forgemaster

Grant what the hell is a bobble?

We use a water cooled door, have had it in use for about 4 years with not a problem. It is made from 75mm square hollow as heavy wall as I could buy. The SHS forms a watercooled rim around the outside, the middle is castable refractory. The water to cool the door is pumped in from a cooling tank placed outside. The connection is 1" gal pipe with heavy air hose to allow the door to lift up and down. Biggest problem we have is pumps stuffing up not the doors, we have replaced 2 pumps in 4 years, not bad seening as they run 24/7 I suppose. If you want I could post some photos to assist with my description. The cooling tank is refilled by a ball cock. Cheers Phil

Seen large permanent forges here in Aus that were built out of timber and roofing iron, you just need to make them large enough so as the heat does'nt get to the framework. Most of these timber forges were filled with dirt and clay with a side blast tuyere. Just make sure the rocks don't get hot and it will be no worries. cheers Phil

We leave the handle well oversize, grease the end of the handle and push the handle into the head with an 80 ton horizontal press, no wedges no drying probs even in the aussie summer. Phil

We tell the kids, "Hey son you can only catch fire and burn, the quicker you are with that the sooner you can get away from the heat".

We set the Oxy to the same pressures as you would use for Actly. The propane we set to what ever looks good, most of our LPG regs don't have gauges on them. We only use LPG for cutting and brazing though, it won't as a rule work for Oxy welding steel. If we are using a torch for heating we will turn the LPG up, if we are using it for cutting we adjust it to give a nice neat flame. Make sure you use LPG/Propane cutting tips in your torch, they have a recess in the flame end and are normally 2 piece, Actly tips wont work with LPG. Phil

Joggling is the correct term for setting plates such as these, and yes you should have joggled them first then drilled the holes. It will be fairly hard to joggle them and still keep your holes in line, better to do like suggested and use spacers and long pins with gussets. I would suggest using hollow bar as the spacers, try Atlas Steels, Interlloy, or Bohler, they will be in most of the capital cities at least, look in the yellow pages. You will have to bore the hollow bar out some as they are under sized to the FMS Where are you in Aus bloke. Phil

I'll still post some more details on die making when I get the chance, just we've been a little busy lately, belting hot steel seems more profitable than sitting on a computer in a forum. Phil

Hey Monstermetal We use the 6150 for the manufacture of a fencing or spud bar that we produce for one of our customers, we would normally push out between 500 and 700 of these per year. The bar is the stem, we forge a 65mm wide chisel end from 8660 which gets butt welded on to the stem then swaged to hammer refine the weld, then the whole bar is heat treated. Almost out of the 8660 and can't get any more, so I'll have to find something else to use. Phil

B and S Massey of Manchester, not sure if they were once aligned with the Fergusons The press is a tie bolt mechanical trimming press, hard to guess the tonnage but about 150 tons. Beautifully made piece of machinery. I recently purchased a 80 ton version at an auction for $60 Au, lovely machine. Phil

Purely and simply to cover their xxxxx. We have them send out 17 year old girls to do a safety audit on our company. 1 year out of high school. "And what is this thing?" "its a furnace" "what do you use that for?" "we use that to heat the steel that we forge", "Oh so how do you prevent your employees from burning themselves on it", "Well its hot' and every one knows not to touch it" "Is that covered in your training" "Well yes" "is that doucumented" "Of course" "oh well thats OK then" So long as you have a piece of paper with a sig on it thats all they care about. What I reckon is that when computers came along they made a whole section of middle management redundant so jobs had to be found for them, so some one came up with an idea, We'll just invent a beauracracy in charge of OHS that can generate reams and reams of paper and will really achieve little in actual worker safety but it will look as if we are doing something and we will have something for all our friend displaced from middle management jobs and then they wont have to do dirty meanial work in the workshop with the troglodites. Phil

Just goes to show no matter how much safety gear you have on, accidents can still happen, as Grants little quote said "safety is not a device but an attitude" or something to that effect. I have been forging for 29 years now and the worst injuries I have had have all been when I was wearing safety gear, (ie a large piece of scale flew off a job hit my fore head fell down into my glasses, I recieved bad burns to my lower eye lid as I could not get my glasses off quick enough. Yet the hospital out patients doctor said "If you had been wearing safety glasses this would not have happened"). What I'm getting at is that even though you may have on a full metal battle jacket, you can still get hurt, it is you and your approach to the job that is the deciding factor. Phil

We are a bit different, but 1 bar 300 dia 4140 AR black 1 Bar 330 dia 4340 AR black 1 to 2 ton of 140 dia 4140 AR black 1 ton 80 dia 4140 AR black 2 bars 130 dia 4340 AR black 1 ton 63 sqr 1045 1 ton 50 sqr 1045 1 ton 33 dia 1045 1/2 ton 4317/EN36 80 dia 10 bars 30 dia 5155 spring 1 ton 26 dia 6150 spring 1 ton 24 dia 5160 spring couple of bars of 16 dia 20 dia 24 dia 30 dia 40 dia 50 dia mild for making handles etc. about 15 bars of flat mild for handles etc or tools Heaps of offcuts of all the above I normally try to buy in ton lots.

To heat our shop we just open the doors n winders, it was 47 deg C in Kurri during the week, with the doors and windows open the heat just comes straight in. What we need is some rain, we had a few drops of rain the other day, one of the kids at my daughters school fainted after some drops landed on him, as he had never seen rain before, they had to throw a bucket of dust over him to bring him round

After you get the sax squashing happening right, Maybe you could find a use for violins too, there is way too much sax and violins on TV these days.

Brass is normally fairly brittle on account of the zinc in it. Fairly hard to forge without it breaking. When it is forged it is normally done by drop hammer in dies, with as few blows as possible to form it. Open die hammer forging is by our experience not usually successful, but give it a go, you never know. Even though I played sax all through school, and still have one under the bed I never tried to flatten it, dropped them once or twice, I always formed the opinion that the metal was fairly brittle, (after dropping them then having to pay to have them repaired). Phil

Oh Gosh thats better, like I know where MN is, or even where Mt St Helens is ( is that in Greece). Guys this is an international forum, a bit more detail would help. Ta from Phil at Kurri.

I seem to recall Glen saying his website was down. Phil

Axles are normally 4140 or En25/26 or 4340, water quench and no HT = way too hard. Oil quench and no HT = a little too hard. Better to oil quench and temper by burning the oil off in the forge.

Sitting in the dining room in undies and singlet, to hot for any other clothes. Probably go sailing tomorrow if its not too hot, kids want to go to the beach though. The car has air con, may have to go and sit in it for a while with the engine running and cool down. Phil

Hey Ian Seeing as my present workshop is also in a historic complex, and I had to convince council to allow me this venture, I would be happy to contribute to your cause. I will put something together over the weekend. Cheers Phil

Hand powered hacksaw on a frame with a lever handle to wank them to and from, we have some still at work, I'll try to remember to photograph some and post them here. Phil

Hey Rich Hows it going? We have a few of those sort of things floating around the shop here, we normally term them as ashtrays or birdbaths, as thats about all they are useful for now. Cheers Phil

Looking good Rob, the only thing I would add is to offsett the eyes more to allow you a wider gap between the reins (makes it easier to manipulate stuff then). My first pair of tongs went straight into the chipper and 27 years later I'm still not really good at making tongs. They are something you have to practice at, and I've never really had to make all that many for myself, (made a lot of special ones, eg for lifting rail etc) Keep up the good work Phil

hey Big foot No need to use the oven, just sit the spring on top of the fire, and with the fire just going, run the spring back and forwards over it, use an old hickory hammer handle to rub on it, when it is at about the right temperature the hammer handle will feel greasy to rub back and for. Try it with a piece of mild steel first to judge it for your self. This is what we call the greasy stick method. you want to judge the heat so the stick just feels as if the steel is slippery, if the stick starts to flame its a little too hot, not slippery too cold. Cheers Phil