JNewman

Those bits are extremely heavy and out of proportion to the rest of the tongs on a pair of tongs that look well made. I would suspect they are are for a special use. Maybe as Thomas mentioned brazing or soldering, or perhaps tempering. Another thought would be the bits are forming tools to make something or a pair of somethings. The hot steel would be clamped in the tongs and the steel then hammered around the bits for example you could make collars around the rectangular bit.

On my Massey I have a chunk of steel 2.5" thick x 4" wide by 14" long that I rest my heel on when running the hammer. When I got the hammer set up it just happened to be handy and I planned on using a block of wood but the heavy block of steel is nice in that it does not move easily when putting my foot in place to use the hammer. The guy who works for me who sometimes runs the hammer likes the block much closer to the treadle than I do so it is nice not to have it fixed. It happens to be just the right size that I can kick it under the treadle while changing dies and the treadle can not be depressed. I also have a treadle guard which fits tightly around the anvil and is a handy place to leave tooling. That is if an air hammer was any good to use with tooling Allan what did you do with your Blacker? I have a friend who just put in a Blacker around 6 months ago. He is happy with it but when I tried it out I found the extreme amount of travel on the treadle and the amount of force needed to press the treadle extremely awkward.

Not hypothetical at all. I will be delivering some new tongs to a customer Monday. They have a manufacturing cell that the tongs are for where one one guy loads work into a large rotary furnace then takes 2 hot pieces out of the furnace sets them on a stand. The second guy takes a part from the stand puts it in a large punch press which he then cycles. The part then ejects from the press goes down a vibrating chute to a third guy who fits the part into another press which he then cycles. The third guy then drops the part into a quench tank. The part which is only 1/4" thick is still hot enough to be hardened in the quench tank. A fourth guy then empties the conveyor coming out of the quench tank. This is not the type of work most of us do here and I have no desire to set up to do the volume they do in a day but they are set up to make efficient use of the heat. Ironically I think this is the sort of work where I think a mechanical hammer is just as good and I have heard that Bradleys can outlast an air hammer in. Hammering one stage in a part then passing it on to another smith using a hammer set up for a different operation. Or a hammer set up with dedicated dies to do all the operations. As far as the single blow goes. What I do when I need a single blow is to slowly bring the treadle down so the hammer is cycling just above the work then bring it down sharply and then let it off. Doing this you can get a single blow. I don't see how this is any worse than the squealing clutch and brake method used with your mechanical hammer. I am sure your hammer works effectively and maybe is better for you due to your prejudices against air hammers. But I think your initial statements about them being no good and no terrible for use with top tools is just wrong. I would have been happy to have a well tuned mechanical hammer if the opportunity to purchase my Massey hammer had not come up. But having it allows me to do a lot of the work I do much more efficiently.

It is possible to use the foot pedal to operate the hammer as John shows using the hand control. It does require either having a bigger heel block or balancing on one foot but it can be run in "single blow mode" by foot as well. That being said I very rarely use the single blow mode as I rarely find it necessary I can usually hit just one blow if needed. Being able to do four or five operations in one heat is far more efficient than doing one then letting the work cool. Yes sometimes doing one step then another then another is the most efficient. But in forging work it is often not the most efficient because you are losing the heat in the job between steps. In 1/2" stock that is less of an issue but in larger stock letting the material cool between each step means you are heating the material from cold multiple times. This means lost time and energy between steps. As well you are scaling the work up much more as you need more pieces in the forge at a time to heat them from cold as well as needing a bigger forge. The Henry Ford approach would be to do one operation then pass it off while still hot to another employee who does the next operation with another machine either on the same heat or while maintaining residual heat. I often do an operation or more then do another on the same heat on my press

Those dies are likely for making a specific job. I have a number of dies that came with my hammer and some that I have made that are similar. Some are dovetail dies some are just drop on dies. The center section on that die may or may not be used for forging but it definitely acts as a stopper or kiss block when using the outer areas. The one I used yesterday has a tapered section and a cutout that is 1 3/8" lower than the stopper area. I use it for forging chisel bars and pry bars which I make quite a few of. I use the tapered section to make the taper on the end of the bar and then the lower section to make the chisel end 1 3/8" wide. Or did you make them for working different thickness bars?

I have had really good luck with "Big Jake" gloves. Not cheap but not that expensive. The backs are fairly heavy cotton the stitching is kevlar and they "fling off" pretty well. They are thin enough not to affect dexterity but thick enough that they last and give a little cushion to your hand. I find I can get a couple of weeks out of them. Typical safety supply work gloves I get a couple of days out of, Harbour Freight type gloves I might get a day. Most of my forging is done on the power hammer or press so I typically wear gloves on both hands but I usually fling off the right one when I pick up a hand hammer.

Seems to me I was told there is a company in India making a mechanical hammer. But nobody is importing any. I expect the necessary guarding for first world countries would make adjustment difficult and add to the "buttons"

I made a pair of grilles to go over an ugly old radiator. The customer had a Scottish heritage and wanted something with a thistle in it. I came up with a design where I had a riveted grill out of flat bar with bits chiseled off the side similar to one in one of the Cosira books. But rather than just scrolling the bit out I tapered the chiseled off bit leaving a lump on the end , and then mashed that bit into a little thistle die I forged. Drawing out the stock between the thistle and the bar was a pain as it all had to be done by hand over a bridge tool which had to be pretty thin which mean all my hammer blows were very inefficient because of the flexing on the bridge tool. All the flash had to be filed off around each thistle. I was busy with other work at the time and I kept putting off working on this job to do work on jobs i was making money on rather than this one I was losing my shirt on. I finally go it done the customer loved it and brought a plate of cookies as well as the cheque when she picked it up. The picture is terrible it does not show the details of the thistles which I was quite pleased with, they had a raised diagonal checkerboard in the body and fluting on the tassels, and the finish looks blotchy. I lost my curved chisel for trimming the ends of the bars on this job. Spent about 2 hours looking for it and finally made another. That evening I dropped my shirt on the bathroom floor and heard a thump. The chisel had been in my shirt pocket all along.

Isn't a motor on a mechanical hammer always running wide open? You are then controlling the speed only with the clutch, That would be pretty touchy wouldn't it.

My hammer on this continent is a Massey. I have used the slow single blow only a few times and if I want to squeeze I use a press which is more controllable than a hammer for squeezing and more power. Yes air of hydraulics can fail but so can a mechanical hammer. I don't have a spring bouncing around at face level which has the potential to explode in my face. When I take my foot off the treadle the top die goes up to the top every time and is only moving at most 1/8". I don't have to joggle the clutch to get it to stop high enough to get my tooling under in the hammer. Yes the mechanicals are more energy efficient and more work can be done on repairing or restoring them without machine shop tools. That being said I have 2 friends with newer air hammers and all they have ever done to them over 15 years and 25 years of full time blacksmithing is top up the oil. That and dressing the dies is all I have done to my Massey in the 7-8 years I have had it set up.

Count me in to the air hammer camp. Tomorrow or Tuesday I have a connecting link to forge. The 1045 stock I have is a little under size in section so I will have to upset it slightly probably into a swage to round the corners so I don't have to cut them off later. I then have to fuller the bar and draw the one end down to octagon and then swage it round. With a mechanical hammer I would have to adjust the ram to the extreme top of the stroke for the upsetting. Then adjust it to do the fullering and forging to octagon and then either put up with the hammer not being adjusted properly for the swage or have to adjust it again. With the Massey I have no adjustments to make. Saying that an air hammer is not suitable for using with tooling is ludicrous. Probably 95% of the forgings I do involve tooling used under the hammer either hand held or held with a hardy hole cage. Any of the self contained air hammers I have used had very fine control. Some of the mechanicals not so much. I realize many have added brakes to hammers and many hammers came with brakes to achieve similar levels of blow control. The ability to adjust the ram to allow faster light blows is certainly an advantage but personally I feel not having to adjust the ram to forge different heights outweighs that advantage. I have some coke oven chisels I forge where often in the first heat I partially flatten the stock then check it, draw it out, cut it off, swage it and finally upset it in a bolster sometimes on top of the swages so I can get it done while I still have heat. I am forging down to 1" and then in the same heat I am forging something about 7" high, 11 if I do it on top of the swages. I could not do that with a mechanical hammer. It took me 2 heats in this video but I did not have to adjust the hammer between heats. I normally have 2 of these on the go at a time one in the forge while I am forging the other constantly adjusting the hammer would really slow me down. A home built utility hammer like a Kinyon, Iron kiss, Big Blue etc. do have the speed adjustability a mechanical hammer has and in many such as the iron Kiss or my smaller hammer they can be adjusted in seconds. That being said most of the mechanical hammers will outlast most of these type of hammers in heavy duty commercial use. Any power hammer will change the way you work and can be used to turn out fine work and every hammer has its advantages and disadvantages. Allan that is a beautifully clean looking forging.

I use mostly induction and gas these days however coal or coke is better gas for lots of forging and I did use it quite a bit before I got the induction forge The waiting is not going to change with gas over solid fuel unless you are working multiple pieces which you can do in both solid fuel forges or gas. Solid fuels will give you a hotter heat than most gas forges which is much better if you are working by hand.

I have watched a couple of the shows hoping to see some decent content and have been mostly disappointed. But the broken down power hammer was the final straw. As others have said changing that motor out would be at most a 2-3 hour job and a motor big enough to run that little giant can easily and cheaply picked up lots of places in any North American city. As well the air hammer was already in the background while they were going on about the broken down hammer. It is too bad that these shows feel they need all the drama to sell the show. And even more disappointing is that maybe they are correct.

I remember a 25 lb Little Giant several years ago that came in at one price on a big truck and was then sold about 4 times over the weekend all before leaving the truck. It had each price written in chalk which was then crossed off and a higher price written below the previous one.

Either clamp the mould closed or put some weight on the top of the mould and you will get much less flash. You have hydraulic pressure from the liquid metal lifting your cope.

I have to ask Kevin, do you smith for a living? Nothing wrong if you don't, and there are lots of amateur smiths who are better smiths than some pros. But smithing for a living is what the OP was asking about and unless you are in certain niches (lockwork and similar detailed work springs to mind) making a living in the first world is hard enough with a power hammer let alone without. A power hammer allows you to forge many more hours in the day and do much more work in those hours. It also allows you to work heavier stock than is possible by yourself and with bigger power hammers you can forge bigger material than is possible even with strikers. I don't forge even close to full time here but there are weeks where between myself and a helper the hammer is going 40 hrs a week usually with a press going as well. 99% of the jobs I do I would be making less than minimum wage, working by hand . Working with a power hammer several of the repeat forging jobs are very profitable. and I do OK on the others. I do agree that becoming ambidextrous is a good goal and can be a very useful skill. I do know another smith who had to learn to smith left handed to finish a large commission after an injury, he finds being able to smith with 2 hands very useful. He has a Nazel as well however.

I am in Hamilton and you are welcome to stop by. We are here business hours and often on a Saturday as well. Mostly pattern work right now but in 3-4 weeks we could be forging all day instead. 178-180 Princess st.

Several years ago one of our OABA members did a slide show at one of our meetings of his trip though Asia.. He visited a lot of blacksmith shops many with a roof only, many of them with a piece of round bar on end as their anvil. These were full time blacksmiths. One I remember in particular was a shop on a busy street in India, it was about 10' wide when working and about 4' deep with a steel rollup door on the front, this was a shop that 3 or 4 smiths worked out of. They did spill out onto the sidewalk a little when working but even if they doubled the size that is still 3 smiths working in 8x10 with lots of pedestrians walking through half the shop. He did not take any pictures but mentioned their were also smiths in India he saw who worked out of a square of sidewalk, a hole chipped in the sidewalk as their firepot.

A cross peen hammer with a wide peen will mark up the inside which as long as the dings are not extreme will not cause too many functional problems. If you want it to b be pretty inside use a fuller on the top rather than hitting it directly with a hammer. In this case a fuller can be as simple as a larger diameter piece of round bar with a smaller bar welded on as a handle. Think hotdog on a stick. A striker with a sledge is very helpful but not necessary. Make sure you round the ends of the fuller so you don't have sharp corners to dig into the inside.

I like Charles' idea. The grouser bars on a Nodwell flextrack would be fairly easy to hot forge under a press with a die. The profile on a Thiokol or Pisten Bully grouser would be tough to make but an angle iron piece would work as well. You would have to bend and weld the guide pieces that keep the track centered on the bogies. The only problem with a snow cat type track is that your first contact on the ground is steel or aluminum which does not give you as much traction on paved areas without carbide studs. Off road they are hard to beat.

I went to the suggested website. While $65 for a 1 off aluminum item that is 23grams may not be that expensive as there are no tooling costs. But it is awfully expensive for something that dozens are needed. The shown parts could likely be CNC machined for much less than they can be 3d printed if more than a couple were being made. A solid block of aluminum with the dimensions you described would be about 89 grams so would likely be in the $250 each range going by the prices on that website. . I never suggested melting pop cans. The original question was about buying a furnace,crucible and other tools so I would assume the OP would be buying new material or appropriate scrap. Another option would be taking a matchplate to a foundry and having them cast the parts. However for only one set of tracks machining them from solid may be the cheapest way to go.

Metal 3d printing is a very expensive process. 3D printers that will print metal are close to a million dollars print very slowly and use expensive consumables. They are good for parts that are difficult or impossible to machine.

Are the treads you are looking at casting as small as the ones you show held by hand? Those look to be die cast which is probably the best bet for something that small and detailed if you were making thousands of parts but is way outside the scope of backyard casting. You could investment cast them making a mould for your wax patterns. If they are bigger than those small ones they could be done by sand casting which is more suitable to a backyard project. You need a lot of castings for this project so I would suggest making a matchplate with multiple patterns on it so your moulding will take less time and you end up with several parts every time you make a mould. With sand casting you are going to need to machine the parts as Hay River states. Die cast and investment cast you MIGHT get away without but machined parts are going to operate much more smoothly and die cast parts tend to be weaker.

There is a large aquarium about half an hour to 45 minutes away. I have not been but I heard it was good from someone who had gone.

Thanks Jim and Neil (where did Neil's post go?) I was leery of going with the polymer but thought I would see if anyone would say it was working well for them. I spoke with a technical salesman at Houghen this afternoon and he referred me to a PHD specializing in HT they have on staff who recommended Houghto-Quench G. It will be fast enough to get the hardness I need for my primary need fast enough for W1 or 2 in thin sections but shouldn't crack my 4340. I will probably be getting a 50 gallon drum from them so I will have 20-25 gallons for sale in smaller quantities for anyone interested here in Ontario.