Jason Fry

I'm not a rookie, but I made a rookie mistake I'll share with you folks as a public service announcement. I responded to an ad on FB marketplace for an anvil. Pics were clear-ish, but dimensions were not. Seller made no claims of weight. I made a deal to meet the guy halfway, 80 miles from my house. Ended up he was running so late that I went all the way to his place. Instead of meeting at 8 pm as agreed, I ended up at his house by 10:30 and back home by midnight. We loaded it in the dark. All along I'm thinking some kind of sawyer's anvil. He had repeatedly not provided dimensions, and I knew it was smaller than I'd hoped, but still a useful size. I looked it over with my phone light and paid the man. So what I ended up with was this: A cool looking cast iron 75 lb. tractor weight. It has about 40% rebound, and I'll use it, but it sure as heck ISNT an anvil. I'll keep it around and maybe take it to demos or something, or use it as a cutting plate, or IDK yet.

Here we are two years later. Hammer is still running fairly strong. I've put about 30 hours on it in the last two months with all the virus quarantine, plus 5 or 10 hours a month since I built it. No major malfunctions, although I did break and re-weld the pipe that holds the lower guide. I also had to modify the way the top die attaches to the tup, as what I had wasn't strong enough. Finally broke the welds enough times that the force split the angle iron brackets. I recently read through "Pounding out the Profits" for the first time, and have a few ideas on ways to improve my hammer performance. I think maybe this weekend I'll build a connector to adjust the attachment point between the pitman and the spring, to see if moving the pitman closer to the tower will improve the stroke force. Also have several better guide designs in my head, although I probably won't do anything with them. I've done a few Damascus billets that were 2x2x6, and have forged out 1" by 2" by 3" pieces of solid as well. I haven't used any other hammers to compare it to, but it does the job I built it for.

Agree, try hotter first, and alloys second. i know for this billet I cranked the forge hotter than my usual Damascus welding temperature.

Been a while since I conceived this project. Here's the final outcome. The blade is wrought iron wagon wheel and 1084 san mai. The wrought is from my grandmother's grandfather's wagon out of Spicewood, Tx. The guard is wagon wheel from Vega, TX. The spacer is an 1836 half dollar, to commemorate Texas Independence and the pioneer spirit of the western travelers. The handle is ash wood from a Springfield Wagon Company wagon tongue. Springfield made wagons from 1873 to 1951. The blade is 9.75", and the overall length is 15.75". Flat ground, with the spine at a bit over 1/4" inch thick. This knife is not just art, it's a piece of high performance cutlery. I used it in a cutting contest to commemorate the opening of the James Black School of Bladesmithing at historic Old Washington, AR. Here's a link to a video of the knife at work cutting a 2x4. After this test, the knife maintained its sharpness through four other cutting tests. [video:youtube]https://youtu.be/gmSzAMcAdBs[/video] For more information and a few more pictures, click HERE

Nice build, Steve. You solved quite a few of the problems the same way I did. Cool idea going with air for the drive as well.

I'm in Lubbock and watch the anvil market some. It's been hot. Seeing junk ASO's going in the 2-300 range. Nicer stuff in the 4-500 range. I'd put that range at anywhere between 4 and 8$ a pound. Anything priced in the 2-3 per pound range lasts 5 minutes. That said, the other guys are spot on. Work the network of old guys. FB market place, craigslist, and ebay are all going to be over priced.

I like those big ones! I've got some 1" or 1 1/4" rebar. Might be fun to make a 3 ft snake

I've got some wrought iron wagon rim that I'd like to incorporate into a knife blade. I have done "regular" damascus and san mai, but have not worked much with wrought. The rim is in the .3" range thick at the moment. I plan to forge it down a little, but how far can I go? I'm assuming I can run it through the power hammer at yellow heat? Next I'll grind off the scale and laminate it to a piece of blade steel. I've got 1084 and W2 both on hand in 1/4" and 3/16 thick. This would leave my final billet as thick as perhaps .6 or so after welding. Again using the hammer, I assume this three layer stack of wrought/blade/wrought can be drawn out lengthwise? Will the different rates of movement of the wrought vs. the core cause me problems here? After forging to profile, I figured to quench at near full thickness and grind in the bevels. Any considerations for quenching? Do I need a faster or slower oil to deal with the cladding? The rim I have came from my great great grandfather, and is fairly irreplaceable. I'd like to get this one right.

I started out following Raymond Richard. Now I lean more toward David Lisch, Lin Rhea, and Jean Louis Regel, among others. Don Hanson. Veronique Laurent. Warenski, and Loerchner. Bruce Bump. I could go on and on. If you're not frequently searching for master inspiration, you'll not likely make it to master yourself IMO.

Good one

That's a cool modification. As above, chipping implies brittleness. I wouldn't think welding back where they did would impact the heat treatment of that blade. My guess is that the knife was just mediocre Chinese work to begin with, and would have had issues even if it hadn't been modified. About the only thing I see is to keep sharpening it as it chips out, or to modify the edge angle to make it a little thicker. Thicker edge would increase stability and chipping resistance, although it also will make it not slice as pretty.

I have written down a few things based on my rusty Hammer build from April into May. Is there anybody in this forum who would be willing to review it for accuracy before I publish it? Send me an PM email address removed I’ve had quite a few folks asked me to develop plans, or whatever, and this is about as close as I’m going to get. How do you make a plan for building a race car out of a giant tub of Legos? It’s all about hunting and finding the right parts, and there’s no real plan for that.

Great idea with the pipe, Thomas. I see it, makes good sense.

I've done five of these knives so far. Using the vise jaws, the horn, a hammer, and pliers, I can get them done to my satisfaction. What I'm thinking more about is a jig to make the process faster and more repeatable. If I end up doing classes, I'd like to have a jig to help someone with limited skills come up with a usable knife that doesn't suck. I came at this hobby from trial and error. There's a lot I haven't seen, that's why I ask.

I'm thinking about building a bending jig to help with setting the handles on a rat tail blacksmith knife. Maybe a piece of 3/4 round stock at the end, with a couple of pieces of 1/8" mild welded into a wedge. Anybody ever built similar, or seen one? Ideas?

Everybody in the episode did good work. Ryan got eliminated for bad welds, but the core of his blade was fine. Rob got eliminated for that chip, but that test was ridiculous. I lost because of a bend, but our weapons didn't break. If you've watched lately, four or five episodes in a row have had catastrophic failure. I can say that the contest was fair and consistent. My weapon was better in every way, except the one that counted. I lost fair and square. It is super hot in that studio. They don't tell you that, and you can't tell from TV. I'd say 95 degrees or so minimum back there in the forging area. 25 ft away at the judging table it was nearly 90.

I'm finally able to share that I will be on Forged in Fire Tuesday, September 4th. Hope some of y'all can watch. "Come see a mediocre smith turn junk into a knife!"

Update. Installed a stiffer spring on the spring pack, and lengthened the push arm. In this video I was forging some 3/8” square down a little further on the tail end of a blacksmith knife. Hammer was hitting so hard I had to slip the clutch a little. Was too smashy https://youtu.be/q3ZXB4kiT8Y Here’s what I ended up with.

Finished the hawk and a blacksmith knife today.

Started from a ball peen about 16 oz, USA stamped. Forgot that my phone was plugged in, but I got a few pics later in the process. Here it is after some of the Blade was beginning to be forged out, right before I started drifting the eye. A bit more forging... Forged to shape all but the spike end. Time for a little profile cleanup on the grinder. Drifted the eye out larger to fit a regular hammer handle. Got it close to finished. After this I normalized in the oven and then did a bit of finish grinding. May heat treat tomorrow.

Try a different or longer setting epoxy. Try inletting the tang with a broach instead of burning it in. Or, as you say, try a butt cap and peening over the tang. If your knife is mechanically fastened, great. Even if it is, epoxy's not a bad idea.

Good thoughts. Mine were similar. Pure economics, I spent so much time on mine I should’ve just bought one. On the other hand, I make tools, and I learned a lot about fabrication and welding from this project. Great hammer!

Water quench from tempering temps makes no difference. I would suspect either quenching from too hot of a heat, or too many cycles. Could just be decarb along the edge?

You guys got may have seen my recent thread about my power hammer build. Before I built that, I welded this three layer billet by hand. 15n20 outside over a 1084 core. This small Bowie is just shy of 11 inches overall. The handle is ringed gidgee from Australia.

Ran it hard for three days with no major malfunctions. The way I had the dies set up to be interchangeable isn't going to work. It also hit much harder with a bit less space between the dies, but I was out of adjustment range, so I added a block of steel under the bottom die plate. I'll eventually need to lengthen the push arm to make up the adjustment. The weld between the bottom die and die plate cracked a little, and the bolt between the hammer shaft and top dies showed some pretty good wear. Looks like for the short term I'll have to weld up the interchangeable die parts to something more permanent, or at least change how the dies interchange. No structural failures or damage.