JNewman

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.

I would be inclined to try 1045 its reasonably priced and yet has some extra carbon. It is also readily available.

Beryllium is bad news. VERY toxic. I was through a foundry a few months ago that casts a lot of Beryllium copper they have to have to clear everone not wearing a respirator out of the area when casting the berylium and especially cutting and grinding it. I think it may have been powered respirators. The plant manager told me that the grinding was far more dangerous than the melting, but I don't think I would take the risk for the sake of a few dollars worth of bronze.

I have this rack but I also have 2 slots in my normal steel rack that I have full or long lengths of 1045 and 4140 that I use a fair bit of. The stuff in the normal rack has what they are, printed on the side in yellow paint marker in several places allong the bar.

I put 1 1/2" of hardwood under my Massey as which is what my foundation drawing recommended. so far it seems fine.

I had an opportunity to buy my 5 cwt Massey cheap 3 years ago I couldn't afford to install it till this fall. What I am sure Grant and Forgemaster are aware is how much it costs to install a big hammer. I spent 3 times what I paid for the hammer to put it in and put a new motor on it. Plus I put many hours of work into forming, pouring concrete, leveling the hammer, forging hold down bolts and building a motor mount. Now I just need to find more work for it. I am trying develop some products to manufacture, using it. Here is a picture of my tool holder with 2 sizes of stopper/kiss blocks in it but I think I will be adding a flipout setup to the other end soon. The tool tray over the treadle prevents you from dropping things on the treadle. These are some of the swages I plan on changing over.

I made a swage a few weeks ago that registration of the top and bottom is critical so I put pins in it as well as a spring. After looking at your pictures Forgemaster I am thinking I should have skipped the spring. I have a larger version of the same shape to pin together tomorrow I am definetly skipping the spring. I also have about 70-100 pinned swages that I got with my hammer that have a handle on them for a helper. I was going to cut the handles off and add springs to them as I needed them because I don't have a helper to hold the handle. But I am now thinking of just adding a shank to them. I am not sure it will work with the ball swages though.

Look in the Yellow pages for steel. A few minutes on the phone and you should find a place or two in your area. Many places will make you buy a full 20' length but some will allow you to buy a half length 10'. Most places will charge you to cut stock in half so you can transport it. Some yards will sell you part lengths in larger sizes. 1/4" -1/2" stock will be pretty cheap and it is worth buying that in 10 or 20 foot lengths.

Thanks for posting your set ups forgemaster. The stopper setup is a neat idea. I also like the idea of not having to pick work up off the floor when you drop it.

Hello coldcash. Have you joined OABA yet? Come on out to a meeting, there is lots to learn at the meetings and you may find someone else very close to you.

I built my hammer with the origional Kinyon plumbing and have had no problem with control, I can tap very lightly or hit hard. The one thing that I think is very important is to use faily large control valves and hoses. All my hose is 1/2" and I think the ports on my control valve are 1/2" as well. Make your pilot valve easily adjustable, I adjust mine up if I am using tall tooling under the hammer or if I want to hit a lot of light fast blows or down if you are just drawing out stock or want slower heavy blows. The one change I made to the control circuit after a few years is a change that John Larson came up with and then mentioned on keenjunk. John is the designer and builder of the Iron Kiss hammer and has spent a lot of time testing various control circuits. He was very generous with sharing many of the results of his testing over on Keenjunk. The change made causes the ram to return to the top of the stroke when you take your foot off the treadle, this is particularly useful if you use a lot of tooling under the hammer. This change involves adding an extra pilot valve in the air supply for the pilot valve. The new pilot valve is actuated by the treadle so that when your foot is off the treadle there is no air supplied to the pilot valve that is triggered by the ram. A small leak in the exhaust is then introduced so that when your foot is off the treadle the air in the top of the cylinder leaks out and the ram rises to the top of its stroke. Because there is no air to the pilot valve it does not trip the control valve. I believe John has come up with a new even better control system for his hammers but they involve a custom made exhaust valve that John builds for his hammers.

Most of my spring swages are 1/4" x 1" flat bar beause it is a size I usually have in my steel rack. I have a couple of swages made by Allen Kress and an Off Center swage that both use 3/16"x1" that seem to work fine. If the swage is particularly heavy I go with a heavier bar, I am using one now that I used 1/4" x1 1/2". I have only ever used mild steel for the springs. The only time I have ever had a problem with the spring is when I was using a 1" swage to swage 250 bolts made of 4340, my hammer was small for the job and I had to hit each bar a lot of times. I broke the spring beside the weld a number of times, but that was an extreme situation. I just noticed you are looking for a spring for a fuller rather than a swage, often for smaller diameter fullers you can just bend the bar in a loop and use the stock you are using as the fuller as the spring. Larger sizes you can weld on flat bar as for a swage.

I like the idea of your table. Is it set a little lower than the die? My hammer has a lower table/treadle guard which is useful for piling tooling on, but I think the higher table could be usefull for a lot of things.

I just checked the belts and then VSM's web site this morning and I was incorrect the belts I have in the finer sizes are not ceramic. My 80 grit is ceramic. The finer grits are something that VSM calls compactgrain. They are strange in that when I pulled out the 400 grit I thought they were printed wrong the belt felt like it was 80 grit but when I used it, it was definately the finer grit.

I bought them from my local industrial supply house. EN tool in Stoney Creek Ontario. The belts are made by VSM, I spoke to the regional Salesman from VSM and he was the one that suggested getting the ceramic belts. I will post the part numbers tomorrow when I am down at the shop.

Well I got them about 6 years ago and they had been in a shut down shop for at least a couple of years. They might be as much as 15-20 years old. I got my new belts today 80,220.320,400.600. (120 is on backorder) I ran all of them at full speed and had no problems although I found the 600 seemed to cut a little better a little slower. All except the 80 are ceramic, man do they cut fast, I barely missed the 120 grit belts. I am thinking about finding a way to adjust the belt tension on the fly though certain spots I want the belt really slack others tighter.

Thanks for the replies. I did the math and the belts are running at 3600 fpm which did not seem to quick and its good to hear that it is not. It may be the age of the belts but it may also be that my spring is too short and I am bottoming it out and then overloading the belt.

You will Want to see Thak for that. I do have a 300lb anvil that I had cast in 4340. I still need to get it heat treated but it would cost you about $2000. Let me know if you are interested.

I just finished a KMG clone grinder and have been using some old 60grit norzon belts that I got a couple of boxes of for free. They are 96" x6" I have split them down to 2" wide and I built the tooling arm long so I could use these belts. My question is what is the highest speed that these belts should be run at? When I first ran one of these with a 4" drive wheel at 3500rpm the belt flapped and blew appart. I then tightened the belt a little and used a belt a fair bit before it too came appart at the joint. Am I running these too fast? I am using a slack belt setup. I have $350 worth of finer belts coming Monday or Tuesday and would prefer not to destroy too many of these. I am not using these for knives but I figured this was where the most belt sander experience would be.

DO NOT QUENCH THE TONGS FROM RED HOT. They may be medium carbon tongs and could break. I once modified a pair of tongs and without thinking quenched them, while using them with a link on the reins they snapped. When thy snapped they happened to catch one of my fingers between the reins. The finger burst on the end and I lost the nail. I would heat the tongs up open and close them and just let them cool on the floor.

I hope this is't taken as Spam. But I sell blacksmithing tools in Hamilton ON. Newman Forge & Pattern 905 544 5691