forgemaster

Why has'nt someone made wider dies for these hammers, that is one of my few dislikes for the anyang/striker I feel the dies are too narrow for any tooling work, etc swaging, punching. The dies could be made as per Beche dies sort of rectangle but with the corners knocked off, so as to fit up into the bore of the hammer. Just watching how close the top face edge of that top tool gets to the edge of that top block made me cringe. I know how well hammers can fire top tools out once they get a glancing blow on the corner. Just my thoughts. Phil

When we use a round bar fuller we normally forge the handle down some to allow it some spring so as it does'nt jar your hand to much, Picky attached. These fullers we normally make from spring steel and leave it in the as normalised state.

We make a punch for the railways here, I'll post the pic as they have a what we call a "flex handle" made using a piece of cable, plug welded into the punch head after heat treat then we use a pair of swages to crimp the rope into the pipe, the heat shrink is put over the rope to stop it fraying when the end user hits it with a sledge. Teh heat shrink can be dispensed with for using under a hammer. The red neoprene on the head of the punch is to prevent spalls flying off the head of the punch. Phil

I've been doing this stuff for 30 years as a fulltime wage paying job, and the main thing I can say to you is you only stop learning stuff when you are dead. Phil

If you are going to lift all the rails, I would suggest that you split the nuts on the fish plates with the oxy then open the split nut with a cold sett.that way you may save the bolts and you will definitely save the fish plates, and save in oxy too. In Oz fish plates can sell for about $500 to 700 a pair assuming that they fit rail someone is going to lay, (there are as far as I know very few places making fish plates any more, due to thermit welding being the main method of joining rails today). If you plan to sell it in lenghts do not cut the rail unless it has been thermit welded, and before you start cutting, ring some rail maintenance companies and see if there is a preferred length to cut it to. Where my workshop is is a railway museum and the guys here have been all through this sort of thing, they have gone to buy rail, and wanted to get the fish plates only to find the guy who scrapped the rail in the first place did it by just cutting through the middle of all the fish plates, funny size rail, no fish plates available, these guys dont have the equipment to thermit weld, the public likes the clickety clack of fish plated rail etc. Long story short the rail is more valuable if you can supply fish plates with it. The fish plates and bolts cleaned up have value themselves. Phil

To remove dogs manually you need really 2 tools, a pigs foot (claw wedge) and a spike pulling bar (claw bar) the pigs foot is struck on the end with a hammer 1st to drive the claw under the dog then it is hit down to the sleeper to lever the dog out of the sleeper, if the dogs are loose or half way out, you can use the spike pulling bar to lift them out. Pictures attached as a picture is worth a 1000 words. You can either fudge them or something like them or you could see if you can find something like it to do the job or better still make them yourself, a good smith with a helper should be able to finish 25 plus pigs feet a day or 10 spike pulling bars a day, it took 2 of my guys a day and a half to make the pile of bars shown, starting with about 18" of 2.5 sqr 1045 each. as Big Arnold says "you can do it" Phil

Where in this great big world are you located Dave (I think John Heine has given it away), it would help us to know.

I was talking about the farrier, you have 2 ofs in your question as in "were you talking of my video of the video of the farrier" 2 ofs. I thought you were just repeating yourself.

How big are we talking here, I find a hammer cutter and a snap does a good quick job for bar.

Certainly was.

I bet Cuddlepie and Snugglepot would know about "getting gumnuts knocked up"!

Re hammer sizes when I started my apprenticeship back in the eightlys the 1st week the boss handed me a ball pein, saying "use that for all anvil work this week". next week I was handed a 4 lb hammer "use that until I tell you to change", 2 weeks later I was handed a 6lb and told "you use a 6lb for all anvil forging unless you are working something like 3/8 round then you can use a 4lb, I see you using a smaller hammer than you should, I am gonna foot your rear. If a 6 isnt big enough use an 8lb handhammer, if you need more, get one of us to strike for you with a 14lb sledge". And that was that, training finished. We used to set heaps of truck springs by hand on the anvil every day. If you didnt harden up by the end of the 1st month you would'nt be there at the end of the 2nd month. This was in a little shop in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range west of Coffs Harbour on the NSW North coast, we had 2 fires 2 anvils a 25 ton press, one arc welder, an oxy set, a manual spring eye roller,an oil quencing tub and a cut off saw, and that was about it, general blacksmiths, spring makers, agricultural engineers and steel fabricators. It was a good start to my working life. Phil

Regarding the above video, I just cant resist it, but but but he's not wearing PPE, or gloves or apron etc etc etc and did you see how he tapped the anvil with his hammer while he was turning the job and talking, he's he's he's he's wasting his energy! Seriously though very good footage of someone who knows what they are doing, taken from a good angle, showing very well the whole arm, wrist shoulder flowing through action. Working the steel methodically using the anvil and hammer to move the metal where he wanted it to go to. Very good

Moony tells me that when he has to perform remote forging with his seven he does the old rest a plank on the pedal with a brick at the other end, then stands on it to drive his hammer. Being able to drive with either foot helps too. Phil

I found it useful to video the person learning then have them video you swinging the hammer correctly, its hard for someone to see what they are doing wrong, but can often see it when shown from a distance in a vid, and then have reference to watching you hammering correctly. Also is applicable for the correct stance when at the anvil, most I find either have a stiff legged stance or are over reaching

To weld larger round under the hammer we would tack the scarf on the anvil get another welding heat then go to the hammer and weld the bar using a Vee block on the bottom die, (that way you are workng 3 points at the same time), back to the fire if necessary take a wash heat and back to the hammer and into a pair of swages the right size. We used to weld up to 3" round this way, actually the bigger the round the easier as it keeps it's heat longer. just need to be patient when getting it hot so as you dont burn the outside before the core is up to temp. 3" used to take 2 fires and 2 smiths who knew what they were doing, and a good hammer driver, but it was quicker than arc welding 3" dia, we also used to fire weld large chain links under the hammer in a set of tools, by much the same method, tack on the anvil, back in the fire, then to the hammer.

Clockwise-anticlockwise it does'nt matter so long as you keep going the same way, just depends on which side your stopper pad is on or what ever else you have to stop your job from walking its self out from under the hammer. If we are doing a larger job we will tend to go anticlockwise as it is easier to pull down on the turning bars/horns than lift up, (that is when standing on the left hand side of the tongs ie the tongs are against your right leg)) Phil

Grant gave this answer to much the same question, "which is the better vehicle to have, a racing car or a dump truck, answer, depends on what you want to do. Phil

Ok the rules I learnt in anvil work, dont let your hammer go below the face of the anvil as then you have to pick it up to there again, do that for a day you have lifted a hell of a lot of steel just that much further. You can hear and tell a good blacksmith working by his rhythm. Make every blow do something/count, maximise your effort. Dont lift your hammer off the anvil in a dead lift, its easier to bounce it up, thats why good anvils have life/bounce. Dont the pro basket ballers bounce the ball a few times before they go for a shot, to get the feel of the ball, it helps to do the same with your hammer. The hit the steel hit the anvil thing is to be confined to the movies. If you are hitting a punch/anvil top tool, just hit it, hitting the anvil is just wasting time the job is getting cold the punch is getting hot. Anvil work is not rocket surgery. Phil

Just keeping this were we can find it.

Apple pie, everyone had more than their fair share with oodles of cream too, all bar the fat man.

I agree gland packing. If you google "kevlar packing gland" with the australian pages only toggle turned on you should find someone, go for the sizes John has specified. If you have no luck get back to me the guy I go through can get it no probs.

Never had an opportunity to pull a beche fully apart let alone a Nazel apart, save for pulling the ram out of the one when I was an apprentice (the beche), an alldays only has one rotary valve not 2 and I gave up on trying to fix that long ago, so no I have no idea or should that be yes I have no idea. Our 5cwt massey has slop in the little end (yes John its on my list to fix it this Christmas shutdown, I have a spare 5 so I can do a sort of swop) but the slop in the bearing does not affect the regularity of the blow at all whether on full blow or tappy tappy. Phil

Photos

To further what John said, start the hammer, put it in gear (in low press hold up) then pull in the locking position lever (the one that goes in the slots to keep it in that mode of operation) see if you can by pushing the lever forward get the hammer to sit with the ram in the hold up position, it will only be probably a small adjustment, if you can keep the ram up by doing that, then you need to put shims under the foot control swing in block to keep it in that position. Once you are happy with the amount of shims transfer them to the top of the block by undoing the nut underneath the block, dropping the block off drilling holes in your shims to allow the rod to go through them, put the shims in there, block back on the rod nut back on and do it up tight, start the hammer and try again. I've taken photos of our 5 to show how the shims are between the rod and the block, I reckon we would have about 3mm of packing in there to get our hammer to stay up. (jobs have over the years fallen on the foot pedal and stretched to linkages)