ptree

Grant, the set up we had was pretty standard in the closed die industry. A hard step on the treadle gave that harder sharper blow, probably from inertia as well, as there were springs in the complex linkage. The ratchet was to set the tup, as these were steam. Nice easy tup to warm and to idle, then speed up a bit prior to use to get everything nice and warm, and not get a condensate slug. The treadles were on a compound linkage as well, and you could come down and grease a watch ctystal, of bust a 1500# billet hard with a 25,000#er. Saw the hammerman win a number of bets by greaseing the top die, and just putting a goodly smear on a wristwatch crystal:) I assume you have an external air compressor running the hammer, why the tupping? need to draw air from the compressor to keep the pop off from lifting? In steam you tup to keep warm, and even up the steam draw from the boiler. Most steam to air conversions I have seen eleminate tupping to save the energy.

Grant, Neat job. I also looked at you converted steam hammer. All of the Erie's we had at the valve shop were set up with the combined motion and throttle set up. We had a ratchet affair that allowe the adjustment between the two. These were Erie double frame machines from 1500 to 25,000#

Matt, I went for maybe 10 years without a swage block, then bought a small one from Honest Bob of Quad State fame. I have found many uses for it. I wish I had bought mine sooner. My little block is easy to move and I use the heck out of it.

Hydrogen embrittlement was a problem encountered in parachute hardware, many decades ago. The snaps and D-rings were forged, polished and then plated for rust resistance. The parts were failing under load test. The problem was eliminated by post plating baking, to drive off the hydrogen. Another place hydrogen causes problems is in the oil field, where "Sour Gas" a slang for Hydrogen sulfide is present in the natural gas and crude. This H2S will embrittle hard steel. The standard for valves and piping in this service was written by NACE, and requires no steel harder than Rockwell 22B. That makes it hard to find a hard ball for ball-check valves, as well as hard materials for seats and gates. There was an Inconel material for springs as I recall, but very expensive. We loved making these NACE valves as there were big$ and did not last long, so good repeat market:)

I woulld use a rated magnetic starter for that size motor, or at least a mechanical pushbutton switch with the right size heaters to protect against over current. Take all the motor nameplate data with you and the electrical supply house can help you. be prepared for about $100+

I believe that most lag screws and wood screws are roll threaded after being cold headed. In the olden days, a "screw Machine" was designed to make guess what? Wood screws. These have multispindles and perform multiple operations all at the same time. These would most likey use an expanding chasing head just like making male tapered pipe threads, just different taper and pitch. Neither of these two processes lend themselves to home shop use. A screw machine is profitable to tool up for runs of many thousands to millions of a part. Same for cold headers with roll threaders.

Phillip, My experience matchs Dave Dudds. I have some of China's soil here in S. Indiana. What we have here is Loess, or dust so fine it blew around the world! Our top 10 to 18" is dust from the Yantzee river valley, a thin 1" layer than 30" or so of the same. Top layer is reported to have blown in 10,000 years ago, the bottom 120,000 years ago. Under that is heavily weather limstone and shale. I used treated 6 x 6" lumber laminated into a 6" x 12" with some 2 x 12" as a band at the top, set down as far as I could dig, about 4' in that area. Back filled with the dust/clay, tamping hard with a steel tamper. Been there since 2002, and still solid. Now my "Stump" is "Copper Cromated Arsenate" treated, but the electric power poles around here are creosate treated and have an average life of 50+ years, and thet too are set in the dirt. If using a natural wood stump, I would tend to want to treat with something like a creosate paint or roof tar ihn the below grade, but even if not, I suspect that the stump will outlast you and me. Shoot a couple of packs of firecrackers for me there in China, today is the 4th of July, when Americans celebrate our independence from that old Colonial power,... oh wait, not to insult. Just shoot some firecrackers for us:)

I have 4 of Nathans hammers. I find them to be excellent. I do not prefer the "club" style that many advocate, and use the angle peen mostly when I am demo'ing. I have a power hammer and use that for heavy drawing at home. Since the first 2 fingers on my hammer hand don't have much power now, I put flats down the sides of the handles and apply beeswax to greatly improve the grip. The beeswax softens when you hand warms it and gives a slightly "tacky" grip, reducing the grip force you must exert. Congrats and enjoy, your wife chose well.

Ian Ross, hope you can find the goggles that work for you. I think I would be greatly disadvantaged if I were to lose an eye. I am not real good even with both:)

Alex, another thought, that would demo forging, but small sacle would be a flypress. A small flypress is inexpensive probably less than a $1000 delivered and mounted, and a simple coin type die could be made, and the flow of the plastic steel would be shown. Search "Flypress" or look at Blacksmith suppliers. These are nifty little presses, using multistart (often 3 lead) screws to translate a rotational energy to a linear force.

Alex, Simple drop hammers using a rope pulled by hand were usually shop made. There are indeed "rope drop" hammers made by factories, but are usually much larger than you intend. I have even seen the remains of a rope drop hammer that used a mule for lifting the weight, pulling the hammer up till it latched, then the mule walked backwards to the strat point. Took a well trained mule:) Don't know of any construction plans, but a tech school should be able to knock out a design I should think. I personally would make the thing stone simple. Use a greased V guide on each side, say nice heavy angle iron, and a mating angle on the ram. Fair clearance. Have a cross head to join the top of the angles to hang the rope pulley from. For a 50# ram, I should think a decent drop would be 5 foot. The Erie hammers I knew, have multi V guides, lots of grease and a little sloppy. The smallest drop hammer I have been around was a 1500# Erie steam drop. I have built a mechanical open die hammer of 45#. It has a 9" stroke, but then it is powered in the down stroke by a loaded leaf spring.

Alex, I forgot to mention that the impressions need to have draft to allow the forged part to be removed. In drop forge dies the industry standard is 7 degrees. Use a tapered cutter if milling. You could roll EDM process into the training, as this is the prime method to sink dies now.

Alex Johnson, Perhaps you are a little confused. In Drop Forging a drop forge hammer is used. These are varied in construction, but function by raising a ram with a die on it and then either allowing free fall drop to meet the bottom die or a powered drop. The powered drop hammers can be steam, air, or hydraulic. All use the kinetic energy of the mass moving to impart the forging energy. This is a short impluse energy transfer. What you are describing is a press forging operation. This is a long impluse energy transfer, that maintains almost even forge thru the stroke travel. In the early days, the only way to get the high energy to make big forgings was the drop forge. Mechanical means could be used to raise a quite large weight, whereas then there was little means to seal a hydraulic means. John Nysmyth(SP) is credited with inventing the large steam drop hammer, and it was originally used to make propellor shafts for British naval war ships. In america, the steam drop hammer, the rope drop hammer, Board drop and the air drop hammers were the dominat forge processes in industry until about the 1920 or 30s with mechanical forge presses then becoming more practical. Mechanical Upsetters were similar in timing. For some photo's, search Erie drop forge hammers, National Machinery forge presses and upsetters, and lastly Erie hydraulic forge presses. Now to demonstrating safely. A 20 ton press, especially if hand pumped will not be effective. If powered, one must consider the possibility of leaks. A pinhole hose leak that gets to the forging will make a flame thrower. To demonstrate drop forging, a simple weight of a 50 pounds, supported from a pully, running in a simple guide sytem would make a nice demonstration rig. Remember that the bottom die must be on an anvil that is at least 10 times the weight. Again a fairly simple and safe demo. One could even throw some variables like changing height and weight to really make mass times velocity a visual process. Often in drop forging, a multi-impression die was used to progressively form the work piece. I think though for this process, I would be tempted to make one die flat, and the other a disc impression that might have a simple logo, say of the school. Put a nice 2250F slug of steel on the lower die, and drop. Bingo, keepsake paper weight. The bottom die could have a simple, very shallow relief to locate the vertical round billet. To get maximum work, a lubricant will be needed. Industrial water based forge lube would be best, as less smoke. I may have a commercial source that would donate a sample. Send me a private message if you need more. Ptree, who has worked in large commercial drop, press, and upsetter forge shops.

IanR, If you can not find them perhaps Glenn can add them to the Iforge store. I can get him a decent wholesale price. Do a quick search for Hagemeyer. They are the international mill supply company I buy from. In the US they are Hagemeyer N.A.

In addition to Glenn's observation that we had detailed records to help investigate, we had a full service metalurgy lab and several degreed metalugists to do all the samples etc. I would echo also that thermite is a useful but once started unstoppable reaction. 5000F is temps that will melt most refractories, explode concrete, and melt down thru huge thickness of metal. The military uses thermite grenades to destroy equipment when needed in a hurry. I have seen thermite grenades go completly thru a 5 ton truck engine in seconds, leaving a hole as big as a man's arm, and the smoke and fire from the engine oil was unbelievable. Not something to "play around with" the components of thermite are also combustable metal powders that are very dangerous in and of themselves.

Chris, I built a 32# rusty style with the slack belt drive. Then I upped to 45# and just burned up the V-belt. I converted toa spare tire drive and it is very nice. Easy to feather for slow soft hits, and cheap. The weight of the compact spare also helps to smooth up the action. I used a rear spindle hub assembly from a 90 Gran Caravan.(Plymouth gran Voyager is the same thing) I used the hub with the brake drum pressed off. This gives a great set of tapered roller bearings on a precision spindle. The hab bearing assemblt is bolted with 4 bolts to the axle, and I just reused those bolts to go through a mounting plate back into the tapped holes in the hub assembly. To make the pivot for the pittman arm, I used another steel wheel less the tire from the same van. I cut a hunk from the rim to leav three lug nut holes. This I welded a hunk of 1.5" x1.5" square bar to to give 3.5" from center. This gives 7" of stroke. I tapped the hunk of steel, and threaded in a Shoulder Bolt. The shoulder bolt, a 3/4" if I recall, is the lower pivot. I just drilled a 3/4" hone in a hunk of steel and that was weled to the end of a big building turnbuckle. If I recall, I used a 2 5/15" wide by 1/4" thick leaf. I have a 5Hp motor, but that is probably overkill. My 45" strokes about 9" when wound up, if I start with about 1/2 to 3/4" of daylight between the ram and the bottom die at rest. I use the first finger of my hand to set the daylight, so if I am forging 1" stock, I set the turnbuckle to give me room to slip that first finger between the dies and the work at rest(machine off!) Questions? Just e-mail of message me.

Fokko, Wilkommen in Iforge. I spent 28 months in Germany, in Hanau au Main in the mid 70's. Learned to be a goldsmieder from a local master. Blacksmithing in a city is always tough. Try making some small gifts for the neighbors to make better relations.

At the valve, boiler and ice machinery factory I spent 21 years working at, we had a car bottom furnace we used to stress relieve weldaments. The furnace was 70' long, by 16' wide and 18' tall, and gas fired. The weldaments were stress relieved only so not as hot as a forge. One day the furnace temp started climbing, and the operator saw the controls try to turn down the burners to maintain. The controls hit bottom of range and still climbing. He turned off the gas to try and get control and still climbed. It burned out the thermocouples above something like 3000 or 4000F. We had liquid metal leaking around the door. Took several days to cool, and then the fun began. I had suggested a "Goldsmieder's" reaction when first I had heard. They all looked at me like I was daft, so I explained that is the name I had learned for what they would find as thermite reaction. It took jackhammers and heavy equipment to break away the slag, melted refractories etc. Then a locomotive to pull the now unable to roll car bottom out of the furnace to finish cooling. We had stalactites, and stalagmites that were several feet around. The steel had been "aluminum killed" and when they looked at the test data the steel had a higher than normal level of aluminum. The weldaments were stored outside and had heavy rust. Final opinion from the metallurgists was it sure looked like a thermite reaction, but there should have been no way to get it to happen. Not a high enough ignition temp, not finely divided etc. But to this old ARMY vet the results sure looked like the results of a thermite grenade applied to an engine block. There was however NO EXPLOSION. I would lean to steam in this case.

Ted, the Pryamax V2G's are the most comfortable of the many gasketed styles we tried. I have about 20 to 30 folks wearing them for 8 hour shifts when the factory is at full production. (auto parts plant so we have much less than full production) They will wear them without complaining, unlike the other types.

I would never live down a recordable on my own time or at work in the present factory, where "Safety First" is more than a tired motto, but rather a from the top down way of life and work. Glad the PPE worked on many levels. I will of course display them at work once this week long furlough is over:)

To get the most life from any lens in a gritty environment. NEVER wipre the lens on your shirt! Wet the lens with running water, then with about half a drop of liquid soap, gently wash the lens between a CLEAN thumb and forefinger. Wash well, then dry with a clean soft towel. I get 2 years from my safety glasses in most cases(less when impacted!). NEVER wipe the lens on you gritty, dirty shirt and never polish the dust off a dry lens.

I have used John's hammers at Quad State for several years now, and would love to have one. They are well thought out, well made and work very well. But then any hammer sold to the public should meet all those ideals. I have a junkyard hammer, and it meets 1 out of three of those ideals:)

Dave Budd, we had several cases of small grinding and sanding particals going into the eyes of folks at the factory, even when they were wearing spectacles. If you look at most folks wearing safety glasses, there is a gap at the corner of the glasses. The wrap around glasses are better, but still gap on som faces. We now use Pryamax V2G safety glasses with the gasket that seal well. They are the ones that the folks found most comfortable. They also don't fog up. Some of the types we tested fogged badly, or have open cell foam gaskets that were irriatating to the face. I have never seen a partical get past the gasketed glasses. I often give a "safety Glasses" test to those who are caught without. I tell them to close both eyes, then I ask them what they see. When they reply nothing, I ask "Any questions?"

John NC, May I gently disagree with you on the opinion of glass safety glasses? Polycarbonate is the best choice for impact protection, and most companies now require their employees to use only polycarbonate. The polycarbonate lens are a bit more expensive than the plain plastic, and most companies see the small extra cost as a good investment. My company does, and that was polycarbonate lens I trashed with the raw chop sawed end of a hoof rasp. Lucky for me the cold end, so no burn. But ANY safety glasses are better than no safety glasses:)

Yesterday, I destroyed yet another safety glass lens. It was on my face. I was at another smiths shop at a meeting. I was forging a tomahawk from a hoof rasp. I was doing the first heat, tapering the end of the rasp, when somehow the rasp came out of my hand, and flew so fast the audiance could not see it, struck my right eye hitting the safety glass lens in the lower right portion, knocking the glasses upand allowing the rasp to then scratch the INSIDE of the sideshield and knocking them off my face. The rasp continued up and struck the left upper portion of my eye socket just where the eyebrow and nose meet. I have a rasp width bruise ther. NO OTHER BODY DAMAGE. Had I been forging with out safety glasses, I would have, I am sure, damaged my eye badly. The lens has a deep gouge about an inch long, in a polycarbonate lens. I suspect, since the smith that owns the shop is much taller than I that I must have had the stock not level to the anvil top, and when I struck the stock it levered up. I have been smithing for many years and have never had this happen before. I now have destroyed about 7 safety glass lens in 30 years of factory, lab and home work. AND I still have 2 functioning eyes. Life is too short to spend any of it dead, injuried, or in jail. And any combination of those three really sucks. Always wear your safety equipment! Ptree the industrial safety guy, who has a fresh show and tell for the folks at the factory:(