forgemaster

Hey moon you need to take that pressure guage off the press so as you don't get distracted again looking at it instead of what is getting forged. Just saying. There was 33 people plus at my workshop 'do".

In Aus these sort of hammers are fairly sought after as they can be as I term "garage hammers" (you can run them in the garage on 240V). It doesnt require large foundations if at all. I would estimate on Aus prices $2700 to $5500. If you can get it for less good on you. A massey 1cwt in slides will sell for about $7000.00 yet a 7cwt clear space Massy will sell for about $7000.00 as well, reason, less demand for a 7 than a 1cwt, only idiots like Moony and me will go buying 7s for fun.

Wheel slip, not fabricated, thats what happens when you have the immovable object with the irresistable force, each axle has its own traction motor, when switches play up this sort of thing can happen. As Farmall says if it was a remote control loco no-one would know if those motors were still powering, until they went to move the train that is. The designations of 4-6-6-0, 2-8-2, 4-10-2, etc are steam loco descriptions diesel electrics are more likely to be given designations such as Co-Co or Bo-Bo Phil

Jakob, Moon has a couple 100 hectares of bush to set up a camp in, thats what we all do. Phil

Mr Aceman Braidwood is down south near canberra, not north. I'll see what can be done re accom, maybe stay with Drewy? I'll make enquiries. Phil

Its a tamper head out of a rail tamper, used to push the ballast under the sleepers when the crew is leveling the rail line. The coating on the flat plate is most likely going to be hard face. Steel is most likely to be 4140 or at the least 1045, some of them are 4340. This type of tamper is a rail mounted vehicle that is driven along the track, the tamper heads are positioned in a head that will push the heads down into the ballast and then vibrate the whole lot while pushing in together so pushing the ballast in under the sleepers (USA = ties). Phil

The Moon is finally going to make it up to my workshop for the ABA NSW fun day, gotta make sure he doesn't learn any of the secrets, better do a good cleanup and hide all the secrets away. Also just a bump to keep this up near the front. Don't forget the dates of get hammered have changed. Phil

Oh I can still get a high corner (diamond) easy as the next guy, the trick is getting it back square, there are various ways, if you are way still oversize, flatten the stock a bit more than usual to get a rounded edge then when you roll the steel up onto the rounded edge you will have a good chance to get it square again (as like with a round back you can adjust the angle on the round surface). And I usually find if I go 90 degrees back and forth I can get a high corner pretty quickly, I find if I go 90 degrees and keep going round in a 360 I will cancel out my mistakes, as it seems that you will normally make the same angle error back and forth, where as that doesnt seem to happen in 360 degrees. The last resort is to put the job up on its corner and take a run along it to square it, the trick here is to realise that you are out of square before you are near your finishing size, otherwise you now have a square with 2 corners missing. As you run along the edge try to hold the job over on the angle that it just is able to forge on without twisting back down onto the die. Once you have a high corner and are down to size holding your job of the bottom block on about a 5 degree angle will not accomplish anything, other than to make your wrist sore. As I say to apprentices "son there is 250kg of good british steel that is going to twist that job back onto the bottom die, and you are not strong enough to resist it"," make sure you are square before the job gets down that close to finished size." Its hard to explain this sort of stuff in words, I'll see if I can get some video of correcting high corners tomorrow and post it here (same as I did for danger dillon for his rolling discs with shingling tongs). Watch this space. Phil

"Squaring dies?", as the late great Grant Sarver would have said "squaring dies, we don't need no stinking squaring dies" "just learn to forge the suckers without getting a high corner". Your problem is going to be that you will almost have to have one set of dies for every size you want to make (just like swages). Just keep your work square, its called experience. Do you still have training wheels for your pushbike too? Phil

No freebies needed Woodmiester, just stating the truth. Best pneumatic hammers ever built.

Thanks John, it helps when we have a quality hammer made by a firm that knew how to make power hammers, the worlds best in my opinion.

Hey Basher they are a kind of ring gear as far as I know, 4140 we heat treat them to 277 to 311 HB. Made a fair few of them now, (100s) we start off with 234mm of 140 dia and end up with 270mm OD x 120mm id x 75mm thick. We have one of the finish machined rings that did not clean up in the shop that we use like a final go and no go guage. Phil

Back in 2003 I was asked to quote on a chain job by the Austrailan Industrial Supplies Office, they need a pricing on chain assemblys for a offshore natural gas project the chain was to be used in a submersible bouy system capable of mooring a sizable ship. (ie natural gas tanker) The chain needed was to be 800 metres long each and they needed 6 such chains. Each chain consisted of 679 links of 92mm (3 5/8") dia chain of 607mm long overall by 339mm out side width (total weight for the 92 dia links was 42.9 ton) and 308 links of 162 dia (6 3/8") measuring 972mm overall lenght x 543mm out side width there was also 6 shackles for each chain with the shackles weighing between 250kg to 325kg each. Needless to say we did'nt do the job, we could'nt even get such a chain out of our shop, let alone transport it to a port. We had no way of welding the bigger links anyway, we cold have bent them but we had no way to link them together. I recall that each chain assembled weighed in the region of 151 tons each. The big links each weighed 344.8 kgs alone. Dont know who ended up doing this job, but man I would have loved to see their workshop, and to find out just how they managed this kind of job. Phil

And thanks to the late Great Mr Grant Sarver (and one of his utube posts)I have learnt how to embed video off Youtube into IFI, see he's still teaching us from beyond the grave. Phil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoBy9_hgrNg Video of us ring forging, we have already jumped the blank up under the press and punched to hole out to the mandrel size. You can see how I use the shingling tongs to roll the ring under the hammer, by levering off the bottom block. Phil

Ran out of time today, our machinist decided that today was the day to machine hammer dies, so he has got the fit down to less that 3 thou all round, XXXX machinists and their acuracy fetish. tommorrow will be the day. Sorry to keep you waiting woody, have another XXXX. Phil

Shingling was when they made wrought iron, and they brought the lump of iron out of the puddling furnace and shingled it under a shingling hammer, basically they needed tongs that only gripped the side of the job and could grab it and turn it and let it go easily and quickly, answer shingling tongs. We have a couple of rings to forge tomorrow that we have to roll back in to size after they get rung out under the hammer (its all about getting square corners, which are hard to get with the press). I'll make sure I get vid of it, and post it, with attention to when we roll the rings back to size. Phil

Danger you need shingling tongs to forge discs like that under the hammer, using hollow bits is really hard way to grip it. Heres a picky of me using shingleing tongs to roll a disc under the press, I let the tongs rest on the side of the plate we have around the press and use that to lever off to turn the disc, if using the hammer we go along the die ie, at 90 degrees to the way you are working, I'll see if I can find some footage of us rolling a disc or ring under the hammer with shingling tongs. Phil

Heads up all of you going to Moonys for hammered, there has been a change of dates, it is now one week earlier, that is the weekend of 19th and 20th of Oct. If you know someone who does not come here regular and they are going to Moonys can you give them the heads up too. Phil

Oh I've been asked about it, I just dont remember when it is, I'll probly get told the day before, thats OK. No need to sweat the small stuff.

We aim to please, glad you enjoyed it. The next day is at my workshop so I've been informed, sometime in August, difference is everyone gets to have a go (if they want). Yeh I think that having other stuff going on while the main job is being worked on (so long as you have enough equipment so blokes are not falling over one another) adds to the event too (thats why we did it) sort of like allowing you to channel surf when the adds are on. Phil

Gave away 2 hot sets to Jakob and to Yolande, always happy to give tools that I have made to the young up and comings. Photos of the moon and I hook making. 7cwt clear space massey, hook was about 9 ton SWL started out as 600mm of 100 dia K1020 round I slept sell on Sunday night. Phil

If you have a look in the press section at AoCs post on the 1500 ton press at Eveligh it shows some footage of steam hammers there in his little video that he has posted.

We never HT flatters just leave them as normalised, they don't need to be hard, they are not a cutting tool, and I certainly would'nt harden the struck end, in fact I would try to anneal it, (by getting the struck end to dull red and burying it in a little pile of dirt on the floor and leaving it there for a few hours to cool slowly). Phil

You could have joined up on the day. Was a blast, someone will post some photos I'm sure. Phil