Fe-Wood

Both fuels have thiere place. I think propane is better for most production work but I prefer coal or coke. I like the way it heats the metal. Follow your gut! Being from Alabama, I'm surprised you can't find coal....

I don't know if this will get removed but I make and sell a quench pot kit. It contains about 5 oz. of supper fine graphite, a spun (by me) 16g thick galvanized pot, magnet for hanging on the anvil and an acid brush. I use them as a quenchent AND lubricant. Here is a link to my website. http://www.oregonhandforged.com/quench-pots/ If you tell me you saw this on IFI I will make a $2.00 donation to IFI with each sale.

Hofi uses polyurethane glue to set his handles. That handle looks fine, just clean it up and reset it with some glue!

Those have been around a while Clinton. I have used them in wood working quite a bit. I just refinished a floor and the sander I rented had that system for the drum. I like them. Easy belt change and they grip the belt fine if it is spinning fast enough. For steel they could be a bit soft. I'd buy one and give it a try. Be sure to buy the belts that are butt jointed rather than scarf jointed, they run smoother and they run in either direction. Don't cut the shafts... Having that kind of clearance can be helpfull with odd shaped parts... I'd mount it on a pedistal with the motor down below and not behind so you can work the drum from both sides. Sometimes its easier to use the top of the drum and let the weaght of the work piece be the pressure instead of pushing the work piece up on the bottom of the drum.

Ausfire, Thats right, no welds. I started with 1/4x3/4...

Nice work everyone! Here is a set I whipped up for the new wood stove. I didn't have a plan when I started... I just needed a way to poke wood and remove ash...

Hey Glenn, Congrats on the fly press. I have mine set up on an old cast iron type setting table I had. I think it is about 30x 36 I put a shelf underneath too. The upside of the bigger table is you can keep the required tooling on it so its easier to get. The downside of the bigger table is you keep all your tooling on it so its in the way sometimes.... I do like the bigger table because I can stage tooling and use it to support bigger work. I have included a not so good picture of it in my new shop in Summerville, Or. Sue and I bought an old farm out here... Peter Edit: I went and took a better picture. This table was not made for the press, note the lack of latteral support. It will get bolted to the wall at some point. I do like the size of it though and also the hight as it is easy to see the work w/o having to bend over to much. I also don't have to worry about getting clocked by the arm... Have fun with your new press!!!

Harris, Could you show pictures of your final design? I'm in the process of learning about the design and operation of blown ribbon burner forge.

That is a rather open question. As you say, many alloys involved. From my experience, annealing pewter is not nessesary. I have worked small diameter pewter very far without annealing. At some point it will harden up. It does not work harden like copper alloys in that copper hardens as you work it. Pewter will all of a sudden start to harden after it has been worked for a while. I have never forged tin. With a melting point of about 425 Deg. F and being very soft, I have not had the need....

A friend has a shop in California were the codes are heavy. He has sheet rock on the walls then he covered them with 10g steel sheet. He loves it! He just welds on whatever he wants and it he needs to move things, zip and remove! Weld in a new spot! There is a residence upstairs....

I'm not an expert by any stretch but my understanding of the oiler res (with the glass eyes) can't be overfilled as the oil is sucked out by the action of the piston. The concern for over oiling may be to not over oil the comp. piston and tup. As far as the oil in the res. under the comp. piston; I think this is oil that drains out of the compressor pistons action (winds up on the bottom of the compressor rings on the down stroke and continues to run down inside the machine) I haven't had a chance to use the heavier oil yet.... Farm duty calls...

I don't know if this comes to late for you Beth but I used a turkey baster to remove the bulk of the oil from the oiler. Since I have added the 10w my hammer has begun to not raise the tup like it should. Mind you, I used a bunch of 10w oil and got the hammer really saturated with it. I've talking with James about it and have come to the conclusion that the previous owner and myself may have been running the hammer to lean on the oil and it gummed up making it hard to warm up. Now that I'm using a lighter oil and a lot of it, I loosened the old oil and now the light oil doesn't have the viscosity to form a proper seal for the piston rings. I'm going to try to use thicker oil and see if that makes the tup return as it should. I've already tried 30w so the next jump will be to 40w. I will continue to share my results.... Peacock, I used heat tape witha packing blamket for insulation. That seemed to help. I think and electric blanket would be better because it can be adjusted for tempurature.

Thanks for your thoughts Herb. Ya, Drilling the holes with a carbide masonry bit should do the trick. One of my thoughts is how the porosity of the soft brick will affect air flow. Given that I'm going to be building the forge from the ground up, I'm thinking I'll run the air supply tube over an opening in the top of the forge either on the front or back end of the forge to catch some of the dragons breath before it exits. Making a limited opening for the tube so I can control the heat.

I'm still needing to build another propane forge and have been thinking about a recuperative forge and/or a ribbon burner. My goals would be fuel efficiency and ease of building. Imagine that!... Anyway, I've been reading up on Rob Gunthers recuperative forge and ribbon burners and I have two thoughts. Has anyone tried using heated air for the combustion air on a ribbon burner? The other thought is, has anyone used drilled out 4.5"x3"x9" K-26 soft bricks as the flame holder on a ribbon burner? The forge body design I'm thinking about involves using full size soft bricks and angle iron frames that clamp everything together with all-thread. Very simple and easy to rebuild. Thanks!

I am sorry to post this but I have just received word that one of my oldest and dearest friends in Blacksmithing community Toby Hickman died suddenly earlier today . I have no other details other then his wife Anne has asked to please allow her privacy at this time and not call . There is to much to say about Toby at the moment for me other than he was a great and dear friend to us all and will be sorely missed . This was posted by Michael Bondi on the CBA facebook page. This is a huge loss to the blacksmithing community. Toby was an inspiration and wealth of knowledge to many, myself included. I will miss him and his great booming voice at CBA gatherings. RIP my friend!

So I made my first set of dies today. Simple is all I can say! :) I'm making these for an anyang 33 so the flat dies are only 1 5/8"X2 3/4". I used a piece of 3/16 wall 2x3 tube and cut it to fit. Used a single 3/8" bolt with a nylock. I took a piece of 3/4" round 4140 and forged it to about 1/2" thick, leaving the radius along 2 edges, then I split the piece on the band saw and welded them on the saddle. Can't wait to make some more....

Nice tutorial and design! Thanks for posting!!!

Nice set up! How big are they? I was looking at the sahindler site and they had a similar bolt on saddle. I'm thinking I'll just go this rout, without reworking the dies I have. My reasoning is that they look much easier to change than driving out the wedge each time I want to change dies... A friend has a set up with a flat die set that has a dovetail cut in it so he can make smaller insert dies that are held in with the wedge. That seemed a bit involved for the kind of forging I'm thinking about. I want a veriety of fuller sizes and make them easy to change. Do you have 2 bolt holes so they wont rock or what?

whroughton- I have 2 set of fullering dies that came with the anyang. One is about 3/4" diameter and the other is about 2" diameter. The one pictured is 3/4". those are way steep on the landing. I'm not looking forward to that grinding job.... Thats a great idea! I was looking at of a set of fullering saddles Jake James uses on his hammer. I'm thinking this would be a nice inexpensive and fast change over way to use fullering dies. Have you taken pictures of yours? I'd really like to see them. My little anyang 33 is the perfect size for this kind of experimentation/learning because it is so small the dies are cheep in comparison to my Bradley.

Just thinking about the 2 way fullering dies... It seems to me one would want the curvature on the long axis to be slightly more than the dies can penetrate the steel under full power. They should also have a length of flat in the middle of the dies so one could fuller along a straight line without to much unintended distortion along the edge of the work.... Any thoughts?

Update: Yesterday, for the first time my hammer ran without having to spend 45 min. warming up. What a joy!!!! The day before I was running the hammer hard and the oil was just pouring out the driven cylinder. Sloppy mess. I think I finally flushed all the 30w out. So when I went to start up the warm up process yesterday, the response was smacking good! I was a bit taken aback. We'll see how it runs today. Thanks to everyone who helped! What I did- I added 10w non-detergent oil. Took about a quart to flush out the 30w oil I was using.

So true, so true... Worst part is, I've building and installing for many years (just not outside railings)... you'd think I would know and remember by now....

Yahoo2- Thats my favorite picture too. Thanks for the complements. Gluing it in the walkway turned out to be the right decision for a number of reasons. Biggest was the 2% grade going away from the building. :o

Thanks John! Great tip about the bondo. I used to cut shaper knives for reproduction moldings and thats how we made the pattern for those. lupiphile, I was thinking the cut was to deep. Not sure what I'm going to do with it.

Thanks DSW! I used all-thread to mount to the wall and bolts. Holes had epoxy as well as the fillet. I hate seeing when people leave a valley for water to sit in. Ya, I didn't even think to check the color of the epoxy. I assumed gray and that was all I could get locally. Pink of all colors Shheesh! I'll be painting it in the spring....