Charlotte

It actually depends of the kind of equipment you have. I have an acquataince in Baton Rouge, Lousiana that has a large table of 3/4 plate. (like 5 ft or so on a side) When he gets a job that requires scrolls of several different sizes he lays them out on the table with soapstone. Marks tacks a bunch of 1 inch angle pieces to follow the curves and then bends 1/16 or 1/8 strip around the points in a smooth curve. He is a real clever guy with the drawing table and in design work. He knows from the start how big the scroll will be and how to lay it out. He uses stock scroll forms from previous jobs mounted on 1/8 plate as much as he can. If he has a bunch to do he just tacks the form down to the table cranks up his Johnson natural gas forge and gets to bending. Samuel Yellin in quoted in Francis Whitaker's "Blacksmiths Cookbook" as saying in part that: a blacksmith should aways work from a full sized drawing. Someone, of significant stature as a smith, said that "an hour drawing is as good as an hour forging when it comes to developing as a smith" (or words to that effect)

Mike, if you peoplein your country that are doing pottery there will a supplier. That supplier will have anhydrous borax as it is one ingredient in a wide variety of glazes. You might want to check out Crafts for sale on trademe.co.nz At the moment they list 400g of borax as an auction item.

I had occasion to attend a demonstration and "pour" by one of major metal sculptors in the New Orleans area. On that particuliar day He and his helpers were pouring 25 pounds of bronze that was a section for one figure in a commisioned work, and lesser weights of bronze for other bits and pieces of the same work. Afterward, while drinking beer from his keg refrigerator, there was an extensive question and answer session about design and equipment for metal casting. On the subject of homemade equipement, tongs, ladels, crucibles, and all the stuff that founders use he response was: The consequences of even a small equipment failure are so tragic when molten metal comes in contact with the human body that even the slightest additional risk is unacceptable. He said, further, that he would not trust his own home made work, let alone anyone elses.

At the moment my main anvil is a Russian Steel anvil. It had a very unpleasant sound. I fixed it by getting some construction adhesvie and gluded the turkey to a 3/4 inch plyboard. I nailed that to the top of my stump. That helped a lot but it is still a piece of prospective junk that you don't want to tap on the round horn.

Thank you very much for the work and patience you have shown here and else where. In your demonstration you revealed to me the secret of an event that had often puzzled me. The hardest blow that I've ever seen struck with a hand hammer was by a retired farrier doing a demonstration of forging horse shoes from scratch. He drew out the toe clip on with one blow. It was not until I followed through you hammer demonstration and the accompanying explanation that I realized how a 70 year old man with 50 years of hammering behind him could still be hitting harder than I could at 30. He simply knew how to hold the hammer and how to strike with the confidence of a man that knew exactly what he was doing. Bob Patrick, demonstrated at a conference I attended several years ago. He remarked after doing a "green coal" tutorial that "Most of you don't know how to hammer" I believe that you have helped my greatly and that after all these years I'm finally learning how to hammer.

Any Idea of what the static pressure is on the air? Do you have a schematic of where the gas in injected? I was thinking of building one from AHH refactories. (I've go a factory distributor about 25 miles from me.) Thanks again Arbalist, Charlotte

Just an estetic comment: I found half in round to be more satisfactory for fire place pokers because it allowed for some more dramatic tapering and forging to square produces texture at little cost in time or effort. By putting a little more mass in the handle you can improve the balance and tactile feel. Hand forged pokers are about appearence and feel. I got my arm twisted into making a half dozen a week before christmas one year. I stuck to the half inch plan and my hand hammer with no regret. BTW How come you chose the knife forum for this question. I typicaly use HR A36 for this sort of thing?

I thought this alloy may be of interest since it is alloy specifically design for knifemaking. dsS30Vv5.pdf

Actually, if you are making a machete probably the better choice is 5160. One of the well known sword makers recommends it as a good carbon steel material for large weapons. From personal experience one of my good friends was given a machete sized kurki (sp) >blade with a 45deg bend< made of 5160 truck spring by a local smith in the philippiens during the Nam era. {How and why the smith wanted to gift my 6' 4" 220" Marine Sargent friend is a story for a crawfish Boil} Any way I knew it to be used in and around the family farm in East Tennesse for many years with no sign of problem or defect. His story of how the blade was hardened was that the smith stuck the edge in a large melon. (Hmmm, always wondered about that and the size and type of melon?) P.S. FYI Admiral sells a range of 5160 at prices substanily below D-2.

Yup Frosty, I went into the math thing so others would have a chance of understanding that there is a reason to make it the way your describe. There is a nice website that gives animated views of several kinds steam engine linkages, Go to "http://www.animatedengines.com." All of the engines are fun if you are interested in things that produce motion. I came up on this site while investigating the Idea of a cable driven excentric wheel as the driver for hammer. Got switched over the grasshopper when I realized that I still had a problem with frictional loses because of the need to control out of plain rebound vectors.

My Grasshopper hammer: There is no secret to the grass hopper hammer so it is not necessary to follow anyone's plans. I'm designing it to meet my needs. The only rule that needs to be followed is that the square root length of the stabilizing arm has to equal the product of the division of the swing arm. In other words: If the length A_B is the long (swinging or driven arm ) arm and point C divides that arm into two segments A_C & C_B then the length of the Stabilizing arm D_C must equal the square root of A_C X C_B. Point A is the parallel motion point and B is the end point or piviot. (C_D) X (C_D) = (A_C) X (C_ It can be seen that the most convient solution to the above equation is to create C_D equal to A_C= C_B. The point B is actually the fulcrum of the lever arm A_B. Its small motion compensates for the other wise greater horizontal motion of point A. The height of Point B is arbritary but should be high enough that the midpoint of the vertical motion of of A to allow the maximum benifit of the hammers motion. Provision of a second arm set A'_B' & C'_D' prime above the first arm set is of course a logical necessity based on the need to keep the hammer from pivioting to freely around point A. The rest of the treadle hammer is open to cleaverness and mechanical inventiveness of the builder.

Looks good to me. Nice job.

Frosty, I haven't built the chip forge and you will be the first to get the pictures! The design of my burner is one that evolved "by hammer and hand" At the moment I'm trying to teach my self CAD drawing with TurboCAD. After I finish the two door grills that I'm working one a drawing of the hybrid burner design, and my notion of why it works the way it does, will be the next since you ask. I've always been better at building in three dimensions and making it up as I go along than drawing it up. Some how I'm better at knowing how to get there than explaining how to get there.:confused:

I agree but I also have a mark in my Peddinhause 1000 gm from misjudging my stroke during a charity demonstration 10 years ago. The technique is to strike with the hammor parallel to the cutting edge of the hardy and with the edge of the hammer just a 1/16 of an inch or less from that cutting edge. One of the reason to prefer a cutoff hardy with a vertical face is that you can judge more precisely where that point is. The other is that you leave your piece with either a neat right angle face or a face ready for further tapering. That said, if you are fresh and well warmed up some times you hit harder than you intend.

The experiment that we( the group I belonged) did with straight pet coke, in a coal forge, found that it would only burn in an excess of oxygen. We could get white heat in the forge, our demonstrator described it as slinging hot, but couldn't weld because of oxidation. My own expriments in a "two brick" style propane forge were to reduce the oxidation of mild steel at welding heat. The pieces would gradualy erode but made a mess with dripping flux. I wound up digging a mixute of coke, flux and hard brick out of the bottom of my forge. I guess location is important in that I pick up pet coke along side the railroad right away after if falls off the hopper cars leaving the refinery. I wanted to know the design of the chip forge because the websites do not provide any drawings. I've been toying with this idea for a while. One of my thoughts was to use high temp insulating fire brick dipped in mortar and dried. Since insulating brick can be cut with an old hacksaw blade, making small pieces would be messy but not difficult. A coarse layer of brick on the bottom to support pet coke on top and prevent the coke fines from restricting the flow of gas. Normally I prefer the simplicity, and relative safety, of atmospheric burners but I have a hybrid design with regeneration that combines some of the characteristcs of both. My question is how much static pressure is needed to operate the chip forge and how are the parts arranged to minimize. The static pressure. (incidentaly before any one asks, No, I will not be providing any details of my hybrid design. I have had rather unfortunate experiences in the past when trying to walk people through burner design. Suffice it to say that the design that I use is safe for me because I have the time and experience to do the extensive hand tuning required. I will not be responsible even indirectly for someone burning up their shop or, God forbid, injuring themselves)

Incidentally, I've been toying with the idea of filling the head of mine about half way with lead shot and then adding 40 wt motor oil. Kind of like a dead blow hammer. Since I 'm planning to use this for cold work reposse I think this might be more effective for that purpose. Anybody tried this experiment??

There are many different designs for tredle hammers and their anvils. After watching and listening to Clay Spencer several times, and interviewing other designs in person and in plan view, I have come to the conlusion that the anvil has only two real pre requisits: 1) It needs to have a big enough mass to take the weight of the head. 10:1 sounds about right. 2). You should make some provision for changing out to different striking surfaces. Most people make a provision for a taper key in a slot in the anvils body. I'm personally partial to Clays's anvil which, as I recall, is 5 rectangular bars, bartacked together at several points down the length with the middle bar shorter to provide a space for the taper key. The top has a square hole in 1/2 plate through which a drifted shank attached to the working surface is placed and a taper key hold down. I'm currently working up a grasshoppers hammer design for light work. While the head and the remainer of the treadle hammer will be light. I will make the anvil as heavy as I can manage without buying special material.

I'm quite interested in this type of forge but in now way willing to afford one. I'd like some sketch of the physical layout of the componets. My idea was to use petroleum coke as a media. it is relatively light, and doesn't burn itself unless heated with a forced blast. The only people that I've known to use it in a forge, soak the pet coke in used motor oil before trying to use it.

My first thought is that your a hardy man to do this. Second Thought is that you need to think about what your going to use for tongs. The heavier the object you are hiting the stronger and better fitting the tongs need to be. My third thought is I would go to my steel service company and try to buy a piece of heavy plate that I could cut the basic shape out of. Stacking and forge welding a 13 lb {+ scaling +grinding losses) billet is a real chore. Fourth thought Is Good Luck and send pictures of the process.

Thank you for the link!! That is very nice work. Been a while since I was looking at these issues. My only concern here is: On what scale? The level of examination just a little coarse. But still it does show that for these two alloys the diffusion rate is much greater than the studies I read several years ago lead me to belive At any rate, or ancestors used the best available materials for their pattern welded weapons and so often had materials from a wide variety of sources. In turn this produced results that varied form wonderful to awful. We set out to build a sand box but finished up with a swiming pool.

Try making a test Item out of mild steel first so you know exactly how you will get from point a to point b. Specific recommendations for heat and heat treating are available here and else where on the web.

For what it's worth. Admiral Steel had some of their knife steels on markdown. I bought some 1085 1/8 X 1 1/4 X 60 for $ 7.00 stick. I bought some on spec and because I wanted to make some quick Kitchen knives for my own use. Personally I'm tired of stainless steel kitchen knives. But in the regular catalogue. 440C stainless is 3/16X1 1/2 X 18" is $20 and change. I recently checked out a resturant supply company in my area. All of their commercial knives were made of 440 C. The manager offered the opinion that home products are made by companies that contract out the work to people with out first class heat control. "Not bad steel, just bad management"

A couple of issues here I guess, mostly my fault. Matt Bower is correct. yes Wootz steels are a segregated rather than "laminated in the fashion of plywood" Yes, modern replicates have no problem with letting some of the cakes cool and solidify. The traditional smiths usually worked their billets immediately because they had less control of the content and the process than we do today. At that time, and using charcoal as the principal fuel, if it was hot they tried to keep it workable as long possible. Archaeolgy in Syria and other near east locations has recovered a few uncut cakes that were appearently well hammered. The trick with wootz is work it so that the carbides remain present in finely divided sheets seperated by relatively lower content steels. Working at the right temperature is require otherwise it crumbles. As for laminated steels: I belive that Steve Sells is correct in his remarks. In even the best made pattern welded the carbon content still varies from high to low through out the piece according the content of orgional. Carbon migrates to some extent. Most of the remaining metal stay put. Homogenious pattern welded blade is an Oxymorn. As for cutting properties, you really want to have a blade that approaches the sawtoothed configuration of Wootz steel. Well laminated steel will display hard and soft areas as sharpened. All of which discussion is a long way from my first intent of making a simple answer to initial posters question about Japanese swords.

Along the same lines. The best choice is to go to one of the sites that sells stone sculpture tools. The stone hammers are very soft iron that are used for striking the stone cutting tools. They want a tool that will not rebound and slip. The tools are made with a cup point on the struck end so they will not slip from the hammer. If nothing else make your self a hammer out of A36 and anneal it dead soft.

I don't take it that way. I don't worry about what I use except for the really critical welds with pieces that are near finished and don't need any more time the fire than necessary.