CMS3900

Man, what a cool hammer. For the Rubber, I would run it and see what it does. If it seems to be cracking or not flexing right, I would replace them. Since they look like biscuits you have it pretty easy. First, buy a Shore A scale measurement tool off the south american river vendor, and take a knife and peel back the crusty outer layer until you see good rubber. You might get results between 65-95A. Best to measure in a few spots. Then contact a industrial supply house for Rubber or Urethane rod in the Shore hardness you need and the diameter. Cut them to length and/or drill the center hole and install. If they end up having rounded ends, you can turn them in a lathe under the right conditions. As for power, how much single phase power is going into your shop? Like Thomas said, is there a possibility of adding 3 phase? If not, I would not hesitate to use a phase convertor. When you think "doggy" in phase convertor terms a lot of folks are thinking of the old "buzz box" style static phase convertors which are nothing like a modern rotary phase convertor. If you plan on running any three phase equipment in the future (compressor, mill, lathe, more hammers ect..), I would contact American Rotary or someone like them and see what options they have for you. Also, compared to a 10 HP single phase motor the 3 phase/rotary setup will be a lot more energy efficient. Also, make friends with a good electrician who has done commercial work. -Morgan

If its stuck and needs to be pulled out, and you can weld threaded rod to it, a hollow porta-power is your friend. Stuck die keys that frustrate for days come out in 10 minutes with a push of a pedal. I would not use this on the base though. If the angles are not right, you might end up breaking the corner off it. Grinding it down and/or making a hole in the center of it then trying to tap it out would be my first go. The pin for the spring linkage almost looks like it was assembled and then squashed in a press to save money. What does it look like on the side with the dovetail slide? Could it be threaded on that side or pressed in? --Morgan

Thats's a really good cylinder if it is in good working order. Quick math at 3000 psi put's it around 88 ton. I would try to figure out what pressure the press ran at and then do the calculations on the amount of gallons per minute it will take to cycle at a speed you want. Some people have issues with short stroke rams in their press because they affix both sides in one position. you can mitigate the short stroke length by designing the press to have the non-ram side movable if you wanted.

DWH, if your using a pine ridge, clearly you have invested some $$ in trying to build a quality forge. I would head to the local gas/welding supply and pick up a Harris 25 GX series regulator. Your correct that the regulator is not meant to be a shutoff. Using a needle valve in the force air or blown system is basically like using a orifice in a blown system, your creating a blockage to flow so that you can adjust your PSI up to compensate, allowing it to register better on the regulator, but final flow is the same. If the forge runs at say 2250 degrees with the needle valve half closed and the reg at 10 psi, and 2250 degrees with the needle valve open and the reg at 5 psi it's flowing the same amount of propane into the forge, your just creating more back pressure on the reg with the needle valve. In my system, a standard single nozzle blown forge, I have no orifice or needle valve, and just use the reg and my air gate to adjust temp. Sometimes I bring the regulator down as low as I can to reach the temp zone I want, so having a reg that goes to near 0 for me is a good thing.

When I was crazy and wanted mirror finishes, I used the belts DuEulear was talking about. Norton NORax, down to x5, which is around 4000 grit, then buffed them. Like Buzzkill says it's hard to get the scratches from each previous belt totally gone. Other tips; keep the work area super clean. When you step to another belt, put it in a bag or somewhere where grit and debris are not going to get on it, and air chuck the grinder and your area. One small piece of grit from a previous belt or dirt could have you going back and working through the grits again. I think with the right application of elbow grease you could skip the buffer and do the final polish by hand.

They don't look bad for first knives. As experience is gained things will improve. My suggestion would be this, forge your blades to shape and normalize and anneal the metal. Then, to take the file comments from above one step further, build yourself an Aaron Gough style bevel jig and make or buy a file guide. Use whatever grinding apparatus you have and rough the blades to shape then use the file guide and the bevel jig to finish the bevels. This will let you learn and visualize blade geometry and get cleaner "grinds". When you move back to a grinder, the file guide helps a lot; and armed with the knowledge from the bevel jig you know how to achieve what you want. For the middle one, a piece of antler I think would look good.

Your idea to use 1095 will work. Some guys take and forge weld a piece of high carbon onto wrought for the frizzen. I would check out the american longrifle forums as I know there are a few topics on this subject. Cranky much Steve?

Hey Two Ravens, Good to see another Delawarian on here, I am in Townsend "below the canal". We have a pretty awesome community in our area. I don't have a lot of time to post right now (3 month old little one myself) but I'll try to PM some info your way tomorrow about local people, groups, events, places to find materials ect.. if you're interested. -Morgan

lol steve. Not everyone is going to run MC on their forge. McCartney, a place to start would be to figure out what CFM your current blower is, which would give you a idea on how much air you need.

How about we ask the OP to clarify, since he has only responded once to the original post. Do you have any previous casting experience? What exactly is the refractory being used ie - the brand name. Standard concrete mixes trap moisture inside and when heated evaporate the moisture which then cannot escape, causing it to spall or explode. If you post your location in your profile someone might be able to give you some local sources or places to get help or instruction on a project like this. Casting seems to be a taboo subject on IFI because the danger is real and high, to life and property. Searching and reading the past casting threads is helpful. Also there are casting specific forums on the web that might give you additional knowledge on the subject.

I have seen Matt Harris's Niles Bement-Pond 750 run, and it has been converted to air. He uses 1,000 gallon propane tanks for the cushion tank and a large engine driven compressor, like 750 CFM. He acquired a large 3 phase rotary screw compressor in the 40 HP range and plans to convert over to it. These hammers work hard, and it comes down to how many points of maintenance and failure you want to deal with. While a boiler is great, and can double for steaming crabs and clams, it's a whole other bag of worms. If your boiler goes down in the middle of the job you've got issues. If your compressor goes out you call a equipment rental company and have them drop one off.

Having stuff inside helps a ton, but I am a strong proponent of anything that makes you look harder to burgle. Cameras, exterior lighting, and a real alarm system where someone calls the police. You want to try to convince them not to do it in the first place. A lot of people forget in the trades that once someone does get into your shop, all the tools are there to defeat whatever low tech "security" you have in place. How many folks have a grinder, cutting torch, or bolt cutters in plain sight in their shop? At that point, if an alarm company isn't calling the cops, or you are not recording them, they have all the time in the world. Also, make sure there are no "tools" easily accessible outside to help a would-be burglar. Whenever you talk about theft, I think of the flip side which is insurance. With the rise of the home hobby blacksmith and the parallel increase in anvil and tool value, I wonder how many home smiths have spoken with their homeowners insurance people about a rider to cover the theft of those items. Most of the time I see posts to the contrary about people afraid to call them in the case they're told a forge is a no-go under their policy.

1. The cylinder doesn't have to fully retract each time you want to stop applying power. It's really dependent on how you plumb the system. 2. The simplest way to plumb it so it won't have to retract all the way is to use a regular hydraulic valve. You pull the lever, it comes down (or up if the cylinders on the bottom), squish, and then pull the lever till it's backed off enough to move the part and then repeat. There are other ways with limit switches ect.. to set the retraction height as well but that gets into more money. 3. Having a longer cylinder is a advantage over many presses, not a disadvantage. You can keep more of the rod inside the cylinder which makes the rod less likely to bend or flex during side loading, which can occur depending on your press design or where on the dies you are pressing. I think my cylinders are 24" long, and I plan on making my "press zone" about half of that, so half of the rod will always remain in the cylinder. 4. Consider that you want your work at a comfortable height, and design the press to accommodate it. Check out Randy McDaniels Press on youtube, and if you can get your hands on his book it goes over a lot of the basics. Also, look at a bunch of presses and find a good interchangeable die system you can fabricate.

Since I am in DE, I've never been to one, but hear it's a good time. The shop is fully equipped. Bring what ever tools you prefer and your project, but there are tongs and hammers and tools there to use. I think there's 5? coal forges in there. Each station has a anvil and a post vise. If it's something your interested in go on their website and reach out to the President, Ted McNett and he can point you in the right direction. The cost of dues is paltry compared to the experience earned and cool people you will meet. They usually have blacksmith coal for sale at meetings but check with Ted on that.

Blacksmith Guild of Central MD. http://www.bgcmonline.org/ There based out of the Carrol County Farm Museum. I am a member, and their Blacksmith Days in May is a excellent event. Even if you prefer the school of hard knocks, just having some people to call or come over when you get in a jam helps. The tailgating at events is a plus too. They also have open forge nights. For small batch charcoal the easiest is just get a fire pit near your forge and build a fire. When you have a nice bed of coals transfer it to the forge and add more wood to the fire.

Hey Beaumont, welcome to the forums. There are a bunch of good blacksmithing groups in MD. Where in MD are you?

I don't know of anywhere to buy one off hand. Most are in-house made and a lot of the ones I have seen use a carbide tipped lathe bit for the cutter, profiled to what kind of fuller your looking for.

A lot of folks use a tool like that to set the initial fuller and scrape the fuller cold with a fixture to the final dimensions. Google fuller scraper and you should find some pictures.

There are factory machines out there that do twists and ones people have made. Most of them are on the large side for doing architectural and pattern welded work. You said pendants so I would think your working on the smaller side. I would look at pictures of these machines and see if you couldn't make something similar but on a smaller scale. Most of the ones I have seen have a chuck and a motor to drive one side and the other side just has to hold the stock so there are many different types of solutions. The "dead" side is on a sliding track for different lengths of stock.

The downside is it doesn't use the standard thermocouple probe jack with the two flat terminals, so if you got a good thermocouple in the future you would have to rewire it. I bought a K type dual illuminated readout from amazon that takes two standard thermocouple connectors for 20$ off amazon a while back, and compared it to my Omega Engineering readout and it was within tolerance. Now the Omega is back in my toolbox where the likelihood of it being melted is low lol.

I love my 33. It hits hard, and the new heavy series hammers have a longer stroke for better use of tooling. I haven't had any real issues with it. When I first got it the tup wasn't retracting all the way so I switched to ISO 32 oil (10wt) and haven't had a issue since. James is also top notch for support if you need it.

Just crank the oiler and run it, it shouldn't take that long. There's no drain on the bottom of mine that I see. It's been so long since I changed mine over I can't remember if I pulled the bottom sight glass out or what I did.

Shapers do certain jobs really well and faster than a mill, but they take a bit of skill to use. The mill is like a swiss army knife of utility, and you will probably get more general use out of one than a shaper. I use a mill to cut dovetails only because I have a mill and I haven't found a cheap enough shaper in the size I want. A angle vise is what I use to hold the die, with a carbide insert cutter.

I think he means is the antler hollowed out to the pommel and the tang extends, curved, through the whole length of the antler to the pommel or is it just a stub into the first third of the antler.

Blue Moon Press has the book new for 45$