JNewman

That should work well, a former employer of mine had moulds that the shop apprentice would cast foam forms out of. These foam forms were used at a steel mill to make curved refractory tubes that molten steel was poured through for continuous casting. They do exactly what you are planning to do, cast the refractory around the foam and then they burn out what they cannot dig out.

I just read Randy's comments on the utube link and I see he did not use a Splitter Valve. I know the guy in Wisconsin (Chuck??) felt it was necessary, his press was wider I am sure that does make a difference.

The only thing with using two cylinders is that you need to use a splitter valve so that both cylinders get the same amount of fluid, or you can end up with racking. John Larson has done some experimenting with using two cylinders and there is a guy in Wisconsin area who's name escapes me right now who was making and selling presses with two cylinders. That splitter valve is not cheap.

I am all for painting it something bright. I find lots of light and a bright workspace helps keep me motivated. If you restored an old car would you be worried about keeping the patina or would you paint it. If you have a business who are your customers and what type of work do you do? Much of my work is bought by machine shops and purchasing agents, they want to see machinery that looks taken care of and new (even if it is ancient). They see machinery with "patina" they think either he will work cheap or what happens when that machine breaks down in the middle of my job. If they are well heeled yuppie types they see dirty old machinery and that affects what they think of you and your prices. Look at the pictures of Jesse James's old machinery in some of the threads on here people pay him TOP dollar to make things on those old machines. (I realize there is more to it than pretty machines)

While this was for my press rather than a platen table the principle is the same. I had to do some gentle varying bends to a template(around 15"-20" radius) in some 1"x1/2" stainless on Saturday and the biggest radius top shoe I have for my press is a piece of 3" round. So on my way down to the shop I had a thought. I have been making production bending dies for aluminum extrusions for the last couple of years for one of my customers out of hardwood. They are bending up to thousands of parts of about 1" thick aluminum to gentle curves. So I tried a piece of hardwood with about a 12" Radius on the stainless and while I did crush the top a little where the ram pressed against the wood and when I bent the end of the bar I did get a small impression in the wood it worked well. I do need to make a large radius bend shoe for general bending. I am going to make a shoe that goes on my press that I can mount wooden dies on for bending. Where I could see it being really usefull is where a number of large radius bends have to be made to the same radius, the die can be adjusted very easily to compensate for springback. I have made large radius dies out of hardwood plywood for my hossfeld which worked well for repetitive bends.

Lets see more videos from you guys. I do have another that I made form behind me of forging another style of chisel it is hard to see things as well. I will have to edit one night. I have only had this hammer running for just over a year. I have been using a Kinyon style hammer that I built for about 10 years. The checking tool is the tool to create a transition between the heavier section and the shank. If you sink a round spring fuller more than half way you have to be really careful not to get a cold shut when you forge down the small side. The step is 1" but the corner has to be 1/4" radius. The hammer is not really that loud, the camera sitting that close to the hammer picked up all the noise. I do wear ear muffs and sometimes ear plugs as well. When it is idleing it is not much louder than a small self contained.

Up till recently my only welder was an ac only lincoln welder. I used it to build a power hammer, made hundreds of tools with it and did quite a bit of paying work with it. I am sure that an ac/dc machine is much better but if all you can afford is the ac machine don't lose any sleep. In your position I would definately stay away from a Mig machine, a machine in the price range you are looking at will not give you the penetration you need making smithing tools. One thing I would advise is if you buy a new machine buy it at a local welding supply, an independant if possible. If the machine ever needs any service or you need help a big box store will not be able to help you. Building a relationship with a welding supply shop is valuable they can often help you. If you ever get torches you will have to get the tanks from the welding supply anyways. If you are the guy that bought his welder at the big box store to save 5 bucks they may not be as helpful. The independant shop I deal with now seems to have a much more stable workforce than the Praxair outlet I used to deal with and for a small customer like me their gas fillup prices are much cheaper than the big suppliers.

The foundation helps a lot with things not shaking but setting the camera on a 2000lb platen table helps as well. I used two different cut off tools in the video the first one is a common cut off tool that is often used on power hammers. I think Grant makes a version of this tool. Clifton Ralph calls it a scissor tool. The second one has a taper that is just a little bit steeper than the finished taper.

I can't take all the credit for the kiss block taper tool idea. I have several tools that came with the hammer that are taper tools with a lower spot for edging.

I have at least one other set of flat dies for the hammer maybe I should just take another set true up the top die to the bottom (I had to take about .02" of the back of the top die that is on the hammer to true them up) and just grind them to 3/8 or 1/2" radius.

Did you find any downsides to these dies Grant ? I am considering putting a 1/2" radius on one end of my dies they are currently about 3/16 radius.

The chisels get a piece of pipe welded on them and are used in the coke ovens at a local steel mill. I make some other coke oven chisels that are much lighter that are used for clearing out the standpipes and are used for scraping the charging doors. The hammer is a 5cwt Massey which has a tup weight of 625lb. After cutting the end off I still have a heat or two to finish drawing out the end. There is no secondary bevel on these so I have to draw the end out like a wedge which they want square. The thin end loses its heat quite quickly. I don't know if anyone noticed the spring checking tool is 1/4 round rather than triangular. Some retired blackmsiths from one of the steel mill blacksmith shops told me to make checking tools that way. They are much less prone to rolling than triangular ones. The only down side I can see with them is if you bury the tool and are not careful you could roll the top corner of the transition into itself forming a shut.

I picked up some Ti from Patrick at Quad state to try it out. I was thinking of making some ultralight tent pegs, a fork and spoon and maybe a fold up grill for canoe tripping. There are Ti pots made for mountaneering and ultralight backpacking I have been told they are naturally non stick.

I set my camera on the platen table beside the hammer and shot a video yesterday while I was making some chisels. I edited the video tonight and just posted it to youtube. I work on two of these at a time so some shots are of one chisel some are of the other. The starting stock is 2.75" dia 4340, I used to use 3" but the smaller dia means the stock is longer so is easier to hold. When I use the spring checking tool I have to bite off enough material so that I don't get a birds mouth, that is why I have to cut off material from the shank. I bit slightly off slightly more than I normally do in the video, I normally cut off about 2.5-3".

Another nice thing about Grant's tongs is they stand up with a repair just using 7018. The only reason I broke them was I cut the bits down so they were half the length and used the shortened bits for a production job on round bar, overheated them quite a few times and probably cooled them when they were a little too hot. The v bit split at the bottom of the v. I don't believe I would have broken them if I had not cut them down. I welded them inside and outside the v while they were still hot, let them cool, ground the bead inside the v and have used them for the last couple of years. Modifying and breaking the tongs was just a cost of doing the job. I was going to buy a new pair but they are standing up well enough that I didn't bother.

The plastercine idea is interesting not sure about using plexiglas though that sounds like as much work as making them from steel by the time I were to polish it enough to be clear. I had not realized that there was that big a difference in dies vs. swages. All the more reason for me to get around to modifying a set of dies to hold small dovetailed dies similar to Grants anvil. I will have to get a Carbide dovetail cutter made. I do have some dies with swages cut in them. the one problem I did have using them is having the work bounce out of the groove and then get caught by the corners. I am assuming it was bouncing out it may have been pulled out by the top die I didn't feel there was as much relief in the dies as there should be but because there were two side by side I don't have room to relieve them more. Talking to guys that used to run this hammer they mentioned that they often had a helper using a hooked bar hold the steel being swaged down. I though about building a spring loaded hold down but just switched to spring swages instead.

Dennis you should relieve the sharp corners more on the holes so you don't get marks on your steel. The bottom 45 degrees is the part doing the work. The steel squeezes out the sides and if there is a sharp corner it can cause cold shuts.

I know a guy who had a 300 lb Beaudry for sale. I havn't talked to him lately he may still have it if you are interested. I think he wanted $5000 CDN for it.

I thought about extra relief in the middle but hoped that enough of the reduction in diameter would take place before the bar made it to the middle. However I trust your STOCK answers. What do you mean by dies rather than swages?

Back when I only had a 50 lb hammer I used to forge weld the reins on the tongs in the picture. The volume is not yet high enough to tool up for the other two options especially the upsetting because there are quite a few different tong styles. Some of the tongs I am doing I get to just make a style of tongs and propotions are left up to me, others I get a drawing where an engineer has drawn something that could be totally out of proportion but that is what they want. I just quoted some last week that they want them made out of an alloy that is only made as plate, the hinge area of the tong is 1 3/4" diameter for a set of tongs that are only 24" long and they want a 3/8" bolt and nut rather than a rivet but they want the threads peened over. With the big hammer I am making them faster than I ever have and if this swage works as planned it may take a while to pay off but I am always looking for a quicker way to do things.

Tongs are the one product I would use this for right away although I do a fair bit of swaging for other things. I often make tongs like these in batches of 6 pair and there are several other long types I make as well. . I can easily rough out the round part of the reins in one heat but I cannot swage them in that heat. Because they are now much longer I have to light the second burner in the forge to get a long heat and it often takes two heats to heat the whole length of the reins. If I could rough and finish in one heat it would save a lot of time and I could avoid running both burners in the forge.

I don't like the idea of the spring in the new Kinyon design. I much prefer Steve's, Grant's and John's solutions. The wonderfull thing about a regular Kinyon type hammer is it's simplicity. Adding the leaf spring adds a bunch of extra moving parts, (which need to be guarded if you are running a commercial shop) and adds a bunch of places you can start to build up slop in the system. The only significant advantage I can see with the spring setup is for those with low ceilings.

I knew i couldn't have been the first to come up with this idea. If you feel it was just a not enough power issue that shouldn't be a problem my hammer has lots of power but does run slower only 140 blows per minute. I got rid of my metal lathe in favour of keeping a second hammer, I had no space for both. It was a beat up really old South bend anyways, I had no change gears and it would not take any sort of heavy cut. So I think I may forge the master rather than turn it. What I am thinking is use a spring fuller to rough it down , then use a larger radius spring fuller and a kiss block to finish it. Even if this ends up a little rough rotating it and taking light blows while finishing the swage should make it reasonably smooth. If the concept works but the swage is too rough or if I get too busy and need the die I may just get it cut on a cnc mill, I would think they could cut the two sides out in an hour or so. Thats much faster than I could make the master, forge the swage and then relieve the edges, and then forge or drill out and relieve the finishing swage.

Very nice. I will have to make a bed like that. ;)

I often have to draw 1" round down to 1/2" round about 30" long. I usually draw the material down to 1/2" octagon on my flat dies using a kiss block and then throw a 1/2" swage on and round it up. The flat dies draw it out fairly well but the whole process could be speeded up a little. I got thinking about combining a drawing die with a swage, here is what I came up with. I would feed the 1" in the left side rotating 90 degrees each blow, the right side is to smooth and straighten it out. Has anyone tried a swage like this? It is going to be a little bit of a pain to forge or I may get it CNC cut. If someone has tried it and it was a complete disaster I won't bother.