forgemaster

beers whacked, steel drunk, done and dusted till next year.

Phil

Today is the day, I'll be leaving work early and off to the moons for a weekend of story telling scuttlebutt and innuendo and maybe a beer or 2.  I'll maybe also get some steel hot and whack it,,,,,,I said maybe,,,,,,, not promising anything.

Phil

Yeh John

758 ton in one pour, thats a big casting in anyones language.

The article was very laborious to read, by the end I reckon I even had a chinese accent or talked in an asian manner.  I'm with John here, the chinese have been making steel for a lot longer than anyone else here on earth, and if they need to make quality steel or quality anything they have the people, resources  and government backed finance to do it.

I can see it now "you want 100000 tonne pless, what colour you want it plainted, you have any colour, so long as it olive gleen"!

I'd preheat to greasy stick temperature, (if you search the forums for greasy stick you'll find more info on this).  As otherwise suggested normalise immediately after welding before it has a chance to cool down. 

Yes all are welcome, including big tall bald government work types that drive big white Canyoneros and are packing the kind of stuff that you don't use as packing in your powerhammer gland, as I said anyone.  Not that I'm being specific here with anyone or anything.

Booked in for Moonies.

I know the continental striking method has become very popular in North America but I was taught by the late Charlie Sutton, an English smith who apprenticed in the shipyards  and some industrial smiths from the steel company here in town.  They swung/swing sledges like an axe swing but with less of a hand slide than you might do with an axe.  With practice it is just as accurate as the cross handed swing.   I do think the anvil should be set a little lower for the British style of swinging.  I know Charlie mentioned the shops he worked in when he was young had the anvils set as top of the kneecap height.  The anvil was set at the best height for the striker as they were providing the power and the smith was more or less just pointing with his hammer by hitting with his hammer.  

 

Charlie used his thigh on the butt of the sledge handle to help raise the hammer.  That would help keep him striking after guys much younger ran out of stream. 

Must be a British Commonwealth thing to strike this way, its the exact same way as I was taught to strike, (especially using the thigh to help raise the hammer).  If we were smoothing out a large crane hook (45/50 ton MS hook) on the anvil we would take it in turns, using a roundhouse style of swing, but without sliding the hand, you just held the handle near the end and went round again and again, if we were doing this we normally ended up using a flatter towards the end of the job, but at the start we would just try to smooth out all the powerhammer marks using the sledgehammer alone, (the smoother you got it on the anvil, the less time you had to spend with the angle grinder grinding (normally took about 2 full days to grind a big hook)).

Phil.

Depends on the size of the job at hand.

BIG stock, all day, and reaching into big furnaces requires gloves, no matter how much of a MAN you are. no gloves for hand work, but welding gloves for big power hammer and big furnace for sure.

otoh, shirts are for sissys ;)

I second John, singlets are the way to go and it depends on the size of the job as to whether you need gloves or not.

Dont even need to HT as you are not cutting with it, just normalise is fine.

Phil

Thanks for this info Rockstar, it makes good reading and is a useful resourse.  Again thanks.

Phil

Our compressor in the workshop is tested and certified every 2 years by a licensed certified boiler/pressure vessel inspector.  He then issues a certificate which by law must be exhibited in a frame under clear glass/perspex in close proximity to the pressure vessel it is issued for.  Don't know what the rest of the world does, but that is the lay of the land in NSW Aust.  On the other hand I have been to private home workshops where I have seen multiple 2nd hand air vessels welded together with weld that looks like swiss cheese, using maleable iron fittings (welded), no drain valves, next to the kids trampoline, no pressure gauges etc, and he was running it to 150psi, just like Chinoble powerstation an accident just waiting to happen.  I advised the guy he was likely to qualify for the Darwin award, but he just said, nah its OK and anyway its just 150psi, I suggested he go and feel how much 32psi is by feeling his car tyre and imagine what that would be like it went bang, then times that by 5.

As far as I know he still has that setup and he is still alive, watch this space.

Phil

Thankyou Patrick for that little gem of info, (the 2 bars of 1/2 flat) we too use the 2 ring method, (I seem to remember seeing it on the internet somewhere years ago, something to do with a forge in Scotland or something like that ;-0 ) I just copy the good ideas and discard the bad.

We used to pronounce it plumbago, obviously a technical smithing term as it has been bought to the colonies by someone.

Yeh sorry it would have been more appropriate if I had said forged by a closed die process, of which drop forging or forging in an upset forging machine, is such a process.

We use a commercial product called Lubridal F20C. it comes in a 10litre "bottle".  We mix it 20 to 1 with water and we apply it by spray method, works wonderfully, it also works well by dipping punches etc into it, the tool/punch generally needs to be warm at least to achieve the best adhesion.  We used to use a lube called deltaforge 106H but the company that supplied that decided to be a bit narky when selling it to a small user, therefore we now use lubridal, (pretty much the same kind of product anyway) both products are non flammable, non toxic, and produced no nasty fumes.  I know that the volume you have to buy is a lot for one man, but the Artist Blacksmith Assoc of Australia purchased a bucket and they sell it to their members by the litre, no reason why you blokes in the US can't do the same.  Lubridal is stocked by Fuchs Lubricants.

Phil

All steel starts out as cast when it is made these days, then it is forged (rolled) (and OK a steel casting used in the finished state as a casting is not forged either) same as large forging ingots, they are a casting before they go to the forge shop to be forged.

Flail mower/ forestry mulcher blades by necessity of flying around banging into rocks logs dirt etc are mainly always drop forged, casting them would be asking for trouble, ever seen how far a forestry mulcher can throw a house brick, imagine if that was half a blade, also it can make a real mess when you lose a blade/cutter at a few 1000 revs, sends the whole thing out of kilter.  I'm not saying that there are'nt flail mower/mulcher blades that may be cast, but the majority are drop forged, at least the decent ones are anyway.

If they are drop forged they should have a fin line of some kind where the fin has been trimmed, cast ones not so much, they would more likely have places where risers etc have been fettled.

Hey Patrick, I would have thought that out of anyone you would have know a formula for the amount of extrusion, I have no idea of a rule of thumb for it either for that matter.  We do a job of a small gear blank here (pinion) that is 140 dia (17kg) starting stock that when jumped up on the press will extrude a spigot 60mm dia 45mm into the bottom bolster/tool (the pinion end up with a head on it 240 dia x 40mm thick.  So armed with this knowledge we tried another job (bit bigger) 32KG 140 dia again, same kind of bottom tool, we needed to get 85 dia x 96mm long, I figured that as we only 27.5mm either side for the stock to sit on it should extrude no problems, no such luck, we only got about 75mm of 85 dia come down into the bolster, so much for my theory!  That was also with a big radius on ID on the bolster and heaps of forge die lube on it too.  I think the shape of the shoulder has a bit to do with it too, sharper seems to allow more extrusion, it seems to actually cut into the stock, a radius seems to not allow that to happen so much.  There has to be a relation too with how much force is directed at the stock and how much the extrusion pushes in, I'd love to be able to try the same job on a hammer the equivalent of our press, to see how much difference there is over static push compared to a hammer blow or series of.

Phil

I started making a set of gates to stop the kids getting on the road, well before my eldest daughter was born, she's now 13 and the gates are still at work and unfinished.  One day.

Phil

No pickling going on in our workshop except maybe before soldering.

They are a class A1 boat anchor.

I can't see 3D printers making the kind of things that Scot Forge or Shefield Forgemasters make, or even the things that our company makes.  Unless they get them (printers) a whole lot bigger, but it still does'nt give you things such as grain flow or grain refinement, otherwise the things we make could be made by casting.  And don't say that what we are doing is not blacksmithing or it doesnt involve craftsmanship.

Phil

You can bend/straighten heat treated spring steel easier if you heat it up to the greasy stick heat, (heat your steel up on top of the fire, or just in the door of your furnace) while heating it rub it with a hammer handle made of hickory or spotted gum, when the stick starts to feel as if it has a greasy feel on the spring steel, the steel is at tempering temperature, (at this temp is when spring shops will set springs), you too can also use this temp to alter the shape of the leaves without fear of them cracking.  Normally it pays to disassemble the spring before hand, set all the leaves, then reassemble.  If you search for greasy stick you will find other posts I have refered to with it.

Phil