Hefty

That's an awesome set, David!

I found it interesting, but my favourite part was the added foley sound of the sharpening of the hand cutting blades that was identical to the filing of the surfaces to prepare for cutting .

Is that the bevel, or a really popping hamon?

Looks like a fantastic, fun and successful weekend, David! Nice work!

Some people put stainless needles in it, like they do with small scale, fancy concrete castings.

I'm slowly making a swage block of of a short section of rail and I used one of the v sections I cut out to make the bit to steel a small tomahawk. It holds and edge well, but I made sure to temper it well back so it didn't crack or chip with use.

Hi everyone, I've been doing a few small billets of Damascus by hand and really enjoying the results. I don't have access to a power hammer or press, but I would like to go a little bigger. Does anyone here have any experience forge welding billets with a striker? Would light strikes on a flatter work effectively for forge welding larger billets? Any advice, especially from experience, would be greatly appreciated! Cheers, Jono.

Thanks for the comments everyone! You know, Brian, I didn't even think of that until you pointed it out! But yes, they are slightly different sizes and the one side has a slight key slot sort of shape for the outer thread of the screw box. Also the hinge plates only go the one way so it would feel a bit weird to have the jaw open away from the screw handle. Today, I managed to get back to it and fix up the backwards assembly. I had a bit of trouble when I ground off the tenon/rivet. I got a bit gung-ho on the heave-ho and sheared the tenon off when I tried to twist it. At least that made it easy to punch out backwards. Then I ground it down a little, welded it back on and then plug welded it into the existing hole in the clamp assembly. And a video in summary: Thanks to everyone who has followed along and thanks for all the supportive comments! I'll keep an eye on this thread and chip in every now and then with review updates, especially if I get an acme thread or square thread for it. Cheers, Jono.

Oooooh, I really want to do this in my shop! Eventually I'd like to get an oxy/propane rig, but a decent torch that can run on a hose off a gas bottle (propane tank) would be sooo handy!

Yeah, the lathe at school has back gears for the lead screw. I would just need to find the time to set the right feed and pitch. In the meantime, in today's episode: The maiden voyage! I was keen to get a lot done today because spending the day with my wife tomorrow and I'm in a fishing competition Saturday and Sunday and then I'm back to work. I wasn't meaning to rush, but I did make some simple mistakes that will mean re-working a few things. The first part of the day was spent working on the bar for the bench clamp. I needed to drift the hole for the tenon again, then punch the undersized hole for the clamp thread then alternate the two bends around riveting the tenon in place. What actually happened was I got excited about riveting the tenon and did it before punching the second hole or making the first bend. This made the punching and bending much more awkward than they needed to be. Oh well, at least this one didn't cause any extra work to fix things. Then I had to go and buy some 12mm all thread and an M12 tap because none of my bolts had thread all the way to the head. I cheated a little bit and just stripped the galv off two M12 nuts and the end of the piece of all thread for the clamp with hydrochloric acid, neutralized them and then forge welded them to make a meatball/cylinder for the clamp handle. I ground a ball joint shape in the end of the thread and made a little clamp disc and drilled a hole in the back of it the same size as the maximum o.d. of the ball joint, then I heated it and ball punched it on around the back joint. Now what's wrong with this picture? ... Yes. I assembled it without putting it in through the clamp! I had to heat it, knock it back off, put it through and re-punch it. Thankfully, it worked and still even swivels in the ball joint. The last step was to drill through the screw for the clamp, put the handle in and then upset a ball on to the end. This just went all wrong. I got it in the end, but initially it upset on either side of the meatball, jammed, and then bent. I had to beat it back and forth, flatten it the bends, and file and grind the slight upset and marring on the handle shaft. So, I got it together! I took it to the table for its maiden voyage. It works, but again, what's wrong with this picture: It's backwards!!! It functions. It holds on the table well and it holds a work piece firmly, but I'll have to grind the rivet, grind that section of the clamp thinner and then turn it around and re-rivet it. Therein lies the challenge, my holidays are nearly done. I'll need to try to keep up some momentum to actually finish fixing the problems. I took a video of the maiden voyage, too, for anyone who's interested. https://youtube.com/shorts/wAXlfYYl0Kc?si=hfAcbqE7vxPUFd7G Cheers, Jono.

Larry, I hadn't thought about that with grease. I've sprayed it with WD-40 for the time being. Maybe I'll just leave it at that for now. I think, long term, I'll look to replace the current screw box with more suitable square or acme threads, but knowing where to get them is a sticking point, without cannabalising some existing existing tool. I have access to a small metal lathe in my department at the school I work at, but I haven't turned threads on a large since I got my degree! Anyway, hopefully I'll get the bench clamp well underway today! Cheers, Jono.

Thanks JHCC! Ooooh, I got pinned! I'm a little bit proud I was out most of today so I only got the hole punched for the vise tenon to be riveted onto the bench clamp. I'll have to drill and file it out a little because I only have a 12mm drift or a 16mm, but the tenon is about 13.5mm. I was just glad to make a little more progress. Cheers, Jono.

Thanks, I'm really happy with how it's turning out! Not sure yet about teeth on the jaws because it's going to be a small, fine work vise. I was thinking of making a bunch of different jaw covers out of different materials and/or with different teeth or textures. Cheers, Jono.

In today's episode: a new milestone reached! So, I had to anneal another meatball in the morning, and I started the two handles. A longer one for the vise and a shorter one for the bench clamp. I used my rivet heading tool and upset one end of each one and then rounded them into ball ends on the anvil. Then I drilled the meatball, only realising I'd made it slightly too short when the drill cut through the bottom of the meatball on either side of the shank. It still works, it just looks weird. I put the handle in my hand drill and then ran it against my little belt grinder to get it all nice and smooth and shiny and round and then I put it through the screw, heated the other end and repeated the ball end process. I still managed to put it back in my drill (the ball end was just small enough) and then run the other end against the grinder. Another test of the screw assembly and it was still slipping in the hole in the jaw, so I welded a bead asking the top to let it into the elongated jaw hole and it worked. With the last of my current little batch of charcoal I took ILikeShinySteel's advice and made a double ended spring, out of garage door spring, which I'm affectionately referring to as the wishbone. I didn't leave enough on each end for wings to wrap around the jaws so I was just planning to use this as a test piece but I dropped it in place and it worked perfectly! My thanks to ILikeShinySteel!! With that done, the video of it the project is complete! I've marked out the 'C' of the bench clamp and forged a one sided taper on one end where it will grip against the bench, opposite the screw section. I've centre punched where I need to bend it, where I need to punch the hole for the vise tenon and where I plan to punch undersized and then tap a thread for the screw. A great sense of accomplishment today! If you've made it this far. Here's a link to a video of the successful testing other wishbone spring! https://youtube.com/shorts/JzAJftY5GY4?si=MY4nh4VUCa-SSue4 Cheers, Jono.

In today's episode: a setback on the meatball! I got in to the shed a little earlier this morning and annealed the screw so I could drill the handle hole in the meatball. I heated it in the JABOD and put it in a metal bucket full of ash. It did the trick and my drills were able to get into it. Unfortunately, half way through, disaster struck! My forge weld had held better to the underside of the head of the bolt than to the shank, so when I drilled the handle hole to full size, it broke through the shank and the whole meatball came off! Oh well, I took another of the bolts and made a collar by drilling a short section of 25mm round bar, instead of forging flat bar around it. I am more confident in the weld this time around, but I will go with a slightly smaller diameter handle so my drill hole doesn't remove the entire shank of the bolt. (I had to go back out to the shed tonight to get a photo) In between all of this, I also welded some angle iron wings onto my rivet heading tool so it doesn't keep sliding down through my vise when I hammer on it. I'll use it to form the balls on my handle. Getting closer everyday! Cheers Jono.

So, in today's episode I focused on the screw assembly. I filed out the screw holes in both jaws to allow the screw box to fit and still be able to pivot up and down. Next, probably what I'm most proud of is that I used my makeshift swage block to forge weld a collar on the bolt to make the meatball for the handle to go through (this photo is after I had started grinding it, then remembered I hadn't taken a photo ) I then drilled out some round bar and made a thrust washer for the meatball end of the screw and a flange which I then welded onto the screw box. I spent ages making sure the threads were clear after trying, but failing, to keep them undamaged while forge welding the other end of the bolt. I finally got them running fairly well. I then forged a new spring with the correct curve out of a small section of coil spring. I had intended to forge longer wings on the top of it so I could pin or rivet it into place, but unfortunately I got distracted and burnt one of them a little bit, causing it to them crack when I forged it. Nonetheless, when testing it with the vise grips, it moved the jaw nicely. Weirdest part of the day was when I went to drill a hole through the meatball for the handle and my drills wouldn't touch it. I'm positive the collar was mild steel, and I didn't think the bolt was high tensile but I even resharpened a bit too make sure and still nothing. Unfortunately, I was back in my JABOD today and I had already extinguished it when I discovered this so I couldn't anneal it. Looks like it's just getting this hole drilled, putting the handle in and then making the bench clamp mechanism and I'll be done! Cheers, Jono.

With larger, squarer threads, I've seen videos of people swaging pipe down onto the threads. My issue is, with much smaller threads, the outer piece grips in one or two places and then if things shift, it damages the threads on the bolt. Yes, a few of the screw boxes I've seen have a key along the top. They can still pivot up and down in the hole but it stops them turning. The hole in mine is larger than the bolt, but not much. It will be a combination of grinding the screw box and filing the hole, or using my little rotary tool, but it's pretty weak.

They're both beautiful, JPH! Those wootz patterns always fascinate me. Cheers, Jono.

ILSS, I like that idea! I messed around with a fairly standard spring shape today, to no avail as you'll see below. In today's episode I had mixed success. I started with grinding, lots and loooots of grinding, but I'm so happy with the result: They actually look kinda like vise jaws!! Most of the rest of today's session was 3 different failed attempts to swage pipe down over the thread of the bolt I'm going to use for the screw. I had some other things I needed to do this afternoon and I was running out of time so in the end, I just put three nuts on the bolt and welded them together. I did a rough grind on them but they're still ugly. I think it's one of those temporary solutions that will end up permanent. I'll shape it a little more tomorrow and see if I can grind a key-like shape into one side to locate it in the main jaw section. I also tried a spring out of a small piece of flat bar, but even when held in place with the vise grips, it didn't move the jaw out. Here's the welded 'screw box' nuts and the spring: ILSS, looking at your photo, I've just realised the curve of my spring is the wrong way! I'll try one the right way and if I can come up with an effective way to fasten it, I'll go with your idea. So here where it's at after today's session: I'm loving being in holidays and actually being able to do a little bit on this each day. Normally this amount of forging would have taken me a couple of weeks squeezing after-work sessions in here and there. Cheers! Jono.

Thanks Larry! ILSS, I know old screw boxes were often brazed but, and with no real reason, I've never been a fan of the idea. I also haven't tried forge brazing yet. I have a few of the bolt I was thinking of using so I'm starting to think, even with this small one, I might try to swage a small section of pipe over it. If that doesn't work I'll try Bunnings or the Bolt Shop to see what other threads I can get. I researched leg vise screw boxes last night and saw they are keyed, and then fell asleep and dreamt about how to make one. Unfortunately, the method in the dream didn't make sense when I woke up Oh well. About to head to the shed so the next episode should hopefully be up tonight.

In today's episode I started with some grinding, welding and grinding. Then I found a slag hole that was surprisingly deep so it was back to grinding, welding and grinding again! Next was to use my guillotine tool to butcher in and straighten out a tenon on the bottom of the main jaw, which will later go into a clamping system. (You can see the tenon in the next photo) I then layed out and drilled the support plates on my lil' drill press. I thought about punching all the holes but I wanted to make sure everything lined up really well and I've been known to punch off line sometimes. Then I used a pair of vise grips (in every sense of the word! ) to line the plate up so I could transfer the drill holes to the main jaw, then I took it to the drill press to make sure the holes were straight for riveting. I also marked with calipers and ground a slight curve on the top corner where the moving jaw will run. It's only very small and hard to see unless you're really looking for it, but it becomes important in upcoming steps. I keep forgetting to take a picture of it, but I also made myself a little split rivet heading plate for my vise, which I used to make some 6mm rivets. Again, if I'd punched all the holes, I would have had more material thickness and could have used bigger rivets, but I wanted to make sure everything was straight. I did a test fit and the moving jaw was a little tight. I took advantage of this, while it was in place, to mark that curve I mentioned earlier onto the moving jaw itself. I then chiselled this line in and forged the lower end of the jaw narrower up to this line so it fit and moved between the plates. I riveted it in and then worked the rivet hot and cold to make sure it still pivoted easily. I got carried away here and I think this should have been a bolt and nut, but if the rivet wears out, I'll replace it with a bolt then. I had switched to my gas forge today and so I was able to heat up the whole assembly and forge the jaws a bit more in line. The rest of that will be ground to shape tomorrow. It's still very rough looking, but I'm really happy with my progress. I'm still a bit stumped on how exactly to sort out the screw assembly, but I'll do a little research tonight and see what I come up with tomorrow. I also started cold forging a little piece of flat bar for a spring but I'm not sure it how to contain it because this vise won't be secured with the usual bracket that would hold it in place. Ok, I'll be back tomorrow with another episode! Cheers Jono.

Thanks for all the encouragement everyone! Nobody, I haven't even figured that out yet! My rough plan involves modifying a large, long bolt and using it's nut, and forging my own little thrust washer. When I make a bigger one, I have access to some large acme threads and square threads that I'm hoping to make swages from so I can forge my own longer sections of thread and then swage some pipe over them in a V swage to make the female thread. Anyhow, on to today's episode! I started by grinding and welding and grinding the cold shuts. I've been working in my JABOD with charcoal so I am less confident in my ability to forge weld in pieces to support these corners, so I just arc welded them. I ran several passes to build up the material there. (I just noticed that in this photo it looks like there is little to no penetration on these welds. There is, but because I had already ground previous passes, the material curves away before the weld ends) Then I forged the jaws to a squarer cross section. I had left them at full material width by half where it was split and that exaggerated how thin they were. I also bent them over just slightly. I think it was Blue Rooster (?) who mentioned that he bent the jaws to far when he made his, so I went for a subtle bend. Then I started the second side of the vise. Most of that process was the same so I haven't re photographed everything. The main change was that I found a little U-shaped piece of coil spring that I've used for putting tucks in sheet metal, that fits exactly around my starting stock. When it came time to forge down the jaws after splitting, I put the U over the hardy hole and dropped the stock in, to prevent those cold shuts. It worked on one side but somehow I still got one on the other side? Oh well, I'll grind and weld and grind again. I was then able to punch the screw hole on this side, forge the jaws down a bit, and bend them over slightly. The two jaws both now fit on the long bolt, but as you can see, they don't quite line up right now. As Frosty used to say, I should have repeated each step for each jaw at the same time if I wanted them to match. Oh well, I'll figure out how to forge/tweak them to match. That will be the start of tomorrow's episode. I'll hopefully also play around with the screw system and/or the pivot point and riveted plates. I haven't decided if I want to try tapered support plates or the German style with the moving jaw having little "wings" that run on the top of a curve on the support plates. The latter seems easier in my mind but I'll have to weld the little "wings" on the moving jaw. No biggie,I guess. Cheers! Jono.

I made a separate thread for it so I won't post all that pics here, but I started forging a small vise today:

Hi everyone, I thought I'd start a new thread for this after mentioning it in my post asking about old vise forging techniques. I've started making a small vise out of 20mm square bar. Its proportions are based loosely on common post vise proportions but instead of the leg, it will attach to a clamp system to clamp it to a bench as a portable filing vise. The two arms of the vise are roughly 150mm high and the jaws are 75mm wide. Here's the two pieces layed out. If you look really close you can see the centre punch marks in the soapstone lines. I started with the moving jaw side and upset the end for splitting. I forged back to thickness in one dimension to gain more width before splitting for the T. Then I split it to forge out the jaws. I tried with a handheld chisel in the vise first and it worked ok, but then I hit it down over my hardy and it seemed more efficient. Next I put it in the vise and forged the sides down to make the T. I have a 25mm hardy hole but once they were wide enough I could drop it in there and beat down on it better. Between the vise and the hardy hole, I ended up with some big cold shuts under the jaws that will need grinding out. This means my jaws will be a little thinner than planned. You can also see in this pic where I layed out the slot for the screw hole. And the final step in today's episode was to slit and drift the screw hole. (You can really see the cold shut under the T after the drifting) That's it for today, but I'm on holidays at the moment so I'm hoping to make more good progress tomorrow. Cheers! Jono.

Beautiful pattern! Glad you persevered!