Avadon

I don't have a cutting plate on my gladiator and I would throw a ninja star at anyone who even looked at that anvil wrong. It's worth more than my car. Maybe I'll try the bronze or the mild steel. As an expendable tool I don't want to spend to much on it, but it will be nice to have. Thanks all for the good suggestions.

On 2/15/2010 at 5:03 PM, Rob Browne said:

Just make sure its thick!

how thick are we talking about? 3/8's, 1/2? 3/4?

okay cool.. than you all for the advice.. I think i'm gonna go with the brass. :)

What makes for a better cutting plate that will lay over my anvil, copper or brass? and why? I've got access to some decently cheap brass.. and i'm just wondering if that's to hard.. or are they pretty close in hardness?

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering what minimums I should be looking for in a bandsaw and a drill press. I probably won't cut anything thicker then 1" on the saw, if that, but want to be able to do free hand cuts with it. Drill would just be used for average use. Thanks for any help.

Even for 1" and under you want to get a good vertical bandsaw that has a very strong arm. I got a MSC #: 09514613 an excellent little saw. It has a 14" from blade to arm clearance and I thiink it's height under guides is 7.5". I wouldn't go much smaller then this, as you'll probably regret it. Cutting steel, even smaller bits of steel 1/4-1" requires a good strong arm and good blades. Some of the lighter metal/wood cutting saws are really under equipped for more serious medium industrial use. They are more geared to the hobbiest.

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I literally use this saw every day, sometimes for several hours so I can attest that if you put a good starret blade on it you can do everything from production work to artwork on it. You can't go wrong. Grizzly also has a good comparable saw but I didn't get the grizzly because it was 220V and I didn't want to have to run yet another 220v line for my bandsaw.

This is my saw when it was brand new.


and here with the fence, and the custom mobile base.


You can bolt it down or make yourself a custom mobile base. Take a look at my myspace in my signature and you can see a bunch of pics of this saw. I would definitely put it at or near the top of your list when searching around.

Notice those grooves in the table. I got myself a nice heavy miter fence that slides through them and I do all of my cutting of parts this way when fabricating custom tools for customers. A bandsaw, when the throat guides are calibrated correctly should cut very straight and true. So true that you shouldn't have to do much sanding to clean up or square an end. It should be very close to square. If I need something really sharp I will clean it up to 90dgs on my KMG Belt Grinder. But for the most part a standard cut with a fine blade produces a cut ready to be welded or worked with. Again the difference between this saw (a medium duty metalworking bandsaw) and something from harbor freight or other catalog that is wood/metal is night and day. You will probably overload, abuse the ways, or just slowly wear down the saw if you start to make a habit of cutting over 1/4" on such a saw. Those wood metal saws are great for wood and fine for sheet metal. But cutting through 3/8's angle iron or cutting 1" sq stock is going to make both you and the saw rather unhappy after a while.

I did make some add-on's to my saw. I fabricated a custom swivel tray to my bandsaw to hold my cutting lubricants and as I said I also bought a nice heavy miter guage fence from Amazon. I'm using a starret blade from MSC. I can look it up if your curious. The only downside of a vertical saw (as mentioned earlier) is that when i'm cutting up very long pieces, greater then 14", I have to wack them first with the angle grinder cut-off wheel. Then I can clean them up on the bandsaw. It's really not that big of a deal though. Often times i'll just lay the long piece on the bandsaw.. and cut it diagnolly. Then when I have that piece on the saw I will clean up the diagnol cut. It makes more sense when you see it in person. But yah.. hardly a big deal. Ideally i'd love to have a horizonal saw or a chopsaw as well. But if your only picking one, i'd first start with the vertical saw. Excellent tool for cutting out shapes, blades, etc. Almost mandatory if your getting serious about metalwork.

Before this saw I had a KBC metal cutting bandsaw. Also a decent little saw and very similar. I loved this little saw and I sold it for near what I paid for it.


Cheers,
AV

Does anyone have any good saved youtube videos or google videos that could show me excellent technique for using a 8lb or heavier sledge to draw out a billet. I've seen people use the back of an axe on youtube and I could tell that was very off. So i'm wondering if there is somewhere I can see someone who knows how to do this well, doing it well in a video. B)

Excellent roses throughout. Really impressive. I've made several myself. There are lots of ways to do them and most of them look quite well when finished. The stem way is probably the best. But i've done some where I just drilled holes in them and welded each petal plate ontop of the other. One time I had no choice put to forge each petal independently and weld them on one at a time. That was laboriously painful!! Roses are one of those things where if it looks right to you than it is right. Even if your a total noob to blacksmithing I think a rose is a must-do beginner project as it really helps you understand how the hammer moves the metal.

The first pattern "R1", which I actually use the sepals from a lotus mandala is my favorite. This pattern is tride and true and i've used it several times and it always produces really perfect petals. You can make them less pointy if you like, but it gives a very rose petal shape. So I've used this one quite a bit. I used it when I was making petals that went around a 1.5" pipe. But you can change that inner portion to however you see fit.

Also the lotus flower tips work pretty well if you like a sharper look. For something simpler try that 42rose.gif in the red square on it's angle. If you don't like any of these try google images and search for "Rose mandala", "Rose Shape", or "Rose Pattern" and you can get some decent shapes. The last one is a picture of a rose itself. It's important to get that spiraling effect. If your roses are to symmetrical they will look more man-made, symbolic, or iconic which might be perfect if that's what your shooting for. If your trying to go for realism make sure you do a lot of overlapping and using scissor style tongs to tweak a lot of the petals so the edges are curled downward perfect. Also a light texturing is worth the price of admission Studying roses online before your final shaping will help. Also you have to remember that if your making 5 different discs it's best to scale five different shapes in photoshop then cut out your templates and transfer that pattern with sharpie onto the metal to cut out. It will give you a more realistic rose.

I do have one criticism of that ontario knife. The serrated teeth on the back, although they look cool they are not aggressive enough to do much other then give a tree a slight rash. Maybe some day I'll give them a very aggressive profile on my knife. I'm not really sure what their idea is with such slight serration but you can totally forget sawing through a 1" limb with it. You'd there till the end of time. Probably start a fire before you cut through it lol

I guess you can make a really cool personalized ka-bar knife but i've seen them on ebay in many variations for 60$ and under. Personally, I like to forge things that can't be bought easily. I sorta go with that addage of never doing something that someone else is already doing quite well. But that said I suppose making something personalized does have it's value.





and I actually have this one below which I absolutely love. Got it for a song on ebay It has such a thick spine that you never have to worry about breaking it. Great survival knife as when your in back country a lot of knife use is chopping.

So i had some time to work on my stand. Its almost done. There will be a metal top that the anvil will sit on. A thin piece of wood will be inserted between the anvil and the base.

Very cool!! You'll just have to see if concrete is more to your liking than the sand. Sand would have taken out more of the ring but that concrete must have given you some seriously serious weight! lol. What is the total weight now? I like the rack, but you might find you want to cut it off on one side as it might get in the way of your work. The welding looks great!

I have a Porter-Cable CPLMC7580V2C 7.5hp 180psi 25scfm @90psi and it runs on 30amps (220V) and when I bought it I thought it was humongous! It came in a giant package. It was like christmas. At $2330.00 plus shipping it wasn't cheap. Everyone was telling me buy bigger then you think you'll need and so I did. Well after using it for about 2 years and researching pneumatic power hammers I realize this is only about mid range to run power hammers meaning it would probably run more (longer duty cycle) than something bigger and more adequate. So when they say go bigger, they mean really bigger. lol Like I probably should have gone to an Ingersoll Rand 10HP Two Stage 2545K10 FP. Some people do swear by campell hausfield and they make decent lower output models but i've relegated to stay with porter cable, ingersol or Chicago Pneumatic. Some day i'd love to build some specialized sound proof cabinet for the thing so I can have it outside where it can run it's little heart out.

Artwerkz- As Bob said, it is a dedicated purpose spinning lathe- it does make hollow forms but using metal as apposed to wood. I may do some modifications though so I can use it for wood turning too. Large bowls mainly...

From what I can tell, it is a 24" Swing, Pacific Metal Spinning lathe.

The seller was such a great man- he spent the better part of the day (well, all of it) working with me, teaching me some spinning techniques on my new lathe. He also included a full set of scissor tools, including a trim tool!

We spun 16g stainless of unknown origin like it was nothing!!! I then spun some 12g mild steel. I'm just guessing but judging by the heft and power of this lathe, I wouldn't be surprised if I could spin 3/16 or 1/4". It weighs in close to 2000#'s

VFD is on the way and I'm now making it at home in my shop. Can't wait to work with it...

What are you gonna do with this? propeller cones? medieval helms? I guess really sky's the limit. Sure makes dishing with a hammer seem barbaric, now. :P

Nice spinning machine. Those are hard to come by!

I would have to say my favorite machines in this order

#1. KMG Industrial belt grinder (i'll have pics of this baby soon) I'm working on it's stand right now.

#2. MSC / 14 Vertical bandsaw. I use it daily. I'll never go back to hacksaws and cutting discs.

#3. Miller Dynasty 200DX TIG with 200AMP Torch. I could never weld the big thick materials if I didn't have this baby.


(these aren't machinery but they are my fav's)
My coveted Cayenne Forge and Gladiator anvil. <3 xoxo <3 I would die without them. They are my favorite toys.

Yah I got some nice freud blades for about 40-50$ range. The one they give you is pretty xxxx. I've only used it to rip some 2x4's. It's hard to order steel for a machine that hasn't been delievered but I wanted to be proactive. The billing slip said 450lb. But there is no way that table saw is 450lbs and unless i'm standing on it and pushing downward off of the cieling. lol I had my doubts on as to how good the biesmeyer fence was and whether it was worth the money, all those doubts are gone. It's true as you can get. Once you have a table saw it makes you wonder how you lived without it. Most of the stands you can buy for these saws are just total garbage, lots of play and flex in the rails so I didn't see much option. I had to build one.

Oh the other thing was that when the saw dies this would make a great mobile base for a lathe or sell it to someone else if they still make this same saw with that bases's cabinet dimensions. :D

I've sharpened drills by hand for the past 10 years and I can tell you that the drill doctor ain't all it's cracked up to be. Even with fresh wheels on the thing it never gets as sharp as a simple fine grade stone on a bench grinder. The one thing the drill doctor 500/750/etc does well at is that it gets you quote close to the angle you need to be at. So in the beginning using that as a reference point can be quite handy. After using the drill doctor I always take my drills to the grinder and give them a very slight tough on their edge. This gives them that incredibly sharp edge that will give you fluted spirals that pull out of the hole. Those spirals of metal are when you know your cutting tool is as sharp as it can be. If you get small splinters and shavings you are not as sharp as you can be. Also note a cutting fluid is desirable on virtually every application and will give you a better, clearner cut not to mention extend the life of the drill and the sharpness of the bit.

That said the drill doctor does pretty well on 1/4" and under which are rather hard for most people to do by hand. One of the best things to do (and I know this sounds not like a lot of fun) is to get some cheap bits from a flea market or goodwill and practice, practice, practice cutting at different points. After a lot of practice you can just look at a drill and tell if it will cut well or not because you'll be so used to seeing what a good grind looks like and what a non-cutting grind looks like.

Just wondering if there would be dangers involved in useing steels that had a chrome plating on them for forging. Dangers along the same lines as galvanized metals.

Unequivocally I would not muck with it. Really, there is no piece of metal on earth that is chrome plated that is worth forging as is to get to. If for some reason this piece(s) of metal is just something you have to use then your going to have to use a very caustic pickle (a bath of acid) to strip the plate from it. Or you'll have to use abrasives to completely sand it. There are also de-plating process. Again, you really gotta ask yourself why? Ask anyone on here, fume hazards are serious business.

I didn't read the whole thread hehe.. but I like the concept. It has potential.. but I bet you could sell and produce them faster if you just made a simple plate anvil like the Brian Brazeal anvils with all the different shapes cut into the face. It might be a great deal more solid.




I'm going to make one of these in the near future out of 3" plate. I'll use some S-7 rod again and just weld around all those different sloping surfaces then angle grind and grind till i got it where I want. I got about 20 years experience with the angle grinder lol.. so I could probably sculpt just about anything with it. lol

Here is my 4" below.. absolutely love this thing.. but you guys were right. Without a horn or a hardy it's just great for certain things. I want to build that 3" anvil with all the cuts and a hardy attached for all the other work. Place that anvil right behind me so I can go back and forth using the two anvils. I think it would rock!

I like that swage block idea or you could just weld/bolt some steel legs to it. The good thing about scrap like this is you can beat it into the earth and you'll never cry about hammer misses that have dinged it up.

Advert bot is iforgeiron's new google advertising spam. See iforge iron makes a fraction of a penny or so everytime someone clicks on one of those adds. Google ads are seriously annoying and i'd rather just pay 5$ a year to be a member here and have no spam/ads, etc. Or have a membership for those who want to sell on here. I mean there are ideas and options.. google ads is kinda the low end of money making on the net.

As for stands my personal 2 cents is make the heaviest stand you can. You'll never regret it. Make some kind of bolt system or clamp system to clamp that anvil down to that heavy metal stand as tight as you can. The more one piece it becomes the better off you'll be. Less ring, more rebound, etc. Make yourself a good 100lb stand and you've instantly made your anvil that much heavier and solid.

For my gladiator 450#'s my anvil stand alone is 265lb's. Yeah that's one heavy stand. Sand is in the legs and cross members. It looks like this. Combined 715#'s of solid mass.

On my Brian Brazeal style anvil, the stand itself weighs 137#'s. The anvil is 240lb's. Together they are 377#'s.

So when i'm making a stand for myself or someone else I always try to make the stand as close to half the weight of the anvil as I can get, if not more for small anvils. A heavy anvil stand is something you won't regret. It makes the world of difference when you are working on that anvil.

And we shall dive down through black abysses and in the lair of the deep ones we shall dwell amongst wonder and glory forever.



Cthulhul rul3z!

One last bit about anvil height. It may behoove most people to go higher than lower in height. This is because it's much easier to build a wooden 2x4 or 4x4 platform assembly to stand on in order to make the anvil face lower for striking than it is to raise an anvil up with a hoist to place on blocks, not to mention more shaky and less safe. :blink:

Good advice as always on here. I was in the same boat you were in last year and I really researched this for about a week or two before I went cutting up hundreds of dollars of steel for my stand. After measuring, reading, listening to others, and trail and error working on different heights I came up with 32-5/8". That just seemed to be the magick number for me. I'm about 5'9". The anvil's face is about 1.75-2" above my knuckles. I primarily want to do blades, armour, jewelry work, and relic-making so I wanted the anvil to be closer to me.

Of course there is an old adage here that if the anvil is to low you'll know it in your lower back and if the anvil is to high you'll feel it your neck and shoulders. You don't want to be to out of range. If the anvil is to low you can hyperextend/overextend your elbows wrist and shoulder as well as strain your back from the leaning over. If the anvil face is to high you feel like all crunched up in your shoulders and arms as if your in a constant flinch. Neither are fun. Seems though for the work I described doing many tend to be right below their wrist bones; right at that part where your hand narrows into your wrist, or just below your wrist bones. Or at least above the knuckles and lower than the wrist.

One good thing I found was to take a block of steel and put it on my workbench using 2x4's or whatever I needed to prop it up to the anvil height I wanted. Then I lightly hammered on it to test my normal striking stroke. You'll know after many swings if it feels to high or low.

I know anvils are expensive and hard to acquire but whatever you spent on the anvil you'll regret it if you don't put it on a very heavy steel stand. A good stand will at least have a 1-2" thick piece of plate it sits on and very solid 1/4" or thicker wall thickness legs. I mean if you can't make a heavy enough stand or do the welding a log is probably a better route. A log is much safer and less ring than an inadequate (or even dangerously constructed) metal stand.

Good luck, don't forget to show us your pics when your done. B)

Wow, kudos to all the great advice. Yah i'd be looking to get tested in TIG Ferrous metals at first. But it sounds it's almost a catch22 with the certification. You'll get certified at the job, but they might not hire you unless your certified. Do people normally get certified first and then go seek a job? I can tig weld quite well. I've welded on everything from Anvil stands to jewelry to sheet metal and most things in between. I'm also a fairly good gas welder as that's where I started and didn't have the money for arc welding. I've been making smithing tools for years and was investigating getting cert's so I could pick up a 2nd job working for someone else. However it is starting to really seem like a career move rather than just an easy thing to do in a month or two. If I couldn't rocket into 12-15$ an hour it really wouldn't even be worth it for me and I have feeling (especially in this economy) I probably wouldn't. They would probably turn me down if I was being interviewed aside another guy who was equal in welding skill but had all the schooling and looking to make a living out of it. I want to make my living smithing, not welding so I guess i'm not willing to drop everything to pickup a welding career.

I was curious if anyone knows of a way I can become a certified welder from online courses? I know you need to have some training and then an inspector can show up at test you in your area the practical portion of becoming certified.

I already know how to weld and have been Gas and TIG welding for years. So i'm wondering if I can skip the community college bit and just do some studying online and then have an inspector show up to test me.