CMS3900

The Kern book has a ton of good info in it. Well worth the purchase price. If you can upload a wider shot of the front of the hammer from the bottom die to the crank plate it would give a lot more to worth with. Also, the height of the top and bottom die and the length of the spring uncompressed.

Hey Fish, After reading what your trying to this is my opinion. Your trying to do three things at once: Billets, HT, and normal forging. Each of these to be successful to a point need to be designed for the process. Billets: A vertical blown forge is king for this because you have less to worry about with flux destroying your forge as it drops harmlessly to the bottom which is usually filled with cat litter. Look at Bruce Bump, Jason Knight, ect.. and there using a vertical "Don Fogg" style forge. Some smiths like Ed Caffrey use a vertical that has a cast liner which is slower to heat but a lot more durable. There are two very reputable turn-key vertical setups out there around your $500 price range. PM me for links. Normal Forging: Several bladesmiths have told me for normal forging all you need is a forge big enough to stick the work in. You could forge in a vertical forge as well. Heat treating: If you only plan on using basic knife steels then a forge will do the job. Even a forge smaller than the blades length will work moving it back and forth. The coal forge with some techniques will allow you to use the same process to HT longer blades too. However; anything that requires a specific soak time at a specific temperature is very tricky to do without a oven. For further consideration, the cost of a large HT oven or forge vs. the times you will need it might not make sense at this point. It might be worth the dollars to send large pieces out to be HT, which would open you up to use more than basic knife steels. My suggestion would be get a good K type thermocouple (omega or similar), a long one that you could stick in your coal forge if need be, and a read out (amazon).

It comes down, in my opinion, to the efficiency of the hammer and what the end user wants out of making their own. Regardless of what "end" LG hammers are on, there are other hammers out there (with the same rated weight) that move metal better or worse. So what keeps LG's from moving metal as well as some other hammer? Is it because they have a hollow anvil? They don't have a 20:1 anvil ratio? Or is it the actual hammer itself, allowing a LG to only impart so much energy into a work piece based off its efficiency of design? By your idea if I welded a 2000 lb block of steel onto a 100 lb LG it should work better than say, a 100lb Beaudry with it's stock 700lb (7:1) anvil? In reality they two have different designs and with all the anvil in the world both will hit the top of a curve where they are imparting the maximum force for their design. Once maximum force is known, you can scale the weight of the anvil to match the efficiency that is required, reducing manufacturing costs. Little Giant has their design, efficiency, and manufacturing cost and other makers have theirs. I forget where the whole 20:1 thing originally came up, I think it was in the Open Die Forging manual, and was further propagated by several power hammer manufactures as the golden standard. These numbers initially came from Closed Die Hammers, which can run up (and probably above) 50:1 ratios - because they do a different type of work and need to be more stable and efficient than open hammers. Many 2 piece hammers ran around 10:1, just look at Nazel literature and do the math. IIRC as well, the anvils on the Bradley's I have are hollow, and that's 2 piece. The leaf spring hammer like above has varying degrees of efficiency. It might not impart enough force to see any gains with a 10:1 anvil, but it will move hot metal easier than a hand hammer, and that might of been the OP's goal. Most importantly out of all this, MG-42 has the thing built, so why tell him to tear it down and "read up"? Would I have used a solid bar? Yes, if I had one heavier than the tube, otherwise I would of done what the OP did and learned something.

No one builds the same size hollow anvil at home as commercially made hammers had, which is why most people say use solid. Look at the radius of the hollow "cone" that makes up the base of a little giant anvil for example, and then figure on the wall thickness. Most home made power hammers that I have seen might have a 6" or 8" piece of round bar as the anvil. 48" of 6" 1018 is 384 lbs rounded. A cone out of 1" plate that starts at the same 6" OD, and tapers outward to 24" OD, the same 48" tall is 609 lbs rounded. You would have to step up to 7.5" solid bar (7.5" C1018 @ 48") at 600 lbs rounded to get close to that. For comparison 1018 6.5" Diameter .75 wall tube 48" is 184lbs. FWIW, I would run it as is and see what happens. Overall it looks like a good example of this type of hammer. I look forward to the video.

Most striking anvils are made out of low carbon or alloy and have little or no rebound. C1018 or 4140 type stuff. Stacking the plates and just welding them on the outside should be more than sufficient. No need to try to bond them together like people try to do with homemade anvils that their looking to get rebound out of.

Welcome to the Forums! Another good tip is checking out ABANA and it's local affiliates. Your in a good place to be a part of several blacksmithing groups.

That's a lot of good information. I am still in the process of designing a side blast and was wondering what book that last picture came out of?

It's similar-ish to the ones I use. The blower he uses is 75 CFM so I would think it would get a small forge to welding heat no problem. A improvement on this design would be either a speed control or placing the air gate after the blower instead of the sliding gate on the side. Your burner is only one part of forge efficiency, so without knowing the rest it's hard to judge.

People usually use a piece of solid bar inside a pipe. Pipe in a Pipe would work if you filled it with something I suppose. A lot of these type of hammers I have seen have no UHMW or bushing material. They just stay well oiled and run steel on steel. The life expectancy of the hammer isn't long enough to worry about things wearing out. I wouldn't worry about a concrete pad under it for starters. If it's on a dirt floor drive a stake in around it to keep from moving and try it. Also, that is a good idea on the dies to make them bolt on. RR track dies are more of a drawing die and you will probably find in the future that flat dies are much more useful and want to swap them out as resources become available.

Dunno about that particular anvil, but Ford did have massive foundries. The Ford River Rouge Complex was one of the largest and advanced foundries of its kind in the world when built. http://www.fordmotorhistory.com/factories/river_rouge/iron_foundry.php

Nice looking anvil!

I dig the gold lettering Frosty. I do that on all my machines.

Also - "Hydraulic Forging Press for the Blacksmith" by Randy McDaniel has some good info, but is more geared to what you can do with it. He has some videos on youtube too that will give you a idea of whats in the book.

If it looks like what you have in the picture then it is a OBI, or Open-Backed, Inclined press. They can be used for many things such as punching, stamping, notching and hot or cold forming in closed or semi-closed die systems. However, when a press like this is used to form parts ALL of the math has been worked out by the engineers who designed the die; accounting for the tonnage of the press and the volume and strength of the material being formed. The press will break if it does not continue through the stroke, or the belt will slip if lucky. Usually the work envelope on these presses is small, so a spring or cushion system there generally will not fit. Scrapping the workings of it and converting it into a hydraulic press might work if the press was large enough to accommodate the stresses, but why tear apart a perfectly good useful machine to have in the workshop. If I had the chance to get small OBI press cheap I would jump on it. I passed a couple up a while back and regret it. If it really doesn't work for you, sell it and turn it into something else.

Welcome to IFI Matthias. I might be reading what your trying to do the wrong way, but it sounds to me like it's along the lines of Ric Furrer's Wootz process with different materials. He takes a clay vessel that has been fired, adds his ingredients, puts a fired clay top on it and seals it, and then heats it until everything is together. Check out "Secrets of the Viking Sword" if you get a chance, it might be on youtube. He goes over the process in it. I have yet to get to Furnace Town, but have heard it is really nice. Only about 2 hours away and I can never make it down there.

I think you have a solid base, but you might find the vise in the way in the future. I would suggest separating the two. The easiest way to attach the anvil is forge brackets like you said and lag bolt it to the base, or use chain and lags. I dunno if you know about them already, but I would check out the Blacksmith Guild of Central Maryland in Westminster if you get a chance. Good local resource and great people. http://www.bgcmonline.org/

Even if it is a common NCO shin-gunto which were mass produced, it is pretty valuable. Your better off taking lots of good pictures and heading to a world war two collectors forum before you do anything with it. A lot of WWII memorabilia has skyrocketed in price in the last few years. A basic US entrenching tool, for example, that used to be 25 bucks at a flea market, date coded, is now worth well over a hundred.

Hello Paul Allen. I use a K type pipe fitting style thermocouple that is made of Inconel with a mini connector. Then I use a thermocouple readout that will read a K type thermocouple. You can get the readout from a lot of different places, but it's not worth skimping on the thermocouple itself. The most recent ones I bought from MSC were from Thermo Electric. Omega Engineering is another good thermocouple source. I paid about $120 for two of them. As far as metal and following heat treat guidelines, I would say following the recipe is pretty important. If you don't want to invest in a Heat Treat oven, then I would do what you said you did before, either use Bos or Peters Heat Treating is supposed to be top notch.

Hello Meridianfrost, The two distributors who I know of are Kelly Cupples who sells a bunch of different alloys and K&G who sell 1084 powder. Who they buy from, and what manufacturer made it I have no idea. I have not ordered from either of those retailers personally but I plan on buying some soon from Kelly, as he is regarded highly in the knifemaking community. My idea was to use 15n20 sheet to make a pattern and then fill the voids with 1084 powder, or take cut offs from other 1084/15n20 billets and pack them in 1084 powder. Kellys info can be found here as well as a old price list: http://www.hightemptools.com/steel.html As far as the best powder for blade performance, that will depend on the physical properties of the powder and how they react to what else you put in the tube. I would research each combination.

The foil is to reduce scale. Depending on your application you can use no foil (most scale), foil (possibility for scale), or a anti-scale compound and foil (least possibility for scale). Some people just use anti-scale. For knives in A2 I use ATP-641 Anti Scale from Brownell's and Foil, because I do minimal grinding post heat treat.

Not that I know of. It would be less efficient then the hammer in stock form unless you threw a bunch of money at it - way more money than it would cost to make or find parts to put it back in stock working order. How big of Beaudry are you talking about? Is something currently broke in it?

Generally speaking folks use mild steel for the can because it's hard to find high carbon steel tube, and Nickel tube is expensive. Welding high carbon plate into a tube defeats the purpose because the weld is not high carbon. Using a release agent like white-out works sometimes inside the can to help it pull free easier. The powder you use in the can is critically important. Swarf might work, but if you want a good end result there are a few suppliers out there for Damascus powdered metals. Kelly Cupples sells a few recipes of steel in powder and is well regarded. As far as the soak, just be patient. If the forge is set right, and is holding welding heat just relax and drink a beverage or two. If things are right, you can't over cook it.

Hey josef, I haven't used that machine, but I know a bit about those style machines. What are you looking to do with it? They can be good little machines for light duty, small work. If you have the room for it a full sized mill can usually be bought for the cost of one of the bench tops.

What do you mean by convert it to air? Use a air motor to drive it or remove the eccentric system that's on it and replace it with a air cylinder? Beaudry's are pretty bomb proof and more or less considered the gold standard along with Bradley when it comes to mechanical hammers.

That's pretty cool. K R Wilson made a ton of specialty tooling for Model T's and A's, with many surviving tools still in use today. My shops line boring rig for main bearings is based off of a K R Wilson.