Fe-Wood

I was slot cutting a bunch of material today, then drawing out tapers, then slot cutting another hole all on the same pieces. When all of a sudden, puff. The ram stuck... Ok, pop the top and pound the ram down so its free again, close it up and back at it... 2 parts later, pufff. Rams stuck again. OK something is wrong here.... Pull the top and, nope can't pound the ram free this time. Ok, take apart the bottom guide. Ah Ha! A piece of something sticking out of the gib, looks like a bit of cotter pin. Work it loose and low and behold it is one of the slugs from the first round of slot cutting. How it got up in the gib I don't know. Good thing it didn't cause any damage. Ever have that happen?

looks like you are off to a good start with those blanks! keep going! Next step as I see it would be to set down the rain end of the boss...

I can't say I'm a proficient tong maker. I have made close to 30 pair is all with I don't know how many junk pieces to go with them. I can say it takes practice, patients and a good teacher. I like Mark's advice about making a side following in the foot steps of someone who is good at making tongs making the other side. After that, spend some time just making blanks to really "send it home" what you have learned. Tongs really are pretty easy once you have the moves down and know what stock to begin with so you end up with the right sizes to hold the work. I did a pair of flat jaw tongs the other day out of 1/4" stock. That could be an easy way to just practice getting the moves right. I basically made both sides in 2 heats.

Nick, The way I did mine was to use 10"coming off the hood, turn 90 deg. with a 10" elbow and place the 10" to 12" bell reducer on a short section of 12" then I used another 12" 90 deg. elbow. That got me going verticle up the outside wall. I think I am about 8' of pipe after that. The more important rule for chimney pipe is to be 2' taller than any obstruction with-in 10' of the pipe. In my case, I come on the peak of the roof and my opening is 2' taller. I didn't get a rain cap on it yet and we have had several major downpours and its been fine.

It sounds like you might be experiencing a temperature inversion. The temperature in your work space might be colder than the outside temp. If this is the case, warm air from outside will flow down the pipe because of the cold air in the shop. I just built a 12" flue for my forge and have a hood on the forge that allows more air to come into the flue than the 12" will carry. My solution for this was to use a short section of 10" pipe right off the hood then step up to a 12" that continues up to the roof. My flue goes out a window before going to the roof. This system has worked flawlessly for me even on stormy and windy days. The expansion of the flue after the initial opening insures that as the flue get hot I will have a draw no matter what.

Hear's one way to do it- Tsur and Amit showing off

One thing that has helped me with the boss area is to sneak up on the final fit. What I mean is constantly correcting all the planes as I form the boss. I use layout marks on the anvil to get everything similar in size. If you over forge one area it is hard to make them line up and work with the other half. I look at it as chasing the finish all the way around the boss, bringing it all together at the same time. Rain offset, jaw offset, pivot offset... 1-2-3, 1-2-3, round and round with little corrections in between until voila! Its done! I don't know if this makes sense... Its how I do it

Jeremy, When I first started running this hammer hard it had that new hammer smell... Didn't hardly look used when I got it :) and the dies were fresh! :wub:

Hey James- I'm very happy with the 33 overall. It is doing what I want and doing it well. Its only now as it is getting colder that warm up has become a problem and its only just beginning. I'm going to try the lighter oil and see how that works (James, you may have mentioned that but I forgot). I think I'm going to make a little jig of some sort to hold the treadle partway down so the driven piston is cycling more. Thanks everyone for all the suggestions and responses-

Thanks nonjic! I was thinking about using thinner oil. My hammer has an inline needle valve now. I assumed it adjusted the oil coming into the top of the drive piston so it could be "pushed" into the driven piston. Am I wrong in this thinking? Is there another oil inlet going directly into the piston from the reservoir itself? I am also thinking about adding a way to make the hammer cycle the driven piston at about half stroke during warmup. Do you do anything like that?

Thats a good size billet! I'm assuming the light color is the nickel silver? Do the copper and silver start out the same thickness before laminating? I'm asking because I'm curious about how the 2 materials move in relation to each other while forging. Someday I would like to make some to spin into vessels.

I picked up an Anyang 33 this summer. I'm finding as the weather gets cooler it needs to warm up before it will work. I have to let the hammer run for up to 15 minutes before it will hit the work with any force at all. Sometimes as I push the treadle, it will blow air past the rings of the driven ram and not move at all. If I slowly press the treadle I can run the tup down for a ways without smacking dies. It just cycles up and down about 1.5" This is what I know so far- •I bought the hammer used. It was made in 2011. It saw very little use from the previous owner. •I did not get an owners manual with it. •I'm using 30w non-detergent oil for lubrication. Oil consumption is good. The driven ram is wet without being soaked and dripping profusely. •On the coldest days I need to fully depress the treadle to aid in start up. If I don't, the motor lags badly. •I have spoken with James Johnson about it and he said this is normal with the smaller Anyangs. • The valve arms seem to be factory pinned to the valve shaft. I have tried adjusting the connecting rod between the valves to see if that helps. It seems I was able to make it hit a little harder with no change to the cold running problem. Any ideas on how I can fix this problem? Thanks!

Is there a place like speedy metals or metal depot that I can get 1095 and L-6 from?

Thanks Steve! I remember a friend mentioning forging billets like this. You mentioned using wire to hold thew billets together for welding. I've used a mig welder, welding the 4 corners in the past. I realized there is some material loss with welding. Is it easier/better to use wire? I'm assuming you use stainless?

Thank you both. That was an answer I can work with. 50% or more for loss is a number I can start with. I just get tired of people putting up posts to pretty specific questions without including real pertinent information. I've been smithing long enough to know almost any question can be answered with; "it depends on..."No offense taken or intended... I will be forge welding the leaves of the billet together then doing a knick/fold forge weld 2 maybe 3 times. As this blade is a learning piece, I'm going to forge to finish or close anyway.

So Thomas, thanks for telling me how much I don't know and for pointing out the obvious. This is exactly why I'm asking the questions and hoping for real answers. Like "expect to loose about 30% of the steel to scale and finish"... I'm using 30% as an example here. With all the outstanding knife makers on this forum I would think this a fairly straight forward question. I'm happy you have a pile of juicy files piled away Thomas you should be proud!

Ah! I get it now :) How non-user friendly....

What? I'm not sure what you are talking about Thomas... Nice blade Don. Do you have a link for the steel baron?

Who is a good supplier for small amounts of L-6 and 1095? Any idea of the billet size (how many pieces, thickness , width, length) I would need in order to make a classic chefs knife with about an 8" blade with the full tang between the scales? Thanks!

Steve, that link doesn't take me to the article, just the ASM Home page. I did a carbon migration search and came up empty. Thomas, in answer to your question, yes to both!

I Like the idea of using a piece of high carbon for the cutting edge. Thanks for the input on materials and carbon migration. This will be my first blade so keeping it simple will be a good thing.

Hmmm. Great input jm. I was thinking of using the same thickness for the layers of the billet. Would thicker layers of high carbon steel work to my advantage? Also, I'll be using a coal forge. In terms of speed, how many heats are we talking about for forming the billet and forming the blade? Steve- thanks for the link

I have a bunch of single refined wrought iron and am thinking about making a couple kitchen knives. I'm not sure what steel will be good to use for the "high carbon" part of the billet. I have forged a few billets out of steel that someone else put together and don't remember what they used. I'm looking for ideas on what would be a good steel to use with the wrought iron and why. I'm would also like input on heat treating the finished blades. Thanks!

I have 3 different cross peen hammers. A 3.3# with a flat face about 7/16 wide x 2" long, a 2.5# with a face about 1/4" wide x 1 3/8" and another 2.5# with a face about 3/16" wide x 1 5/8". Of all 3, the 1/4" wide peen is the easiest to control. It has more of a curve to the length of face than any of the other ones. If the face is too flat it will bounce back and forth along the length, making some nasty dents. I like them because clean up is easier and you can forge closer to finish size than with a rounded face

Funny timing for this post Glenn! I am going in exactly the opposite direction. I have been working outside my comfort zone for so long that I have begun to fell like I don't have the skills to do the work well. I have found that staying outside my comfort zones has caused me to loose sight of what I can do effectively and well.