forgemaster

For a spring temper (if using alloy spring steel) we will normally temper to 480 to 500 deg C ( which is way over a light blue). Basically you can reheat a spring to its tempering temper as many times as you like (within reason) and not have it suffer any loss of temper, (as you are not going higher than the original temper temperature, you are not effecting a change in the condition of the steel), this is how we can reset leaf springs to a higher or lower camber without fear of them snapping or cracking, (by heating them to their tempering temperature, which makes them easier to set but does'nt affect their spring qualities). Even though your nice little temper colour charts show blue is the right temperature for springs, if you source marterial specs from spring steel manufacturer they will specify the correct temperature is nearer to a very dull just disenable black red or approx 500 deg C. Spring steels are usually 5160, 6150, 9258, 8660, 1070, 1060, Phil

I have attached photos of stamping dies that we have made by the method of make a dummy, get the dies hot and wack them together, basically. Its a little more involved than that, these dies have had some machining done to them yes, but for the majority it was using a dummy and forging the blocks together, boxing them up, reheating, and a final resinking. If anyone wants to know more I'll go into detail. Phil

hey Dale You have forgotten to put a beer holder on it, bloke. Or is that yet to be added

So we're talking about a piece of bar here 4" x 26". That should weigh about 39.79 KG. Steel gets unwieldy to heat treat when we talk in tons, not Lbs or KGs. Do we want to harden it or soften it, if you take it to red and place it in vermiculite that will anneal it, (real soft). Just trying to figure out what you are trying to achieve here, as normally an anvil face is hard. We are all here to help, fill us in on the details. Phil

Minotaur I was not talking about cold rolled section, only hot rolled, bent cold. If you have ever played with piano wire in the making of springs, you may have noticed that piano wires spring qualities disapear if you heat it, that is because piano wire is cold drawn (normally), to make springs from it it must all be done cold. The spring qualities come from the elongation and stressing of the grains as it is cold drawn. Heating the wire removes this stress. However to return to hot stuff, when we forge ingots we have a specified reduction to achieve sufficient grain flow from the cast state to our forged end product. At work much of our work is the forging of solid punched rings, discs, pinions, for gear manufacturers, forgings are required for this type of application as they have superior grain flow patterns looping out into the perimitre of the gear blank rather than solid bar. Another site that has a fair amount of info on this kind of stuff is the website of Scotforge, where they talk about grain flow alignment with regards to engineering forgings. Normalising will not remove grain flow that has been produced by hot working, nor will heat treatment. Cheers Phil

Ta Ian great photos. Cheers Phil (what did I drink that night?)

Moony started off with I seem to recall about 300mm of 100 dia 4140, jumped that up to a cube about 150 x 150 x 150 (can't be right as my calulations gives 432 of 100 dia to make a 150 cube, but anyway). Then held that out the front of the dies with about 30mm sticking out and necked it down to about 90 thick x by what ever it came to. We then used a round back to spread the foot in both directions, working at 90 degrees turn about, with the anvil face sitting on the bottom block of the hammer. Then used the round back to spread the face of the anvil lenghtways, with the anvil sitting right way up on the bottom block. Then working out the side of the hammer, Moony drew out the heel and rough tapered it down, turned the anvil around and did roughly the same with the horn/bick. We then held the anvil under the hammer and used sledge hammers to offset both the bick and the heel to the line of the face. The anvil was then dressed up on the anvil by flatters, swages and sledges. I know that this may not make sense to many people, but if you see it done, it makes more sense, then reading about it. Others should have more photos to post, I hope.

Thanks Grant for answering questions for me. I was otherwise occcupied yesterday (sailing). As Grant has already stated when you cold fold a piece of flat bar lenghtways (with the grain) you can be pretty sure it will split, not so across the grain. Standards quote "The hooks shall be free from patent defect and shall be cleanly forged insuch a manner that the macroscopic flow lines follow the body outlines of the hook. In the case of hooks with shanks, the whole of the shank shall be forged in one piece, intergral with the hook." Phil

I'll post a few of Johns photos for him. The APC (moonies toy) photo was to show that it was not all blacksmithing.

Thanks John Ya gotta encourage the young takkers, fantastic to see him taking an interest. Phil

Good boy Andrew, they will be going "straight to the pool room". Good to see some footage of big Damo actually doing something, (cept for drinking beer). Phil

We have had dovetails crack off completely. We repaired them by building up a complete new dovetail with the mig welder using copper side blocks to retain the molten metal. We used a high strenght wire for this job. Sent it off to the machine shop after normalising, the heat treated it when it came back from the machineshop. Die is still going good after about 6 years of daily all day use. We still check it fairly often for signs of cracks. Phil

We used to do a job when I was an apprentice, much the same type of hook, rectangular with a really tight bend, tapering off at the nose. We would forge a lump on the end with extra meat on it, bend it over back onto its self as you would when making a faggot weld, then profile cut the finished shape, we had to have the material preheated fairly well to get a good cut. This method was to still have grain flow follow the out line of the hook. Seem to recall these were for Royal Aussie Navy, fairly stringent testing was required. Phil

Hey Guys Sorry to hear about your prang rob, Bl--dy queenslanders. When are we going to see some photos guys, I did'nt get to use a camera, so some one else needs to post. Come on, post photos Phil

After spending the weekend at Moonies watching blokes using forge fires, one thing I have noticed is a lot of nubies need to focus on fire control a lot more. With regards to removal of clinker, keeping a decent depth of fire under their jobs, keeping on putting fuel on the fire (remember the saying little light and often), rather then letting the fire almost go out then swamping it with fuel, crush and SCREEN the coke if you are using it, keep lifting the fire up with the poker to keep air going through it, keep raking the fuel back onto the fire, after it gets pushed out the back as you push your jobs into it. Running a fire is a full time housekeeping job. The fire needs constant maintainance. Too little fire and too much air is a sure fire way to produce clinker. Phil

As promised a photo. These tongs are used by us to get jobs out of the furnace to the hammer when they are to big or heavy to carry by hand. We have a monorail attached to the workshop roof running from the furnace to the hammer, the tongs hang on a chainblock which is on a trolley running on formentioned monorail.

Will be loadin up the old ute tomorrow and driving the 5 hours to moonies to do what I do all week, oh and to tell stories and dring beer with dale and moonie, must find some time to get some sleep tonight. Big day tomorrow. Phil

I'll ask my blokes, "if you were buying this would you pay the money for it", if their answer is "No", my reply is 'well back to the furnace with it and fix it, if it can't be fixed you need to make another" Quality of workmanship is like buying oats, if you want good oats, you have to pay for them, if you are satisfied with oats that have already been through the horse, well the price is a little cheaper.

We will use furnace tongs which are tongs about 7 feet long with ends on them like pickups however we will hang them from a overhead crane with the eyes we have welded on them. They are used for getting forgings out of the furnace when they are to small to use the fork grab or manipulator, I have some photos of me using them, will see it I can find the photos. Tongs with a c shape facing each other are normally refered to as shingling tongs, normally used under a hammer for forging blocks and discs to shape. Phil

The larger bottles without bleed valves are normally pumped in and are filled by weight. Our supplier here in oz has a set of scales with a shut off valve when the bottle reaches full weight. Phil

What are the jaws like, Hollow bits or pickups or shingling tongs? Phil

Ahh, it would help us to know where in the world you are located, what your skills are, your age, your education level, whether you have had any previous training, just general things like this. Phil

"He who hesitates is lost"! Go Go Go! These thing don't just turn up all the time, you have to grab them when they are available. Run Forest Run!

Depends on what you want to forge, forging presses can range from 8, 10, 15ton right up to the big dadies at 14000 ton plus. A 14000 ton press will let you forge an ingot up to approx 1000 ton in weight, you would struggle to do that with a 8 ton press. Cheers Phil

If you want to forge your bick down to a point we have done it with 2 hammers one held underneath as an anvil and hit with the one on the top, get it hot with an oxy torch. Phil