JNewman

I don't know if I can cope with all these puns there getting to be a drag. Perhaps we should all chill and be parting before this becomes a pattern.

I built Ralph's sidewinder forge and am very happy with it. I did double up the insulation on the roof and I used black pipe instead of copper for the gas. I also skipped the idle circuit because I never used the one I had on a previous forge. Usually when I am using a gas forge I have multiple pieces in the fire and want it running steady. Occasionally I do shut it off for a minute or two but all I have to do is turn it back on and it relights. Much as I am happy with the forge I am thinking of converting the blowers to blown burners. I think I can get a little more heat out of them and as lately I rarely heat less than 1" stock, I want to heat things faster.

I need to get a new thermocouple for my Gas Forge and I priced getting them heat treated at a different heat treat shop. At the $1.25/lb I just got them to do the heat treat, worked out to about $55.

To add to your headache look at Rhino. You can download a full function version for free. The only restriction on the free version is you can only save 25 files before your have to buy the full version. I have been using Rhino for a few years mostly for reading customer files. More and more for patterns, I don't get drawings only a CAD solid model. Most of the files I get have been generated in Solidworks. I would love to get Solidworks, and probably would if I were CNC cuttting things or even subbing out a lot of CNC. But Solidworks is just so expensive and the free version of Rhino is doing what I need it to do.

I was speaking to a manager at a large machine shop the other day, and he was saying that right now a multi million dollar CNC boring mill that is normally charged in the $150/hr range is being billed out at $80 for some jobs and they are still losing out jobs to shops that are working even cheaper. There are some bargains out there right now.

I just milled the bop and bottom of a saddle die for my hammer that was flamecut out of 4" plate it is 10" by about 12". Now I must say the flame cut was very clean and the place that I go for flame cut plate grinds the slag off the corner. I laid it flat across the table with the faces that I had to cut on the front and back aligned with the x axis of the mill (a fairly small bridgeport type). I used a new extra long 1" roughing mill ($120) to clean up the face then took an extra long 1" 2 flute to clean up the roughness from the roughing mill. I then extended the ram to make the same cuts on the other side. I think I took cuts of about .05" with the roughing cutter and it didn't me more than an hour or so to clamp things down and make the cuts. I had to take off about .1" per face to clean it up. My new roughing end mill still looks brand new. Setting up for and cutting the dovetail took much longer. I think $80 is overly optimistic but I think if you shop around a little in this economy you should be able to get it machined for a lot less than $500. I would make sure that there is no slag on it and have CASH on hand to pay.

I had an interesting talk with Tom Latane a few years ago. When I mentioned something about how he must need to find rich customers for the very detailed labour intensive work that he does, he told me how he prefers to work for medium income customers as they have to save up for his work and thus the piece does not get discarded like this and ends up as a family heirloom. I can understand this but I also know much of the work I do is disposable.

It was a different part that I upset before bending. After bending these I have a bottom block that bolts on my hammer with a vertical hole and horizontal swage I drop the part in and hit the top with a swage. This straightens any slight bent in the shank, trues the corner up to 90 and upsets the corner slightly. The top tool is 90 but it overbends the part because the metal seems to bunch up a little in the corner when I first did these I tried just making the top tool wider than 90 degrees but that did not work I was thinking if I used the rolling die for this part I would cut the round into into a dedicated set of half rounds. I may still have to do the second step but it should keep the short leg straighter and give me a better finished product. After I made the first thousand I looked at my customers tooling as he used to make these in house. His die set bent the part the same way mine does but then they removed a stopper block then die springs hold the top part of the bending fixture down but allow the second stage of the die to push down on the short end of the part upsetting the corner. Their set up is slick and does a slightly better job than mine but they have been happy with the parts I have been supplying them with and their tooling is probably worth what my annual sales are to these guys.

Here is a picture of a top pusher tool that is contoured to the round bar that it bends like Grant describes. Above it is the bottom tool that I may replace with the tool Grant describes above. After I use this tool I have to true the bar up in a die under my hammer which also upsets the corner a little. Thanks for this STOCK answer Grant, using your fixture may save me from having to use the hammer. These tools have formed over 4000 parts, not bad for mild steel eh.

I would avoid using the between the studs storage in your case Urnesbeast you mentioned that you plan on doing woodworking in tis shop as well. You are sure to get sawdust down into these pockets that you cannot clean out easily. Sparks and hotcut ends of steel have an uncanny skill at finding flammables. If those are in the open with fireproof structure all around big deal. If those flammables happen to be inside a wall you could find yourself with a structure fire. I copied my steel rack from one of my steel suppliers. It is a vertical rack that is built of the industrial shelving uprights that look like angle iron with tons of holes. I then used 6" carriage bolts as the dividers. The rack is then easily modified if necessary. Google Dexion slotted angle to see the stuff I am refering to.

That is awfully deep. Mine is about 4-5" I have seen some as dee as 6-7". I thinks you will find you have to build the bottom up a little rather than cut the top, as most brake drums are cast iron and you are going to have a hard time trying to cut that with a torch. The other issue you may be having is your blower may not be strong enough.

I will have look into getting some re-pointing work. The construction industry is one of the few that is pretty busy right now around here. I appreciate your opservation skills.

Buy the book "Pounding out the Profits" It has the most complete listing of mechanical hammers that I know of.

There is no taper required in a 60 degree v block to forge a taper . The v has to be smaller than or identical to the section of the triangle. The metal moves on the top of the stock not in the v block, the v block supports the stock. The corners of the v block should be rounded so that they don't cut into the sides.

I assume you are talking about an equilateral triangle here. When I have done it I used a 60 degree bottom v block. You can use a swage block or make one. I wanted to use my power hammer so I made a swage. I took a piece of heavy flat bar and forged a 60 degree taper on the end and then cleaned it up a little with a grinder. I then used that to form the v block. Once you have the swage you start with round stock and keep rotating it frequently while forging the top.

These are getting welded onto about 4' of pipe. But the assembly drawing just mentions preheat welding and post heat. They are for scraping or chipping at the coke ovens. These are 1 1/2" x 3" in cross section at the heavy end with a 5" taper to a sharp edge. I have made other coke oven scrapers with a 12" handle and 1/2 thick W1 and others with 1"x2" on a 4' handle with a hook on the other end. The others were tempered much harder. The ones I did the welding on I did the heat treatment after welding, these ones my customer is doing the welding. I have been told the other ones I did lose there temper very quickly anyways. There is a reason for the 12' handle.

Thanks you guys I guess I should re read the metallurgy article here. I will quench and temper it, or send it out for heat treatment. I thought I could maybe save a step or a few dollars, seeing as this one was so soft. Some of the jobs I have been doing for one the steel mills specify quench and tempering. I have been heat treating them as the drawing specifies and the retired blacksmith from the steel mills own shop tells me just to normalize as them thats all they did. This job is for the other mill.

I thought about producing some hand crank blowers but when I priced gears that killed the idea. Not to mention there are a minimum of 4 different castings 2 of which have offset partings. To get decent prices on the castings the patterns would have to be matchplates or cope and drag. That is $8000 - $10 000 in tooling. The only way they could be produced in North America economically is if there were thousands made or if they were made with a belt drive. The market is no longer big enough for a hand cranked blower.

I have a job to do where the specs call for quench and tempering to 241/277BHN. My machinerys handbook says to temper to 1300 for 241BHN which is awfully close to the quenching temperature. I am thinking that I will probably get inside that hardness range with just normalizing. I was told that was the way a similar forging was heat treated at the now defunct blacksmith shop at a local steel mill. These are just chisel points that are going to get welded on the end of pipes. Are there charts in the ASM heat treaters guide with this sort of information? Are the charts more exhaustive than in the machinerys handbook? I have been thinking of buying this book but it is a little pricy if it does not have the information I want.

I make swage blocks and can forge fairly large swages but I am at a bit of a loss as to what you are looking for?

A combined wood and blacksmith shop is possible, but your shop design is a little small, make it bigger if at all possible. I have a commercial shop with patternmaking (woodworking) in one end and a blacksmith shop at the other. I do not have a wall between them and one would often be in the way, but my shop is 25x60 and I do have a welding curtain between the wood shop and metal athough I only draw it if I am doing a lot of grinding or arc welding. Here are some of the things that I would consider. Ideally your shop should be concrete block or steel, if that is not possible make sure you drywall the walls and ceiling so that if you have any sort of fire it will not spread. I think this is the most important as you are bound to have sprarks get into inacessable corners. Make sure you ALWAYS clean up any shavings and sawdust before doing any metal work particularly grinding and welding. I agree with Mike that you should use your cutoff saw outside if possible or perhaps a lean to on the outside. Grinding/cutoff saw grit will easily get embedded into wood and be difficult to clean. As well the chop saw is one of your biggest fire hazzards. A cuttoff bandsaw is a good alternative. I would consider whether you really need a table saw, table saws are real space hogs as well as being the most dangerous machine in the shop. A bigger bandsaw is a more versatile tool as long as you don't plan on using a lot of sheet goods. A large welding blanket is a good thing to have around the shop to lay over any flammable projects while you are working on metal work.

I am going to buck the trend here. I started with an overhead hood which did not draw well. A few years later I switched to a side draft with a 10" pipe and it drew better than the old hood. Recently I built a 34" conical overhead hood and it seems to draw quite well, when I first light the fire I sometimes get a little smoke escaping but I had the same problem with the side draft. I have the hood 17" over the forge but it hangs on chains and can be adjusted up or down. The reason I switched to the overhead hood was so that I have access to all sides of my forge, so that I have access to 2 power hammers, hydraulic press, anvil, vice and flypress. The other advantage to an overhead hood is that you get much less radiant heat on your face. Come the heat of summer I may move my gas forge under the hood on days that I am using the gas forge to help exhaust the heat.

Something I have not seen suggested is the fact that it is easier to weld heavier stock. try welding 2 1/2" bars together (even 5/8") rather than the 3/8" the heavier bar holds the heat a little longer. Just make sure that the bar is hot all the way through.

I was told by an old steelmill blacksmith that they were for making star drills, you would need a top one to make the other side.

A lot of the castings the foundry I was in are for undersea telecommunications equipment. They told me they had seen some that had been brought back up after two years under the ocean, and they were as shiny as the day they went down.