thank you all for the very good, detailed replies. I should be paying tuition for all I take from here!

I'm glad to know that the possibility of fire damage probably isn't that great.

"Red Lead" paint?

In looking at used anvils on ebay and CL, and reading a lot of descriptions like "pulled out of an old barn," it occurred to me that it's probably not that unusual to find anvils for sale on CL and ebay that have been through fires and thus lost the hardness and temper in the faceplate.

And, I realized, if you happen to have such an anvil (and not many scruples), it would probably be wise to try to sell it on CL or ebay, where buyers are in effect "buying a pig in a poke."

So my questions to the more experienced folks here are:

1. Is it common to find anvils for sale that have been in fires and lost their hardness/temper?

2. Is there a fast and reliable non-destructive test to quickly determine if a particular anvil has this problem?

3. How involved/difficult/expensive is fixing such a problem? I imagine it means somehow:
- bringing the entire faceplate and horn up to critical temperature;
- quenching it without cracking anything, and
- reheating it to the proper temperature, soaking it for the proper length of time and cooling it at the right rate to get the right hardness.
At any rate, it sounds like this is a challenge best avoided or left to the experts!

How concerned about all of this should I be in shopping around for a used anvil?

Thanks again for all the help I get here...this site is great!

Congrats Clinton, that thing looks like a beast...enjoy!

Thanks, fellas. I ended up cutting them out...used one 69¢ cutoff wheel and yielded maybe 10-15# of steel...the boxspring was over 30 years old so maybe the steel was something exotic! :P

OK, being the scavenger and TIG welding hobbyist that I am, when we trashed our mattress and boxspring, I tore out and saved the steel spreaders inside the boxspring that the springs clip to. I figure that the steel spreaders will be good for something somewhere down the line, even if it's only practicing my TIG welding.

Now, what's left inside the boxspring are all the steel springs that used to clip to the spreader bars.

They're made from wire about 5/32" thick, and if they were straightened out, I suppose they would be maybe 15" long and there are about 50 of them.

I understand springs are normally made of high carbon steel, so ... are these springs worth cutting out and saving?

Is there any use for them? Can they be forge welded together to make heavier pieces of high-carbon steel?

I'm just a newbie blacksmith so I don't know...would this just be a waste of time and cutoff wheels? Or is it worth doing?

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Well, I went and bought the vise.

The screw looked good; I think it has an Acme thread and looks to be in very good shape. The "screwbox" looks to be essentially a round threaded pipe. I couldn't see inside it very well, but I can't see any cracks on the sides of it.

This morning, I pulled the screw all the way out of the screwbox and gave it a good coating of Molykote (molybdenum disulfide paste). I can't wait to use it!

Thanks again for for all of your advice.

Thank you fellas. Will let you know if I get it.

Does $100 look like a decent price for this vise to you? I'm not sure what they typically sell for. It's probably 40 miles away...

Seller says it has 5" jaw and is 40" long and in good condition.

Thanks in advance for any opinions...

When you say RR springs are you referring to those squiggly shaped things. Heck don't know how to describe them. They are sort of a C shape but with big squiggly humps. Looks like they are made to spring onto something and hold at the points of the C. After straightening a few of these out It seems to me that they could be a nicely hardenable tool steel.

I believe that Kerry Stagmer (a member here) uses those clips to make knives or swords.

See:

Thank you all for all the really good replies. Lots of good information here to think about.

Thank you gentlemen. I did not know about that business with the force cone and the center swelling out. Thanks bigfootnampa and 781...I need to read up more on that.

Does anyone know what size stock a 25# LG is typically good for?

Are there any rules of thumb for what various power hammer sizes are good for?

I would like to eventually get into tool making, knifes, chisels, swords, etc., especially with homemade "Damascus" steels that I would weld up and draw out and fold over ...

Would a 25# LG be suitable for this sort of work on a daily basis, or would most people want something bigger?

I know this is sort of a silly question (I imagine a 25# LG would be fine but a 100# hammer would be a lot faster), but I'm just trying to get a feel...

Thanks in advance for any insights.

C