forgemaster

Alldays and onions pneumatic hammers are really annoying with this, unfortunately I do not know of any way to stop them from doing it. I have often wondered if they did it from new, or is a wear thing. Only happens when runnning light blows. Phil

swages we normally make out of 1045, tools for stamping stuff in we make out of EN36A (4317, 17crnimo6) stopper pads normally 1045 or for ones that get used a lot 4140, we dont HT swages etc just use them as forged, the stamping dies we in 4317we HT (take to orange, chuck into the water, wait till cold and weld a handle on it and use it) Power hammer tooling is not rocket surgery. Phil

Yeh I'm up for it, we'll just have to arrange a date that doesnt clash with anything that the rail museum here has on. Plenty of room for camping, hot shower, flushing toilet, BBQ, running water (yeh I know that Moonies has running water, so long as you want to run and get it). Machinery that starts when you push the button, no gennies diesel batteries etc to worry about and if you get bored there is almost as much junk here as at moonies to look at. (we also have working lathes) Let me know what we decide. Phil

One thing to be careful of that does result in cracked dove tails is driving a wedge in hard in cold weather where the die is a male dove tail and the hammer female. Then after working jobs for a while the die heats up and expands, and "hey boss we got a broken dove tail on this hammer". We normally use strapping strip for wedge packers. The more effort you put into getting a good fit on your wedge the longer it will stay in for. I always get our boys to drive the wedge in with a 14lb sledge on our hammers until I say the rebound hurts your hands. 14lb may be a bit of overkill for a LG but you get the drift. Oh yeh grease the wedge too to assist you getting it out next time. Phil

OK so how many weeks to the next one.

I would allow 3 hours, (for a rank newby) assuming you have the right punch, hammer etc which you obviously do as you have stated it took 40 mins to do one. You may do it quicker, good on you, you may take a lot longer, bad dog. At least next time you will know. 3 hours works out to about 11 mins per hole. That seems OK to me. PS and that is 3 hours from go to whoa, (for in my case an apprentice)including preparing the fire, furnace, etc grinding up the punch in case you have a hole go south on you, getting some slack coal to help in punching, a bucket of water to cool the punch in fixing any holes that you have punched out of centre etc,(all time you have to account for), if I was quoting it as part of a job I would probably allow myself 12 holes per hour, but as a stand alone job you need to figure a bit more time Phil

We could probably give you a long wait without any problems.

Yes Yes yes let us all praise Dale the master blacksmith. (you are never gunna live this one down now Dale) "All praise Dale the master blacksmith, praise him praise him evermore, apprentice and striker bow down before him, praise him, praise him, evermore." (I knew those years spent in the church choir at St Peters Hamilton would be of use one day) See you on friday mate.

I was down in Canberra weekend gone sailing on Lake Barely Drifting beautiful sun, warm, etc even got a bit sun burned, now you are telling us its going to lizards hiss down, is this some sort of conspiracy.

As Patrick said it is far more efficient to pinch off little bits at a time that your hammer can forge easily then to go in big bites that your hammer struggles with. As he said, take say 2 inch bites at time, that will increase the amount of tons per inch in contact with the steel, move the metal quicker and help to keep the job hotter cause of the heat the forging process produces. Pinching in small bites also will get you length, taking big chunks and basically flattening will get you width. (a usefull rule to remember) A small boy can eat the worlds biggest pie if he just takes little bites and works his way through it, if he trys to stuff it in, in one go, he will just choke. Phil

I know our Apprentice was interested in it, Dont think he got it though as he would have told me. I assume he would have anyway. Phil

Hey Danger When you are getting up to these sizes it is easier on the body to use tongs that have had bar/horns/handles welded onto the reins to assist you with holding and turning your job (see photo) if you dont want to go welding bars on to your tongs you can make your link have handles on it as shown or else the place that I got these handles from used to have a wedge that would wedge the handle onto one rein (thats why the handles are offset to the link) The other thing is if you are using a crane/lifting device with a forging sling to support your work, as you forge the bar down you need to keep lowering your sling so as to keep the centre line of your forging horizontal,( thats why it is bending as you are forging it) Keep on forging Phil

Nice to know that there is still some hope for the human race.

Get the business end of the punch up to a dull orange (about 1.5 inches long) and quench it out in oil, once it is cool take it out of the oil but do not wipe the oil off. Then using an oxytorch or even over the top of the forge, heat up the punch slowly and evenly until all the oil burns off Give that a try. Pay attention next time.

When did you learn to spike strine Androo, I alway thort you were cultured like, and spoke the queens english.

We I for one are getting real excited about getting down to the Moons at the end of the month, how about anyone else. Oh yeah it was the moons birthday yesterday, 21 again. Its monsters birthday today. He's not 21 yet though. Phil

Hey Androo We have forged up 5 K1020 balls at about 135mm dia for you yesterday, I'll take them down to Moonies with me, (I assume you are going to it this year) I also got Jay to Vid me making one of them, so I suppose I'll have to Utube it hey. If you come to the Moons and you remember bring some of that stuff you had in the back of your car at Thirlmere. Ta

If in 1910 you could have maybe sold it to Davy and they could have developed it as a C frame type self contained forging press, maybe even use the C frame its self (being hollow) as the water resiviour maybe put like 5psi of air onto it so as it will help pre feed the water into the press when it is moving down under infuence of the steam cylinder before it comences its pressing stroke. Or maybe not.

Just another version of a round back, round backs have been in use since Naysmyths time I reckon.

Yeh I agree for 2" thickness or less I would recomend oil. Years ago I spent ages on making some fully forged axe heads from 4140, had a bright idea to harden them in water, still got 25 axe heads here years later, all with cracks running all over the blades. xxxx. I'll find a use for them one day. We also make a forged ring from 4140 normally 60 off at a time 185mm od x 120mm id x 75mm thick (or long depend on how you want to call it) gives about a 32.5mm wall thickness, we always harden them in oil from 870 deg C and temper to 580 deg C holding for a couple of hours, I can almost guarantee to get a minimum of 277HB every time.

En 19 is 4140, condition T is quench from 850 C deg retemper to about 580 deg C, should come out to about 277 to 311HB (we normally aim for 302HB). Condition T is the standard Quenched and tempered hardness when the machine shops buy already heat treated 4140 bar.

Just as a comparison we harden tons and I mean tons of 4140 over 3" thickness in water from about 870 deg C and retemper to 575 deg C and can always reliably get a hardness of 302 hardness brinell. I reckon it's not 4140. For the app you describe I would tend to find 4140 a little soft, I'd use 5160 (spring) harden from 850 deg C in oil, temper by heating till the oil from quenching flashes into flame. Phil

To make a spring it helps to use spring steel, to harden quench in oil from 850 deg C (orange) then you can temper back with a greasy stick. If you want search on here for "greasy stick". We've already done posts on this topic. Phil

Cotton waste with oil, or newspaper and the dead twigs from an aniseed bush, which we have stacks of growing out the back of our workshop. Or newspaper and chop up some kindling, but it pays to light it then leave it alone. If you stuff with it it will normally all collapse and go out.

We normally refer to it as a tagging hammer, they were manufactured in Oz by Perry Engineering, at least thats who made ours. We use it for swaging purposes. The one in the vid runs stacks quicker than ours though.