evfreek

What kind of steel did the instructor provide you? I was given sucker rod, which the instructor said was "blacksmith qualified" 4130, and it hardened just fine in warm water. There was an old auto coil spring in our shop which sparked high chromium, and after air cooling, it was too hard to file. A subcritical anneal got it soft enough to file a little, and probably hard enough still to use as a punch. Mild steel doesn't seem to gain much advantage with heat treatment, at least with a water quench. I wouldn't quench M-2 or even S-7 in oil. The S-7 seems to do just fine with an air quench followed by a temper at 900 - 1000F. This is a bit hot for a simple carbon steel. It is supposed to be about 42RC at this point, but my touchmark was a little hard to file. Got it touched up just fine with a carbide mill lubed with kerosene. Really depends on the steel.

Hi Fewood. I had the exact same problem with almost the exact same element that you showed above. The problem is that the little finger has enough mass so that its inertia causes flexing at the root when the main trunk is impacted. There are a bunch of ways to solve this problem. The way I solved it was changing the order of operations and doing any forging after the tendril was developed at a very high heat. Also, it helped to interpose a lossy material at the places where vibrations can cause problem, like a wet sock or piece of rotten wood. The problem is not really vibrations, it is the inertia of the secondary piece. Imagine standing on one of those whirly platforms that are often found in playgrounds. Someone starts it impulsively. You are liable to slip. Now, imagine holding a big heavy box over your head, and the person does the same thing. Give it a try. See???

Hi Don. It looks like you have a heavy duty Victor setup. The propane tip would be 1-1-GPN. I have a medium duty set, and it would be 1-3-GPN. By the way, although you may be able to run propane through an acetylene tip, it may be hard to light, and the performance would be terrible. You can get generic brand tips for under ten online, like at weldfabulous. Generic tips on ebay are even cheaper, but they may have a tough time fitting. In an emergency (1 cut), you can run an acetylene tip with MAPP gas. MAPP (not propylene) is more similar to acetylene, and it even has that funny black smoke. I tried it out, and it does work. No trouble lighting, a little trouble cutting. I read some book that if you keep doing this, you will pretty quickly waste the cost of the tip in excess fuel gas consumed to start the cuts.

Hi Brian. Thank you for the clarification. This really helps. It was good meeting you at Oktoberfest, Clinton. Thank you for the hammer blanks you gave me. I will have to remember to put a pass through hole in my swage block stand.

Uh oh. The small fuller is 1/2" diameter instead of 1and1/2"! I think I know the reason for why the fullered ends came out funny looking. Oh well, live and learn.

I'll be there. Look forward to meeting the IFI folks.

I once tried to get an anvil produced in China. I ran into problems with communications difficulties. I told the person I was working with on the specs for the steel casting that I was looking for an alloy similar to 4140 with a top hardness of RC 42-50. I was told that "steel is steel, and you talk too much." This really didn't work well at all, and I was afraid that I would end up getting cast iron. It kind of reminds me of talking with the fellow in the Bay Area who broke the market open for imported Chinese ball bearings. Just a few years ago, anything better then ABEC 1 couldn't be sourced from China, since they were not able to manufacture to the spec. This fellow ran a lot of the sample bearings, and found out that they failed due to excessive dust in the lubricant. He then told the factory to clean up the operation, and got more dirty (and bad) bearings in the next lot. Then, he went to Shanghai to see what the problem was. It turned out that the factory was incredibly dirty, and the head did not appreciate requests to clean it up, especially when prefaced with "here is how we do it in the US." This ended up being a huge crisis of broken face, and it looked like the project was doomed. The thing that saved the operation is that the fellow realized that there was no way to tell the factory how to run the operation. So, he just asked them to ship the bearings dry, and had them lubricated when they reached the west coast. He then was able to meet spec on ABEC 3 and 5, and make a great deal of money as well. Essentially all of the small electric motor ball bearings are Chinese made now. Some people have got the communications down, but I agree, it is hard to get products made to a better spec than just barely working.

There used to be a blueprint floating around somewhere about Hofi woop tongs. These really wrap around the piece in a secure way. He mentions in the blueprint about how it is necessary to use some special feature of the Hofi anvil to do the special acute bend at the end of the tong jaw. Without the blueprint and pictures, it is kind of hard to figure out, but I think that he means that the tapered end of the side shelf can be used to produce this bend. I tried making a pair of these tongs with a normal London pattern anvil. Indeed, it was tough to deal with that bend, so I followed the advice and made a hardy stake tool to do it. Since the anvil had a non-standard sized hardy hole, I ended up leaving the tool with the anvil. Sure would have been nice to have that shelf.

That is really cool, Phil. It is good to hear about somebody who has made this work out for him. It is understandable about how play can turn into work. Once, I had a large comission, and I started to dread working on it after a while, prefering instead to fiddle around with more experimental and non-money-making endeavors.

I am very interested in this topic. Several years ago, I had a bad experience. I was very aggressive about deducting all my expenses, including tools, subscriptions, facility rental, etc. I did everything exactly correctly, and never cheated on my taxes. Personally, I have a high sense of ethics, and any kind of cheating (except the kind involving an arc welder) is disgusting to me. For some reason, the IRS did not like what I was doing. Even though I had a healthy profit every year, they "hinted" that my expenses were really entertainment. Well, if you saw my big grin when that powerhammer fired up, they were kind of right. But, technically, according to the law, I was entirely right. My moment of weakness came when I became dependent primarily on a single client. Knowing they couldn't touch me, the IRS went after the client. They claimed that I was a contractor, not a consultant, and effectively was working under the client's explicit direction. Therefore, I was an employee, and the client owed back taxes, and health care costs, etc. My client suffered a devastating audit. I had to communicate with the IRS field agent nearly every day. It was amazing how much time that agent had. And how much time I did not have. I had to absorb all the costs of that unfortunate exercise. Although I won, using things like past reputation determined self-guided direction, and such, it was a pyrric victory. My client said that the inconvenience was too great, and he terminated our relationship. That was the end of the business. This was also the end of the tax stream, since I paid taxes every year. Later, I read an article about how the IRS "discourages" hobbyists, and it told about sad stories such as mine. They are in a sense, justified, since I would never buy so many toys if I weren't self-employed.

Hi Thomas. Beautiful repair. Looks like a work of art. Any special preheat tricks or counter-heating for that tricky spoke?

Hi. Those small bits can be very fiddly to sharpen on either a cheap swing type drill sharpener or freehand. Someone once suggested to me that I spin them against the correct edge of the grinding wheel (not the side) until a pencil point is achieved. This point will not cut since it does not have any relief. Then, cut the relief on a stone. Use a magnifier and a drill angle guide to get things right. Add relief until it cuts. If you goof it up, just go back to the grinder and put the pencil point back on. This is the only way I have been able to do it. I have heard of people doing poor boy hardfacing with small drill bits as filler rod. I have never tried this and don't know if it would work. There are some papers out of Russia on poor boy hardfacing. Very interesting. The key is to get enough tungsten and carbon into the weld to make it air hardening.

Then it looks like time to make a new hot cut. The one I use has the "fancy" Champion Tool stamp, but it has so many cracks ground out of it that it looks like an ice carving. Good thing that I didn't pay Ebay prices for it, or catch a flying piece of the struck end. Thanks, Brian!

Hi Brian. The anvil is securely anchored, and does not move a bit, but the hardy is a loose (sleeved) fit. In addition, both the hardy and the handled top cut have square edges, not deeply rounded like yours. A quick bit of thought reveals that this adds considerably to the workload. A hot cutting job scales as the bar diameter squared due to the amount of cutting, then cubed because of the increased deformation due to the wedge shape, and perhaps to the fourth power because of the increased resistance to deformation of the thicker bar. That means 16x versus a 1" bar. I'm afraid it was about that bad, and I was beat.

Hi Brian, thanks for the really quick reply. My striking partner has inspired me to try to make a Brazeal style rounding hammer, and it is really giving us a workout. We just did the hot cutting on the weekend, and it took 2 hours! It must have done a lot of work, since the bar was noticably upset on the cut ends. A lot harder than cutting 1" square bar. I'm afraid that I'll have to use the saw for the rest.

You only need one fuller pair for those hammers? What size is it? I made a pair of 1.5" and 3" for my kit.

Hi. This is really a beautiful repair job. I think I have the same anvil and I would not have hesitated to sledge on hardy tools. Now, I am reconsidering. Thanks for the pics. Too bad we don't have a photo of the repair sequence. Must have been magnificent.

"The width of the lands" being 2" is probably not a huge concern, unless the hardy hold was torched out to make the larger one. I remember responding to a craigslist ad for an anvil with a "huge hardy hole". Yep, you got it. Small anvil with a (badly) torch enlarged hardy hole. No rebound anywhere near the modification. The key dimension here is the thickness of the heel where the hardy borders the main body of the anvil. My big Hay Budden has plenty of meat here. My little fabricated anvil is in the danger zone (elastic) limit for a simple beam struck with a sledge hammer.

Oh yeah, and thanks for the recommendation about cat track pins. But they didn't have any. Had to look them up on the WWW to make sure that I could recognize them if they had any.

Well, I ended up going to the local (only) steel place, and looked through their scrap bin. They didn't want to deal with me on the phone, because I am a "nuisance", but I don't get out much and it is more than the usual drive. Their bin had plenty of round shafting, and I picked up two pieces about 20" each. I would have preferred smaller pieces primarily because of the lower risk, but upon returning, the spark test said 1040 for both! Yay. Eventually, it would be worth getting an inverter for my Dremel. Unlike my friend whose bars were precut too short for shipping, the cuts can be done with more consideration of the end use. Really, I hate shipping and flat rate package restrictions, but it takes so much time and gas to drive around, especially when you don't know what you're getting.

Could you show a similar test with known samples? Maybe your grinding wheel is making the sparks look funny. Also, your video does not show enough fine detail. Anyway, this is not the spark pattern from a simple 1040 type bit, which most are. Note that this is most, not all. I have several bits, and about 80-90% are the simple medium carbon steel. This is a high molybdenum alloy, with possibly some chromium (cannot tell with the fuzzy video). There is more moly than 4140, and I would guess an S series steel, even though most people think that pavement breaker bits are never made out of this kind of steel. Check my gallery photos.

Alec, thanks for the comment on hot cutting two inch round. I didn't think it was fun either. It takes a lot of heating, is kind of fiddly, and it's easier to get a cold shut than with smaller cuts.

Hi Alec. Thanks for the videos. They are really clear, and I appreciate all the detailed comments, especially in the other threads about hot cutting the rounds for the hammer and taking 9 heats to make that big drift. They help to keep things real. John B is right about those grinders. They are as dangerous as a monkey with a machine gun. I once had an accident caused by too much space between the tool rest and the wheel. It turned out a little worse than those little slips, but fortunately I wasn't hit. It was really loud, though, and it was a wake up call.

Hi fellas. Thanks for all the suggestions. There are quite a few opportunities here. Thomas: the size I am looking for is for about a 2.5 lb hammer. So, something like 1.75 dia by 3.5" length, like in the Hammer's Blow article by the Brazeal's. The odd thing about large round shafting and large bolts is that even though they are in the mild steel scrap bin, they are often medium carbon steel. I think that shafts above a certain size are mostly that way. I wouldn't want to accidentally get leaded steel, and I cannot distinguish that in the field. Both the scrap yards in this area say that they don't sell tool steel, but whatever you get in the bins gets sold as mild. Oddly enough, one of them says he has a standing order from one of the other Iforgeiron members to save anvils which pass through the scrap stream. rthibeau: I was just trying to be funny, but that was kind of falling flat. I have made hammers out of those Harbor Freight mini-sledges. By the way, the steel is great. It sparks as 1070 and is heat treated just right (cutoff were notched and did not snap, will dent a RR track). But the way this started is that a friend suggested that I pick up my game a little bit. He noticed my modified Harbor Freight hammer, and showed me his nice Brazeal rounding hammer that he bought at a blacksmith conference auction. He suggested that I should try making a few. Brian: Thank you so much for your helpful replys. I do not get to Central California much. I do get to Oakland once a year or so. I checked all the suspension shops in our neighborhood, and they only do factory jobs, so they do not have drops. There are occasionally springs that are removed, but these are nearly new and they usually want money for those. I wouldn't blame them. There is a shop in Oakland which has drops and I intend to visit them. Looks like I need to get out a little more. I will try to sort through some of the local scrapper's bins, maybe with a portable grinder. He is blacksmith friendly .

Hi. I am planning to try making some Brazeal style rounding hammers. I made the two matching top and bottom fullers, the punch and drift, and a pair of Hofi Woop tongs for holding the stock. Right now, I am looking for an inexpensive source of material. A friend has cut pieces of truck axle, but they are too short. Online metal suppliers have medium carbon round bar in stock, but it is kind of high ($63 for a piece). There are a couple sellers on EBay, but they are selling much more than I and a friend would need (50-100 lbs min.). I guess I could buy the steel and send it to Iron in the Hat or tailgating, but it would be nice to just buy a few blanks. The last time I was at the scrap store, they had 1.5" round mild steel drops, which spark tested as 1040. Unfortunately, I used these up, and they are gone. The only inexpensive small quantity vendor I have found is Harbor Freight. They have junk hammers on sale for $3.99. Unfortunately, these have a hole in the middle of the blank, and there is no room to place the punch. Some have mentioned getting the rounds for free. The only blacksmith supply that sells these at tailgate sales seems like MSMW, but the Atlantic flutagons are a little rich for my blood. Any suggestions?