Bob S

Good comment. There is a world of small stuff to make.

I wouldn't waste much effort on saving this broken press. Scrap it and save your energy for something worthwhile. jmo Bob

just noticed your location. hope you were not affected by that big tornado. Bob

http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/14588-jack-hammer-bits/ Grant Sarver said..... Having been a manufacturer of paving breaker bits, I can tell you that no one uses S-7 or any real tool steel ( at least not in 1", 1-1/8, 1-1/4). I've had just about every one spectrographed. B&L is a modified 1045, Vulcan used to use 1078 but now uses 15B30, Pioneer/DelSteel is 1078 or 9260 for their "alloy" bits. Apex (my old brand) are 8630. These things sell new (at full discount) for about what tool steel costs per pound. Everybody is looking for the cheapest thing that will do the job. People expect these bits to be really great stuff, perception trumps reality every time. BTW: "Paving breaker" bits are solid, "jackhammer" bits have a hole down the center.

http://www.anvilmag.com/smith/011f2.htm

Looking good Frank.

could location be made a required part of the sign up process?

I sold a 50 lber to Danny Downs years ago. Bill Fiorini (RIP) brought him over.

Not sure about Bill Roberts. Been a long time since artmetal... But if you work out the hummingbird thing (pecking on chime) maybe you could 'tune' them to indicate the Beaufort Scale. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale

If you actually light a fire and do some real forging the good advice will reveal itself to you. At some point you have to try. Mistakes are cool. Just as a rule of thumb I would advise not doing anything Frosty says. :P

good to see you back eric. Stay well.

in Iowa they call them Coleslaw anvils..... just sayin'

that happens a lot.... :unsure:

If you read #18 in the thread I linked to above you will see that Tom Allyn was experimenting with different hole arrangements/shapes to change the shape and size of his fire. Tom was using easily available pipe fittings. If you try it come back and let us know how it works.

Holes in the bottom (as most firepots have) will guarantee that as clinker is formed, it will flow down and block off your air supply, which will make necessary a clinker breaker. A better idea (IMO) would be if the bottom of your fire pot was raised so that there was room for the clinker to form without blocking the air. Imagine a ball cut in half with a hole thru the center for air. This could easily be forged and welded in place. Your fire will be able to breathe without continuously 'breaking' the clinker and losing fuel in the process. When the clinker gets so large that it blocks the hole it can be removed from the top using a hooked poker. Read Tom Allyns comments here..... http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/23205-fire-pot/

looks like it would work if you lived in Australia ...

could be decoration around the base I guess. more likely (to me) is that the hardy was made from another object that had these marks. it's a nice looking tool.

beefy material looks great.

whats that mean?

this site has a lot of post drill info http://www.beautifuliron.com/thepost.htm

All young smiths are reminded to bring a note from their Moms. :D

I built my t hammer using Clay's plans more or less. here is my up/down. that said after a short while you will realize that if you made your tooling all about the same length you could avoid up/down. not that it's that hard but it does take time and some effort. if I was doing it over I wouldn't bother with making the ram adjustable. if all tooling is made the same length and you don't need to adjust there isn't any advantage to the so called 'in line' design. with the swing arm style you get a nice slap hit.

lower Alabama? :P