forgemaster

I often have guys ask in our shop, Phil so what are we gonna do here? I normally say to them, as they lean closer determined not to miss a word of wisdom, "well were gonna get that piece of steel outta the furnace and get it over here under the hammer, then we're gonna hit it, and hit it and hit it, and then when its the right size we're gonna stop. Now thats the most important part of the whole job, stopping, cause if you dont stop you'll make it the wrong size" Its about then that they realise that they have fallen for Phils wierd sense of humour again. Then and only then will I give them the serious rundown on what we are going to do.

John, there used to be a reasonable general blacksmiths at Wellington, though last time I went through there I could'nt find it. There is also David Shara at Peak Hill but thats a little south of Dubbo. Phil

Andrew Oc has his ttt blacksmiths day at Sydney Maritime Museum on the 24th of June so that date is out. I am looking at sometime in July maybe. I'll have to check the calendar now and check with the war office too. Phil

Not in march as it is still sailng season, more likely june or july, (in the cold months). And its already March now.

If I had a dollar for everyone that tell me that they want to make a sword I'd be a billionaire by now, even more so if the sword also needs to cut railway line in one blow, smash rocks to pieces, be able to shave with and be able to lever a truck up and be able to be bent back on its self so as the tip touches the handle without breaking, but I don't want to pay more that $2.00 for a piece of steel, can you teach me how to make one in a weekend. I give up! Phil

Hey Blackersmith I agree wholeheartedly about the 2 heels on the ground, I see vid of blokes using a hammer while standing on one foot, using the other foot to drive with, like how long can you do that for? I certainly can't do that all day. Phil

I'm still open for a do at my workshop before Moonies too if anyones interested. We'd need to organise dates etc but it can be arranged. There is plenty of room for camping and hot and cold showers, with real dunnies (not the short drop) Ian R have you ever been paid for any blacksmithing, if so I reckon that qualifies you as a prof anyway. Not that I would out myself as a prof I'm just an unwashed metalbasher meself.

Tried to add to this 2 days ago but the internet gods prevented me, anyhow From past experience it will take place at 11.30pm on the friday night of hammered after about 7 of us have eaten 15 pizzas and drunk 10 cartons of beer and moonie has run into the shed at least twice with the truck. And yes woody that is Richard Coumbe , so he was a guiding light to you earlier in your career (we won't hold that against you though). Phil

You should at the least normalise after forging before using as a hammer tool, you talk of tempering your tools, are you aware that before you temper them you have to harden them. Tempering relieves the brittleness that exists after a metal is hardened. As I stated in my post above, the level or necessity of heat treatment in dictated by the end use of the tool. If you are making swages, you don't really have to heat treat them, if you are making cutting tools some kind of heat treat would be a good idea. If you are making a stamping tool it also will depend on the amount of jobs that that tool will be expected to produce, if you only need to stamp 3 or 4 jobs from it, even 10 jobs, you may be able to get away with no HT, if you need to stamp 100s well HT would be good, that also depends on the steel that you have used to manufacture your tools from. Phil

Woody we had a go at the striker thing at lithgow last year, see photo

I'm not saying a thing.

I have some photos to illustrate, these are of some single handle pin swages that are fairly old, (ie I reckon that they predate me, and probably everyone else on this forum) Sorry but they are a couple of meg but that is just what my phone put them at. Phil

Swages we don't heat treat at all, cutting tools like hammer cutters we do heat treat, stamping tools we make them out of En36A (4317 or 17crnimo6) and just water quench them from above 800 degrees, with no tempering. I have added more on this subject in this same post in Heat treatment. Phil

It is bad practice to put your fingers between the handles of spring tools as if they break off or you have a misshap the handles make really nice fullers with you fingers as the steel.

We find that handles will normally crack in the heat affected zone on the mild steel side of the arrangement, not on the tool side of the setup. If you want to make a mechanical joint the old timers used to drill a hole in the tool before HT, choose a handle rod size slightly smaller than the hole they had drilled, upsett the ends of the handles to a flare shape and of a dia to fit into their drilled holes, After HT insert the upsett handles heat up around the hole edge with an Oxy torch and peen/caulk the edges of the holes onto the handles using a flat ended punch. The joint may become loose after a while but it just needs repeening, or you can leave it loose, it will not affect the tool.

Come on woody you know you need to come to at least one hammered at Moonies it may as well be this one. Phil

This isme helping my eldest daughter to make her 1st bracelet on the anvil. If one of them cant do all I can do by the time I push off, I'll be dissapointed. Phil

Most of our dies are radiused about 1/4 rad up to 3/8 radius even our 450ton forge press does'nt have 1" radius. You need some radius to stop the dies creating galls and cold shuts but too much radius will stop you from being able get in close to a shoulder. Phil

It had better be on, what else am I going to do on that weekend otherwise.

Hey Woody if you go with the handle on the hammer that is there now I would suggest that you make the modification that is shown in the photos. It stops the hammer from breaking your hand if you bring the head up too fast and it hits the trigger. Believe me it will break your hand every time. All that we have done is to put a spring loaded joint in the shaft of the handle. When the head comes up the spring takes all the shock and does'nt pull the handle out of your hand. Phil

Not only do you have to hold it for 2 hours, but you have to get it up to 650 first then hold it. Plan on lots of caravan bottles. The problem with oil is 650 deg is too cold to allow the flame to burn properly so it is going to keep running very badly if at all. We can with difficulty get our oil furnace to run down to 780 deg but only after it has been running all day and already has a bank of heat to keep the flame ignited, having said that at 780 it runs very smoky and it is very hard on the eyes, (stings the eyes). To compare, we have a electric heat treat furnace with internal dims of 650mm x 1330mm x 400mm high it has a rated electricity load of 22Kw but it can run up to 1100 deg C. Energy used is still energy used, be it gas elect or oil. Phil

A group of forges anvils about 20 blokes n shielas too. What ever you want to make within reason, (maybe bring some stock) put on by the Traditional Tool Society of Sydney. There normally some instruction available of varying quality. Phil

Look out for the forging day at Sydney Maritime Museum Roselle some time later in the year, Andrew O Conner is the man to talk to about that. Get youself to Moonies for Hammered at the end of October, Phil

That would have to be nice and hot working on that concrete when the temp gets up over 30 with the Aussie sun blazing down over you. Put up a roof farmweld.

Hearing this has floored me, Grant was a guy I had real respect for not only as a fellow human but as one of the shrinking band of fellow professional smiths in this world. We are lucky that he shared the knowledge he had ammassed in his lifetime to the people on this and other sites. Too many smiths have gone to the grave taking their knowledge with them, that knowledge/skill is lost forever. Thankfully Grant gave of his knowledge freely. My condolences to his family. Grant we will all miss you. Phil