Jura T

Is it just me or has the time really started to fly?

I started to make another Brazeal type hammer right after the failure of the first one. Somehow it got buried by other projects. This week I finally had the time and energy to finish it. I again had to harden it twice to get it hard enough, without any signs of cracking this time. It feels pretty good to hammer with. I'll probably crown the "flat" face slightly more.

I've used the same material for punches, drifts, chisel, power hammer tooling and various smaller hammers earlier on without any problems. So I'm fairly confident that the cracking problem did not come from any forging mistakes. I just probably got it too hot the last time.

Thanks Grant. Very cool for you to show all the steps.

I would like to know how many hours it took to do from start to finish. Also I noticed in 1 of the pics a chainsaw is being started or at least held.

I didn't see the whole demo, but it was somewhere around three hours. The chainsaw was used to modify the stump there were forging on.

we did the hard face on a big machine designed for hardfacing machinerey for the mines. I then ground the surface on the mother of all surface grinders to a mirror shine and milled all the sides of the anvil and polished the horn, this thing was beautiful I then did the ball bearing test and it goes thud, this anvil is so dead it has no rebound it is like hitting a sand bag.

Usually the hard facing stuff needs to be work hardened to get the full hardness. Did you do that?

If you are trying to make the pictures smaller, here is what I do; I hit <Ctrl>- a couple of times. After viewing the pictures I hit <Ctrl>0 (or <Ctrl>+ a couple of times) to make things back to normal again. This works on Firefox, not so sure about other browsers.

Very interesting, I too saw the demo in Seattle......... It was EA Chase

Thanks. I Didn't find anything about him using jackhammers, but I did find his www-pages. Very nice work there.

The Google translation is correct. It is "iron feather".

There were about 60 smiths from nine different countries in the event. Each smith was given about two hours to make their own piece for the Gate of Pohjola (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pohjola). I made a Swan of Tuonela (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swan_of_Tuonela).

BTW, the current pictures on the Rautasulka www-pages are from last year. The same photographer was there also this year. You can find his pictures here: http://vesanopanen.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Rautasulka2010/

I witnessed a similar demo at the 2006 ABANA conference in Seattle. It is impressive see the metal moving under a jackhammer, as well as to see the smith manipulating the jackhammer about the work.

Do you remember who gave the demo?

This weekend I attended a blacksmith event here in Finland (http://www.rautasulka.com/en/). On Saturday a Finnish blacksmith, Jesse Sipola, and his crew forged a face sculpture by using various size jackhammers. That was just more than cool. And I thought forging with a power hammer is manly. Here are a couple of pictures of the demo. Unfortunately, they can't really show the noise, flames and all the action involved in the process.The plate they used for the face was 16mm thick.

OKay: Everybody is talking about "Lillico's Book" but nobody is saying THE NAME OF IT!!!!!

It's "The Blacksmith's Manual Illustrated". You can find the PDF's here: http://www.hct.ac.uk/Downloads/craftpublications.html

Can't look for it if I don't have title.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=lillico+blacksmith+book :P

Frosty, good to hear that you are already back home. I hope you recover well. Sorry to hear about Libby.

That's good to hear and really good to know it'll work. Living in a cold climate means the more ways you can keep a slab or foundation where you want it the better.

I really cannot suggest the foam to others until I see that it stands up at least for ten years. Then again, as I wrote earlier, the stuff should take (by the specs) the static load it is carrying now.

I really like your shop, I could there very comfortably. Feels good to have your own place doesn't it?

I really like it a lot too. I like forging in there, sometime I just like stand around there looking at my tools. Just remembered the poem JWB posted some time ago "I like to sit in my shop"; I need to get a chair/stool to my shop. Sometimes weeks go by without time to do any forging, sometimes I'm there every day. Last weekend was nice. My son (9 years old) came to forge with me the first time (he's been there watching me earlier, but this time he got to hit the hot iron). We made small hook together. :)

Thanks for posting those. Additional ones are definitely welcome.

You foam insulated the hammer foundation? Won't it stand a good chance of shifting, making the hammer lean after a while?

I have now used the hammer for about one year (though fairly limited amount) and the base has not shifted/sunken. So it seems that I got lucky with the foam. :D

There are also a couple of videos on Japanese blacksmiths making tools on this youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/redorca999

Sam did post the pictures, but had to remove them for some reason.

Quite thin looking railing , actually so thin, that I had to use Google to magnify the pictures (you didn't ask your bosses before posting?). I like it, neat looking design and very nice execution. What kind if a finish did you use on it?

There is a "Spruce Forge Manual of Locksmithing". For review see http://www.oldlocks.com/book_reviews/Spruce_Forge/locksmithing.htm. I have a copy, but I have only glanced it through. There are a lot of step-by-step drawings in it.

It was cool to see all the tooling involved in making the chisel. What is the chisel for?

First project? Looks really nice.

Everyone, thanks for the input. Based on that I'm starting to believe that the spring steel I'm using doesn't take differential hardening well (at least not with large cross sections). Then again, it might have been that the temperature across the face wasn't completely uniform. Well, in any case, I'll make another one and see what happens. But first I will do some quenching tests with the steel.

Getting tool steels here in Finland is not easy. I know only one place that sells small quantities of steel. I just checked their www-pages and they don't have any 1050 (or something similar) in their selection . I could probably get 1050/Böhler K950 from another company, but it would mean taking the whole rod (several meters). A bit too much for one hammer...

Brian, I asked you in another thread that do you harden the whole hammer or just the faces and you replied that just the faces. In one of those Picasa picture series it seemed like if you hardened the whole hammer and then just tempered the eye more than the faces. Which way is it?

I think I will have another try with a hammer next weekend. I just need to make a shorter drift to be used with a power hammer first.

So now you know that the secret is to heat the whole hammer to the temp that you last did on the faces only.

The last time I tried differential hardening was with a wide, japanese style kitchen knife. It cracked as well. So I guess I will use differential tempering only from now on.

I have made a small hammer head from the same steel. I have used it for about two years now and it is my favourite hammer for small work. Cannot remember how I hardened it but I tempered it to darkish yellow. It doesn't seem to be too hard. So based on that, the steel should be ok for hammers.

Brian, the oil is a mixture of hardening oil (that I bought from a steel company) and ATF transmission fluid. I haven't had problems hardening with it before.

Thomas, I ground the faces before hardening. So there shouldn't have been any significantly decarb layer? At the last time the file skated on the faces, at the previous tries it did not.

I'm confused.

Check the video here it should give you the idea.

I was able to get home a bit earlier today, so I made a hand-held punch. I made it with similar dimension as my punches for hand work. Works beautifully. I need to try the one Mike described at some point. The steel I'm using is something close to 5160.

I tried making a hand hammer. I didn't work out, it cracked during the quench (I started another topic on that in Heat treating section). Now I want to give it another try. Punching and drifting by hand took a really long time, so the next time I thought about using my power hammer. I have never done any punching with a power hammer. The working ends on my hand held slot punches are quite thin, about 3mm (1/8"). Should the power hammer punches be somewhat sturdier? I will be using spring steel that I have at hand at the moment.