stevomiller

Good point on thin heels, especially on a lighter anvil for small projects. On the other hand, if you need to hammer over the heel Brooks anvils act nicer than Trentons. An Italian, French or Bulgur would be not too tough to make (to TP point) . Or if you want to keep on the Austrian/Bavarian style, make the top and horn one piece of 4x4. For ease of material acquisition and welding use two pieces of the same standing up for the body. Austrian and Bavarian anvils are quite beefy under the sweet spots, lots of mass, don’t lose that since you are in control of it. Regardless of what you do have fun and share your final art project, I’d love to see it. And once it’s done, I for one will have zero negative comments, it’s your baby and only has to be beautiful to you.

I’d pick a different steel for the top plate, either simple carbon steel like 1050-1080, or a medium alloy medium carbon like 4140-4150. Cheaper, easier heat treat, tougher with impact, easier to weld to. Just my thoughts, not gospel. If you can’t have full penetration on welds, I’d surface grind mating parts so there was intimate contact, and include either pressed dowels to help hold that position and take shear loads when hitting the edge and sides, or a couple bolts coming from the bottom side into blind threaded holes in the 3” top plate. IF it’s been surface ground and both are perfectly flat it will behave much more like a solid piece. Also, mortise the horn for the heel plate to fit into, and make a small relief in the body for the lower edge of the horn to rest on. Use solid parts to take shear loads and welding to fix positions. These are easy changes since you are already cutting and forming the other pieces. Best Steve

Guys the motor plate shows it’s a reversible 7.5 hp SINGLE phase motor. Throwing it out there since quite a few have given suggestions related to 3 phase, osguessed some single motors are reversible this might be one.

If you are rather confident the issue is the gas inlet isn’t on axis with the side arm burner, it’s an easy fix- even without a lathe (although that is the best and quickest).

Nice job on your grinder, you should be proud every time you put it to use :-) I know that I would be! On the large grit ceramics, they may not have worked well for Bigfoot specifically due to using the slack belt: his preferred technique works best with different abrasives. By definition you cannot apply as much pressure to a slack belt even on a rotary belt backed platen. Most ceramics require significant pressure, especially after a bit of wear, so that new sharp edges of the abrasive are exposed. They don’t work well on wood for this reason. They usually aren’t as friable as other abrasives. And yes to what folks said about 36 grit on especially serrated wheels with their concentrated pressure points, material will fly off, as will flesh.

No advice on the the modified side arm burner, but Zoeller even now has moved past that design. I don’t follow your thought processes: Hybrid got rid of rotatating chokes, but you want it for some aesthetic reason, now you move to another makers burners, and drop to something he has moved past for PERFORMANCE reasons. Copy exactly the best, or buy it, especially if you have concerns on performance. Asfor the Hybrid UV coating, I have a container of it but haven’t used it, and I might not. The paperwork that came with it is very nebulous on content other than saying silicates and talk (no claim) of some other minerals (i don’t have it handy): the data sheet/instructions aren’t much, I can post them next week if folks would like. I don’t really want mostly silicates as a coating due to possible air born health risks and the fact that borax flux is going to eat it for lunch. My conclusion on forge top coats is you get what you pay for, or at least they surely aren’t all made the same. Plistix is mostly alumina, Matrikote is a mix of alumina and silicate if I remember correctly. ITC won’t tell you what’s in theirs but it’s obviously different because the working temperature is MUCH higher than Plistix or Matrikote, making one assume that it is zirconium or some other ultra high temp refractory.

The cracking , since it isn’t severely mushroomed, may have been exacerbated by grain growth in the tool from either forging at very high heats or during the punching of the eye. Many folks forget to include a couple normalizing cycles to bring the grain size back down before the final hardening portion of their heat treatment. For now I agree with all the folks that said cut off the cracked section and weld some mild steel on to replace it. Then it will be as ductile as possible and it will be physically impossible for it to be too hard. Also agree with those that said to keep on top of dressing the tools when they start to mushroom, but this case appears more about steel condition (too hard or too large of grain) more than anything else. Twocents from the guy said to have no sense, free of charge and worth what you paid. Best, Steve

Nice job, looking forward to seeing the finished project with fire and all that fun stuff.

I love that boat and agree an Airstream trailer is needed to be it’s soul mate.

Some more questions (sorry video doesn’t play for me) so they might be answered in it. What pressures are you running? The orifice size you listed tells us the volume of gas supplied only when in conjunction with pressures. Is the regulator rated for high flow as well as high pressure? For example regulators used with say a BBQ won’t supply sufficient gas for a forge burner. Agreed the burner nozzle seems too big, it increases the overall length of your burner to quite a bit longer than most 3/4 burners, that and the increased diameter I believe will slow the velocity of the charge significantly. Hopefully Mike and Frosty will chime in since they both have built Reil type burners and can give good advice to help you get running. It’s unfortunate you live in an area that is secluded and difficult to obtain more typical plumbing fittings.

I’d use your first homemade anvil as a strikers anvil mounted lower for heavy sledge work (its about 100lbs right?). Maybe grind a radius and fuller on it as Laynne suggested, ala Brazeal. The other ones can be used stood on end in a bucket or large stovepipe/sonotube of concrete to use as a bladesmiths post anvil, maybe section one of them and make large swages, a stake anvil, etc.....

That’s nice rail. Dont worry what the carbon content is if you aren’t going to pay to have it heat treated. AND, the carbon content you listed, if correct, could be hardened to the mid 50’s RC if you wanted. Are you sure that’s about 26lbs? Seems it would be heavier, but I can’t read your steel rule on my tablet. $80 seems a bit high to ME, but your situation may dictate this is what’s available now and you want to start forging NOW. If you are going to use an improvised anvil, a bigger piece of steel could be had for that cost, I would think. Also, for cost comparison, the newly made 66 lbs/30 kg Chinese steel anvil I bought for work was $140 shipped, and it was fully hardened, has hardy and pritchel holes, and a horn. Link to pics and description Best wishes on your decision and hunt for an anvil Steve

If the wire is attached to a screw where the wire and screw get very hot the thermal cycling can cause the fastener to grow due to expansion and reduce contact between the screw and wire. Reduced contact area can overload the contact point causing it to fail faster, as well as reduce the load carrying capacity at that juncture

Awesome, I had to go find info on them manually cutting rail with a chisel. Ive used abrasive cut off saws as I didn’t own a horizontal bandsaw. Nice thing with abrasive wheels is that heat and friction don’t ruin the blades like on band saw or power hack saws, since that how they actually cut (stating the obvious since 99.9% know this), and they aren’t phased by the induction and work hardened running surface. BTW, I once saw on an old Nat Geo show (1980?) railroad workers in China cutting rail with a hand hacksaw while the helper squirted oil on the cut! Talk about more cheap labor and time than expensive tools!!!!!

Sounds rough! I started my smithing as a striker at a demo. The smith was remaking an axle for a horse drawn rail car, and he was working by himself (he did have a treadle hammer but was mostly using about a 6lb hammer one handed). I asked can I help? He said “are you a smith?” I said NO but I’ve read a book if tha helps (not much), I’m strong and can follow directions. We became friends and after many following weekends striking for him he gave me usage of his tools at his demo place and his full shop on his ranch. He was a good teacher. Fond memories of a sore back and arms......

Thanks for sharing, really nice job especially given the limitations in tooling, stock sizes, etc.

Ted I just noticed your SSR isn’t mounted to a heat sink. You absolutely need a heat sink, preferably with thermal past betwixt the SSR and it. If you choose not to, your SSRwill be de-rated by 50% , and I very likely to fail. Sometimes catastrophically so. Please take what I am saying to heart, I don’t post things as fact if they aren’t.

And remember “gravel” just means small chunks of minerals, which come in almost unlimited compositions/ combinations. I’m very sure this isn’t gravel from some dried riverbed as used in aggregate concrete, although part of the intent is the same. Many refractories are or were originally made of said materials and reprocessed by milling, etc into the shapes ore sizes wanted. Ytrium isn’t agate etc. You get the point.

Interesting side note relayed to me on hot faces when used with one company’s high emissivity type coating for industrial settings: The mfg told me that my castolite 30 liner wasn’t ideal for THEIR product, and something less insulative worked better. They didn’t go into much detail but it was inferred that the idea was to heat the liner (with insulative layer behind it) so tha this thermal mass would then reradiate said heat back into to the working chamber. Anyways none of us will probably use this makers product as you can’t purchase it direct especially in small quantities, they only sell through contractors that specialize in industrial forge/foundry building and repairs. Most hobbiests want heat, and fast vs industrial shops wanting very consistent heats once at temp. I do know that Tim Zowadas older forges used to use a less insulative very high alumina liner with ceramic wool outer layer, I don’t know if he still does it this way, that was over 20 years agp.

You folks need to cut people some slack: as stated repeatedly folks come here from 150 different countries. Lars is in France (as put in his tag line as most in this thread emphatically beat a drum for), and has a Scandinavian (not French) name - my guess is that his grasp and technical use of OUR first language is far better than our GRASP of his (and I’ve studied multiple but MASTERED none). His use of peasant for a small time rural farmer isn’t an unreasonable transliteration. Additionally it is true that there were anvils of a more professional type/quality and those that were perhaps less expensive and marketed towards either smaller shops or farm use, but weren’t ASOS. Those used by many farmers were outright ABUSED because the users had very limited technical knowledge or the finer points of smithing: chipped edges, chisel gauges on the face, etc. As a community we should shoot for kindness and civility unless someone else’s forces us to act differently. Far too often members here don’t try to see other points of view, nor give others the benefit of the doubt that they might be actually not only intelligent but maybe way more knowledgeable about MANY things than is assumed. If all the above is not true, then I’m Samuel Yellin or Vulcan himself. Be blessed, Steve

Nice work gentlemen! As an equipment engineer and fabricator I utilized SCR/thyristors in many of my resistive heater products (I build other stuff now). If you can find one on eBay (for cheap since new from distributors they aren’t) that meets your needs and will play with your temp controller they are great. You will get rock solid temperature control regardless of line fluctuations, etc, and they will allow your heating elements to last 3x compared to using just an SSR with normal on/off function. The SCR will clip the AC sine and can limit voltage and current, kind of like PWM does for DC, only different haha. Anyways, just throwing it out there for those of you that want to build to true industrial/mfg quality and durability. BTW Eurotherm is a good provider of 120/208 single phase units. Watching your guys’ great creations and ingenuity, Steve

Pferd and Grobet for current manufacture. Simonds and Nicholson had great files until they switched to making in central and South America (not that they couldn’t be as good, but they evidently changed process and materials as well as labor pool.) Johnson made very good files in the USA, but they have been DOA for years, I did buy some 14” mill cut recently that were new old stock for $15 each. I’m hoarding these away! The Japanese still make files, but you will have to order online, which I plan to give a try.

Hi Nick, What those guys said. Also can you show more pics/info on the burner you are using? thanks!

L-M&F, Knowing your jet size is only half the equation for folks to help you. Can you share the pipe size for your main burner/mixing tube, and the NPT size of the “T’s”? Both of these will influence air available and velocities etc, all of which have huge effect on how they react to different adjustments and ultimate burner performance. Thanks Steve

First I applaud your work and get it done approach. As for the burners, I can appreciate you wanting to make them work as opposed to switching gears to a truly known good pattern. Adding the hole did improve your burner, for now anyways. I for one am concerned with how far it is from the point the gas jet enters, and that under some circumstances (forge doors closed, strong winds, etc) that excessive back pressure in the forge could allow some fuel mixture to exit said hole. If you look at burners DESIGNED with slots or holes in the tube, they are nowhere near where you have yours. Just MY thoughts, not claiming I’m right and impending doom. Folks here don’t recommend the Frosty or Mikey burners out of rabid fan boy devotion, it’s just that they work VERY well and are proven in many shops. Additionally, if you follow the patterns exactly, you probably won’t need help fixing or adjusting them. BUT IF YOU DO, then you have not only the designers here to help, but also many other members who’ve built and run the exact same burners. Best Steve