Ramsberg

I use twine. Steel handle, used to have leather rings on it, brazed onto a three pound or so head. Steel handle shaped like a thin and tall I beem. Twine wraped around it until it felt comfortable in my hand, using a LOOSE, thumb on side fingers curled around side of hammer. The twine wrap is VERY inexpensive, lasts a long time, absorbs "hand water" and becomes mildly loose so that it can shift in the hand. It produces less shock in the hand and elbow then a wooden handle of the same weight. The hammer is flopping all around throught the stroke, but that doesn't matter, once you become comfortable with it, it is great. For me a loose grip. lighter hammer and a rapid swing with a snap of the wrist just before impact, almost let go of hammer just before impact, let it fly back up. I developed this technique from striking/boxing jabs and adapted it to blacksmithing, then, as with almost everything that a young man does, found out that I was beaten to the punch so to speak. Caleb Ramsby

I was about one and a half years into blacksmithing when I gained the ability to re-heat a taper with the hammer. I must admit that the first time it happened to me I was a bit shocked to say the least. "Hey wait a second this metal is heating up!" I have found that a very loose grip, a med weight hammer, such as around 2 - 3 lbs, very rapid strikes and a snap of the wrist just before the hammer hits is what gave me the ability to do it. It is sort of like throwing a quick jab. You can deliver WAY more energy if you snap the fist back just before contact then by trying to push your way past the object. I have never brought up a bit of metal from cold to white hot as of yet, reminds me of the ancient compression ignition tubes that people used to, at still do, use. Caleb Ramsby

Thanks everyone for giving their reason for wearing or not wearing gloves! 134 VOTES! WOW, thanks everyone! 87 Votes for gloves of some kind, 60 1/2% 53 Votes for no gloves, 39 1/2% 2 very curious votes for only hammer hand gloved, 1 1/2% The "winner(?)" is a glove on the holding hand at 61 Votes, 45 1/2% "Only" 24 votes for gloves on both hands, 18% Very interesting discussions derived here, from surgical hand saftey, to must feel work in the hands, to military everyone should wear gloves at all times, to gloves are for sissies! Well, let it never be said that blacksmiths have a lack of opinion! Caleb Ramsby

Bob, Nice work! When I started I was first doing 1/4" and 3/8" stock then went to 1/2" square stock and larger very quickly. I greatly suggest that you work with larger stock! It will take a while longer to forge out, but as I see it at least forging small stock can trick you into thinking that you have a good hammer swing going. I knew that I had a nice swing when I could forge an 6" taper in 1/2" stock with one heat, with a proper hammer weight and very rapid strikes you will be able to heat the taper back up to mild yellow just with the energy from the hammer. Having said that, trying to forge heavier stock without a heavy solid chunk of steel to back it up(anvil) is not very productive. Caleb Ramsby

I don't know if this has been mentioned before but I feel I should warn others about using a kevlar glove when using something that spins with power. That is, kevlar does not tear! I know of a worker that was using a drill press and caught their glove in the bit, it broke their hand to bits! For heat resistance they are great, I always wear kevlar gloves when working with wire, they last a long time in that abrasive use, just watch out around powered spinning things! Caleb Ramsby

gonefhin, I have never had to make 100 identical twists so I have never triedt this, but something that I have often considered trying is to heat a portion a bit longer then the twist and cooling both of the end at once with a split line of water. That is, make an attachment for a garden hose or elevated water tank that splits the water into two branchs, preferably with small dia copper tubes soldered together. That way they could be bent for different twist lengths or a set of them made for different lengths. So basically, heat the length that needs to be twisted plus a few inchs on both sides. Take out of fire and over the slack tub or drain use the tubing to cool both ends of the bar at once, a setup that had a pair of V blocks for the bar to sit in and be turned while being cooled by the two water steams would make things go faster and be more acurate. Then place one end in the vice, making sure that the vice only touchs the cooled bit of metal and twist like normal. Like I said, I have never tried this, but it seems to me that it would get around the differential cooling effect of the vice and twister and not be too complex to build and use. Just an idea. Caleb Ramsby

Merl, A bit more about the hammer. The head is from my great-grandfathers blacksmith shop, about 3 lbs. My grandfather brazed a metal handle into the head. The metal handle had leather rings on it that were falling apart when he gaze it to me. I cut off the leather rings and had to anneal, profile and harden etc. the head back into shape. The brazing had taken the temper out of it and it was mushroomed. It is a machine type hammer. I wraped it with jute twine, although I think that hemp would work better, to 1 5/8 X 1 3/8". I use a "Hofi" type of hand grip. Thumb on side of hammer, fingers curled around and a very loose grip. The twine shifts back and forth through the swing, which I thought would ruin the accuracy, but it hasn't at all. The longer I have used it the better it feels, especially once it gets dirty. Not for everyone I am sure, but I like it. Caleb Ramsby

Tribal brings up an interesting point. That is blister formation when wearing gloves. I have found that when I wear gloves my hands perspire and the glove rubs on them sometimes forming blisters. Without gloves my hands stay dry and they develop that good oll' layer of hard skin. Deer skin leather gloves are my favorite when I must wear them, such as when grinding etc. My main hammer has a steel handle, I beam shaped, thin and wraped with about on inch of twine all around. It makes an oblong shape, which fits the hand rather well. The twine absorbs the moisture, and becomes loose with use, which makes it sort of shift during the swing and absorb almost all of the shock. No issues with loss of hammer control, just a loose grip, more guiding the hammer through the stroke then forcing it or holdin it tight. I can't wait to see the final tally on this poll. It is turning out to be much more interesting then I had imagined it would be, and thats saying something! Caleb Ramsby

Well, great comments all around! It is very interesting to hear why people wear or don't wear gloves for what purposes. I was very curious to see if anyone would check "Yes, but only on the holding hand" and almost didn't add it as an option. Someone has checked it, I am very curious to hear the personal reason for doing so! Again thanks for the contribution everyone! Caleb Ramsby

Hi all, This has probably been done before, but the recent discussion involving burnt hands and gloves has got me wondering. Please note that this is a question regarding general blacksmithing, not welding or grinding. Caleb Ramsby

As of yet I have never burned my hands while blacksmithing. Oddly I believe that this if mainly from never wearing gloves when blacksmithing. If a piece gets to hot to hold, I either cool it in the slack tub or go to tongs. It may sound counter intuitive but never wearing gloves I NEVER pick up hot things and keep the black hot stuff on a table for ONLY black hot stuff. Reading all of the comments in this thread I think that there may be something to not wearing gloves. IE. holes in gloves + pick up hot stuff = burned hand or usually wearing gloves + pick up something hot, used to wearing gloves = burned hand. Now I have had a rather bad burn, long story short(idiocy triumphs again!), steped in molten plastic with a bare foot. . . I had Aleo Vera Barbarosa growing in the garden and immediatly hobbled over to it, broke open an old leaf(the older the leaf the more good stuff is in it) and held it to my foot for about an hour. Then got a new piece and used some wrap to hold the new aleo leaf on the affected area. The fresh aleo took the pain away and almost healed it completely by the next day! Otherwise this would have been close to a third degree burn! My advice, keep at least one aleo plant around, use the bigger old leafs(outside leafs), just cut or tear it off, slit it open, rub or score the gel and hold on the burn for as long as possibe. Keep scoring the gel of the leaf as it dries. Works better then any medicine than I have ever used! Caleb Ramsby

Tom, Glad you liked it, I was thinking the shape of a question mark, a conversation piece to say the least. Especially if some of the center section is made into a small square and given a nice twist. For easier hanging of the basket, you could drill some small vertical holes through the nut, then thread the twine, cord of wire through them. I grew up in Bristol, Tennessee, really miss the smokeys sometimes. Caleb Ramsby

What about a plant hanger? If you drew down the center section of the bolt to a long and thin section, bent it into a hook shape with the head at the top. An upside down J hook, large head pointing down over a rafter, wire or twine wraped above the nut to hold the plant basket. It sure would look unique, having a recognizable large head and threaded end, with a long drawn out center section. An idea at least. Caleb Ramsby

I am glad that you guys got a kick out of it. Speaking of early photos, ie. stop motion photography. There is a series of photos from the 1920's that is of a drop of milk driping into a pail of milk. Might sound boring, but the splash pattern is really wild, it forms a bunch of splash drops in a symetrical patern etc. So what they did was to use a mechanical setup to time, VERY precisely the moment when the drop of milk was let loose and when a metal ball would drop, the metal ball would make a contact which would, in the dark room, ignite a very brilliant flash of light, I believe it was a carbon arc light. So with changing the actuation movement of the mechanical aparatus they were able to drop numerous drops of milk and photograph it at what would be in real time 1/100,000th of a second intervals. This was after much experimentation and making the drop timing repetable, the thing that made it work was the constant force of gravity. It would be curious to try this with a board drop hammer and a hot piece of steel, use the same type of setup, drop two things, the hammer and something that would activate the flash or shutter of a high speed camera. Something to think about at least. Caleb Ramsby

Jolly the Green Giant's wedding ring? Really though, that flat side is interesting, I have a feeling that it was flattened by having it beaten on, mabey used as a imprompto anvil. The id looks clean and more true then not, hummm, mabey it was to slip over a giant drive shaft of some sort to act as a keeper, not likely though. I would have to go with the connecting ring for an ancor. Caleb Ramsby

The title says it all! Caleb Ramsby

It could be used as a board drop hammer. Where the hammer head is attached to a board that is raised via wheels which engage and pull up the board and hammer. It would also make one heavy duty door stop.grin Caleb Ramsby

minaraimono, Back during the Civil War they used hydrogen filled observation baloons, Abraham Lincoln was the first to recieve an electric message from one! Anyway, the(one of at least) technique that they used to produce the required hydrogen was to heat up some strips of iron in a chamber and pass steam over them. The iron stips at an elevated temperature absorbed the oxygen from the steam and left hydrogen to go to the container. These were very large wagons with a giant box on them, this technique was not very rapid, but it did work. Having said that, I don't think that what is heard or seen with the wet forging technique is an explosion of the hydrogen after it is seperated from the oxygen. It is much more likely that what is happening is that the water is being held in the surface inperfections in the anvil. When the yellow hot steel is stuck with a hammer it deforms at a micro scale for a micro second to fill in completely the microscopic hills on the anvil. Doing so it would of course vaporize all of the water or a great part of it and , beacuse it would in effect make a very high force seal for the produced steam, produce a pressure much greater then required to force the hammer and steel off of the anvil, most likely during the hammer impact, thusly causing a very rapid and aggresive expulsion of steam and a violent rebound of the steel on the anvil. One other item of interest is a technique which was used in the 1950's where they would place the blanks to be forged into a rotating furnace drum which had a pool of molten glass at the required forging temperature. The glass not only rapidly and evenly heated the steel, but it also gave the steel a very thin protective coating to exclude the contact of air and thus virtually destroy the chances of surface oxidation. Not exactly a simple do it your self technique, but interesting none the less. Caleb Ramsby

As to not becoming a robot and making the same bike over and over. All that is required there is to explain to them the artistic nature of your work and that if you made one for them it would be a unique design that no one else in the world will have, made just for them and no I can't tell you what it will be like, it isn't done yet, if you like what I have made then you will like what I will make. That has always been the easiest way I have found to get around the, "Make me one just like that one!", I can't, I can only make that once, then it is made and something else must be made. OR Sell the one that you made for yourself and then make your self another one the way you want that one, then so on and so on. Caleb Ramsby

This is turning into a very informative discussion, thanks to everyone for the replys and refrences. Caleb Ramsby

Orgtwister, That is what I am wondering. Specificially about steel that is cast into the shape that it will be used in, not cast into an ingot and then forged into a shape. The reason that I am asking is that in 1893 Sir Hiram Maxim made a steam powered airplane(yes, laugh all you want;>), he used cast steel cylinders for the pistons and crosshead(double acting) of only 3/32" thick and cast steel HOLLOW crankshafts. Two engine on the plane, driving 17 feet 10 inch props with 16 foot pitch at 370 rpm, making 180 hp per engine, each Double acting, compound engine weighing only 300 lbs! For such a low speed, low pressure(300 psi) steam engine that is astounding, not just for 1893, but even today. I have no idea what types of cast steel were being made at the time, the steel tubes that he used in the boiler, of about 3/8" od were made in FRANCE and the strongest and lightest that he could find. Total boiler weight minus the 200 lbs of water was only 1,000 lbs! This boiler provided 360 hp at the props, 4.4 lbs per hp total powerplant weight! Not bad at all, the props could provide well over 2,000 lbs of tractive effort, when testing it on a specially made rail way(so they could test lift and tractive effort without the chance of lifting off, although even without using all of the air planes on it the last test lifted the whole 10,000 lb machine off of the tracks sort of crooked and there was a bit of an accident, resulting in flying for 300 some feet before touching down), when they let the hold rope loose it threw some of the operators off of their feet. It didn't have a cab, just a platform for the boiler, controls and operators, the engines were up above and out of harms way. Matt and Peter, Is woozt or Bessemer steel capable of being cast into its usefull shape, or must it be forged? Thanks for the replys, Caleb Ramsby

Hi all, I am wondering if anyone knows the year or a rough estimation of when cast steel was first made or when it was first made in different countrys. Thanks, Caleb Ramsby

Frosty, I was sure that they had, just looked them up and found one from 2005 and another from 2007. It will be interesting to see if the fuels used has changed, considering the wildly fluctuating cost variences between(in order of derangement) solid, liquid and gas fuels. I must say that I am VERY impressed with how far this web site has gone. I remember when it was used mainly as a picture how to reserve for anvilfire. . . more or less, I remember at the time being rather confused as to what affiliation it had to whom or what. Got out of the blacksmithing thang for a few years to concentrate on steam vehicle design(motorcycle, car, boat etc., that's another story all together). To see it thriving as it is now is GREAT! Caleb Ramsby

As suggested by Metalliferous on my what fuel do you use poll. Caleb Ramsby

Sorry guys, you are right I should have had multiple choice on it. Do any of you know how to modify the poll specifications? Caleb Ramsby