Shane Stegmeier

Jim poor hammers are very good quality farrier hammers and are generally nice, but they are general set up like most farrier like their hammers with long skinny handles. If that suits you great, if you need to you can chop the handles down to something shorter. If you get a good deal on one go ahead, anything less than the new hammer price of 40-70$ that they normally fetch.

I am using H13 and S7 (because I have it;-) and because it has excellent hot working characteristics and is pretty durable if heat treated and tempered correctly... (It's still pretty durable even if you don't do it right, it's just a little hard on your striking hammer if you try using it in the "normalized" state... Ie just letting it air cool and it will get harder than blue blazes, and will spall badly when struck, and will dent your hammer;-) For the good air hardening hot work steels you need to only harden the working end and leave the striking end in the annealed or partially annealed state, it will mushroom, but it will not spall as explosively. You can get good results from heating only the working end of dies made from S7, but S7 only gets full hard if you use an interrupted quench on it, (and I am leary of doing a differential hardening when I am pushing the quench so I would harden the whole die then temper the striking end... )basicly you do an intial oil quench with preheated oil, you quench in the oil checking the S7 till most all of the color is gone from the steel, then allow to air cool. To draw the temper from the striking end I like to take two thick blocks of hot steel and clamp them to the striking end and cover it in ash, lime, or vermiculite and let it cool over night. If you can make a boot that fits over the striking end out of 1/2"-1" stock and get that hot it will draw the temper from the end:-) But it has to cool slowly because it is an air hardening steel.

Using good tool steel in your dies they will last a long long time, and you can use them on hot tool steel... If you try to fuller hot H13 with mild dies;-) you will be redressing your working end of the die a lot, and moving the steel only a little;-). Used on hot mild steel they should never need to be dressed on the working edge...

4140 is ok steel and will work fine for most thick die shapes like fullers, butchers, sizing dies, and swages.

5160 spring stock is pretty durable and works for all the thick die shapes and is ok for hot cuts if you don't try to go too thin.

O1 is a nice tool steel, but is mainly used for things that require a very stable die... ie you machine it to .005th before heat treat and it comes out of heat treat at that same tolerance... Again good for most any kind of die you want to make, just don't go too thin because it doesn't hold its temper as well as the true hot work steels like H13 and S7.

In the end you build your SM for either the steel you have, or the steel you really want use... but if you choose a none standard size, or an expensive alloy when you need to make more dies it might be harder to have a nice matched set of dies for your SM. The dies that Jerry Hoffman sells are 3/4"x2" I believe, and although I haven't coughed up for any, the SM that we are building is designed to take those dies... ;-)

I believe 300 series stainlesses will work harden, but that is not something most people try to do;-) But that won't hold what we would consider a decent knife edge, nor will it make the steel a "better" spring, stiffer maybe, but more likely to fail. 300 series is only good for corrosion resistance. For what its worth;-)

Some guys use the same hammer for everything, some use a different hammer depending on what they want to do. I don't really have a favorite now, I use whatever hammer has the shape I need to move the metal the way I want it to go... I miss some of the hammers that were my favorites for a while... Fitting a handle to my hand and my style is very important to me and my comfort. I have a few of the heads of past favorites that I have not been able to make the handle feel as good when I replaced it:(
Just depends I have 39 with handles maybe another 20 without handles or still in progress, but I use 10-15 regularly. THe hammer I use the most is probably a Tom Clark 2# cross pein, but i use a lot of ball peins, diagonal piens and straight peins... Like I said just depended I have a left/right diagonal pein that I use alot to fuller and set shoulders.

Bradleys are nice which style is it??? the helve is nice but it is huge... There was a smaller helve The The compact is also nice but much smaller, Still quite heavy, not just flat out huge for a 100# hammer. The upright strap hammer is smaller but the leather tends to degraded esspecially if you are useing the hammer alot...

Flux! Sounds like you need flux. If you flux both pieces at low heat then drop your cut brazing rod next to the joint, then stick it back in the forge, it will flow where the metal is clean and fill the joint... Same with torch brazing, except if you are using a fluxed rod, then you are not getting the metal hot enough before you try to melt the rod. I don't honestly do much brazing, but you should find it is simple enough once you get the hang of it;-) If you can find a used welding textbook at a garage sale for a couple of bucks and read up on it and get the real technical answer:-)

Unless there is a way to tighten the springs on the top of the arms, it would seem that this is how the hammer is suppose to be set up since there doesn't appear to be any way to shorten your toggles. This is an unusual variation on the standard dupont linkage which normally has the springs inside the arms forcing the toggles horizontal. Replacing the springs might? support the ram better and improve the performance of the hammer, and then again it might not, and could be dangerous? I looked up Hercules power hammers up in the book "Pounding Out The Profits" and the Hercules Patented Power Hammer had a bow spring linkage... I am puzzled is this a latter model, a Little Giant Hercules Hammer? Or a mechanical hammer made by a European manufacturer. I have seen a couple of drawings of LGs with a hole through the frame like this one has, but I don't remember any of the LGs I have seen having a hole through the frame? Probably me being oblivious, and that part of the hammer being dirty... But in my own defense I often can't remember stupid obvious details that I should be able to ;-)

Could you post one more picture of the full side view with the cast in names and numbers of the hammer? Just to satisfy my curiosity... ;-)

If your hammer is a Little Giant/Murray/Murco/Mayer/Mulloc It is likely rated as a 100# hammer even if it does have an over sized die that weighs more than it specs out at... and it should be able to be adjusted to have the arms horizontal, and if you can't get them were they need to be you might need to get some new replacement parts from Sid...

You can just cut your rivet stock to the thickness of both of your bosses on the tongs + 3x the thickness of the rivet stock (normal rule of thumb for making a head is 1.5x the diameter of the stock, if you like a larger head you can go to x2 or up to x3, a lot of guys like a smaller head and can pare the length needed to make a head down to just x1 the thickness of the rivet stock.) Then you can make a bolster from 1' of 1"stock that is 1.5 x the thickness of rivet stock, and form the head on the top, then support the tongs, then twist and tap the bolster off the bottom side of the rivet, then you can form the head for that side of the rivet...

If you post a pic of your hammer, and we can see the set up we will be able to tell better if you need to have your arms horizontal or not. Some hammers were designed with some slant to their arms, some with the arms flat, you can't make one into the other without risk of damaging your hammer and you... Since your hammer is ~150# then I will assume it is NOT a Little Giant, since they never offered that size to my knowledge, so you cannot compare how a LG is properly adjusted to how your hammer is properly adjusted 1 to 1... You will be able to learn about mechanical hammer systems and apply that to your hammer.

I am not presently a member of Abana, but I do have a thought about what Abana should do, instead of their Big conference... I think that they should try to encourage attendence at the chapter association conferences. Possibly they could designate a willing groups conference as the Abana yearly featured event, and arrange to allow that chapter to use some of the abana supplies to help improve the conference and handle hopefully a larger attendence... (last I remember there was a trailer with a supply of forges and tools for begginer's? as well as library items, and past magazines and stuff from the store...) Abana could maintain a somewhat low profile at the event, maybe sponors or supply one of the main demonstrators, have a judged gallery the contest open only to Abana members work, and have a display with someone maning it to answer questions and sign people up for the parent organization. It would cost less, they would have a wider profile (if not a higher one...) and it might help promote membership among the chapter members.

It would be nice especially for the international members of Abana for there to be one of the big conferences, maybe not every other year, but every 5 years, or ever 10? Maybe that would be more do able for Abana. 2010 isn't too far away.

I don't know what is going on. But I have heard that the politics at the top of Abana have been pretty rough for a few years. I can only guess that the Seattle Conference didn't make money, in a big way... (I had a freind who lives in Seattle who taught me to smith years ago and he missed the conference completely, he teaches welding now and was a bit out of the loop, not to mention so busy he didn't know weither he was pitching or catching:-) I have heard people say that the Abana conference is no bigger than many of the bigger chapter conferences, and all the chapter conferences a FAR cheaper... I think people have been voting with their wallets and the Abana conferences have lost, which is a shame. I haven't made it to one yet, mainly because of cost and timing, not for lack of desire, but I am not unusual in that I don't think, and I have been smithing for 21 years.

Actaully steel mills used to employed trained spark testers, I have a client who spent 6 months apprenticing as a spark tester in the late 60s early 70s. You can only tell a few components in the steel, carbon, silicon are the only ones that I remember for sure;-) But he was trained to recognise the alloys that his company made, and he and the guys that he worked with felt pretty cure about wheither the steel was what it was supposed to be.

And if you live in saftey glasses like I do... Don't let the little girl at the optomitrists talk you into small stylish glasses even if you can get polycarbonate safety lens... I also had to have a rust ring removed by an opthomologist, with the coolest micro dremel... But I didn't get stung by a grinder, I got hot scale adherd to my eye, not something I would recommend to anyone... ;-)

Protect only the parts of your body you would like to keep, and have full use of for the rest of your life...

I have heard the biblical virtue of "meekness" defined as having a "teachable spirit" We could all do with a dose of meekness, and avoid the pride that prevents us from learning. Ted has wisely recognised that we can learn from anyone if you approach the situation with the right spirit. People who think they know it all can't learn anything. When I was young I had a similiar problem, I wanted to protect my selfesteem and didn't take advantage of opportunities to learn from talented smiths in my area, I am endeavoring to make up for a misspent youth.

Ken outlines a particular 'tradition' of working from that railroad shop. The methods described work, but aren't neccessarily what works best for every style of working. Especially for someone who was not trained in that tradition.

I like flat dies with hand tooling presonally;-)
Combo dies if they are big enough will do most of what you want to do if all you want to do is make damascus.
If you weld by hand and only need to draw out your billets, then drawing dies or crown dies would be just fine.

Course with flat dies, and a saddle, and some spring fullers and swages, a couple of paddles, and a fixture or two you can really get busy;-)

Too true Ed;-) I always thought that cone madrels were an expensive waste of time, then I had some heavy rings that I need true, and Nothing else does the job as easily. They are really only good for one thing... But for that one process they are the berries, and practically indespensable. I will be making my own or coughing up the painful amount of money for one sometimenext summer I imagine;-)

I am one of the don't mess it up guys;-) Particularly after messing up my 145 haybudden;-(

Right angle grinder with a flapper disc gently feather the edges radius them as the cracks and dings suggest. You can generally find a use for those different radius's when using the edge of the anvil. rebound is too important to risk just because you don't have edges that are TOO sharp anyway;-)

I'll chime in here too;-)

You might be using a hammer that is too heavy, not too heavy for you to swing, but too heavy for you to use properly. It sounds like you might be hitting too hard, or just a little wild;-) Let the hammer do the work and as you get close to your desired shape use lighter blows. Learn how hard you have to hit to do different things, your not trying to kill the steel you are trying to bend it to your will, use only the force you have to...

It does sound like you are working too long on a heat, (or just not paying close enough attention to your forging temps) which is where you are getting your cracked and split tips. Fire control is important, don't just jab your work down deep into the fire, if you are too close to the tueyer the fire will be hot, but it will also be oxidizing, which will tend to burn the steel faster. Work in the top third of the hot part of the fire, you might also have too shallow a fire, letting in too much air from the top... Scaling can give you pits too, a good stiff "Butcher block wire brush" will scrap that scale off and leave a smoother finish. The thinner you get the stock the faster it will get to forging temp, (as well as past it to burning,;-) and conversely the faster the anvil will suck the heat out of the stock getting into the low reds and brittle black heat ranges.

Learn you temps, and what they are good for:
a black heat, or even low or dull red, is for straightening, breaking corners on stock, and planishing... that it! No heavy forging, no reducing the thickness of the cross section by 1/2, you will ruin your steel.
For most steels bright red - yellow are your forging temps, some high alloy, and high carbon will be ruined if you get into a bright yellow, so read up on your steels.
Punching and drifting should be done at a bright yellow if the steel will handle temps like that.
Forgewelding should be done at a sweating heat, generally in the yellow range somewhere.
White sparking heat should be saved for working wrought iron, and mistakes. If you get a high carbon tool steel to a sparking heat you have burned the steel, and ruined it (or atleast burned all the carbon out of the outside layers)

You can learn a lot from books.
You can learn some from the internet..
You can learn a ton from having someone show you how to do...

Find a blacksmithing group and start attending meetings and going to confernences!!! And paying someone to teach you will jump you ahead much faster.

There are no shortcuts. It takes time and you need to learn to do it right. Make one of something, then make it again, and again, and again til you get it right. About the time you have made a hundred of one thing you should be pretty good at it, if you care and are trying to improve. Then find something else to make, and make those till you are happy with them, and you can do a really good job and make them match... By then you should have decent hammer control for those types of technic that you have developed. Focus on technic, and on constantly polishing you finished products, it takes time, and practice, a guide helps...

You don't absolutely need a vice to twist stock, especially small items like S hooks and wrought iron, take two pair of tongs and twist. At the forging contest at Sofa this year (06;-) we did a dosey doe with two pair of tongs to get our twists into the S hooks we were forging;-)

Leg vices get used for a lot of technics that require pounding: heading, right angle bends, forging a tight offset, hinge barrels, animal heads, hollow form chippendale legs;-)

You use the tools you have, you can always use more tools;-) Some tools are better for somethings...

Well I find that I forgot the two most common things that I need help with in the shop... One thing has been coming up a lot lately, I need someone else to hold the stock in a precise position on the anvil while I use a set hammer or a side set to neck the stock in a specific way, I tried rigging up a spring tool to do the same thing, but my quicky didn't do nearly as nice a job as I could have done if I had used a side set, and then a set hammer... A guilotine tool, or a nicely made spring fuller with dies would do the job, but I have to fight for the time to make tool as it is... Plus working with someone else is fun, there is a comraderie that develops, weither your team striking for someone, or driving a steam hammer while someone else is lead blacksmith and you have a third guy assisting...

The other place that an assistant is really helpful is as a fire tender. Someone who manages your coal/coke fire, and juggles pieces in the fire while you are working on a piece at the hammer, or the anvil. It is easy to let your fire go just a little and have the center fall and pull your expensive tool steel down into the middle of the fire, or your being too careful and you get done with one piece and neither of the other two pieces is hot enough or hot in the right spot... I used to be pretty good at tending a fire, and getting the heat right where I wanted it, but to be honest I have been filling my gas forge for too many years, and I find that I am a bit out of practice when I do need to use a coal/coke fire ;-) The truth only hurt when you can't laugh at yourself,...;-)

A third set of hands! You can work by yourself, but there are ways that a helper can really make your work better. Especially when you have someone that you have been working with for awhile, and they can anticipate what you are going to do next, and their skills compliment your strengths, as well as help make up for your weaknesses. If you have a good freind who is also interested in blacksmithing learn to work together. You should take turns taking the lead on projects, but it is easy for one person to take the lead, and the other person helps... (It is nice to make sure that your helper gets some cool stuff out of all of your combined work, making two sets of tools and stuff...) There are some types of tooling that it is very hard to use by yourself (without having to make more tooling...) traditional top and bottom fullers are hard to use by yourself, you can make your tools to be mounted in a spring or use a smithing magician. but that is more tooling to make or buy. Sometimes two sets of eyes can make a huge difference in judging square, and avoiding dangerous situations... Working with someone who is really there to help, really makes a huge difference.

Sadly the first two tongs are the most useful without reforging;-) and the hoop tong(the 2nd from the top) is probably the nicest and most useful of the whole lot... Once you learn how to forge nice tongs you will likely retire some of the old clunky tongs you are happy to aquire right now;-) I have always been picky about tools, and prefer to use the tongs that I forge myself, they are lighter and springier and fatigue my hands less... Ill fitting tongs are dangerous, so reforge the other tongs to fit the work you are using...

One of my favorite sayings is: "There are no shortcuts, it takes practice, pratice, pratice... and after you have done a hundred of them they start looking an aweful lot alike;-)

That being said some paths are shorter than others, and it does help to have a good guide... Rather than striking out on your own thinking you can get there just as easily, and why take to long path, when you can see your goal just over there...


Clamp the handle in the vice vertically with the jaws clamped down on just the bean, and take your cross pein, or rounding hammer and set your shoulder. I like to support the top part of the handle with a pair of tongs or my gloved hande if the stock is cool enought to, and pull the handle body so that it stays straight. Try and do this at a yellow heat, or atleast a bright orange/red.

I forge handles out of old farrier's rasps gives the handle a neat visual texture
My wife thinks the finals are too plain and wants me to split them or chisel them to make them a bit more fancy. I am half tempted to cut them so they look like the parsley handle out of Streeter's Professional Smithing;-)

He would probably try to gouge you on shipping too since he is practically phishing. At that price you could buy a really nice anvil for 4-6$/# and get something a useful size... You 'Can' get good deals on eBay, but there are an aweful lot of lyers and crooks, be carefull. You are much better off getting involved with a BS organization and finding a "Finder" the guys like Thomas who can without fail find anvils for less than a dollar a pound, and buy from them...

A whole lot to talk about... ;-)

First of all I agree with Thomas which anvil, and what am I doing?
And I agree with Jr, you have to be able to hit square and true without ruining your arm;-)

I can't use a "balanced" or "hofi" technic on an anvil that is too high (and to be honest most anvils are set "too" high for me. I brush my knuckles during the swing and can hurt my knuckles tear skin that kinda thing not cool. Then you have to try and jack your shoulder high and tighten you arc, and it bunches me up... (Probably why I complain so often at conferences that the anvils are set too high, I am only 5'10" on a good day when no horses have sat on me:-)

I find that I like a light anvil set kinda high for delicate work,
my farrier's anvil is set just about wrist high. And if I try to turn draft shoes on it I will ruin my elbow, and be lame for months, it is simply too high to hit hard and flat with a heavy hammer, it shoves me up out of proper position and wrecks me... YMMV

My main shop anvil is set just shy of my loosely clenched knuckles, and is fine for most forging.

For heavy forging with big hand sledges, and or tooling I want the anvil low.

The biomechanics of how you use the hammer will normally be better on an anvil set to your knuckles, but the problem comes in that what suits your arm admiralably, does not suit your mind or your eyes to your satisfaction... ;-) And I am as guilty as the next guy, of feeling like I need to have my face 6" away from the hot steel to really supervise what is going on properly sometimes. ;-) The trick is to train yourself to stand and work at the anvil, and if you need to look closely at the work lift it up so you can look at it, don't crouch over the anvil. (Now if I could do it as easily as I say it I would be set...;-) The other thing to do to help with the symptoms is to do cruches and sit ups:-) it will help balance the sore back...