JNewman

Around here the coke was less than half the price of coal. I am not sure now as guys are getting it from a different supplier. One advantage for those in the city is that there is much less smoke. It does take quite a bit more air though especially if you plan on forge welding with it.

If you don't have an old axle, I just called and 12" of 1 1/4" 4140 is $7.40. That is buying just 12" at a small supplier. That would give enough for a hot cut a cold cut and a small hammer or hot set. For an extra couple of dollars they would even cut it into the lengths you need

That is what I got yesterday after I hit it hard as I could with a 12lb sledge. I was driving the key out of the sow block on my hammer using a handled punch but as I don't have 3 hands I had the punch propped up so I could hit it. When I hit it off center it came flying up and hit me on the cheek. Once the stars cleared I reallised that rapidly growing red puddle was coming from me. When I returned from the hospital I did what I should have done first, and built a jig to contain the punch and hold it in place while I hit it with the sledge. The other thing I did was move the treadle shield that had been sitting behind me interfering with my backswing. Not only were things safer set up this way but two good blows and the key was loose, fewer than normal.

I would get videos from UMBA rather than that video if it is the Clay Spencer one. It is just a video taken at a conference as are the UMBA ones. The UMBA ones are much cheaper and most of them have much more material. There are several UMBA videos available with treadle hammer work including at least one with Clay Spencer.

The customer dropped of another piece of material this morning and I bent it 90 degrees and then straightened it back out. No cracking so I am going to bend them cold on the flypress.

I have some machined aluminum pieces to bend for a customer. I would prefer not to anneal them as the not bent parts should be as stiff as possible. They are only 1/4" thick and I was going to go with a 5/16 inside radius 45 degree bend. Does anyone know if this is likely to crack or can I go ahead and bend it withot annealing.

When I assisted Elizabeth Brim at Caniron in Hamilton she had a piece of pipe welded onto the 2 pieces welded together. She then just held a rubber tipped blow gun onto the end of the pipe and blew the air in. Doing it this way seems much safer as you cannot get as high a pressure just holding the tip into the end of the pipe and if anything goes wrong stopping the air is just a matter of letting go of the trigger on the blow gun or letting it out of the end of the pipe.

I would not worry about that. Yes you will lose a little efficiency but not nearly as much as you would by not having enough weight, your best use of minimal funds is to get the most weight you can. Don't wory about specific dimensions. When you get the block of steel make sure you round the sharp corners (leave a small area with a crisp corner) using the radiused corner of the anvil to draw out will make a big difference.

O1 and A2 are both tools steels which are very expensive. You don't need tool steel for an anvil. You would be far better off to buy the biggest piece of mild steel you can afford. Yes something harder than mild would be better but having some mass is much more important. It will take a lot of forging to wear a heavy piece of mild steel and while you may mark it up with missed hammer blows you can grind or file those out or just flip it over and use the other side.

I just used a bottom taper tool on flat dies for the forging of the taper.

Where is your friends new shop going in? I would guess that DND has all the manuals and foundation plan but if not it is well worth buying from John at Massey.

There is nothing wrong or unsafe with holding heavy stock with tongs. I am currently using tongs to hold 2 3/4" round while forging under a power hammer. The tongs must fit properly but they are removed while stock is in the forge so that they do not heat up unlike welded on handles. I am not saying that welded on handles should not be used but tongs have been used on very large stock for centuries. The shop my hammer came out of commonly worked 6" or larger stock with tongs and a jib crane. The largest pair they had in the shop were 16" tongs.

Thanks I wanted to make sure before I did anything to mess this up. I really don't want to pay to test an extra one. Or make an extra forging for that matter.

Yes John the hammer is starting to earn its keep. I have been working a lot of 3" 4340 taking it down to a feather edge. I am actually using full power occasionally.

I am working on a job right now (4340 hook) that I have to get Magnetic particle inspected after I get it heat treated. There are no surface cracks allowed anywhere on the forging. After the HT the part will be covered in scale which I have to remove for the test. Will shotblasting, sandblasting, power wirebrushing or hitting with a sanding disk cause any problems with the MPI. Appart from being careful not to get any shuts are there any problems I have to worry about forging this?

While John's information is excellent I think you have to remember that the hammer installations he is speaking about are for huge hammers with tup weights weighing as much as your whole hammer. These installations are in the 10s or even 100s of thousands of dollars. You are installing a small hammer that if you are concerned about shaking from the hammer, just pour an extra yard of concrete in your foundation. That is about an extra 2000 lb of mass of inertia block for around $100. The extra weight makes a big difference. Put a 1lb block of steel on the floor, hit the side of it as hard as you can with a sledge hammer, now do the same with an anvil. My 600lb hammer with a proper foundation (that I bought the plans for from John N) shakes the floor far less than my homebuilt hammer does with a 100lb head and no foundation but the floor sawcut around it.

Here is the other metalworking end of my shop. I know it looks like woodworking but it is a pattern shop so therefor it's a metal shop ; ) My big post lathe is outside tarped up because it doesn't get used that often. I have a welding curtain that I draw between the two parts of the shop if I have a lot of welding or grinding to do. If I do any woodwork in the metal shop I ALWAYS make sure I clean up any sawdust or shavings before I light a fire, weld or grind.

Monstermetal click on post reply rather than using the quick reply, then click on manage attachments.

Here is the metal end of my shop, it looks pretty rough after Monstermetals shop pictures. I have some re arranging to do when I get a chance, I need to move the small power hammer and my belt sander. I try and keep everything on the side of the shop with the shelving mobile so that I can move it out of the way so that I can get larger patterns out of the pattern shop or occasionally the really big ones end up partially get built in this space. I also need to try and keep open space for skids coming in or out.

Very nice little vice I like the idea of an itegral spring rather than a separate one.

I will be picking up two other smiths at 6:00 and heading out. Should be there early afternoon.

I am reffering to business efficiency but also partially thermal efficiency. Yes I agree that if you are going to use the forge for only a short period of time having a forge that heats up quickly will save you gas, because the forge is on less time. I still think the idle circuit is a big waste of time and expensive plumbing fittings. The forge temperature cycles up and down as you put fresh pieces of steel into the forge and then they heat up, you want the temperature to rise in the forge while your stock is being worked so that the stock reheats quickly when it is returned to the forge. Yes I often leave the blower running when I am using a coal fire and I am forging for exactly the same reason, the fire cools down while I am forging. You do have to be careful if there are more than one irons in the fire and sometimes rely on the eyes in the back of your head to watch it. Good to hear that your forge is coming together.

I would argue that idle circuits often WASTE gas. I installed one on my first gas forge so I have used one. When you idle the forge the forge temperature drops so that when you put your steel back in and turn the forge up you have to heat the forge back up before you heat the steel. The steel then takes longer to heat up so you have the forge running for 5 hours instead of 4 which uses more gas. While the forge is doing the 30 minute initial heat up I can be checking my email, cleaning up and organizing the day before's work or even cleaning up the shop. Any time spent standing waiting for a piece to reheat is wasted time. I also find that an idle circuit is a waste as well because most of the time that I am using a gas forge I have more than one iron in the fire, when do you turn it down?

Biggundoctor next time you have a file in your hand sight down the length of it you will probably find a very slight bend in it.

One thing I have never seen mentioned about filing is that most files have a slight bend to them, probably warping from heat treatment. When you are doing the final flattening of a large area you should make sure you are using the convex side or you will allways end up rounding things off. I found this out when I worked for a company that repaired a lot of printing press cylinders, we used to go through boxes of files. Because we were fiing a small spot that we had built up with plating in the middle of an area that we did not want to cut we would use the convex side of the file and then throw it away when that side was dull.