brianbrazealblacksmith

Wow! those are really nice!

Hofi, I too, also make more than 1 punch for a big job, but I can cool my punch while I lift my material off the anvil and still get my hole done in one heat without taking the time to grab another punch. I have also punched a hole in a piece of 1 3/4" material with a punch with the geometry that I've described above that was made from mild steel and only 1/4" on the end. When I showed it to Tom Clark, he asked me why I didn't use H13. I told him I was trying to prove a point. It has more to do with the geometry of the punch.

Gerald, I hope this helps. What makes this a punch is the grind and driving the punch almost all the way to the anvil before punching the plug out from the other side. The reason I can get away with using 4140, which is not the best material for this much work, is because of the shape of the tool and taking care not to leave in too long before cooling. I can punch a hole in 2" 4140 with a punch with this grind made from 4140 in one heat, but I must mind my tool, 1,2,3 cool, 1,2,3, cool and when it gets deep enough to get red hot cool in oil not water because 4140 and 5160 will break if you don't take the time to retemper them if you quench in water at that heat. There is alot less resistance with this grind than with a flat bottom punch. I've been punching all shapes and sizes of holes like this for a long time and had never seen anything similar until I met Tom Clark and saw his slitting chisels that Hofi had shown him. It's the same principle but I use it for all shapes of punches.

Here are the tools besides my hammer, anvil, and vice that I use to make animal heads out of flat bar or square stock for the 3D heads. Notice that the eyes and noses are made from square punches that I leave 2 corners so I know how to oreint my punch except for the round ones where it doesn't matter.

No, I wasn't talking about hammer eyes. That is another subject. There is more to a hammer than putting a hole in a piece of metal.

Looking forward to it; I'll start tomorrow. Thanks again! I'd better go now; Karen is calling.

Thank you, I'll try to put it all together. Should I cover punching in general because there is quite a bit more, or should I do something more specific like the slitting and drifting? How should I send it?

How do I do a blueprint? I just learned to E-mail.

Check it for acorns if you haven't already. My first blower was a Buffalo 200 and it didn't work until I opened it up and found an acorn in it and took it out.

Oh, I forgot to tell you, the slitting punch for the 3/4" square holes was made from 4140 because that's all I had today to work with, and the drifts were made from mild steal.

Archiphile, here are the pictures. I had to wait until Karen got home; I don't know how to transfer pictures yet. I went ahead and showed some other punches, and I did square on the diagonal. As you can see, the diagonal requires hammering to straighten the sides of the square after drifting, and it requires a different drift. If you'll notice the small round and square plug are not perfect because they were not lined up perfectly when I punched out the plug from the other side and I did not lay them out before hand. I just did it by sight in one heat. Punching only will cause the bar to grow, while slitting and drifting this way will not cause the bar to grow or shrink.

If you have the titanium, you'll like forging it.

I'm glad to hear that you guys are going to try these things out. I may do a book some day, but that's a big job. I saw Mark Aspery the other day and he was telling me how much work it was to do a book. I've got to hand it to him; he's done a great job! I'll try and take some more pics tomorrow of the tooling for the animals.

Grant Sarver, Off Center Forge, was working on making an affordable induction forge the last time I saw him. When I saw it I was amazed and asked him if he had ever welded with it. He said no, but the next day at the ABANA conference he said he did weld with it that night after we left. If I could afford one I'd have one. It would save a serious blacksmith alot of time and money in just the heat time, and not to mention the comfort of not as much radiant heat or coal dust.

I have a few different types and sizes. Some are just C-shaped. I'll use a washer sometimes for small stuff like jewelry with my small tongs. I've used chain links, and I've used Tom Clark's clips. They all work; I don't really have any preferences. But my brother, Ed, likes different sizes of square tubing cut to about 1/2" smashed a little on one diagonal so they fit two different sizes and can be adjusted instantly to another size. He got the idea from Richard Dyer, Ernest Weiman's grandson.

Quit gripping your tongs! Use tong clips and hold it under the dies where your blow is backed by your anvil, then you can hold your stock with an open palm. Not that you should but you could.

My brother made some scrolling tongs you could use to sqeeze collars with and they would hold up like nothing else. Titanium is much easier to work than stainless and it is light like aluminium. It does not transfer heat very well, so your rein stay cooler. I like titanium, but it is too exspensive for me.

Making a hammer from the start is a very simple matter with a little bit of Knowledge. I forge alot of hammers and top tools using 4140 that I get from a suspension shop for free. They have drops that come annealed in sizes ranging from 2" to 5/8" and everything in between. I'd rather be working with 1045 because it yields to the hammer easier. We make 3# and under hammers by hand with a striker in less than an hour. Tom Clark could make 3 hammers in 1/2 hour with a gas forge and power hammer. The grinding, heat treating and handling take alot more time. My brother did take a 20# China sledge and cut it down so it was shorter to make it into a 15 pounder. He just annealed it and cut it with a band saw. Alot of those hammers out there are made from 1045.

Titanium yeilds to the hammer very nicely but has a narrower working range than mild steal. You can make your tongs finer with titanium because of it's strength. I usually start with round stock for making tongs, anywhere from 3/4" to 1/2" for normal tongs. Be aware of titanium yeilding easier than steal if you're making your rivet out of steal. If you try and make your rivet in your tongs like you can with steal, the titanium will move easier than the rivet when it's hot.

I don't know, but you'll probably need to do it hot if you use 1/4". That's alot of splitting. I did 8 five foot long hinges last year that were split kind of like those corn dryers and it took me 3 days to complete them and I did them hot out of 1/4"x2 1/2".

They looked like they were about 1/8"x3/4", but its hard to tell with the picture. If it is thinner than 1/4" you could do most the splitting cold, just be careful at the crotches and the entry cut where you change direction. I've seen Alfred Habermann cut 1/4" plate cold using a little cutting oil like you use for the drill press on his chisel made from spring.

The picture shows how it's made. You may want to make a chisel that makes that first angle cut so you don't risk overlapping your directional cuts. Cut it, bend them out, and clean up any burrs with a file. It doesn't look like they did much more, but you could do a little taper on the ends to dress them up.

I'll do it tomorrow. I'll have to make it for square.

Sorry, I'm slow at typing. If I want to make a 3/4" hole, round or square, in 3/4", round or square, I'll make a slitting punch that is 3/4" wide the whole length of the punch tapered from 3/4" to about 1/8" at the business end. I will have it V-shaped like I make almost all my punches with a cold chisel grind on it. [this is what makes it a punch instead of a chisel] It's kind of like a center punch grind that has been flattened down to that 1/8" on the end. I drive it down almost all the way to the anvil then turn it over and punch out the plug. you don't get cold shuts this way. You should prepare your stock for this by either upsetting or working down your material on either side of your hole or just accept the hollowing out that you get if you don't. I use what ever I have on hand for making my tools, usually spring. I also would make a drift that is tapered from 3/4" square to about 1/8"x3/4" at the end and tapered to maybe 1/2" square on the other end. I learned from Tsur Sedan who learned from Uri Hofi to make the slitter and drift the same width as the hole you want so that your bar doesn't shrink or grow when you put your holes in.

I'm with JeremyK. What are you wanting to slit? I use different slitting punches for different thicknesses of material, and the dimensions I want to end up with can influence my choices.