Alan Evans

I heard somewhere about some blacksmith playing with explosive forming...it must of been in your country as we are not allowed any bang stuff here. I seem to remember something about doing it under water and wrapping one piece around a prepared shape / block form with the blast. Alan

When my 3cwt hammer cylinder head cracked I was intrigued to see that the concave depression, which mirrored the dome of the piston, had been formed by a single continuous spiral cut made with a round nose tool. I managed to reproduce it almost exactly by using a boring bar held in the turret of my Ward 7 pre lector lathe and rotating said turret by Rowing the end of a bit of scaffold pipe stuck in another tool hole of the turret. The boring bar gave me about a 500mm (18") radius from the turret centre. Bowl tools are a bit like lathes, in as much as you need one to make one. With a fly press I made my first bowl tool by pushing a 12mm (1/2") thick disc into a section of tube with a series of round chumps which produced a hemisphere. Once formed, I welded on a 1" chucking spigot, and then made all the other bowl radii tools using that first bowl as the top tool. Alan

Same part of the world as my Rosetta, but I am not harbouring any grudge. As Pharos I can see, all's fair in love and fora. Better read than dead. Alan

Yes I agree, maybe we should show Morris-pect, and begin the beguine-agin...or would that be a Cole starter? Alan ps actually I take that back...it would be a crime not to have the opportunity to point out that Fools Ruskin where Engles fear to tread in this thread. Or would I get black Marx for that?

Looking back, I think that was lost in translation...or were you stoned at the time? Or suffering from some other Millais? Alan That's a bit near the knucklehead...luckily his bark is worse than his bite. Alan

In response to JHCC's request or challenge... Hol' (on) man (I'll) Hunt some up for you. Or go back and dig some up as DG Rossetti did afterwards. Alan

Watteau! It may be a Smith-ing forum, but if someone could sculpt a few Moore artist jokes, I think it would be Dali-ghtful! And you can't easel-y blame it all on Giotto's post about deliberate Chinese Whispers...my Monets on Watts come after. Alan

I have a few pairs of jewellers pliers with one radiused and one flat jaw...they are used on curved pieces to adjust or form the curve with the flat on the convex side so that you do not make any bruise marks. I have used the same principle with scroll wrenches to prevent/reduce any bruising of the workpiece. Some times with a fixed spreader plate and sometimes with a pivoting one which conforms to the surface and lies tangentially. The OP's tongs may just have been to grip a small bore pipe or a piece through a punched hole for instance? Only one jaw needed the extra work of rounding in order to fit inside, and he either adjusted a pair of flat jaws or made these fresh to suit the project. Alan

When I was on the council of BABA a couple of decades ago it was interesting to note that of our 600 odd members, 550 or so were professional full time. ABANA at the same time had well over 3,000 members but about the same number (550) of professional full timers. Don't take the actual numbers as gospel...it was along time ago, but the number of professional smith members was about the same in both associations. I think the OP should perhaps do a bit of research on the websites of those two organisations as a starting point. BABA for one has information on training opportunities and routes into the profession. It will be a different route for every individual, depending on family and geographic resources at ones disposal, and luck or timing (zeitgeist) to a certain extent. My story of starting out in 1973 is likely to be entirely irrelevant circumstances have changed so much.. Alan

First off contact Beche and ask them. second off lovely hammer, well worth anything you can do to get it installed. it is an air hammer so it will be air tight, which indicates that it will also be water tight. I have personal experience that both an Alldays and Onions 3cwt plus a Massey 2cwt survived similar periods outdoors with no problem. The only thing likely to get damaged would be the motor and as that is missing you don't have that problem! Obviously you scrape off any surface rust from the tup before you push it up...there is no point in ripping up the stuffing unecessarily. Make sure the crane man that lifts it for delivery does not do that in error...good idea to take a scraper and a pot of grease as soon as you pay the money and make sure it does not happen. there is a lot of info here regarding installing hammers with seperate anvils, check out the Massey and Allldays threads. The weight will be in the order of 1500kg for the hammer and 600 for the anvil....I am guessing based on the hammers I have without actually seeing it in order to get a sense of its bulk but if you check the spec sheets I posted here for my hammers they will give you a clue. Alan

Depends how you want to use the vice...hammering down, filing, bending, twisting... If you are looking for ultimate portability... start from the concept that a leg vice is entirely self supporting and does not actually need a stand. A hole in the ground to stick the leg into would work for most of its functions....mk. 2 ...drive a bit of hollow section into the ground to make a firmer socket and keep the vice at a better height. Fix vice leg in hollow section with wedge or grub screw. A couple of legs which pivot out from the top bracket, using the vice as the third leg would work if the ground surface was appropriate. More conventional, you could get a bit of plate for the base and make a socket to take the post...a grub screw would be enough to prevent most rotation... or just weld the vice post direct to the base plate...keep adding bracing or tool tables or hanging loops as required until it gets too heavy. A friend has one mounted on an old truck wheel...complete with tyre which rolls around when you need to move it. Mine is on a three legged table which is small enough to also walk by rotation......walks easier up steps than a wheel! Alan

Grand job, well done. What volume of concrete went into the cup? Alan

I helped Michael with a bench project of his that needed some flares on pipe ends which we set up and did on my 100 tonne horizontal press. I helped with the transport and installation too. Plus some other bits and pieces over the years while they were in Gloucester. I still have an angle grinder of his in a drawer in the workshop...the storage rental for the last ten years is the basis of my pension fund! We did the trip across the Nullabor from Adelaide and arrived in Perth at 6am on a Monday morning...We were gobsmacked to be greeted by a "Hi Alan! Hi Lesley!" shout down the platform! It was Joe Mazzarol and Charl Nienaber who were doing an official welcome on behalf of BAWA. I had meet Charl a few weeks before in the UK when he finished at Hereford College and he and his family came round to visit for a look at the forge and have a meal...When I asked how on earth they knew we would be on the train...he said well there are only a couple a week so we have met every one for the last three weeks! Blacksmiths eh? Alan

I put oak wedges all around between anvil base and concrete above the silicone sealing ring. And then again between the hammer frame and the anvil. @ Justin...Ballaarat rings a bell. Lesley and I circumnavigated Australia some years ago...the friends we stayed with in Melbourne lent us their holiday house beside Wombat Hill in Daylesford a few miles up the road, we spent some time wandering around Ballaarat. But the really exciting thing was our first walk in an Australian wood along an old railway line by Daylesford, where we were bounced by our first real live wild Kangaroo! Hardly awake enough to appreciate it though because the possums in the roof space made a din all night....happy days. Alan

On second thoughts... Given your resource, I would consider what shape furnace it would make most efficiently that would suit the type of work envisaged. Preferably without having to cut or modify them, or at least keep that to the minimum. If you have a power hammer you can make use of long heats for tapering so two 18" long furnace modules would be good. Using one 18" module by itself for shorter heats. I would be inclined to pack a couple of layers of boards on flat along the axis of the tunnel for the floor, and again on flat to give you vertical sides which can be corbeled top and bottom to give you a flame swirl. The corbels could be trimmed at 45 deg. to give a smooth transition. You would only need to bevel the top corbels, the off cuts could then be glued in place on the bottom ones using Mikey's suggestion. The roof can be made with the boards laid on edge spanning across the axis of the chamber linking and fixing the corbels. A squashed or squished octagon depending whether you needed height or width for your projects. Alan

The first furnace I built followed the format of the glass blowers' glory holes, and used 75mm (3") strips of ceramic blanket packed like masonry arch blocks around a section of a 50 gallon oil drum. It would not be a disadvantage for you to make the chamber that way. At 3" wall thickness you could have an 18" long by up to 61" diameter chamber. Alan

As Wayne says, I find gas savers (gas economisers over here) are great for small forgings like bottle openers and spoons. Items which lose their heat fast. Also good for those things you want to keep the surface clean without fire scale and other detritus. The single most useful thing though, and the reason I got mine in the first place, was for hot riveting during assembly. Even just a hook so that you could hang the torch safely and quickly is good...that it will turn off the flame and light it again instantly is even better. Alan

You were lucky! The mat under my 3cwt was £500 pounds-ish twenty years ago. One day all the horror will be over and you will be able to just push the green button and away it will go! Alan

The main problem with rubber pads under either the anvil or the inertia block is that any water finding its way between mat and concrete will smack the concrete and damage it. Under the anvil of my Alldays I had to seal around with a pourable silicone rubber...which was masked off in order to only attach to the vertical surfaces so it could flex without shearing. If you stick to the tried and tested wood underneath you do not have this problem...just the problem of the wood compressing or expanding unevenly and the pallets going out of line. With your slides hammer though which is one piece / self contained I seem to remember, the anvil sealing issue does not arise. On second thoughts maybe it is a seperate anvil...the only time I used one I managed to pop a disc and my thoughts were then focussed on my back's mechanics rather than the hammer's! How do you envisage lifting your inertia block should the conveyor belt prove bad? I don't think it will, provided you keep it dry...I have it under the 1cwt Alldays on top of the 30mm plate that it is bolted to. The 30mm plate is standing on rubber buffers which together with some chumps of 150mm dia. round lift the hammer 150mm above the designed height. The conveyor has lasted for twenty odd years...not much used though, the 3cwt can do everything the 1wt can do only faster, so that gets used much more. Alan ps check out your fellow country man rawtiron with a PM he may be quite close to you, and has visited the same problems... http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/41941-power-hammer-installation-massey-notes-on-concrete-for-foundations/#comment-429692 http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/41930-b-s-massey-clear-space-hammers-brochure-and-specifications/#comment-429544 http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/40793-alldays-and-onions-2cwt/?page=2#comment-417633 http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/41932-power-hammer-installation-sealing-around-anvils/#comment-429549

Manfred Bredohl had a block in a pit...his was mounted on coil springs I seem to remember. It had such a large gap around it you could climb down into it and service the water pump which sat in a sump in one corner. Electric lights and all. I would recommend that you still leave an air gap between the pit walls and the shop floor. Just a few mm of polystyrene is enough. Though you could always cut the floor slab afterwards. There may still be some vibration in the pit walls however you spring the inertia block. Alan PS Though it looks like you have already found the need for a water pump. Any thoughts about how you will prevent the "cup" from floating up?

You have seen the foundation design info and Massey hammer stuff .pdfs I posted on here a few months ago have you? The need for isolation of the inertia block in a pit will depend on your situation...the geology and proximity to neighbours and other buildings. The important bit is to isolate from your floor and walls so that your building does not act like a sounding board...think speaker cone. My 3cwt Alldays inertia block has an air gap all around from the concrete floor and where it nears the building foundation concrete...but is then just in contact with the subsoil. The engineer and geologist who checked the bearing capacity at the bottom of the pit said the vibration would just go down and spread out at around 45˚ given my ground conditions... May well be worth your while paying a few hundred pounds for a consultant rather than a thousand or two for the more complicated foundation design... I also have a Fergy 35 (with the Perkins 3 cylinder)...I always fancied a John Deere tractor and trailer like yours though.... Alan

Can you take a photograph of the foot pedal cam system...I can't quite figure it. From the original images it looks like it would lock the jaw in a position rather than put much pressure on it. So I was wondering if it was a heavy duty version of the saddler's leg clamp...the one like a pair of skis held between the knees. But the angle the closed jaws form with the jaw on the side shown is a puzzle, difficult to get to any workpiece with horizontal tool...a needle or a file...so maybe for driving down...some type of caulking process? Any research on the makers' other products? Just had another look at the space contained by the swan neck of the moving jaw...A hollow vessel hat or jug/pot? probably not, a circular object would need curved jaws hmmm... Alan

On a couple of saws I have seen there were neat little star wheels with spikes that were both driven by, and cleaned the teeth as the blade passed. They were set just after the rear guide. The OP still hasn't come back to tell us whether the inaccuracy was in the horizontal or vertical plane so whether it is vice alignment or feed speed wobble we don't know. Alan

I forgot to say that I skip around 100% of the parts written when I am speed reading Swedish... Alan