firebug

I plan on doing that. I have the link pulled up right now. I am getting ready to head to the woods and will do it later.

Thanks for you reply Rob. I truly believe that this happened, but, this is only my opinion. Like I stated, to think a bidder who has WON 119 things, knowing that the odds are that they didn't win everthing they bidded on, has bidded 100% of the time with the same seller is too hard to believe. Even if they were a collector, there must have been atleast ONE person who had something they were interested in at least ONE time.

The company you mentioned has good merchandise, knows what good merchandise is, and represents it honestly. Because of this, they get repeat business from collecters. Collecters who know what they want and when they see it listed, by the company that is there, year in and year out, always consistant, always reliable, always honest, why would they take chances buying from ANYONE else? The company you listed has a great reputation with many members of this site. PLEASE do them, him and all of us a favor and edit your post and remove his companies' name from your derogatory,acusatory and insulting post. This site is about blacksmithing, not conspiracy theories. If you want to talk about shilling on E-Bay on this site, do so in a general way, with mentioning and defaming good freinds of ours.

I've seen the same thing I've also had them send me a second chance offer at my last bid. it may not be the one who listed the item but maybe one of his associates

I would not throw out accusations like that with out solid proof that he is bidding up his own stuff. This is how the man makes his living not that I don't think its possible its just not something I think is fair to do unless you know for sure.

I was bidding on an item I was interested in. It was a cast iron blacksmiting plate that had a blacksmithing scene on it. I will attemp to attach a photo of it. Anyway, I bidded on it and for a time was the high bidder. Eventually though I lost it. After the auction I snooped around to see who bidded on it and how many times they bidded. I discovered that only a few people had bid on it. But what was really interesting is the percentage of total times the other bidders, had bidded on items listed by XYZ( I removed the real name of the company). What this means is out of EVERY BID on EVERY item the bidder had bidded on their entire history of bidding on E-Bay. Example, lets say that an person had been buying on E-Bay for two years and had a percentage of 25% for XYZ. That means that 25% of the time, out of all of his bids, 25% of the time the bids were on items listed by XYZ. That is a lot.

So I looked at the percentages and this is what I found. 4***s had won 491 items and had place 25% of all of his bids for XYZ. Another,H***2 had won 320 items and had placed 50% of his bids for XYZ, whoa thats a high percentage. I also found that N***N had won 119 items and had place 100% of his bids with XYZ. HMMMMMM that is odd, out of all of the items listed on E-bay he/she was ONLY interested in things listed by XYZ. Also consider that you will bid multiple times on the same item, that is a lot of bidding.

What does this mean to ME, I think there are folks artificially inflating the cost of things on E-Bay by having bogus bids placed on items. I have watched things be relisted before after a very high price won the item. The story is always the sell feel through. Maybe instead, they couldn't get another sucker to outbid the bogus bid and had to eat it. Re-list it with a story and hopefully sell it next time.

Can I be wrong, YES, but many of us have noticed crazy prices on stuff on E-Bay. I am also sure that many of the prices are being paid by folks that do not know any better. In my mind though when you see the kind of percentages like stated above you have to consider that artificial bidding is possibly taking place.

The plate sold for 321.00 and is about 18" wide and 12" tall.

Can you give an explination of how the handle was forged?

Very nice shovel. I like the way it is attached. Waiting for photos of the dies.

To clarify, I didn't say that it doubled the velocity by allowing the hammer to pivot. I said I would not be surprised if it did. I can see where you would doubt that. That is just a matter of opinion. I am sure one day some type of scientific test will be done to prove or disprove all of this. As far as not swinging your arm, I was discussing hammer blows where you were actually forging out material not planishing. As far as the two fingers are concerned, it is much more than "two fingers". I have stated several times that you strike with your arm as usual using the shoulder, elbow and wrist. But to that equation you add allowing the hammer to pivot between the fingers. The fingers themselves are not doing anything but holding the hammer and allowing it to pivot. This is not the mystical 3 finger death punch you hear about in martial arts. LOL It simply allows the hammer to pivot adding another joint in the swing which creates more velocity in the hammer.

Im very late into the thread so this post wont mean much I like the style head of the Hofi. I like the cuppled up short design. The old champions and hellers were a short thick design as well.
As far as weight, I say swing what you can comfortably. If you can control a #4 hammer without hurting yourself then have at it. If a #2 pound is all you can stand then thats fine too. Just because one perosn can do it and another cant dosnt make it right or wrong.

There's no free lunch. To get the hammer to hit with a given velocity requires a the same energy regardless of the arm motion.

I can swing the hammer a darn sight faster than I do when I am actually forging. But I cant control it. The main power comes from the big muscles on the torso, shoulder upper back, abdomen and perhaps even the legs. Most people have power to spare. And usually its not the big muscles that get too tired to work.

Accuracy is just as important as the strength of the blow. The more effective your hits are the fewer you will do. The small advantage of one hammer over another in delivering energy is nothing compared to wasting a whole blow. Check out Brian Brazeal's one heat tong blank video. He doesnt hit that hard and he doesnt hit that fast either. He even takes breaks to think. But every blow counts.

IMO the real question is which hammer and which motion allow you to deliver the most power with control.

Well lets stir the pot. I heard the smith that Uri took classes from in the beginnig was a big man and he used a 6# hammer with a short handle. And the comment that Francis whitaker made at his size why not cut off the handle.

I would like to see some research devoted to this. Off the top of my head, this is what I see: You are using very powerful muscles in you arm to achieve a certain velocity/force. I can't see a couple fingers doubling that! Output = input.

When I hand forge I seem to be doing as you describe. So, I did some swinging with just my arm. I can get a pretty powerful blow. Then I tried the finger thing without moving my arm. Well, it sure wasn't equal. I'd say it might add 10%.

I would really like to see Anderson do a drawing of his test setup with all of the variables filled in so we can do identical tests. The scale would only need to be in inches for comparison.

Hey, I work in a hammer making shop and one of the hammers we make (and our biggest seller) is the stubby little spade shaped hammer! I’m not the expert on this hammer but I do spend a lot of my time in front of the finishing equipment thinking about the use of these hammers. I have been a full time metalworker for 10 years and these are the five steps I take into account when setting up a forging possess whether it be under power or by hand.

1. Input energy: About a year ago I built a watt scale to measure the total input energy of a hammer blow provided you could hit the target. The scale is modeled after the high striker game only is mounted at anvil height. There is a full article available through the Hot Iron Sparkle (our NCABANA publication) as well plan are available if anyone wants to build one. The scale is indicated in joules and those increments where found by dropping weighs from a series of set heights to produce known measurement of input energy via the classical method to find the energy of a non rotating body in a fixed frame. The Mass of the object multiplied by the speed of that object in its frame, that total divided by two equals joules seconds for the purpose of calculating energy transfer . Once indicated the scale allows one to work backwards knowing the mass of the hammer to find the speed at which it was moving when it its target. All of this of course is a bit crude but for the purpose of my experiment it yielded well enough the data to be able to make a conclusion from the results. What I found is that in most cases there is a cap of the impact speed of a hammer that is swung with one hand (no matter how long the handle). When you pick up the bigger hammer you have so much more going for you in order to produce a height amount of input energy, the arch of your body provided ample distance to accelerate a huge hammer to a height speed provided you can lift it. Although it is not practical in most cases to use a huge hammer in almost every case I tested smiths with a bigger hammer made more input energy provided they could hit the target and lift the hammer.

2. Forgoing Dies: So you have all this energy, Now what to do with it? There are so many ways to squander the work you have put in to every swing. Not only do you have to account for direct surface of the material being worked but what will happen to it. Where will it flow to as the energy transfers? For the purpose of hand forgoing the bottom die is your static anvil and you top die the dynamic hammer. There are so many possibilities and this style of hammer helps you to take advantage of every facet of the face of the hammer. When I dress the faces of our hammers the sides of the face are polished so that every edge may be used as a partial or full peen as you roll the hammer further over on it axis. The tight center mass and short head allow you to roll the hammer further over without it tipping on impact so you don’t have to grip the handle as tightly (thus encouraging you to let the hammer do the work). This I feel is the main advantage of this type of hammer.

3. Inertia: No matter how fast you swing that one pound ball peen at the piece of two inch square the energy will be absorbed in the corresponding surface mass of the overwhelming stock. The energy will not overcome the inertia of the piece you are working, and while it seems like a good thing to have all of the energy go into deforming the hot metal all you do is make a mushroom! Inertia is a huge tool that most people use in there forging but few understand. Despite what the troll engineers want you to think energy transfer is not instant, the hammer hit the hot steel, the steel deforms against the decelerating hammer. The steel accelerates in spite of its inertia. As it accelerates it is driven into the bottle die and deforms again as well as transferring energy into the bottom die. Some of that energy will pass through the structure of the bottom die as it to deforms , but in its deformation as it resists it own inertia it builds up that energy like a spring and thrust it back though the piece of steel. This can be exploited for everything from shouldering a piece to binding and striating. Laying out this timeline will help you to understand what is happening to the steel as your strike it. Your hammer to anvil ratio is no more important than how they measure up to the hot steel in between. So in a lot of cases that 3 pound hammer is forging that piece of hot half inch square steel better not only because there is more input energy but the process of energy transfer is also better.

4. Frequency: When I make our touch make on a bar I use a #4 hammer because I only need to hit it once. When I know I will be forging larger sock I use a #3, I can’t hit as many times in a minute but the heat last longer and I can pace myself and move the metal more with each hit. When forging leave and small thing as well as planishing I use#2 or smaller so I can get is a lot of hits per minute but I’m not lifting all that weight for each hit. This is where having a good selection of hammers and knowing what works best for you and your body comes in handy.

5. Possess practicality: A few weeks ago the shop Forman and I had a full day of nonstop hand forging ahead of us. Every hour or so of back to back heats I changed my hammers size and process in order to use my body differently. You are the most versatile tool in the shop; the hammer is only a lump of metal on a stick. You have to find what works for you and be flexible; there is no perfect hammer and no perfect way to swing it. It’s just not practical to swing a one pound ball peen at that piece of two inch square just like it’s not practical to forge quarter inch square with a five pound hammer. Before quoting the master and planning you next heat ask yourself without bias: why! Why each step is there and what is its purpose.

Very nice.

You pictures have been stolen and stored in my "I'm gonna make one like that someday" folder.

Please explain a little about the tray rig there on the left side.

Don

Looking forward to the detailed article. This is exactly what I want to do. What size stovepipe did you use? 10"? 12"?

Firebug,

Wow,that sucks! Really, it does. Nice job. Is the blower running or is that all from the suction?


Mark<><

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm jealous!

Well I lit it up today and boy did it pull. Before I lit the coal I lit a small piece of paper and put it inside the chamber and the suction pulled the paper towards the back of the chimney. I knew then that it was going to pull or draft well. I made me a small pile of cardboard from a 12 pack beer carton{I found it beside the road, I didn't drink it} lit it and piled some coal around it and took some photos.
This photo was taken within a minute of lighting the fire, it was already pulling hard. No smoke got into the shop.

Good job Dave. You are coming along fast. Was it just something you did or was it for someone in particular?

Well I lit my first fire in my new forge today and boy they don't call it a super sucker for nothing.

Firebug, May I suggest a branch or "T" on the air pipe from the fan to the fire. This should be controlled with a sliding gate or whatever. The end of the pipe should be aimed TOWARD the blacksmith. It will vent any extra air not needed by the fire and give you a place where you can take one step amd be in a nice breeze during the heat of the forge session.

Firebug, May I suggest a branch or "T" on the air pipe from the fan to the fire. This should be controlled with a sliding gate or whatever. The end of the pipe should be aimed TOWARD the blacksmith. It will vent any extra air not needed by the fire and give you a place where you can take one step amd be in a nice breeze during the heat of the forge session.

First you have a Daddy Blower and he finds a Mommy Blower and the Daddy Blower, well you know the rest of the story. I couldn't resist, sorry for the stupid reply. But that was a good question. I promise not to make a habit out of this.

The only thing I didn't see was the tachometer, oil pressure and temp gauges.

Seriously, the only two things I would do, are to add an adjustable flap over the inlet of your blower motor, and re-arange your ash dump so you can adjust it open a little as an excess air dump. Between these two little mods, you don't need a motor controller. Nice job, looks very convenient.