JNewman

No idea about your anvil but your screen name popped right out at me. I spent many night time hours in a Thiokol 2100 back in the 80s.

Grant Sarver "Nakedanvil" Not "traditional" blacksmithing but shows lots of industrial production techniques.

I have a few in my shop right now and I will be shipping several to Blacksmiths Depot in a couple of weeks If you are in the US You can buy one from them. If you are in Canada you can buy one from me direct.

My horizontal bending press has both of these features ahd they are really handy features to have both for forging and for bending.

Just watched a few minutes of the end of an episode of this show While waiting for the news. Along with not liking the emphasis on killing. I watched one of the judges doing something extremely foolish. While testing the 2 rapiers on his second 35 degree test bend rather than moving behind the sword he leaned over the blade and pushed the hilt over. If the blade had broken which is a distinct possibility chances are the blade pieces would have flown towards him. A test like that should have been done with protective equipment being worn and he should have considered where the sharp blade shards would have flown had the blade broken. While he was not directly over the blade a failure would likely not have started precisely in the center of the blade thus the shards would have flown off on angles.

If you are using a plaster mould for casting metal you need to either heat it up to wax burnout temperatures or bake it around 400 degrees for a couple of hours minimum. A former supplier of mine who was 2 blocks away was an aluminum foundry that cast aluminum match plates in plaster. He used to bake his moulds in an oven at about 400 degrees for 24-48 hours. But that was for a mould about 24"x36"x6" or bigger for one half. His process pressure cast the aluminum into the mould. The pressure casting is not suitable for home casting as it required heavy cast iron flasks and top and bottom plates, a heavy steel pressure pot and only ounces of air pressure. Even then he occasionally had molten aluminum shoot out of a mould across the shop 15-20 feet. The process also required asbestos paper as a consumable.

I have been making a lot of tongs with long reins lately 36-64" long. I have had problems in the past with the part jumping and getting pinched between the corners of the swage. This can be very frustrating when you have the tong half almost done and you then have 2 creases in a spot on the reins. Repairing this is a very time consuming job of upsetting the section of the reins and then re swaging it. This often takes a few heats and there is often still a mark where it happened. I a couple of months ago I decided to try putting a collar on the spring of the swage to keep it from opening enough for this to happen. It has been a very successful modification. I first used 1x 1/4" flatbar as my collar but the last one I modified I just used a piece of 1x 1/8" flatbar for the collar and it worked just fine. The collar is not closed just bent around the spring with 4 bends. I have found I am able to drive the hammer harder which allows me to get way more stock swaged per heat as I don't have to drive it gently to prevent the bouncing.

Yes I would not really be too concerned with a hammer like that regarding alignment. To me a 2 piece hammer has the 2 pieces aligned during installation. Bob Bergman has done something similar with lots of 2 piece Nazels essentially turning them into a 1 piece.

In a small hammer like a 25 kilo I would not consider going with a 2 piece. They are much more work and have extra costs to set up than setting up a 1 piece hammer. You will need extra wood for the forming, hardwood wedges to align the anvil both in your foundation and to the hammer. You should then seal around the anvil to prevent scale from getting under the anvil. If you don't get things aligned perfectly you will need to machine the face of one of the dies to they hit parallel. If you don't have a milling machine these extra costs could eat up any savings I would suggest you change your order to a 1 piece hammer if you can.

Be careful to do the math on a new press design and or WAY OVERBUILD. Unlike a hammer a press stores energy and a failure unleashes all that energy very quickly. The Jim Batson book is a very good source for how to do the math.

We had Mark Pearce do a workshop for us a few years ago. He volunteers in Indonesia to help train industrial practices and blacksmithing. He mentioned one of the first things he does when he goes somewhere is build a work bench. Often it is looked upon as strange. However one of the "factories" he visited and taught at was convinced to put benches in on Mark's prompting. The productivity went up and injuries including time off with sore backs etc. went way down. While we can admire the skills used to produce high quality work with almost nothing, It does come with a price often injuries including repetitive strain injuries. Very simple improvements in working conditions can help bring people out of poverty and improve their health from workplace injuries.

You will have to decide how much it is worth to you But I find mine very useful for bending using tools in the holes and for flattening things by dogging them down and then using a flatter or top swage and sledge to hammer high points down.

The primary dies on my Massey are just over 1/8" although I have worn them to 3/16 in the center. You have to be careful not to get shuts but they work well for most things. I have another set that I modified to a 3/8" radius which are good for heavy drawing and are far better for drawing steep tapers or shallow tapers that won't have a flatter or taper die used on them. A lot of my work involves fairly sharp shoulders which is why the 1/8 dies are my primary dies. As well I want the full width of the die for lots of things. I would not want to use dies sharper than the 1/8" mine are on a day to day basis.

Lots of Blacksmiths here in Central Ontario. Come on out to an OABA meeting. There is a range in the association from beginners to Pros. Summer meetings tend to have smaller turnouts but it is still worth coming out.

I have not made the trunnion blocks in about 5 years but I am currently talking to the foundry about getting a small batch of about 8 of them made.

That is why you never stand behind the the work when you are forging on a power hammer especially with taper dies. But you can draw a taper that steep on a hammer safely. To consistently draw tapers the same especially short like you show you want a fixed taper die not a variable one like the others shown in this thread. If you don't use a pinch type die, one thing that will help are to use a "scissor cutter" to cut 2 bars out of 1 or just to cut a little off the end of the bar. The cutter is in effect a pinch die to preform. You will probably find roughing the taper out on the corners of flat dies before you use the taper dies will help as well as they will draw the bar out lengthwise unlike the Taper die which will spread as much as they lengthen. A bottom die only is cheaper and easier to make but if you need lots of these for an ongoing basis matching top and bottom taper dies are easier to use especially it the bars are really long and you need a stand to support the outboard end.

John Little a blacksmith in Nova Scotia has been making large scale musical instruments that have been played with the Halifax Philharmonic for about 15years or more. At Caniron that was held in Nova Scotia a well known jazz percussionist played one of John's instruments at the opening. http://johnlittleironwork.tripod.com/sound.html Here is a link to Some of John's musical instruments

There is a small aluminum foundry around the corner from me that is closing in a couple of weeks that has 2 tilt furnaces I think they are both still for sale. They run on Natural gas and I would guess one is 50-100lb the other is a couple hundred. They are older furnaces and Dave probably does not want that much for them.

I second the preheat for any welding. Knuckles and couplers are alloy steel not mild so should be preheated.

This part is not a coupler. As Frosty and Thomas have mentioned this is a knuckle. The coupler is the piece that the knuckle is mounted to. These are a very tough grade of cast steel. If you can break that by hand I would be seriously impressed. I have made a pattern and coreboxes for a knuckle and a couple of body coreboxes for couplers. Forging the bar down to fit the hole in the knuckle would not be that tough a job with a power hammer with a kiss block but lacking a matching swage I would just forge an octagon that OD of the peaks of the octagon are the same size as the ID of the hole.

Don't use a grinder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 http://www.torontosun.com/2011/05/26/student-dead-after-shop-explosion-at-ottawa-high-school

I have a press cutoff tool that I have cut at least a thousand pieces of 4340 and 4140 off with and my edges are pretty much as sharp as new It is basically 2 v blocks with stops on both ends that have set screws. I have a 1" HSS lathe tool bit in each one. When they eventually get dull I will flip the tool to one of the other corners. Grant Sarver described this tool a few years ago here and on the NWBA site and I made one. It has been a great tool. He mentioned having problems with HSS breaking and he used Cold rolled square 4340 heat treated. I can't get 4340 square without forging it so and I would then need to get it surface ground. So I tried the HSS tool bit and it has been great. He had employees using his and some of them may have used it too cold . The two cut off surfaces have to be well aligned when cutting thinner steel. Slightly colder steel actually cuts a little better than really hot if the edges are not perfectly aligned.

How big a wagon? Simplest (often the best) would be a pocket to insert a long bar which will act as a lever. Only problem with this is the potential danger of it getting away from you once the load is over center if your hinge is in the center like a lot of garden trailers are. A long lever would move very quickly in a situation where the load got away from you. Keeping the hinge back like a dump truck would avoid this or doing the math and making sure the load is light enough or lever gives you enough mechanical advantage not to get away from you.