JNewman

The dovetails on my hammer are wider than the dies so the die does rest on the dovetail. From most of the work being done on the front of the dies the top die is tipped slightly forward and I had to machine a little off the back of the face on the die. At some point I am going to make some larger dies, Either 8x8 or 8x10 and I plan on making them rest on the wings and touch at the back on the dovetail. So it sounds like there will be nothing wrong with doing that.

Is there a reason that drop hammer dies rest on the wings but open die forging hammers rest on the dovetail?

I understand the reason for the tabs I was just curious as to why you would rather use the tabs rather than a center pin which seems simpler. Either way I think the anvil looks good. There comes a point where everyone would do things slightly differently. Phil you could put 4 hardy dies in and put 4 tools with hardy shanks in this anvil. 3 of them would have to be a little shorter but if you really wanted you could easily drill a hole under all the hardy holes

What size are you thinking about for the dies Grant? Looking at it I am thinking they are about 3x3"?

You are probably right Grant those dies would definately be much easier to make except for the wings. I do think that being able to quickly make up custom dies is very important for this tool to be most useful. You do make a good point about being able to make wider dies with this set up. I am curious about the change to the wings, On one hand you are making the dies easier to make on the other you are making them harder with the addition of the wings. Do the wings give you somewhere for the flash to go while forging them? The waste space thought came largely from two things I was thinking about, one was the fact that You went from 5 dovetails to 4 the other was the posibility of using these dies as hammer dies as well as anvil dies. I do think 4 dovetails is enough and that the advantages of the cheaper and possibly wider dies probably outweighs the loss of a dovetail

I would agree with what CBrann just posted and would definately not use them near there rated capacity.

Are these hooks for a lifting device Glenn? What is the material? Without knowing the material it is imposible to say how they should be heat treated. Usually it is much better to be soft because a gradual bending is better that breaking. If it is for a lifting device in a commercial application I would be very careful. The hooks I just finished had to be magnetic particle tested and sample material had to be impact tested. I also had to provide documentation from my heat treater. Often hooks have to be x-rayed on a regular basis. If these are standard hooks replacing them will probably be cheaper than all the testing. Are you willing to bet your house on your repair?

Personally I prefer the previous die incarnation Grant. This way you end up having to go wider which means less mass under the dies (might not matter). I don't like the gaps between the dies it seems like waste space to me which may be irrrational. I think most guys would be buying the premade dies or fabbing to mild steel blanks. I had assumed you would be forging the dovetails on the dies. I think I know how it could be done but I may be wrong.

Nice looking tongs Clinton

How do I go about buying one Glenn. I went to the tailgating section and when I go to Dvds there are no items.

I am going to order Bruce Wilcock's anchor Dvd and I was wondering if there are any format issues with playing a DVD from over there on a North American DVD player. I know that there were problems with video tapes but I am not sure with DVD's

Silversmithing stakes have to be polished to a high polish. I have been trying to break into that market but I wonder how many of these expensive stakes realy sell in a year.

Appart from Peddinghaus all Modern anvils are cast. Yes the horn would need a little grinding or perhaps vibratory finishing? Tumbling? Yes drop forged might be nicer but it would need grinding or some other post finishing as well.

I still like the idea of straight horns but I just had a light bulb go off. The horns wouldn't be horrendously expensive as castings. You would just have to touch the dovetail up with the mill or if it were cored as cast might even work.

I agree on the buy the basic anvil then have all the bits including horn as options. I made a quick and dirty straight horn the other day, by forging flats on a piece of 1.5" round bar so it would fit in my platen table and then bending it over so it hung over the edge of the table. Having a blank mild steel dovetail I could have just welded my 1.5" bar to it and it would have been a better tool because of the lack of bounce. Maybe a bunch of cheap straight horns would be better than an expensive tapered one?

Sure why not? :D

I have thought of machining slots like this in a set of hammer dies. I know you have done that in you Kick-xxx hammer but I was thinking multiples rather than just the one. If you go ahead with this fabbed anvil, I think I will make my slots the same size as your anvil slots so I can buy your inserts off the shelf. Any chance i can talk you into making the anvil 3 1/2" thick ;)

I realize the base adds a lot of mass but does it need to be that heavy? My understanding is part of the thinking of this anvil is to keep costs down . While I like a big heavy anvil you could be pushing the cost out of your market? Or maybe I have misread your market maybe this is a second anvil for bigger shops in which maybe you don't even need the horns. An option whichever base you decide on could be legs welded on to the base. Or that could be something the end user does.

Looks good Grant the only issue I can see is having somewhere you can drive drifts through. Maybe a deep slot running through one of your dovetails running parallel to the dovetail slot? The one thing I really like about the dovetails on my Massey hammer is that the top corner of the dovetail is well radiused. Because of this it is easy to machine the dovetail with just a ball nosed end mill and a regular end mill rather than needing a dovetail cutter.

I find bicks in hardy holes often bounce around a lot. What if you drilled a hole under a couple of your dovetails and then made dies with hardy holes in them. You could then use one of your other ideas and make hex hardy holes as well as square. Easier to make the square holes in the dies as well.

I like the concept Grant, but I don't like the horn attachments if the plan is to be able to change them. I use similar dovetails for loose pieces on patterns and it is amazing how little difference there is in size between sloppy loose and a locked taper. A tiny bit of rust and they could be very difficult to separate or they could loosen up with use if they have any slop in them. Machining those slots would also be two extra setups and difficult machining on the horn which would make the manufacturing more expensive. An alternative would be to add an extra two dovetails on the top on the ends identical to the four you have in the middle and then have a step cut on the bottom of a longer horn than you show with the dovetail on the step. This would put the top of the horn to the same height as the top of the dies. The key would hold the horn tightly in place as well it would be stronger. Dedicated horns/mandrels could be easily fabbed up for specific jobs.

Did the blade snap at the weld? I grumbled a little bit to my industrial supplier that my blades usually broke before they wore out. He asked me if the breaks were at the weld I checked and most were at the weld or within 1/2" of the weld. He asked me to return them and he would get them re welded. A week later I got a box with 5 new blades in it. Luckily I had thrown my blades in the scrap barrel rather than the garbage.

According to transport laws at least here in Ontario any compressed gas tanks must be transported upright. I realize that most of the propane in the tank is liquid but there is still compressed gass in the tank.

The other tool that can be usefull are curved cold chisels which can be used to remove lumps.

For cleaning up swage blocks are as mentioned above a 4.5" grinder with a worn wheel so the edge is nice and round works well. You have to feather the grinder on and off because you can damage the block in a hurry. Hold the grinder at an angle to the axis of the groove and it will give you a smaller diameter than the wheel diameter but larger than than the radius on the edge. The other tool that works REALLY well on ladle shapes and for refining the grooves is a Carbide burr in a die grinder. The Solid Carbide burrs are expensive but they really remove metal quickly and controllably, you do still have to be careful not to over do it though. Wear a face shield when you are using a burr as they just spray metal chips. The ones I find most useful are cylinders with end spherical.