Chris Pook

Chris, this forge looks like what you're looking for:
Plans Available

Ralph Sproul sells the plans for this, called the "Vertical Sidewinder Forge". The roof is raised with a trailer jack so you can reposition the bricks as you see fit.

I've got a small forge with this concept that I've used quite successfully bending odd-shaped items. You can see the story of that one at:
Building the new forge
But it's nothing compared to Ralph's.

I like Ralph's forge I saw the plans being offered when I was googling forges.
Your forge looks good to.

I'm thinking of building one close to double in size but in such a way I can use only half of it or a quarter of it if needed, maybe even make so I can move the burners to different spots, just by stuffing some kaowool in and capping unused holes.


Frog, I've been contemplating selling the johnson forge now that I don't have natural gas available. I liked using it for certian jobs were I was doing power hammer work on the ends of stock and I could load 30+ pieces at time with no worries of damaging the lining (gotta like brick for that).

Your pipe forges sound similar to mine. I think I'll go with the Reil style burners, tried finding the fittings for Zoellers sidearm burner but they aren't available around here. I'd order them but the border makes that a pain.

Anyone make a side arm burner using a tee and the straight reduction fitting? basicly a Reil style burner but with a t fitting so you can do the side arms Mig tip type holder?

yep using kiln bricks, so you can adjust the height shape depth etc...here are more pictures at the bottom of this page Welcome to Hybridburners.com

there are alot of variations of them...pretty much just a forge with no fixed sides that you use the bricks for walls so you can change the shape and size of the openings as needed for the particular job.

something like this one Enrique Vega has but with different burners.

Designer Furniture Sofa Table | 17.61

I'm wanting to get into more furniture (dining room tables etc) and need to be able to heat up and bend larger stock.

I currently have a blown 2 burner pipe forge, and a blown industrial johnson 133 forge (haven't got it running in the new shop yet need to convert from N.G to propane)

but even with these 2 forges I still need another more flexible brick pile/clamshell style forge for bending heavy stock and for items allready bent into odd shapes that won't fit in the pipe forge. I'm thinking a 4 burner forge that can be split into 2 halves or even quarters so you can run only as many burners as you need. This is why I'm thinking of going Reil style burners so I don't need to have them all hooked up to the blower. Its either that or blower with a manifold type setup with air gates for each burner.

does anyone here have a brick pile forge like this? any tips?

I agree with Chris. A long taper is the go. With the necking, and I'm not sure this is different to Chris' method, I hit half on half off the anvil at the location of the neck, repeating after a 1/4 turn one way or the other. the return to the original position (I make no attempt to round anything, i.e. I end up with a square neck and square taper). This way, in cross section, the square of the neck is nestled into one corner of the square of the what will be the leaf part. I then lay the neck part down and flatten the leaf. It is very difficult to round the stalk and not damage the flat of the leaf. To overcome this problem I include part of the flat part of the leaf when rounding the stalk. BTW this was a chance discovery...learn by your mistakes!! The result is a nice transition from stalk to leeff. The pickies might help. And if all else fails grab a bit of modelling clay and play with that till you've nutted out the problem.

thats the way I do it. Hard to think about putting it in words sitting at the keyboard instead of in the shop showing someone

I use the same basic operation on the power hammers as well.

when using junkyard springs/axles etc for the tool part, a quick preheat in the forge will help the welds hold.

I think the problem is in your initial shaping. you need more of a sharp neck down were the base of the leaf starts and possibly a longer taper with less flat inbetween the neck down and the start of your taper.

hope that helps.

edit: The way I hand forge leafs is to first draw a 4 sided taper for the leaf tip, then hold the piece over the far edge of the anvil and forge a shoulder in were the end of the leaf will be. I then flatten the leaf shape on the diaganol (put the corner down on the anvil). then hammer it flat and then spread it more if needed using the cross pien...then add details like viening. by changing the length and angle of taper, the shoulders point I can change the leafs shape. If i leave a longer flat section between the taper and the shoulder or don't define the shoulder enough i get your second shape. if you want that heart shape your initial shape needs to look sorta heart shaped.

I'm guessing bands on a tapered shape?

if so you need to bend it the hard way first (on edge) then the easy way.

To get it pretty close the first time you could draw it like your doing a template for a cone shape or else it'll take some experimenting to get it right.

I went and looked at it today, very clean and geometric with just a touch of extra detials in the pillars. It does look to be art deco, its a designated heritage building, a bank built in 1929.

I'm going to show him a few different pictures of 20s-30s Art Deco gates. Hopefully he'll go with something fun.

yep been googling it for a while, trying to find "masters" of the art deco style

Edgar Brandt is one of the people thats been coming up frequently.

From my gathering of the art deco movement it seems to have come about as a backlash to the organic form of the nouveau (not sure if this is correct) and was based on the use of geometric shapes and angles, and were nouveau was about one of a kind work Deco was more about mass produced art.

interesting read...Antiques Roadshow/Antique Speak: Art Deco

Anyone have any links to forged Art deco work.

I have a meeting tomorrow with a client that just purchased an artdeco bank building and he needs some work done. Trying to find some period correct samples

What does the brake on your powerhammer look like? Having a good brake is essential to get reliable single hits on most powerhammers.

Thomas

X2 you need a brake on the power hammer, then its a matter of parking the hammer in the right point of the stroke for how hard of a single hit you want. then its up to you to give the foot pedal a quick tap.

the mobile home axles are illegal here in bc and in alot of staes in the us.

I built my own 18' trailer lats year and had a chance to get some of those axles very cheap...after researching them I went and ordered some proper axles.

most people go for a 60/40 split on the axle placement.

Bruce could you post some more pics and info on that forge set up?

Looks like a nice homebuilt hammer.

Any reason for not building an adjustment into the upper hammer tup, so you could adjust for your dies, tools, and material thickness?

You could make a sliding collar on a shaft similar to a little giant.

Another suggestion I have would be to build the toggle arms with threaded ends and attachment sleaves so you can adjust the preload on the spring.

These 2 things would give you alot of adjustments for tuning

hmmm never saw that section before.

For power hammer work , I have the Dave Manzer DVD's, one on tuning a littlegiant and power hammer techniques both very good video's.

The Clifton Ralph power hammer tapes are very informative, just very long and not the greatest lighting etc.

The Hofi "Free Form Powerhammer" dvd, its got good filming and easy to understand what he's doing.

For hand forge work I've got the 3 video's from the blacksmith journal, they're filmed very well and and would be of interest for a beginner smith.

One Rod those are great pieces.

sounds like he's looking for info on the air filled pillow method.

google "elizabeth brim" she's been doing it for years might find the info your looking for.

Rbrown, lol... I like that "we don't make mistakes we just change the design"

People talk alot about forging technique, but what about tips for designing a piece?

For now lets try and keep it to traditional type joinery, but in either a contemporary design or traditonal.

Thanks Frank,

The first picture is The Nazel 3b with a 3 phase 10hp motor, I have a rotophase converter that will run a max of a single 15 hp and up to 60hp combined motor load ( bunch of 1-15 hp motors turned on one at a time once the one before it gets up to speed.)

I was taught by european smith to use a halfround swage block and to slightly concave the scroll into a sorta c shape like you would a c shaped chisel, when you roll it up it then flattens out.

the littlegiant is a nice one, was barely used when I got it, the only thing I think someone did to it was was fabricate new toggle arms for it. I had one break on me at a weld, so I touched them up and rewelded them, when I get some time I'd like to forge some one piece adjustable toggle arms and maybe play a bit more with the spring rates.

:) getting the new shop under control.

I've been sorta moved in since July...shop wasn't quite ready to be moved into. It needed the electrical,drywall,lighting finished up and I need to make some money. So after working the last couple of months out of crates,boxes with the minimum of barely setup of machines, I finally had enough and got some stuff closer to being setup properly.

I built a new platform to stand on in front of my Nazel hammer with a removeable tool table.

I repostioned and anchored my 100 lb littlegiant, it seemed to run faster getting power from phase converter so i ditched the old flat belt and converted it to vbelts with a jackshaft and reduction pulley's.
I didn't want to drill any new holes in the hammer so I designed it use existing bolts and holes. I put a few pics of the band brake I built when I first got the hammer 4 years ago. Got some of the power hammer tooling hung up...


but for now its time for some beer :D