will52100

Thanks, got it bolted on and tested today. The dies were a success, the wrought iron hawk was a failure, got a few cold shuts while stacking it up from small pieces to make a larger one. You'd think I'd know better by now.

Got it welded, will see how well it holds up. The bottom die shows no signs of cracking, yet. In the daylight the welds appear a lot better than they did in the dark, they were actually pretty decent welds on the dies. I pre heated the whole thing to 400 deg.F., then welded, after grinding the old weld off and V ing it, then back in the oven for an hour at 400. Hopefully it'll last another 5-6 years. If it last that long it may be time for new dies anyway. The only real downside I see to the tire hammer design is the bolted dies, sure be nice to have dove tailed ones to make die changes easier and to be able to use factory dies.

Thanks, I weld 1/8" 7018 rite at 100 amps DC on my machine. Your rite about heat build up, but weld a pass and let it cool down, weld some more, ect. until finished. Also the die came completely off, so no issues about grinding a chamfer and clean up. I was mainly wondering if anybody knew how they did them in the course, because in spite of have poor welds the die held up very well for a number of years.

Thanks, I think I'll throw it in the oven and heat to 400, then weld and let it slow cool in the oven. Shouldn't affect the temper, and would stress relieve the welds.

After 5+ years the top die on my tire hammer came loose. I bought it from a fellow that was upgrading to an air hammer, so didn't do the initial welding myself. I did have to fix a lot of the welds the first few months of owning it. It was built in a class with Clay Spencer. Anyway, the dies are supposed to be 4140, I know to preheat to 400 deg.F., but what about post welding heat treat? The welds that broke loose were not what I'd consider good welds, very light penetration and not much material build up. In other words I'm amazed the welds lasted this long, especially after wailing flat out on some of the high alloy steels I forge. Anybody know how Clay did the dies at the classes? I'm planning on using 1/8" 7018 rods, with a good V grove around it for good build up and penetration. Thanks

Good to know, I've heard it's a PITA to change a donut tire after putting the faceplate and pinion on. That was the main reason I was thinking if I built one to put it at the back. The motor mount I'm talking about is the spot welded base to the motor, can't remember the frame size, just your average 1 horse 120 volt electric motor. I was carefull and braced and welded the base on with a fast pass cooling the motor housing as I welded it. So far, no shorts after 4-5 years. No such thing as overbuilding, I totally understand the desire to do so. Now if I could just find the time and material to build a 100 pound tire hammer. I'm thinking something along the lines of anvilfire's X1. I get to where I can look at video's I'll check your posting out, rite now bandwidth is so small I can't look at them.

Actually from a construction and size standpoint, the spare tire donut and current methode is the quickest and easiest way to fab up the cluctch and pinon. That is if you don't have access to machine tools and shafting and such. I'd take a little more work to use pillow blocks and put the tire at the back, but in the long run it'd make maintence a whole lot easier.

Tire hammer. Safer, faster and hits harder than the App hammer I build and eventually scrapped. Not to mention the tire clutch gives a lot better control than the slack belt of the App. hammer.

Nice job! Love how you built up the anvil, and braced everything, a very professional looking job. A buddy of mine just built his tire hammer from looking at the shop drawings that came with mine. Love the tire hammer. I tried to get to one of the tire hammer building classes, but could never work it out where I was stateside to make it. I got lucky and found one for sale where the owner was upgrading to an air hammer. From personal experience, other than some less than professional welds on mine that needed repairing, the only real design flaws I've seen are 1: Really needs a heavier base than 1/2" plate, added a 1" to mine. 2: If I was to build one I'd add grease fittings to the link pin bushings instead of oil holes. 3: The motor likes to break the spot welds to it's base when running hard, I fixed this by welding a brace on the motor and luckily didn't damage the motor. 4: I'd use a small car tire mounted on pillow block bearings with the tire in the back and the counter weight in the front. Mainly to make it a lot easier to fix or change the tire. Not a huge issue, it'd just simplify some things. All in all I've given my no mercy over several years now and other than fixing some of the prior builders pore welding, have had very little issue with it, and it's for sure saved my arm and make it a lot easier to work larger stock. I make knives, so I'm talking about pounding on 52100 and such at 1625 deg.F., not mild steel at welding heat. A very impressive design that should give years of service.

Here's my blade smith anvil, I used it a bit while straighten up the facets on a hammer I forged, solid as a rock. Good rebound, but no ring like a traditional anvil and should work good for blades. Idealy I'd love to have about a 12" long x 5" wide by about 10" high anvil for blades, just a big hard rectangular block of steel for blade work.

That's most likely what I'll do, either that or go to larger stock and make the eye a heck of a lot thicker.

Thanks, that was what I was thinking SJS. I'll know more when I get back state side. The thing with L6, at least proper L6 and not some of the versions out there now, is that it will air harden from a forging heat. I made a slitter out of it years ago and after a while the eye broke. It's a hard steel to properly heat treat without an oven. One of the reasons I'm glad I bought a Paragon several years ago. Unfortunately I was thinking of keeping the eye and striking end as soft as possible, not thinking about bending and deforming it. Hammer was hot enough, at least at the start, but I was moving slowly, was by myself and it's a juggling act to punch and hold the billet and hammer at the same time. Though in hind sight it did punch very very fast, better and faster than any punches I've made yet.

Wish I'd thought of that CKillgore, I did a 4"x4"x12" block myself. Between fuel cost, time, and mixing up 30 gallons of super quench it wouldn't have been much more to send it out. I made a blade smith post anvil out of said 4140. First quench was done in 50 gallons of water with a hose running full blast in it. Got hard, but not nearly as hard as I wanted. I'd been using a harbor freight russian cast steel anvil with the horn cut off for blade work and it was too soft. So I tried the super quench and it worked very well, I'd estimate the RC to be about 52-54. Unfortunately it also developed a couple small cracks following the sides about 1/2" to 3/4" from the edge. I finished it up and mounted it in a tube filled with sand and it works great for blades, but I'm not going to be doing heavy work on it, got a good anvil for that.

Looks great! Welcome back. Love bronze, and love/hate wire rope. Love it for it's individuality, hate it when I am just about finished grinding and find a flaw.

Thanks, I"m down to three choices, really four. One, an anyang 88, a big blue, building a 100 pound mechanical just for fun, and regaining my senses and staying with the hammer and press I've got. I most likely will get one eventually, just trying to resist the urge.

I'm with you on the eye protection. I had a small piece of titanium flip up off the bandsaw and poke me in the eye, after the 2 hour waiting room experience and then the doc poking around and the week of cream I had to put on the small cut on my eye and such I just about won't go outside without safety glasses and buy them in bulk.

Thanks, still doing reading and thinking about it. Got no real justification for one other than "I want that". The reason I like the self contained hammers is it reminds me of a mechanical hammer with it's crank driven compressor piston. That and it's all in one vs. buying a compressor to go with it. I've thought about trying to build a 100 pound hammer, but not having any plans out there and primarily not having time to mess with it means it'll probably stay "just an idea" Also very very attracted to the control an air hammer has vs mechanical. That said I've done a bit of tooling on my tire hammer and it's got great control for a mechanical hammer, just nowhere near what an air hammer has.

Don't have any pics, out on the rig again for a while. Anyway, I forged an eye punch from 3/4" L-6 round bar. Because it has a tendency to air harden, I did a proper normalize and anneal cycle on it in my oven. I then hardened the lower punch section and tempered. It worked great for punching the eye of a 2.5 pound hammer, no deformation of the end or anything. Unfortunately in the middle of beating on it to punch the hammer eye it started to bend. So punching the eye of the hammer was punch, straighten the eye punch, punch, straighten the eye punch, ext. until nearly done when the handle was in bad enough shape I finished with the straight punch I used to make the eye punch. I'm thinking I should have quenched the whole thing, then did a differential temper on it with the striking surface fully soft. Or just make one out of 5160 and use three or four times, sharpening between, and add to damascus when used up and make another. I get back stateside I'll take pics.

As I move more into decorative iron work I am becoming more and more interested in an air hammer. As a knife maker I really don't need one. I've got a tire hammer that works very well for making large stock small enough to shape on the anvil. The main reason I got a hammer to begin with is that 52100 is stiff at lower forging temps, like your beating on cold iron almost and working larger stock down by hand would kill you. I've got an H frame hydraulic press I built, and works wonderful for damascus. The hammer and press really compliment one another. However I keep looking at air hammers. I'm really attracted to self contained hammers, but then like the looks of Big Blue as well. What's the pro's and cons of self contained hammers vs. Big Blue and others? I know some has issues with overheating the self contained hammers, but I don't plan on running it hard all day, maybe 3-5 hours at a time at the most. After all, a day at the forge leaves me a month's worth of finish work. While I like to play with decorative iron and such, they will mainly be used to draw out thick, fairly hard to move steel for knife making. Also some damascus as well. The one thing I really, really love about the tire hammer is that a 120V 1 horse motor runs it with no problem. I only have single phase power in my shop, so I'm limited to single phase, 220. Also the tire hammer, once I fixed some of the weak welds and such is basically maintenance free other than lube. If I did get an air hammer I'd want something around a 100 pounder and most likely keep the 50 pound tire hammer as well.

Thanks, in todays day and age youtube is a big help, if it hadn't been for that it would have taken me a lot longer to figure it out. Also the MFC had a hammer making demo and you can be assured I was watching very closely.

Just finished this, my first attempt wasn't too bad, it's workable, but this came out a lot closer to what I had in mind. I did put a touchmark on this one, just a simple letter stamp of my first name initial, to have a reference to which end had the larger drifted hole. Got to make or get made a decent stamp for projects like this. Other than punching the eye, did most of the work on my tire hammer with a set of fullering dies I made. All in all took me rite about 5 hours, though I let it cool down a couple times while I made a quick spring fuller and a couple of stand offs for drifting, and had to fix the band saw while working on the handle. Anyway, 1045 steel, head weights in at 2.5 pounds.

What kind of hammer? What ram weight? If it's a 50lb tire hammer like the Clay Spencer design then a 1 horse 1750rpm is all you need. After running a quick weld and brace on the motor to keep the light duty spot welds on the base from breaking off.

To date I've forged one sword, haven't heat treated it yet, or even taken it beyond rough grinding. Will heat treat and test and finish once I figure out how and have time. Knives on the other hand is what my shop is set up to do and I've made a bunch over the years. The guard as your talking about for a knife can be done several different ways. The two basics are hidden tang and full tang. The guard on a full tang is most often either a set of bolsters that are pined on, or a U shaped piece of metal that sits in a notch and is pinned to the blade. Guard can be soldered or just pinned, most makers at least seal with epoxy to keep moister out. For pinned bolsters after pinning I wick a little super thin super glue around the edge to create a moister barrier. On the U shaped guard I solder, haven't managed to get a tight enough fit up yet to satisfy me with epoxy. A hidden tang has a slot punched, milled, drilled and or filed or hot punched, in any event it's a hole that matches the tang of the knife, mostly just a hair undersize so it's driven onto the blade for a tight fit. The way I do it is to mill the slot slightly undersize, and on the back side mill it larger. I almost never solder a hidden tang guard on anymore. Instead I use JB weld as a sealant, the larger opening on the back of the guard gives the epoxy someplace to hang onto and makes driving and filing the guard to fit easier. Two other ways I've seen guards done is the integral, blade is forged or milled and the guard is milled or forged from the same block of steel. Another I've seen only once is guard is tig welded on where the guard is the same metal as the blade and strips of the blade steel were used as welding rod, then everything ground smooth. This was on a stainless blade BTW and should go without saying a good normalize heat and grain refinement and proper heat treat would be a must. A couple of really helpful books are Wayne Goddard's 50$ knife shop and The Wonder of Knifemaking by Wayne Goddard. Both have a ton of good practical information on heat treat, fitment, and theory.

Beautiful work, not sure if I love or hate the straight edge, it really catches the eye though.