JNewman

Leo a retired industrial Blacksmith who stops by my shop most weeks tells me they did a lot of industrial forge welding much more recently than that. Back in the 50s and maybe into the 60s they forge welded links for lifting chain bridles and lots of other things. They brought in 'anti borax" welding flux by the 45 gallon drum. They would go though a drum every few months. But at some point all of that work switched to electric welding.

I wonder if part of your problem may be in your location. "2nd hottest place in US behind Death Valley" Is your area dusty as well?

No such thing as cheating. I have set up a guillotine tool for punching with a die underneath. It was for punching a tear drop shape hole consistently in the same place in some specialized pry bars. It worked OK but not well. I had die springs to pull the punch out a stripper to hold the part down and a machined guillotine tool. The punch and die were wire wire EDM cut out of H13 but were aligned and welded in place not built like a proper dieset. I drove the punch with a 100lb power hammer. I would NOT recommend all this for regular holes in normal work. A treadle hammer or power hammer would be a much better tool to assist you with punching. It does not have to be an inline style hammer or one that the head adjusts up and down. A treadle hammer is an excellent tool for punching and chisel work and can even be used for some LIGHT spring swage work BUT IS NOT A POWER HAMMER!!! Treadle hammers give you slow very controllable heavy or light blows but using the corner of the anvil or the horn as a fuller you can draw out more quickly at the anvil. I sold mine a few years ago because I did not have space for it and I still occasionally miss it even though I have 2 air hammers.

No such thing as cheating. I have set up a guillotine tool for punching with a die underneath. It was for punching a tear drop shape hole consistently in the same place in some specialized pry bars. It worked OK but not well. I had die springs to pull the punch out a stripper to hold the part down and a machined guillotine tool. The punch and die were wire wire EDM cut out of H13 but were aligned and welded in place not built like a proper dieset. I drove the punch with a 100lb power hammer. I would NOT recommend all this for regular holes in normal work. A treadle hammer or power hammer would be a much better tool to assist you with punching. It does not have to be an inline style hammer or one that the head adjusts up and down. A treadle hammer is an excellent tool for punching and chisel work and can even be used for some LIGHT spring swage work BUT IS NOT A POWER HAMMER!!! Treadle hammers give you slow very controllable heavy or light blows but using the corner of the anvil or the horn as a fuller you can draw out more quickly at the anvil. I sold mine a few years ago because I did not have space for it and I still occasionally miss it even though I have 2 air hammers.

Foundryman are your moulds made with patterns or do you use sweeps to make the moulds? I am a Patternmaker and my textbook from my apprenticeship showed bell making with sweeps, but many of the things that used to be done by the moulder are no longer done that way and we patternmakers have to make full patterns and follow blocks or cores for things that the moulding could be cut in.by a good moulder. Even for one offs. Back on track, I used to forge weld on reins for steel mill tongs that were 1045 which needs pre and post heat for electric welding. I could weld on the reins as quickly as i could have done the prep then pre heat weld grind and post heat. With the forge weld there was not a filler metal that was a different alloy which could flex differently. There are ornamental forge welds that can be as fast or quicker than electric and they don't require grinding after the weld. Getting rid of grinder marks in work finished clear can be very difficult. All that being said I very rarely forge weld anything these days. Usually it is for "trying to do it the old way" reasons.

Guess my "most" should have been some. :(

<script type="text/javascript"> // Thank you for pointing that out. I just looked up the chemistry. I knew it was similar to 4340 that does contain nickel (which is about 80% of what I forge). Looks like the nickel content is the main difference between the alloys.

The 1/8" to the foot is in the female on MOST hammers. This way the dies are all made parallel. I would say the taper is likely to be the same top and bottom but the dovetail may or may not be the same size.

Seems to me Nathan Robertson mentioned to me several years ago he was using 1144 for hammers at the time because I was able to get a good deal on it local to him. I could be wrong but I am pretty sure that was the steel. He didn't mention any problems with forging it.

If the crack started at the eye I suspect you had a cold shut there. Did you punch the hole or slit and drift? Slitting and drifting is more likely to cause cold shuts especially if you don't get the 2 slits lined up perfectly. Punching is a better way to go with higher carbon or alloy steels.

Vegetable oil is actually a faster quench than normal mineral oil. I am not sure if 4140's correct Austenitizing temperature? The Nickel content may throw it off. Quenching from too high a temperature can cause cracking

Glad to help. Good idea to use 2 stamps. 100 is a lot to make eh :rolleyes:

A foundation is there to provide extra mass. I don't know how high the dies are for your hammer, but a lot of the smaller hammers need to be raised a little anyways. Build an above ground foundation. The heavier the better.

Many of the foundries I do work for dig out most of the foam when they occasionally use foam patterns. This cuts down on the amount of gas and smoke released when they pour. This is using airset or sodium silicate sand however so the mould is much more rugged than a green sand mould.

I assume they don't fly very well?

I have often though belleville washers would make a good power hammer spring for a dupont type linkage. http://www.spaenaur.com/pdf/sectionD/D41.pdf They are adjustable in length by adding or removing washers. You can make them stiffer or less stiff by the way you orient the washers and if you break a washer it is less likely to shoot out and you are only looking at replacing one washer not the whole spring.

I don't know how you guys in the south work in the heat. In the summer I try to avoid using the gas forge on days that it is in the 30s Celcius (90s f) we do tend to get high humidity with the heat as we are on Lake Ontario. I will run the AC on days that are hot if i am only running the coal forge and it keeps it much more comfortable, even if it is just removing the humidity.. If you were using induction heat the AC would be even more feasible.

I am not as familiar with foam pattern casting defects, maybe you are right and you did not have enough venting foam does create a lot of gas but you definitely have shrinks in that casting as well . For a blocky shape like a hammer you need risers that are a heavier section than your hammer. You can cheat on the size by feeding through the riser which superheats the sand in the riser, and some commercial foundries use insulating sleeves or exothermic sleeves which help keep the riser hot longer. You want the casting to freeze BEFORE your riser so that the molten metal in the riser feeds the shrinking casting. Usually the foundries I deal with design the gating and these day are more and more using computer simulation to prove the gating. But if I were gating that part for a customer and they asked me to design the gating, I would do it this way 1/2-3/8" diameter sprue feeding into a well in the drag I would then run a runner bar in the cope then an ingate tangentally feeding a 2" diameter blind riser (vent if it were foam) then an ingate into the casting in the drag. Ideally you want to feed a casting from as low a point as possible. If you are using foam that is easier to do as you don't need a core to get you to the bottom of the drag of the mould. Some foundries prefer runner in the drag and ingate in the cope but using brass that is dirty like yours it will help to trap slag and loose sand in the top of the runner as they float in brass. Sand does not float in aluminum.

<script type="text/javascript"> // Told you I wasn't a Little Giant guy. :rolleyes:

It's hard to tell from the picture for sure and I am not a Little giant guy but I think that may be a 50lb hammer not a 25. It does look like it has been there a long time. I suspect it will take a lot of work to get those dies out.

Good job!! Nice to see you got it done despite the naysayers.

Nothing really weird. A few hundred compost mixing teeth for a mushroom farm. Replacement parts for a wine press, a replacement spring for a thickness sander. I also make lifting bails for a dog food factory.

100 pc. is a lot to make and I cannot imagine they want to pay much for them. You don't mind making peanuts on a couple of pieces when you are learning but 100 is a lot to make and you will be hating them by the time you are done. I would be inclined to make a stamp with there logo on it, weld a handle on it so you don't smash your hand. Then slice a bunch of slugs from a round bar say 30mm round 6-10 mm thick. Then take a good and hot heat on the slugs and with a heavy hammer give the punch a real nice blow, or even recruit a helper to strike with a sledge. You want it to squish the slug nicely so it deforms it nicely. You might want to pre forge the slugs by using a flatter or a better yet an regular hammer (scrap hammer) face held against the slug (anneal the opposite face of the hammer) With a really good heat on the slug hit the flatter or hammer with a sledge to get a bit of a bulge. You need the slug really hot and a really hard blow to do this or you will get sharpened corners rather than a bulge. A square slug might be better than round as the distortion from forging will likely be more obvious. If you don't want to make the stamp or you want them more unique you could stamp the shape with a fuller or 2 and a curved fuller. That might be better if you don't have a striker. .

Patrick's 5 degrees would require even less grinding than the 7 or 8. I forgot to mention. I drilled dowel holes in the flat bars and into the anvil that made up the female dovetail because the key puts an extreme amount of force trying to move those pieces. As well it holds everything in place while you are welding.

Bolt on dies work well and are likely the best way to go right now. But dovetails are more reliable for keeping die alignment and are a more rugged method of retaining dies than bolt on. I would forget the hex stock though. Hammer dovetails are typically only 7 or 8 degrees as opposed to the 30 degrees you will get with your hex. Cutting the hex accurately longitudinally will be difficult. As well I think you will find it difficult to to maintain the dovetail angle while welding with such a small bearing surface on the bottom. I made a set of weld on dovetail dies for a treadle hammer quite a few years ago, they worked very well. I used 1"x2" flatbar for the dovetail with the dovetail angle ground on with a disc sander. If I were to do it again today I would probably use 3/4" or 5/8" flat instead of the 1" as it would require less grinding. I think I used 10 degrees for the dovetails the 7 or 8 commonly used would help reducing the grinding. I think this would actually be less work than cutting the hex even if you had to use an angle grinder, files and a protractor or template. If you do make dovetails make sure you grease your keys well every time you drive them in. Steel on steel is very prone to galling, as well without the grease rust will lock your keys into place so solidly you may not be able to remove them.