forgemaster

Those tongs are a pair of our light furnace tongs yeh about 4' long.

10th sept mate, would be good to see you.

Hi Guys Just wanted to let the blokes that helped me with this that this job went without a hitch, thankyou espcially Patrick for you insight and also Jim (where ever you may be lurking). I did take some photos of the forgings after we finished them, and I'll have to load them and post them. Once again thanks guys. Phil

Hey Guys i've had a bit of puta problems due I think to my kids clicking on things they should not have, things are still not OK with my puta but the dragon has bought this new one, so if I use this one I can get IF. Really looking forward to hammered this year.

Ok so we camp by the river, but we are still using the workshop right, not the corroboree site? Need some proper hammers here. Phil

That looks in pretty good condition for something thats 700 years old. I'm waiting for the OHS guys to start making comments, along the lines of "he should be wearing ear protection, he should have safety glasses, he should'nt be drinking alcohol", come on guys don't let me down.

You're gonna love this, but you have to harden the steel before you temper it, and guess what, mild steel cannot really be hardened, much less tempered. You can quench it in something like super quench, (after getting the whole thing up to about 850 deg C) and get some hardness but ultimately you will be disapointed. Put this one down to experience, get something that will heat treat readily like some spring steel and try again. Sorry to rain on your parade. Phil

Mr Books (A Oc) has beaten me to it. Thats about all I would have contributed anyway. Phil

I can do that, its just a 2 ton Komatsu diesel forklift with a modified Cascade paper grab on the front. We modified some of the valving with the rotating joint in the rotator and put 2 x 4" dia agricultural hyd rams on for arms instead of the rams that came with the paper grab. We also took the worm and pinion reduction off and replaced it with a straight geared Hyd motor as it was too slow to rotate. The grab will rotate 360 deg in about 3 seconds now. The arms are fabricated from 100mm mild steel plate, and the arm ends (75mm sqr 1045) are removeable so as we can use pickup arms or hollow bit arms depending on the job Don't know what its max lift is yet, haven't had to pick up anything that has overstretched it. I know it will pickup and carry 630KG with the longer arms. Phil

What do you mean Phil has him working overtime, I don't think he even got past Jinglemoney road more than once, the moon had him flat out all the time. We had a bed and all made up next to the furnace for him and all even stocked the fridge full to the brim with beer, went and bought half a side of cow, and almost a full pig, but no, moonie knew a worker when he saw him, so no Ian for Phil:-(

I've got some old Eagle and globe books at work with double Griffin in them, I'll look it up and post the results. I seem to remember it was prized as a cold chisel material. Phil

Hi David The tongs that we make to sell are forged out of 30mm round spring (normally 5160) to a 30mm x 12mm section. They have a double joint arrangement to assist with biting into the log (so I'm told by our customer). The head arrange ment is profile cut from 12mm mild steel and it has a 16mm ring of about 4" dia put into it and welded. Our customer usually gets some of his order proof loaded stamped and certified by a third party, his normal safe working load limit I think is about 1.5 ton, (so he gets them proof loaded to 3 ton) apparantly the biggest problem he has with getting the proof load is that the points will often just pull through the timber, the tongs are OK, just they cannot grip the timber on a 1/2" wide point good enough to withstand 3 tons pulling them. We don't Quench and Temper the arms just a normalise of the whole tongs after they are finished, but before testing.

My 4 poster is an 18" ram and its rated at 400 ton, with 6" columns. I was at an auction 2 years ago in Sydney where a 150 ton press was passed in because of no bid (I could'nt bid as I had already gone over my limit well and truely) it was knocked down to the scrappers and was cut up the next day, Oh for the lack of money. I reckon a 12"ram would go 150 tons too, by my calculations.

Hey Scurry57 All the hammers in your shop closed die hammers? or do you guys use open die too. What sort of steam plant are you guys using to provide steam for all those hammers. Looks like a fun place to work on a hot day, I noticed all the big man fans in the background. Love the little charging manipulator too.

Just some sort of gasket will be good, when Woolies used to use paper bags that paper was a No.1 gasket material. I would normally use a proper gasket material. Don't use insertion rubber it tends to grow and breakdown with oil present and can be a real pain to get off the mating surfaces after a while, if you need to disasemble again. Even 1 or 2 layers of butchers paper would do. If you want to put a sealing goop on the gasket you could use something like never seeze, or my favourite Black Dixons Paste, bush mechanics have been known to use jam for a gasket sealant when nothing else was available.

thanks Grant, you the techno guru!!!

Just put a a vid on Utube of the 2 in action Not sure that this will work its my 1st go at doing this. <iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7Cy7NBuURB0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Re Johns comment about the noise, our hammer came fitted with a muffler, we tried using it without the muffler but could not hear ourselves think, muffler on what a difference. Photo shows the hammer with muffler attached, it does'nt seem to affect the power of the hammer any. Hey Basher did you get the motor and motor mounting plate with the hammer. I've dug up the bolt drawings and bolt foundation placement drawings that I made when we installed the 2. I'll convert it to PDF tonight and post them up here, maybe of some use to you. 2nd photo is of my alldays 5 and 3 just enjoying the sun. Phil

I basically went the same size foundation as for a 2cwt massey. So far so good, used no reo, when we cast the concrete we made the hole for the anvil about 3" deeper then needed, then brought the hole bottom up to where it was needed with self leveling high tensile grout, so far so good, we used conveyor belt under the anvil as well, so far 3 years of heavy work and no probs. Only one problem apart from the gearwheel coming loose, the face of the anvil is very soft, so much so that my boys are managing to pound the bottom die into it. I'll take some photos af the formwork today, and of the hammer etc and post them on here. Pictures speak louder than words. Phil

Keep us all informed as to how this hammer progresses. I'd be interested to know how she performs. We have one the same, biggest problem with it so far is that the flywheel shows a tendancy to work loose over a years work or so.

Drop hammers are not really classed as suitable for general forging, they are really designed for forging between closed dies (dies that have a impression or series of impressions in them), however if you have nothing else they can be made to do an OK job as shown in the video. Size for size weight for weight they don't stack up to general open die forging hammers in terms of stock size worked, and they are as seen in the vid, of a slower stroking rate than mechanical or pneumatic hammers. But any powered hammer has got to be better than standing there bashing it with a hand hammer. Phil

So long as you pronounce things like "fush and chups" when you really mean fish and chips, or go to a bugguge chukken when you really want to go to a baggage check-in, and call everyone "cuzzy bro" then every one will think you are a born and bred Kiwi and you will "huve no wirries" Cuzzy Bro eh. Seriously though we don't have any restrictions on fires in door (read forges, furnaces etc) at any time including bush fire period, when there is a total fire ban. There may be bans on fires in the open during total fire bans and these can often include Gas BBQs, but NZ is fairly wet and lush for most of the year, can't recall many reports of summer fire bans in Un Zudd. Just as was already mentioned, you may have to consider the neighbours in town, but most of us colonials are pretty laid back sort of blokes any way. Phil

Gee's thanks Wara, tah. sorry I just could'nt resist.

Elephant skin is the best, thats what they all used to be made with, as to if it was an Afican elephant or an Indian Elephant I have no idea. By an Indian elephant I mean India the country, not Indian as in cowboys and indians. Phil

Funny how the media comes up with these descriptions, "a steel railroad beam" does that imply that there are other types of railroad beam in use today, such as maybe, playdoe railroad beams, or maybe paper mache railroad beams. Why can they not just refer to it by it's correct name, rail! Not even "steel rail", does anyone know of rail used today by the rail industry that is not steel. Just my obervations. But yes the D's as we call them in Aus are pretty heavy on people pinching stuff from the ROW, as well as just being in the vicinity, you even get chatted standing on a road bridge on the public footpath while wearing a loud vis jacket with a camera waiting for a train to pass so as you can take a photo these days. Yes things have changed. Phil