lupiphile

I've been working on my website uploading pictures for the last two days, so I thought I might give it a shot here. I believe this is the info you seek from the machinery's handbook, also I have a fast acting hydraulic press with 14" of daylight and a 14" throat. That frame can be seen on the 35 ton c-throat press issues post. The frame is 2" plate boxed in. If you like I could take some more measurements. It's rated at 35 t acording to the mfg. but it has a 6" cylinder with a 7.5hp motor that generates over 5000psi if I let it ( I don't, the hoses aren't rated for it.) It also happens to be the same frame they use on their 75 ton model. All that being said It moves at about 5.5 in. a second so it actually has a bit of percussive force, and when I'm using it that way, It flexes a bit, but not in a scary type way. It also has a flair for the dramatic and flickers my lights upon impact.

Go check out Hoss Haley's web site. Or just google his name and shop tour, hydraulic press. He made a 40 ton c-throat with a 24" inch depth of throat out of heavy c-channel, stoutly and selectively braced. He does cold forming of 3/8 plate with very large dies, with out failure. He also has a hundred ton h- frame he built, using a small (3-4") cylinder, generating the tonnage through a very simple ( and very stoutly built) lever system. This to is relatively well documented via google searches. I have a copy of that machinery's handbook, but I have a terrible time with uploading pictures, as that my phone is not (as of yet) smarter than I am. I might be inclined to transcribe the pertinent info depending on how long the section is. Hope some of this helps, Take care, Matt

The classic option, is to run the exhaust into a five gallon pail filled with swarf, it works surprisingly well, and make no decernible effect in the hammers performance.The other thig to do is hook your exhaust to some 1" pex and send it through your nearest wall, then its not even in the same room as you. Hope this helps, Matt

That's not abuse, that's art.... seriously I imagine that anvil was in the reject pile back at the ww2 anvil factory and somebody decided to get a little creative, or 3-4 helpers grabbed the wrong top tool under the 4000lb hammer. in any case thanks for the picture, that there is a good one. Take care , Matt

A flux by the name of ruby fluid is sold for this exact purpose, take care, Matt

The easist thing to do would be to use an iron/steel blackener and a carnuba based paste wax over top of it. Sculpt nouveau sells it, or jax, or chemcity, or probably, on your side of the pond any, distributor of harbison-walker products. It's a cold blackening aqueous solution, dilute and spray it on with a pump sprayer and your good to go.Take care , Matt

There is a rule of thumb here. No matter the widest dimension, you're looking for 1.5-2 times the thinner dimention for a dome-ish or simply faceted rivet head. To use an extreme illustration, I was recently making a test picket with a horizontal element riveted to the side and thus made a 3.5" x .125" tenon. In that instance I added a quarter inch (.25", to keep things decimal-y) to the width of the material i was going through to get my proper length for my rivet head. Hope this is some help, Take care, Matt

The past six months I've done better making money from drawings of proposed Ironwork, than I have real Ironwork.... but I do work through a larger name than just myself. But that said, time is money, don't give anything away. Take care, Matt

Almost, invariably 5160. It's one of the very few reliable "known" steels you can easily, and constantly identify and purchase from the scrap yard. I use it for about 80% of all my tool making. If your used to working 5160 and you come across some 6150 you will quickly notice the difference , it's much harder to work,. It's akin to 4150, but a touch tougher. It also wont let you get away with murder the way 5160 will (overheating, working it hard under the hammer waaaaay to cold, sloppy heat treating, i.e. the "look ma, no oil !" approach to hardening ect.) I've been told some really old leaf springs were 1080 or some such, but with a trip to the scrapyard 2 times a month for the last 6 years I've yet to find one. Take care, Matt

Sub atomics aside, as has been alluded to before, but perhaps not stated directly, is that by forging square you're forging though the center line of the stock. any force applied to the stock not through the center line, when drawing down has a shearing effect ( the piping Mr.Newman referred to) and will tear your metal apart eventually. This is also why drawing down hex works.It's all about the center line. You could draw down a 16 sided object if you had perfect registration and worked evenly, but that would take much longer to do well than the usual, square, octagon, round. Take care, Matt

I have a modified hydraulic punch press that operates just as Mr. Newman describes his horizontal does. I think in industry, micro switches and solenoids (in bigger machines DRO's) are pretty much the standard , but I am in no way an expert. To post a query at least tangentally related to this, does anybody know how I would set up a press so that it would operate running constantly up to a limit switch until I hit the foot pedal wherein it would switch direction run down until i got to the next limit switch. That was a terrible description. Basically I want to emulate a single acting/ spring return cylinder with limit switches and an electric foot pedal. Kinda like alan evans press he uses in the bowl video he posted, but done with electric switching. I just cant quite work out how I could wire this up with just one foot switch. The 'always up" feature seems like it would be just the ticket for hot work, so you could minimize die chilling. my press moves fast enough that I'd be able to get alot more work done in each heat if I could bump it to shape instead of a slow chilling squish. if that makes any kind of sense. Sorry for the hijack, I hope that my question might bring about responses edifying to all of us, Take care, Matt

Been there a century or more, maintained? or unmaintained? Being that you live in england, I can't Imagine much would be left after a hundred years without, at least some paint occasionally slapped on. If he's looking for pitted, you can just be real sloppy with your heats and achieve that as you make it. If'n you you want the "years of oxidation" etch, throw everything in to a bucket of dilute muriatic for a full night, then without rinsing toss it outside for a couple days. then neutralize, and wax( or give it a dilutated paint wash, for effect. Really it all depends on the look you are trying to achive. Hope this helps, Matt

I dated one once.......a long time ago,,,,,,(cue the sad country music)

Hello there, It being coil spring it tends to be very bullet proof in terms of sloppy ( blacksmithy) heat treating. I'd go ahead and give it a soaking heat at about a low yellow / high orange, bury it in ashes and start all over again. Me thinks you'll be surprised at the difference. Take care, Matt

For blacksmithing I'd characterize it as two good jobs, ten awful ones...... especially when your starting out. Here in philadelphia I make most of my living with architectural work as of these last few years, Alot of that has to do with my snobbery. I really dislike crappy fab jobs and as I'm fond of saying, You can get pretty far in this world by knowing what exactly you aren't willing to do. The cash injections to my shop, that I suppose are a corollary to small production pieces, are the conservation/ restoration jobs I get (the generalized fixing of old stuff). If you think blacksmithing is slow try conservation. With my brutish methodology (torches and scotchbrite pads) I can accomplish, in a day what, the conservation company that I work through could, in 2 weeks. I charge accordingly., As grant sarver said, it's about percieved value. I am hoping to develope a product line of homewares to help insulate me from the rollercoaster ride of independent buisness ownership in the near future. Also I am connected to a big name in metalwork(through the previous shop I worked for) and so get alot of nice work though my former boss. Otherwise I'd have to spend alot more time in the horrible world of marketing. Hope this random snapshot of a working smith helps. Take care, Matt

i use phosphoric acid. it doesn't require neutralizing, it won't etch the metal. works about ten times faster than vinegar and it's realitively safe. zep prep and etch is a commonly available solution. dilute it 1:3 with water. Take care, Matt

Frosty's right, stamping yellin onto a gate does command a higher price, thats actually why I keep the yellin stamps next to my treadle hammer. On larger commisions that I design I stamp both my shop initials (M2B) and yellin for the sake of posterity. I freely mix and match. Most of my work comes through Clare Yellin and so people expect that funny little stamp. Though most of the designs are my own I still tend to refer to it as "yellin work" in that its yellin inspired, and of course it's a job acquired through Clare. Is that theft?.....From me, or by me? I love this discussion. Wonderful points of view all around, Take care, Matt

This conversation seems mostly focused around making one form of widget or another (bottle openers,hooks, animal heads ect) and really I can't think, I've seen any examples of things that fall into that category that are so rife with innovation that they could be solely claimed as the intellectual property of anyone. I can think of a couple successful(and accomplished) smiths that make the bulk of thier living from simple little things that beginners have been forging for over a hundred years. Hell, look at "boone's hooks" . Mike boone is a wonderful blacksmith but needed some production work to provide for his family and not spend every waking minute working his fingers down to the bone for rich people. So he made leaf hooks. And marketed them. Now the leaf hook is known far and wide as a boone's hook, at least among interior designers( so....where it counts) Is that unfair? and to who? I'll actually go one better and say If your starting out you should steal constantly. Every other artist that amounted to anything did. It gets ideas flowing and it will get you into your shop and save you from the crippling disease of wandering around in circles scratching your head, wondering what you're going to make this week. Your own style will develop itself from the act of making things. Its the making things that's important. If you selling the stuff just give credit where credits due. But to be more specific, you nor anyone on this forum has ever met the inventor of the rams head bottle opener.....ever. Good artists imitate, great artists steal.- Picasso/ t.s. elliot/ banksy/ me? Just my feelings on the matter, Matt

I personally find them underpowered for their size. though I would say the're really nice to deal with over the phone, so no faults there, I just have a few issues with their design. Are you located in the states? Take care, Matt

Hello there, Jef's dies had less of a slope over the long axis, he's a big advocate of about an 1/8 of an inch crown(making a quarter inch gap on the edges between the two) over the the length of the die, That being said his dies were about 4 inches long, and according to him he rarely works anything over an inch in his little hammer. Being that he has five power hammers all with different dies, this is not a problem. At least thats all the info I gleaned from him about the very same subject at the very same conference.You might want to just match the crown with the other side and try that? Hope this helps, Matt

I Have two quotes , scrawled across this wide webbed i beam that spans the width of my forging area,in large block print. The first is, "success is the ability to go from failure to failure, with no loss of enthusiasm" (Churchill), The other is, abit of a personal mantra and what I want written on my gravestone " worse things have happened to better people". These saying always do a pretty good job of realigning my weakest impulses. That being said, I much prefer working by myself so my meltdowns happen behind closed doors so to speak. As to your financial/vocational situation, you might want to find a smith whose work you admire and propose some part-time employment. You sound as if you've been doing this long enough, that you could make yourself , more than a little useful in most shop environments, and that way you wouldn't have to go anymore into the red for a little guidance. Congratulations on getting back on your feet, tailspins are hard to come out of. Boston would be a terrible place to be homeless( rudeness, weather, rudeness). Take care, Matt

Hello all, Have you considered a smaller cylinder with alonger stroke attached to some kind of mechanical advantage, like a first class lever? Alla Ironworker? Hoss Haley built a 100 ton + press with a 3" loooong stroke cylinder by putting the cylinder at the end of a proportionately long lever, and I have it on good authority that thing moves pretty quick ( my friend mike worked with hoss for a few months)He doesn't forge with it but mostly because he doesn't have to. You'd have to make a super beefy frame but steel is cheap and easy to come by, big hydraulic cylinders are not. If'n you look up hoss haley studios on facebook there are pictures of it. As far as speed is concerned, you ca get too fast. I have a 35 to c-frame press with a single stage pump powered by a 7,5 hp motor that moves at between 4.5 and 6 inches a second which is great......for both ruining work and my day. Even with the limit switches it's just terrifying and dangerous to use. One day I'll build a guide system for the ram and figure out a way to slow it down without getting rid of the pump. Hope this helps some, take care,matt

Hey there, I started a thread about building a straw bale shop awhile back, and it deals with many of the same issues and concerns you are having. A couple of people much smarter than myself gave beautifully exhaustive responses (thanks again, Alan!) in regards to all my issues of audibility. Search for "straw bale" it should come up. Take care, Matt

Tons of options, really. the third ward(philly) offers a basic blacksmithing/bottle opener class, and I myself can think of a passel of professional smiths that sure don't mind answering questions, myself included. Kindly PM me or email, if you want any kind of info. I also know of reasonably priced shop space for rent if you so require. Take care, Matt

And the chicken lays the egg, that rolls down the ramp, that knocks over the candle, that lights the fuse, that pops the firecracker, that scares the mouse..........that forges the metal? I wonder why it has so much unguided ram? a 25" stroke maybe? Sure is pretty to look at, though.