forgemaster

Oi Dale you are sailing close to the wind here bud, with your quote of "having women to clean up after us" and also seeing as it's international womens day today as well. Bad Boy Dale. sorry for kicking this thread along again too, but I was getting bored.

I have a 3 cwt alldays and onions that is missing an anvil, it was I think left in the ground by the people who removed the hammer from it previous working place. I had planned to fabricate a new anvil out of 4" plate, 1 plate for the base, then laminate whatever I needed for the upright part, all laminated, heavily vee'd out and welded but essentially solid, not hollow. Havent needed to install that hammer yet so havent needed to make the anvil. If you can't find a replacement anvil this method could be a means to an end.

Hey John, short answer No, Dale the regular crew from Newy will be attending OK, (me, the fridge, starlo, Jay) can't say for anyone else.

Is it too early to start the count down yet guys, oh yeh women are most welcome to attend Hammered, just in case they are feeling left out. That was not intended, just the way it happened. Start the countdown someone. Phil

Yeh 65 confirmed dead, a big mess, hope no-one from this forum is in a bad way. The people of Newcastle know what it is like to feel the earth move in a big way. Our thoughts are with you from across the ditch. Phil

I'm with Grant on this too, 1st thing I said to my self was "seam in the bar". Get a piece of bar stock that is from the same bar lenght (heat No. etc) and either die penetrant test it, get it tested, or mag particled, at the least try, oil soak the sample, clean it well, then dust with chalk and leave it for a few hours. The chalk will draw the oil out of the seam/flaw if there is one. Even though you are using 2 different sizes and finding the same problem with both, does not mean that those 2 sizes were'nt rolled out of the same billet. Phil

Whatever you decide on make sure your barrel has only one hole in it (at the top), if it also has a hole in the bottom it will let all the water out. Don't ask me how I know this, I feel so stupid. Phil

We are updating all our prices this week, on average we are increasing 13%. Though there are some prices I am finding that have not been increased since 08. So they are being increased a little more. "We're not a charity" is my present favouite saying, but even some charities make more of a profit than us sometimes.

You just need to move it around a bit so as to keep it in cool oil and stop it from vapourising around the job, figure of 8 back and forth it does'nt really matter. When we quench 200kg or up you cant really do much with it but go up and down with the hoist in the quench tub. Even to turn on the pump all that does is pump the quenching medium through a cooling tower and back to the tank. Them good ole boys, were like the old fella who told a bloke that came to see me that bellows leathers were elephant skin, the nubie believed him. I can just imagine back in the 40s a telegraph comes in from a sawmill up the coast, to an industrial supplier in the big city, "yeh Briggsvale sawmill wants us to send a new elephant skin for their blacksmith shop bellow" "oh OK no probs, do you know if they need an indian elephant or an african elephant skin" "nah I don't i'll have to telegraph them again". Bet that old fella is still laughing on the verandah of the nursing home for that one. Phil Phil

Took some photos of the punches and drifts we use under the 5cwt massey for punching and drifting eyes We use a handled anvil punch to do the initial punching, then we whack in the tapered drift from both sides (the bit missing from the end is where someone could'nt find the hole in the bolster), then we have a finishing drift that leaves a nice radius on the top of the eye and also drifts the eye out to an easy fit for the size of handle we are fitting to that tool/hammer. Phil

I enjoy making a living out of blacksmtihing. That I can provide for my family the things that they need to live, by doing something with my hands that I enjoy doing. Phil

OK I'm lost, where in the powerhammer section has it gone to, I can't find it. Phil

This is easy, all I used to do when I was an apprentice was make the band about 1/4" smaller in circumference than the block, get the band to a "greasy stick" heat then push the sucker onto the block with a 1 ton Massey hammer, oh you may not have access to a 1 ton hammer. That may make a difference, sorry.

I know that when you and an offsider forge 15 discs (gear blanks) weighing 36kgs each that finish at 280 mm dia x 75mm thick out of 140mm dia 4140 in an 8 hour day using a 5cwt massey, its a workout. I could guarantee that most of the gym junkies would have been passed out on the floor after the 1st heat or 2. I normally will go through about 7-8 litres of water with Gatorade powder mixed in on those days, and only go for a leak about once, so that liquid has to come out some other way, (as sweat). When i get home the missus complains about how hot it has been today, "you've been hot, how do you think we've been standing in front of the firey furnace all day. However my wife will just say, "oh yeh but you are used to it". You never get used to it you just learn to endure it. So to me yes blacksmithing is a workout. Or try forging 300mm of 300mm dia (165kg/363lb)into a gear blank measuring 460mm dia x 125mm thick on a day when the temperature outside is up around 39/40 degrees C, then tell me thats not a workout. Phil

The blueprints are very impressive, are you by any chance a draftsman or architect in real life. Phil

We are going to try using H19 for a blob punch for punching hammer eyes, we have found some here in Oz that we can get for a reasonable price. I seem to remember it has better hot hardness properties than H13. Phil

Hey Grant, so its Xmas day and you are discussing steel prices on the net. Man you really need to get other interests. We are at present paying $2.00AU per KG for 4140 as rolled black here, and I noted the other night that our $ is now equal in value to yours. I don't buy much mild at the moment but I think we are paying about $1.60AU per KG for that.

Merry christmas everyone at IFI. I'm in "Sunny" Queensland at the Outlaws and guess what its going to be pouring rain for Christmas Day. All the best Phil

Be aware that not all stainless is anneal by quenching, the martensetic grades are normally a subcritical anneal (heat to 650 deg C hold for up to 12 hours allow to air cool to ambient). If you pickup some stainless from the scrap yard you need to identify it before you go messing with it. Martensetic grades are normally magnetic. It can be a bugger to anneal, we just had to have 3 goes at annealing 2 24"od x 3" x 18"id rings out of 431 stainless last week. They kept on coming out at 416 HB, we had to go back right to the start and begin again. We finally got them down to 255HB and our customer was finally able to machine them. Merry christmas to everyone. Its 8.30 in the morning here, and I'm sitting on the verandah typing this wearing a tee shirt and shorts and its already 25 deg C. Seen the pickys of up north and all I can say have a nice white christmas. Phil

We have a first year apprentice who has demonstrated this skill this week in 14 pieces of 4140 2"square bar, Ok they were not all 30 degrees some were 5 degrees some were about 20 degrees others were closer to 30 deg. The only problem is he was trying to get them all in the centres of the bars and at 90 deg to the axis of the bars to make an order of hot setts. If he had needed to punch them at 30 degrees I bet he could have got them all at 90 deg or close to it. He'll have the opportunity to get some more practice after Xmas when he has to give another 14 a go. I'm hoping he gets them at 90 degrees this time, if he manages 30 degrees I'll find out how he does it and let everyone know.

The Alldays I think it is just in the nature of the beast, what with having no rings and no stuffing box, and a vacumn lift, it runs OK when it is hitting soft metal but if you are using swages and you are almost right down to size it will start to I suppose really bounce back up. On hot material it is good right down to thin. The Alldays also chokes itself if you don't just get into it right from the start, it will do dead blows if you bring it down gradually to start striking and you have to pump it for a few strokes to get it going to a full stroke. We have just learnt to live with the beast. The 100 when I first installed it it was running way too slow, and it was giving a really dull dead blow, once I put a correct size correct speed motor on it it ran OK in that respect. It will still however give a miss then belt the job miss again etc if you are trying to drive light. We just lived with it, until we broke the piston rod, now we don't use it, and by that time we had installed the alldays, problem solved. I have even had that miss then belt problem with a 20cwt massey when I was working for a boss. As it was not my hammer, and we got into trouble if we tried any sort of maintainence ("you're here to work not bl---y well fix things, now put it back together and just get on with your job") I would just use another hammer if I need a lighter blow. You could see how the packing is by putting the hammer in hold up and seeing how much air you get coming down the ram past the stuffing box/gland. If you've never dropped the gland, it may be wise to have a look at it anyway to see how the packing is. We take off the top die, lift the hammer up and sit it on a piece of bar about 10" long on end, turn the hammer, off loosen the gland nuts off,then using a fox wedge part the gland from the hammerso the gland drops to the nuts again. We then get the forklift put a blade either side of the ram to support the gland, remove the nuts and allow the gland to slide down the ram supported by the fork blades. Remove the forklift from under the gland, then use it to lift the ram up enough to remove the piece of bar, chain the ram up with a chain sling or such and the remove the gland from the bottom die to a bench. Installation is a reversal of removal. You may also benefit from checking the condition of the rings on the ram and the pump. Surely John from Massey would be the man to give you the "good oil" for fixing this characteristic. Moonys 7 will also run wierd but I feel that is more of a problem of loose belts and him running it off a generator and the generator governer lagging behind the power demands of the hammer.

As for getting a hit one miss one blow when driving light, not something we have ever had with a massey clear space, happens heaps with the Alldays and also the 1cwt massey in slides but not the clear space. As for the hammer starting to choke its self on full blow, check the condition of the packing on the hammer ram, we have gone to using Kevlar gland packing in this stuffing box. Other than that you need to learn how to pump the hammer up to get a longer blow when forging flat out. It is effected by pumping the pedal up and down in time to the hammer, telling the hammer to lift up when it is going up and to give a full blow as the ram is going down. One other thing to check is that the hammer is running at the correct speed, we had this problem with the 1cwt in slides as it was going too slow, would'nt even generate enough blow to blow your nose.

I will often use a BP when starting an eye on the anvil, when making my right angle bend prior to bending the ring. the ball is the right shape to bend the material over the anvils edge and to allow a nice radius to develop. We also have a few ball piens with long handles which are used exclusively as firewelding hammers as that allows you to keep your hand away from the heat and the ball is usefull for welding in the end of the scarf if it has not welded properly when you first tacked it. We also have a BP which I made as an apprentice as my final TAFE job, only the ball has broken off now, we call it a pain hammer. Still is a fairly usefull hammer, its nicely weighted. I often find when using a cross pein etc that I will go to use the hammer with the wrong pein presented. never happens with a ball pein or a flogging hammer. Phil

1045 normally for us, normalised

Happy Birthday old one arm. I'll sink some for you. Cheers Phil