JNewman

Well it was my first or second post.

Getting them hot is where my holdup was. I was being cautious (probably too cautious) in keeping the short heat so I was often waiting for stock to heat up. I did my nipping under my hydraulic press with a spring cutter which didn't have quite enough power nipping the chisels especially if the cutter didn't quite line up. If I start getting a lot more of this work I will have to set the press up a little better with a dedicated cutter or set up a cutter on my small hammer.

Despite the fact they were not instructional videos I probably picked up a little more from the older videos. What I am hoping is that the new videos are the first batch and they plan on more, we will have to see. One trick I immediately noticed in the old video was turning the pin with the roller when starting an eye on top of the bender. When I have done it in the past I have either done a bunch in steps and then adjusted the bending dog or adjusted the dog as I rolled the eye. Next time I will definately do it the other way. I was not impressed with the hydraulic set up on the Hossfeld although I have done some bending with mine that I could really use some extra push. I have done a run of 3" radius 180 degree bends in 3/4" pipe a few times and even with 10' of leverage it is a bit of a struggle. I would hate to have to bend any larger pipe on a tight radius. Even with the struggle I do think I bent the pipe faster by hand than I could with the hydraulics on the hossfeld.

The kiln I was thinking of buying has sold but there are others for only slightly more. From what I have read the heat treatment salts are not as corrosive as Sodium chloride. I will be carefull of the soft bricks and the wires.

I went to 4 rental shops looking for sharpening work. 1 gave me 25 points and chisels to sharpen, and they will send me more next time they need about 50 sharpened. Using Grant's information above I sharpened them in about 2 hours. I need to get a little faster and find some more shops that will send me more points. Unfortunately there is a shop in Toronto that is sharpening them for $3.75. I can't see doing them for less than $5 ea unless they have several hundred to do.

I think the tool you are asking about is a rope swage. You do need a power hammer or striker to use one effectively though. 3/8 is small enough that you could probably get away with a treadle hammer or possibly a flypress.

Looks like Hossfeld is starting to get off there marketing laurels. They have posted a series of videos on using the hossfeld bender. Here is one YouTube - HOSSFELD™ No. 2 Bender - Overview, Part 1 if you click on more from the same user you will find the rest. Much of the stuff is pretty basic but I learned a little on each of the videos. Hopefully they post some more. Looks like they are finally doing some direct sales as well. I needed a pipe bending die a few years ago and my local distributor carries NO Hossfeld product in stock. After taking 3 days to get me a price that was almost 3 times what I payed for an American Bender die they also quoted me 3 a week delivery. I would rather deal with a local distributor but when they keep NO inventory its better to deal direct. I should get around to ordering a manual from them I hear they are only about $5, not the $25 people are charging on ebay. There is also an old promotional movie (1950s?) for hossfeld that someone has posted in two parts that I also picked up a few things from. YouTube - hossfeld universal bender #2 (part 1 )

I use loose blocks under my hammer all the time. You do have to be carefull and to think about what could cause blocks to go flying. The one loose bottom tool that he used was a bottlom swage which had the stock holding it in place especially with the set hammer on top of the stock. The other was the snapper that he used cutting off the stock which I would think the bigger danger would be of the offcut flying if he had the side set a little too far over the snapper, however there was no one standing over there, as well he seemed be pretty skilled in that task. The sleeves looked no looser than many long sleeve shirts I wear in the winter. The only things I saw that I felt were a little unsafe were using a hand hammer on the bottom hie on a running hammer and the lack of hearing protection.

Used pottery kilns seem to be fairly cheap are set up for tempurature control and even for ramping up and down in temperature. Does anyone here use them for heat treating? How well do they work for lower tempreratures for tempering ? I have found a used kiln in fairly good shape for $200. I just got a PO for job where I have to forge quench and temper about 180Lb of 4340 and I also have a job that is supposed to be coming up soon where I have to forge quench and temper 250Lb of 4140 and 100lb of W1. The heat treating cost on the job I already have the order for, will more than pay for the kiln. I am also thinking with a few simple modifications it could be used for a salt pot

I question how much more efficient blanket is than castable if you are going to use the forge for a few hours or more, especially if you use a layer of ceramic blanket on the outside of the castable. Once the hard refractory is hot it acts as a heat sink so when you put in cold stock it does not cool the forge as much. Any insulation you put outside the hard refractory does not have to be rated for as high temperatures so is much cheaper.

I would be more inclined to use a power hammer for the texturing especially on pipe. The flypress is too slow and pipe is not going to hold heat very long. When I have done bark texturing I had the best luck with a lot of fast relativly light blows. If you have a hard time getting the light blows with your hammer put a stop block between the dies so that you cannot crush the pipe. My bark dies are a spring tool with a bunch of random depth hot cuts into the dies. I have seen them made with a bunch of hardface beads welded on the dies, and there are also ones for sale at blacksmith depot.

How is what he is wearing any mor dangerous than a Cotton apron? Did you look at the rest of the videos by the same poster. They were really moving making a tool that is not that simple a tool to make while that pretty simple tooling.

I think we need a little more information, dimensions, how true the rings have to be, clearance and how wide the flange has to be. Some options off the top of my head are bend a piece of channel in a ring spring it over the iner ring then elctric weld the channel. Make your ring and use metal spinning to close the flanges. Machine the outer ring and bolt or weld on the flange. Lots of other options based on requirements, volume and budget.

I thought the pay per use on the export was a good feature but much of what I import goes nowhere. I am going to check it out when I have some time to see if I like it. I may use it for jobs that I have to get CNC cut, and then use the Rhino for quoting. I was quoted about $4000 for Solidworks and it seems to be the standard for most of my customers customers, was it that much better than solidworks?

I had a quick look, will have to take a better look later. The big downside I see right away for short term use/learning is you have to pay to import other file types. Right now mostly what I am using Rhino for is opening files from customers. Paying $100 for each quote I do gets old very quickly. In the future I do want to be able to modify customer models adding coreprints and draft as well as splitting on a parting line, so that I can sub out CNC work and eventually do my own CNC work. So a stronger Cad program would be good. How much to buy the full version? I didn't see that on the web site.

There are lots of Ontario smiths who teach courses. Lloyd Johnston http://www.ontarioblacksmiths.ca/sales/Johnston-Courses.pdf Darrell Markewitz the Wareham Forge, Artisan Blacksmith Darrell Markewitz of Ontario Canada, Hand forged custom designs for garden, architecture, knives plus courses and DVD David Robertson Ontario Artist Blacksmith David Robertson Rob Martin Thak the Blacksmith &Armourer- Ontario, Canada Sandra Dunn TWO SMITHS These are all accomplished full time blacksmiths. Ask around at an OABA meeting, someone may demo heat treating for you. Stop by my shop I will show you how to how to harden a drift, chisel or punch. 180 Princess St. call first to make sure I have a fire going 905 544 5691.

One of the OABA members took a trip through asia and visited a lot of blacksmith shops. A few years ago he did a slideshow of his trip at an OABA meeting. The shops ranged from a place in Japan that looked nicer than my livingroom to a square of sidewalk in India with a hole in it which was the smiths firepot. Many if not most of the blowers in use were built from bicycles or bicycle parts. Many of the anvils were a piece of round bar or even a large sledgehammer buried in the ground. These were all blacksmiths making their living out of these shops.

Sorry 3"x3" forgot to hit the shift buttton.

That makes sense, I hadn't thought about the collar. I guess you must have hydraulics on your hossfeld as well.

Thats a good price. I just finished a job that I used 12 pieces of 3" round 4340 3' long. I paid about $15ea that's over $2/lb.

I am curious Grant why do you bend these with the with the Hossfeld rather than with power on the press?

I forgot to attach the picture

Things have been a little slow here so I made one of these bending jigs. I used a 6" long piece of 4.5" dia. stock for the rounds. I have a job that I have been told is coming for the last few weeks that I will be using it for. I have to prebend 200 3/4" round bars before I bend one end into a hook. This will eliminate the marking from my old bending jig. If some things I have been thinking about work out I can see myself using this jig quite a bit. I was thinking about what effect if any the saw kerf and cleaning up the face of the half round would have. In thinking about this I reallized that if I bolted half round swages with stops on top of the half round about 1" above the center of rotation the distance between the stops gets shorter. So THEORETICALLY this will upset the corner as it is bending. It may still need cleaning up in a swage but should get more material in the corner. I am going to take a skim cut off the faces of the half rounds on the mill so that I know they are parallel and then put 2 12" dowel holes and tapped holes in the ends so that I can fasten swages and other tooling on top of the half rounds. If I countersink these holes slightly I dont think these will mark up flat stock when being bent. I am also thinking if I get a little inventive I may be able to bend my hooks on the press much colder and faster than my old way of a bending jig on the platen table

Very nice control on that hammer! I looked at your other videos as well, lots of neat stuff. I like how the steam hammer holds a little after the blow when you you used the hand control so the stock didn't bounce.

Are you forging the bar down to the 3/8 before turning it and forging it square? If so that could be your problem.