forgemaster

Yeh thanks Glenn, hammered at moonies is one event I look forward to each year. Already counting down to the nest one. With luck we will have a hammered in the Hunter between the next hammered at moonies as a farewell to our old workshop. I'll keep you all informed anyway. John, feed that boy up. We need him to build himself up a bit. Thanks again glenn.

Square octogon round is the way you must go, there are times to use hex but this is not one of them. Fastest way to reduce anything is in a swage or some sort of die as the metal is contained and can not bulge out sideways. But even if we are using taper swages we will still rough the job to shape before sticking it in the swages. Phil

Hi all We have been doing some R&D work for a large aussie steel producer near us. It has involved us forging balls under our hammer of the sizes that you are mentioning, when I ask what is the grade we are told it is a proprietory ball forging grade of steel, and its on a need to know basis and you dont need to know. But I do know that some of it is such as 4080H, 5179D, 5190, 5160, 5140, we know it as a general brand name in Australia as Kroball, but all of those grades come under it. The balls are also likely water, time quenched and then allowed to temper back with retained heat. That said they will be as hard as criptonite, but will normally be a really good grade of steel to use for some tooling applications, the only problem will be cutting it. Cheers Phil

100lb? dont you mean 100 KG it was actually 107 kg when billy started but allowing for the hole getting punched and a bit of grinding maybe 105kg now. Phil

Its getting closer ladies, one more full day of work to go. Then its beer fest and forge-a-thon time. I have made a personal note to self not to go so hard on friday night this time, Saturday was a bit of a loss to me last year. Phil

As someone who has trained a fair few apprentices and who spends a fair amount of time working under decent powerhammers my feelings are 12 hours eh, If you can teach a rank beginner much in 12 hours you are a better man than I Gunga Din. I have kids (apprentices) here that after 12 months of using a hammer every day are still stuggling with some of the basics, things such as, forging square that is square, tapering to a set length, forging hex that is hex, punching holes under the hammer that are in the middle of the bar not off to one side, finishing up with the job somewhat straight, forging a chisel with the blade in the middle of the bar, not one sided, necking in a shaft and getting it in the middle of the stock, and then forging that shaft out and rounding it up while keeping it in the middle of the bar still and not going in too far and hitting the shoulders with the top die and wrecking them. You could spend 12 hours easy just on basic processes, safety, getting the rhythm of the hammer, getting in sync with how the hammer works. Its a hard call, do you give them just the basics, to allow them to safely use a hammer, then do their own practice to build technique and guide them as they do progress, or do you teach them a little bit of technique then throw them into making tools to do more complex jobs when they have not even grasped the basics. I don't know. I agree on safety as No.1 though, and just don't mean wear safety glasses and ear muffs sort of safety. Things like don't put your hand under the hammer, use a link on tongs, don't forge your job to cold, warm the hammer blocks before you start, inspect your tongs and loose tools every time before you start to use them. That kind of stuff. Phil Oh and if you get him to make things, they make 2 of everything, that way they get to take one home and you get to keep one as well. Also and more importantly any idiot can make one and get away with it, making 2 and having them the same is a little harder.

We have made all our foundations as per the massey foundation book. We have never used reo bar, nor did we use very High strenght concrete, the reasons given for this is you are trying to cast a monolithic block of concrete, high strength concrete has the least vibration asorbtion rate, and it also can lead to spalling and cracking due to vibration, use as little water as possible, vibrate only sparingly as this will lead to sepration of the mix and create voids. We now always make the pockets for the bolts, but we fabricate them from pipe and plate for the chamber on the end. If you break a bolt you will realise what a PITA it is to try to remove a cast in bolt to put in a new one. We had to jack hammer down 6" through the conctrete to get a sound piece of bar then thread it and fitted a threaded sleeve with a stud on the top of that to repair our broken bolt. Now I always go for the pockets. Phil

If he's in the truck with Moony I hope he packed some ear plugs too, I went for a run over to Nowra with him the other weekend and jeeze were my ears sore by the time we got back, (OK I may have yacked just as much as Glenn, but I'm not admitting to that, oh I just did). Counting down to Friday, I better get all my ducks pointed in the same direction, some time soon or I'm going to be a wreck on Friday. Hopefully I'll pick up Mr Starling at 1pm on Friday from Kymon Forge on the way down. Phil

We had a job to anneal some drill rod ends for a mining supply company some years ago, I figured "right take it to 850/820 deg C and let it slow cool in the furnace". Nearly sent me mad trying to get it to the correct softness, the stuff just would not anneal. Eventually the customer said "oh yeah we have a spec sheet on this material" after reading the sheet I found that this steel needed to have pretty precise heating and cooling to anneal properly, ie heat to 690 to 710 deg and allow to slow(furnace) cool. Success every time then. The lesson I learned here was where possible check the spec's beforehand. Phil

Seeing as I own a C frame Davy forging press, I thought it would look good on the wall of the shop, only kidding, I don't advocate the perloining of municiple property. I seem to recall Mittagong also has a Forge Street, or am I mistaken.

I take it that you are upsetting the material by standing it vertically in a die, are you forming this in one pass or are you using a preforming pass as well, if you are doing this in one pass I would suggest 2, to somehow preform it somewhat as Grant has suggested, and I would also second a forging lubricant of some sort to reduce the friction of the material being forced up to the top. Answer some of our questions and we'll see what else we can suggest. Phil

I'm going to take some offcuts/scrap 4140, 4340, EN36, 5190, spring round, 1045, in assorted sizes up to about 160 dia. I'll also take some good hunter valley gas works coke (a few bags) to give the moons stockpile a bit of relief. If you blokes want anything else that you can think of that I may have lettuce now. But be warned young fellas, I plan on being a bit more strict on forge fire housekeeping this time, I'm not there to keep on cleaning out your forges for you after you neglect them and let them get full of clinker, "Gee I dont know whats wrong with the forge, but it does'nt seem to be getting hot any more" Phil

When I was down there the other weekend I gave the moon a hand to bring the big shears into the workshop I seem to recall they have a capacity of 60 dia round bar shearing. If not there is always the gas axe, or a 9" with a cut off in it, Or we can use the hammer cutters, "Oh no" thinks Moonie, "not Phil with the hammer cutters again". Bring it along we'll bite in half with our teeth if need be, us blackies are tough! Phil thats not a knife, this is a knife!

With a regen circuit, once the ram contacts the job and actually starts pushing, it reverts to a normal situation, ie all the oil from the front of the piston goes back to the tank, and all the oil from the pump goes to the back of the ram to push, on the return stroke the ram reverses at its normal speed which is going to be quicker that the normal forward stroke as the rod takes up some of the cylinder space, hence you need less oil to acutate the movement (in reverse). Regen is only of use when you want a fast approach with no load, you are taking the oil that is being displaced from in front of the piston and routeing it to the back of the cylinder where it is admitted with the oil coming from the pump, once the system starts to load up the valving switches the hyd circuit back to a normal standard configuration. The reason the ram wil still move forward (in regen) is the differential in surface area of the piston from front to back caused by the piston rod taking up some of the room on the piston front. If you tried it on a piston without a rod the piston would not move as there would be no difference in the 2 surface areas front and back of the piston, it would be in a state of equilibruim, equal pressures (surface areas) on both sides = no movement. Phil

Graffite and steam cylinder oil mixed together, the thicker and stickier the oil the better. Mix it to a thick paste apply it with a swab or a paint brush. In Newcastle Aus we gave it the term of mootie, others have called it flumbago, or other such derivations. "Fill that impression in that die up with plenty of mootie son, we don't want this sucker to stick". Most oil companies will still supply a compounded steam cylinder oil. Cheers Phil

I would probably lean towards cold rolled as well Ian, it's also known as precision bar here (I think) or something like that, as they can roll it to a very precise size, same as bright bar, only its flat. Phil See you at Moonies, How about liberating that Davy Street sign from the post for us in Mittagong, I keep on meaning to do it myself but I either go through there with no tools, forget it altogether or arrive there in daylight.

Thanks for the happy birthday chaps. It's the Moon Mans birthday today. Happy birthday Glen.

Jocko, you really need to get out more. Moonys birthday today, 25 and never been kissed (if you believe that you'll believe anything) (that he's never been kissed, he really is only 25, he's just had a really hard life so far) If anyone has a special request for steel let me know and I'll see what I can bring. (and i don't want a request like "oh phil could you bring 24 lenghts of angle iron for me to make a new tool rack, you can buy that yourself. I'm talking alloy steel or steel for tools.

Thanks for the input guys, I have seen versions advertised in Forging magazine, etc and on the net in general. One of our customers who used to have the largest open die forging press in the southern Hemisphere (6100 tons), and who we have done some R and D work for has a pretty good program but it is in the realms of $30K and upwards. I was thinking of going for a test drive on some versions, but thought someone may have been able to save me the time and trouble of sifting through all the duds. Clay and plastercine would not work for us, as we would need to get a piece of clay 330mm in dia (our starting stock) or else scale it down,(not sure if that would work either) Thanks guys Cheers Phil

See what happens when the youngens get loose and learn how to use the inters nets.

Hi Guys I realise that this may be out of left field for some of you guys. I was interested in finding out if anyone has used, played around with or purchased any forging simulation software. What was it, how did you feel it related to the real world, what sort of cost, was it adaptable to different sorts of situations, did you need to be a rocket scientist to drive it. I have been thinking of looking into this, as I can see an application for this sort of thing at work, but from what I have found so far, most programs are more focused on closed die operations (ie drop forging, or up setters). I'd appreciate any feed back, thanks guys. Phil

Yeh if you don't need a head you don't need a helmet. I thought that was funny too, that guys will worry about wearing a hat to protect their head when in the workshop but don't see the need for one when flying down the road on a balistic missile at 100 MPH with other things coming the other way and going across in front of you. Wierd.

Hi all Just spent the weekend with Glenn, cleaned up a bit, fixed the other forge up (made it a bit deeper, always niggled me that, too close to the tuyere) went and picked up some more stuff from Nowra, did some work on the 10 man forge, played with the new press for a little while, drunk some beer, talked a lot of rubbish. Did'nt get to fix up the thunderbox, Glenn had already finished the tin on the walls, the APC did'nt need the oil changing, and we mucked around with the kids with some hot steel (my eldest daughter wanted to learn how to make a 4 leaf clover) talk about a tall order for her 1st job. The end of the month is fast approaching. Oh yeh we tried to round up some of them dunny budgies, talk about herding cats! What a futile job that turned out to be. Phil

Already been invented, called a counterblow hammer, they are normally always a closed die hammer. Phil

Me the cheese n kisses and the 2 billy lids will be hitten the frog n toad this fri to go down to moonies over the long weekend to give him a hand to get the place tarted up. Be it digging dunny holes, fixing more tin to the shed walls, cleaning the barbie, cooling the cans, fueling up and doing an oil change on the APC, does'nt matter, we's is gunna give im an and. Its all coasting from here on in guys. (coasting is going down hill with no effort) May even get some time to whack some hot steel (or maybe not, gotta take the little lady to a ____ flower show in Canberra on sunday (yawn)). What fun! Phil