forgemaster

This could also go into the safety section I suppose. I have a real problem with new blokes/apprentices continually sitting down on drums benches etc in the workshop. We have a similar problem with visitors also. I also frequently see people sitting down at demonstrations. When I tell these blokes (or sheilas) to get up off their xxx (backside) I often get the look. When I explain to them the danger of sitting down where there are power hammers operating,they still don't get it. These photos may help these people understand. When you sit down near a working hammer, or even near an anvil someone is working on, you are putting your head almost in line with anything that is going to fly out from under that hammer. At best it makes it hard for you to move to avoid any flying projectiles when you are sitting. These photos are of slot punch that broke in two last week while we were using it under our 5cwt massey. 1 hit broke it off, the top piece glanced off my arm and continued on for another 14 metres through the air before hitting the workshop wall where it left a chunk of brick missing. The piece you can see here was the bottom half left under the hammer. The top that broke off ( weight I reckon was 0.5 KG) and went flying we have not found yet. Yes I was lucky to not have been hit directly, but at least it is soft tissue where I was hit, (no I did'nt need stiches), imagine if it had been a head, eye, mouth that was the stopping medium. If you sit down near where people are working under hammmers or on anvils, stand up! If you see bystanders doing the same get them up on their feet, "if you want to sit down, go outside, this is a blacksmith shop, not a lounge room". I've seen too many things eject from under a hammer, and they all move xxxx fast, and they are all mainly sharp jagged looking things too. Phil

Pictures of the interior of our shop

Graheme Askew was the name I was trying to think of, I knew it would come to me if I really tried hard. Now my head hurts, I know what will fix that though, Beer. As for the hardy hole in the anvil, I don't know. Anvils only equate one thing to me, hard work. We class them as class A1 boat anchors.

To avoid wrecking a good centre punch digging the tap out, I will use a concrete nail, the sort that they fire into the concrete with an explosive charge (ramset is a name that springs to mind). Phil

Ahh, theres a lot of "blacksmiths" at theme parks that have a lot to answer for in my opinion. I was stupid enough during my apprenticeship to take holidays to go to timbertown to work for nothing, doing what I had taken a holiday from. That could have been Doug Mosely or Grahame (forget his second name) or even me that made that horse shoe. Oh well welcome aboard Karl Cheers Phil

We also try to run our blokes on a bonus system, regarding job times. Ie if I come up with a job time of say 1 hour per piece, and our men can produce it in half that time (effectively doing double the work in that time) we will pay them the time that they have saved. All our job cards have the job times on them, sometimes our blokes will earn themselves 10 hours bonus in a day, just by working cleverer rather than harder. Our oppositions charge out rates for their hammers are (and this is hammer time only, not including grinding, cutting stock, heat treatment, etc) 10cwt hammer $125.00 hour 15cwt hammer $150.00 hour 40cwt hammer $300.00 hour On their 40 cwt they will normally be able to charge out between 12 to 16 hours a day for an 8 hour days production. Phil

Here in the Hunter Valley of NSW Australia it costs us more for a ton of top soil than it does for a ton of coal. We will even use coal fines to repair pot holes in the tracks around our workshop, does'nt work real well as it powders up pretty quick, but its cheap. Phil

We normally have a KG rate for our different jobs, eg solid forged rings have a different rate to shafts, or discs, or tooled forgings. The rates vary a bit depending on the size hammer or press they will be forged on, EG our 2 CWT hammer is normally a one man job, where as our 400 ton forging press is normally a 3 man job, whether we use the manipulator or not, also has a loading to the KG rate, the more men working on the machine the higher the rate. KG rate also allows us to factor in the heating time required, obviously 150KG of material takes longer to heat than 20 KG, and requires a bigger furnace also. At the moment I am trying to run my pricing at around $75.00 per hour per man. I try to get the men to keep accurate records on their job cards of times taken etc so as I can adjust my pricing rates and my estimated job times to reflect the times acctually taken in the shop. I also have rates of charge out for each machine that I try to achieve, these charge out rates will include the hourly labour rate of the workers working on these machines. These charge out rates I adjust to the KG rate depending on what information I have come back off the job cards from the shop floor. I know the rough charge out rates of the competition for each of their machines, but of late we have lost some quotes to them so they must be feeling the pinch and have cut some of their rates. We always work out the weight of a job before we begin to quote on it, weight influences material cost, transport costs, surface coating costs Eg galvanising, weight needs to be known to calculate our KG labour rate. It is industry standard that out of a 8 hour work day you will only really be productive for 6.5 hours the rest is taken up with non productive tasks, eg cleaning up, repairing tools/equipment, record keeping, washing up, toilet breaks, planning work for tomorrow. Some people may get more work in for 8 hours but 6.5 is good as a place to start. Our work is probably easier to quote than doing architectural or ornamental smithing, which is why I try to stay away from that line of work. It also means I don't have to deal with the general public, just other companies. Phil

Hi guys To Calculate the amount of stock needed for a forging, the formula is Volume of the forging divided by the surface area of the end of the stock Eg (and we'll use metric here) 12mm x 12mm x 100mm (1/2" x 1/2" x 4" roughly)= 14400 divided by 25mm x 25mm (625)(1" x 1")= 23.04mm + 3% heat wastage = 23.73 (1" roughly) For converting round to square it is good to remember that a circle inscribed in a square takes up .785 of the area of the square. Therefore how much 2" square bar is it going to take to make 4" of 2" round answer is 4 x .78 = 3.12" of 2' sqr to make 4" of 2" round

I really need to listen to that little voice in my head that says, "phil before you weld this,paint this, bend that there, punch that hole, cut that to lenght etc, you need to check these measurements, fit, straightness, etc. Do I? Not as much as I should. Slowly over the years I am listening to that voice better though. Phil

It has taken me many years to get the hang of managing people, some people need a good foot up the rear every day, some people need to be handled with kid gloves, just need to figure out which is which. I normally use the reasoning, "would you pay this money for this quality of work," "ahh nup", "right then neither will our customer, go fix it and don't do it again, AM I MAKING MYSELF CLEAR HERE" After a while the employee will get it, other wise they get a DCM (don't come monday). You have to let the dud ones go. I belive in apprentices, sure they are a burden for a year really, but in Oz we still have a structured apprentice system with a government provided trade school one day a week that they have to attend, normally by the second year of their time they are starting to make money, then you have at least 2 more years after that to flog them to make the money they wasted in 1st year. They have to sign a contract for 4 years, at the end of it they get a trade Cert in the trade of their calling, its worked for me, we're on our 8th apprentice now over 15 years of our own business. Once they get to 3rd year we put them in charge of a 1st year, starts to teach them a bit of supervision skill, and if you have to teach a skill to someone else it makes you analise how you perform it also. Its a real pity that many countries have lost their apprenticeship systems now, its a great way to train your nations workforce. After all some one has to get their hands dirty to make the country run, we can't all be suits.

Having tried both these beers. The Blacksmiths Bitter is no longer available, but was a reasonable beer, more like an ale I thought. Hammer N tongs however is my regular beer of choice. It's cheap (or was) gettin a bit more popular now. Hammer N tongs is actually brewed by Cascade brewery in Tasmania (according to a beer rep who is a mate of my brother) and cascade makes a pretty good beer anyway. So I'd vote for the hammer N tongs over the BB. Dont tell me no-one else in the world makes blacksmiths beer. I even have Hammer and Tong stubbie holders for my hammer and tong beer, (translation for the furriners, a stubbie holder is a small cylindrical bottle cover made from wetsuit material designed to keep your beer cool on a hot summers day, a stubbie is a 375ml beer bottle, hence a stubbie holder, what will these xxxx ozzies think of next) Phil

Thamks guys for the feedback, it's nice to know that I'm not here divulging the tricks of the trade with no-one paying any attention. Anything I can do to assist I'm happy to help. Cheers Phil

Hey Forrest Try JA Abbott in Sydney, their phone No is 02 9584 2985 Fax is 02 9584 9081 Address is 32 Barry Avenue Mortdale NSW 2223. You'd be best to speak to Yvonne. Cheers Phil

Heating up till the oil flashes in a furnace turned off is good, thats the way we used to do hammer tools before we got a tempering furnace. the slower it happens the better,as it gives the heat time to penetrate in more. You can also use the greasy stick if you want to go for a higher temperature, say to 480 - 520 deg C, oil flashes at about 350 deg C I think. Phil

Grant I'm about 1 hour out of the old Steak n Kidney (sydney), was there twice last week, (had a problem with a job we did for Auburn rail maintenance) PM me with where she is working and for how long, I have a little bauble with an Ozzie slant to give her. Beats me why anyone wants to live in Sydney anyway. Theres only one good thing comes out of Sydney, the Pacific Highway, heads north to Gods Country. (Thats not true theres other highways that leave Sydney too). Dale I did'nt know you drank beer, guzzled it yes, drank it no. Phil

I will add here that I assume you are using quenching oil, if you are doing comercial work you should be using proper quenching oil not old motor oil. To flare oil off tools like points and chisels we normally use the oxy set up on a stand, we have another stand just in front of it and a bit below that we can rest the tool on to get under the oxy flame, (using a cutting torch here), Have the flame set fairly soft and just run the chisel up and down and around under the flame, don't concentrate on the edge to much it will heat up the quickest, put more attention into the back of the tool to about 2" back from the edge. Move the tool back and forth until all the oil is burnt off and there is no more flashes of flame. To flare larger tools in a forge fire we used to bury say a piece of 2" plate in the forge get that hot, turn the blast off then sit the tool we wanted to temper onto the plate, turn it over periodically to allow it to heat evenly, watch till you see the oil begin to flicker to flame. We also used to do coil spring the same way using a large piece of pipe buried horizontally in the fire with the ends open, place the spring inside it, carefully turn it to get an even heat, as well as move it back and forth, till the oil catches fire. Zip boom your spring is tempered, take it out and stick it on the floor. Motor oil usually has combustibles in it which makes it more susceptable to ignition. I can normally teach a kid to put a point or chisel on a tool in a day or two, teaching them how to heat treat them sucessfully takes a little more time, effort and tears on my behalf. Phil

Hey Grant Funny how even though blokes are on different continients, we still all use the same methods to test points and chisels, over the anvil and whale s_it out of it with a hammer, nope did;nt break, into the bin with the others. We normally oil quench from 850 deg C then "flare" the oil left on the tool off with the Oxy when they have cooled down. (after we pull them out of the oil and let them drip for a few minutes) Phil

Hey Grant Don't let Dale pull you into his kind of fight here, we're talking about a powerfull mess O beer here, n is'nt Obama trying to get you blokes to cut down on spending. Don't agree to something that will send the Oll USA broke here now Grant. Phil

320 HBN is plenty hard enough for a hit n Giggle blacksmiths anvil. We forge gear blanks out of 4140 and heat treat them to 277-311 HBN. We aim for 302 HBN which is denoted as a 3.65mm dia impression with our Brinell Machine. That is a brinell machine has a 10mm dia tungsten steel ball that has a load of 3000KG applied to it for 15 seconds. The load is removed and you read the dia of the impression with a brinell microscope (it has a scale across the lens). 320HBN is denoted by an indentation of 3.40mm dia from a 10mm ball with 3000KG load for 15 seconds, to give you an idea. So unless you are going to forge ball bearings cold on it using a 3 ton hammer it should be good. (HBN or BHN stands for hardness brinell number) Cheers Phil

They are brake shoe keys, we make 1000s of them each year. They are normally mild if they are double tapered, or 1045 if they are tapered on the thickness only with parallel sides ours are anyway. Not sure what the specs would be for US but would be really suprised if they were spring. Cheers Phil

Have taken some photos. I am having problems getting these to load, so I will try to load some more later tonight. Basically these show our door with the water filled/cooled rim around it. The pipes coming down through the hood, with heavy air hose to make a flexible connection to allow the door to go up and down. The cooling tank outside, this is above the level of the door. We use Plicast 60LC (LEB70544) for our furnace floor a castable refractory, we purchase it from a company called Vesuvius Australia. the product sheet gives it as "a low cement, high alumina castable with excellent strengths and outstanding abrasion resistance. If you are using bricks on the floor which way are you laying them, sides flats or on end. On end is the better way to lay them.

Hey Bully A lot of old blokes up the north coast used to use sump oil to losen up old leather on harness and such stuff. Made a mess but it did the job, after they'd poured sump oil over it and given it a chance to soak in they'd rub it back with a cloth, then start using stuff such as neats foot oil, old leather can be mighty thirsty, quench that initial thirst with old oil first, then use the good stuff as the ad said "Solly, oils is oils". By the way I've had an old gent try to tell me that they used to use elephant skin on bellows, I let him have his BS laugh. Like, "Ah yeh Kundabung Sawmill here mate, we need a new elephant skin for our bellows, can you put one on the next mail train going north." "Sure thing bud, did you want the Indian elephant or the African elephant". "Gee I don't know, I'll check and get back to you, whats the difference". "Yeh mate the african one is wrinklier, thats the biggest difference". Bet the old bloke is sitting on the verandah of the nursing home telling that story right now. Cheers Phil

Hi Rambo our furnace runs at about 1300c or there abouts, the water is pumped through the door rim by a 1" in 1" out 3 phase pump, our cooling tank is about 1300mm cube holds about 1.2 tonne of water. After a aussie summers day (42 deg C) the water would be at about 70 to 80 deg C, in winter we use it for hand washing. This is after 9 or so hours of running the furnace at full blast (1300C) After a days work I can still hold my hand on the door rim while the furnace is still going. I'll take a camera to work tomorrow and take some pickys. For our floor we use a castable refractory specially designed for abrasive applications, it could also have stainless needles added to the mix if we needed it, to increase the wear resistance, I'll check out the bags tomorrow also and find out what it is. Our opposition has been using this method for years with their doors and they still swear by it, even after going the kao wool packed door a couple of years ago, they still went back to the water cooled rim. Phil

Unsavoury types? There's naught but escaped convicts, vagabonds, and neer do wells in this ear brown land, (i'm not too sure which one I am though) Although there seems to be more of them near Braidwood though. Cheers Phil