JNewman

Why do you want to build a self contained hammer? If it is because you don't want to spend the money on a compressor I would recommend building a tire hammer I tried one of the ones Clay Spencer is building at Quad State and was quite impressed with the control. There are advantages to self contained hammers over Utility hammers but I am not sure the extra work and experimentation necesary in building one is worth it vs. building a utility hammer. I bought the book from Mark Krause and thought about building a self contained hammer but ended up building a utility hammer. There is some machining required to build the valving. You could probably buy Mark Krause's book from Bob Bergman at Postville blacksmith shop if you still want to go ahead, see the link in the recent Nazel thread.

Looking through the pictures on this page and there are pictures of one of the steelmills a few blocks from my shop.

I just changed it to his home page and the link seems to work now.

The load in a railway coupler is not on the pin. The hole on the coupler is actually SLIGHTLY oval so that when tension is placed on the coupler the load goes to the pulling lugs not the pin. You can buy 4140 prehardened, it is tough hard not brittle hard.

I would use at least the 14 guage for a side draft. I built mine out of 12 and did not regret it.

My original hood was an overhead hood which did not draw that well after a few years I switched to a side draft hood which drew better. I did find I got a LOT more radiant heat from the forge however, so I put a hinged steel cover over the fire hanging from the side draft hood. This cover had the added benefit of improving the draft and also was a place to store stock before it went into the fire (Pick up with tongs as it got hot). I have recently switched back to an overhead hood because I have a power hammer on both ends of the forge and the overhead hood allows me access all around the forge. The new 36" dia hood draws reasonably well with a 10" pipe. It is about 16-18" above the fire but it is easily adjusted up or down to suit what I am working on.

The book is available from Bob Bergman at Postville Blacksmith shop http://www.postvilleblacksmith.com/ He has a video available on rebuilding a Nazel. I bought the video from them and they sent that book and another book on building a self contained hammer. The video is not as detailed as I had hoped for the price, but there is a lot of good information on the valving on the Nazels in the book by Mark Krause on building a hammer. The book with the pictures shown above is an old sales brochure.

Why are you quenching your work? If you are not hardening things there is no need to quench your work, and the quenching may cause other problems such as cracking and hardening areas so that drilling could be difficult.

I would open the grinder up and check but green is usually ground.

At least it looks like it wasn't raining or snowing :)

Kick-xxx 350

I wouldn't worry too much about an apron as long as the clothes you are wearing are cotton. If you are forge welding they are nice to protect your clothes from sparks.

I built one of the forges designed by Ralph and I do like it. I have been thinking of changing it to a blown burner however. I have thought of either putting two small ribbon burners in the top where the burners currently are but I am leaning towards mounting them on the side as it would be simpler and a cleaner design. I think I would lean the burner up slightly to help spread the heat and give the flame a bit of a swirl. The reason I would go with 2 small burners is so that I could run one for a smaller configuration and 2 when larger. One thing I think I would do if I were building this forge now is to make the table at least 4" longer so that if I only want to take a shorter heat I have a table to support the other end of a bar on one side of the forge. I could then stack brick to slow the heat radiating to the rest of the bar. I would also have welded stock supports to each end, I will get around to that eventually but it would have been nice to do that when I built it before I painted it. I also have a Johnson forge out in the shed which I may bring in one of these days.

I don't have the bending stuff but I will sketch it up tonight as it has been described to me. The wheese is really simple.

That could also be cut with an abrasive wheel. If you torch cut it in half you could cut slices with a chopsaw and then cut the torchcut end off.

It will likely be early to mid February. I have to order a minimum of 50 from the foundry when I have them made and I need to wait till it is getting closer to the time to ship more to Blacksmith Depot. I am picking up 50+ of the 20 lb blocks early in the new year they have them cast but will not get them ground till they get back in January. I also 6 of the 140lb trunnion blocks sitting in the shop. If you need one quickly Rob has a couple for sale.

Platen tables can break with heavy bending as well. My platen table is solid 6" thick not hollow underneath and came from a steel mill blacksmith shop. They used to use a long bending tool (called a wheese(sounds like cheese)) similar to a fork and had another arm fastened to the table, they then used a come along between the wheese and the arm. Later on they used hydraulics as well. My table has a piece of 1"x5" flatbar wrapped around it welded at the end and bolted to the sides of the table. Without this flatbar my table would be in several pieces, with it, it is solid and quite flat.

I usually take the opposite approach to HWHII for those little walk in jobs. I will suggest they go grab a coffee and let them know where the Tim Hortons is. I tell them to come back in half an hour and have the job ready for them when they come back. I won't do one of those jobs for less than $20 and if it only takes 5 min they might feel ripped off. They come back half an hour later and we are both happy. Neighbors and freinds get these jobs for free of course. I had a guy come into the shop a few months ago with 4 big box store 1/2" cane bolts, he wanted another 90 degree bend 5/8" from the existing one bending the bar back on itself (not a 5 min job but not a big job) I quoted him a fair price I think it was $25, he complained that was more than the bolts cost him and was too much. I simply told him it was not worth my while for less and went back to work. He immediately told me to go ahead and was happy with the bolts after his coffee, I didn't make more than shop rate on the job but I am glad I didn't have him staring over my shoulder. I can go broke sitting on the couch at home or forging things I want to make I don't need to do it making other peoples things. I think I paid $15 the last time I had a 1x3 endmill sharpened, that guy is cheap.

The only thing about adding a copper shim is I have been told getting the key out with a copper shim can be almost impossible after a while.

Welcome to the forum Paul. Have you Joined OABA yet? You should come on out to some meetings.

That is a beautiful hood. I hope you plan on a blower for your exhaust or you will have to make the chimney much bigger.

Forge welding very small pieces together is tricky. Why not forge the cross from one piece. You could punch or drill holes in the corners and then split off the arms, or do a Christoff cross (Phil posted a link above). You could also forge a cross onto the face of a piece of flatbar, think repousse but thicker material.

I have been having the same problem. Customers who used to pay on 45 days are now 60+ and companies that were 60 are now 90+. The problem is they are getting paid slower so they are paying slower.

I try and get the shop better organized and uprgade equipment. This has two benefits firstly I will be more efficient when I get busy and secondly, invariably when I have the shop or machinery torn appart rush work starts rolling in. Things got a little slow last week so I tore the Massey appart I then got a rush pattern to make. I delivered the pattern Monday and thought lets move the small hammer to a new location before I use it to make the center pin for the Massey I started on that and an order of 50 hooks and chisels that get welded on a pipe that I quoted in June finally came in of course it is now a panic rush. Today an order for 2 pair of 40" long tongs came in and a panic rush pattern modification. So while I would like to finish cleaning and organizing the shop paying work has to come first.

I forged and machined the center pin for my hammer today. I ended up having to make the pin offset by about .05". I am not sure why it ended off by that much I think it may have been a couple of things that added up. There was already a shallow hole about 1.25" with mashed corners where I had to drill the 1.5" hole in the anvil, picking up the center of that hole when I figured out where to machine the slot in the sow block was tricky. I got everything back together and dressed the front of the top die a little because the front edge of it was not straight, it was bulged out about 1/16". Tomorrow I just have to grease up the key and reset it solidly.