Spears

Last summer (end of July) when I was shopping for a power hammer my second email to Striker tools looked like this: Hello, I hope you folks are still in business. I have called and emailed and still would like a price on a stc-55 power hammer. Please send me an email with price for hammer and shipping. I don’t have a fork lift so a lift gate will be needed. I’m located in the Huntsville “north Alabama” area. Thank you. That got a response and the gentleman informed me of an 88 model and a KA75 being the only things stock. The price was extremely high for the Striker compared to what everyone else has to offer, but otherwise he did have something on hand brand new. The only downside I felt was product availability. You have a website showing these beautiful machines, and if I'm going to spend the kind of money it takes to obtain one, you xxxx well ought to have what the hell I ask for!! Even though I had a monetary change in my life and got stuck having to build my own power hammer, I give a special thanks to Mr Johnson with the Anyang product line. Always there to answer questions for the customer above and beyond. Thank you also Mr Larson with the Ironkiss product line. New expanded line of Ironkiss hammers for 2010, OUTSTANDING!! I may not be able to own a commercial hammer for some time, but your existence and communication goes further than you may know. Furthermore, if Striker products truly are not available, ABANA needs to remove their ad from their publications. Why waste the ink. My apologies to those who find what I write offensive. Regards, Spears

To answer one of your questions jason0012. Is the economy really that bad? The answer is YES. There are certain areas of the USA that are really struggling just to stay alive. I don't want to get into the political aspect of what's wrong only to have every liberal jump into this beautiful forum and stomp me into the ground, but we are in a recession of severe magnitude. Anyone who thinks this is a good thing is a bit misconceived. There are sources that say 77% of business investors see the president of the USA as anti-business. This isn't good even if you are self employed. Sources that buy what we are selling are fewer and fewer. Price corrections are yet to happen because everything is very expensive. Just the inputs of a common household i.e. food, gasoline, electricity, natural gas etc etc. are challenging to the common man's income. Until the pendulum swings back the other way things are going to be "thin" for awhile. Anorexic. Sympathy and regards, Spears

I just bought a small toaster oven to avoid the engine oil in wife's oven circumstance. Lowes and Walmart have small ovens less than $100 that will go to 450 degrees and will probably work ok for tempering small parts. I quench in used crankcase oil also. Spears.

There are those that claim welding units made with imported parts are as good as the brand name. So they say. There are those who even claim some Miller brand equipment has imported parts. So they say. I own a Miller Mig unit and a Miller Plasma cutter 10+yrs and as useful and trouble free as my life has been with these units, I wouldn't recommend anything else in the world. That doesn't mean other brands or imports can't be equally "ok". It's just the fact that the factory where I work owns Miller welding units that run day in day out. We replace tips and things like that and there is never a problem with availability. Even if I over paid for my stuff, at least it has always worked. Good luck. Spears

The UPS website has a location/weight calculator that is pretty close. I believe UPS handles up to 50lbs also. Nice price for material. Spears

Hello minceyjs, Something to use as an anvil and something to get the metal red hot and your ready to practice. It is a good idea to wear safety glasses also. Sometimes I have to take mine off when they fog up. I bought a whisper daddy gas forge from NC tool co. and I love it. Hooks up to a propane tank 20lb or 100 lb and extremely easy to use. Not as flexible as charcoal when it comes to things like forge welding but I have a mig welder for joining pieces. Flea markets are awesome here in Alabama for finding different hammers to try. I don't have a lot of elaborate tooling but I have been able to do some great artwork with just the basics. I attend outdoor art exhibitions quite frequently and often there is a blacksmith demonstrating so you can watch and learn without spending the big bucks on classes right away. The first time I hammered I only had an oxy-acetylene torch to heat up the metal. I would have to say my gas forge was the real tool that made my artwork something people could call "forged ironwork". The people on this forum can explain most everything. Good luck!! Spears

I won't make any suggestions to this thread, but I can tell you what I have seen. I took a job in a machine shop that used PVC plumbing pipe for air lines. In the 6th and 7th year, we had failures in the lines. These were explosions that sounded like a shotgun went off. Pieces of pipe separated and flew down from heights of 15 feet. A piece "feet" long hit the floor and was jagged. Far as I could tell the compressed air had left an oily film on the inside of the pipe over years and the chemistry changed which made things brittle. This may never happen, but can happen. I would never own a piece of property where something like this was constructed, but people are free to do as they wish. Good luck, Spears

This thread deserves a quote from one of the later fast and furious movies: "Muscle always beats Import"

Looks to me like the person is under the impression that you bang on an anvil to hear a ring. That's mostly all your going to get out of that piece of scrap iron besides a complimentary lolly pop from the scrap yard.

That is a really nice looking machine. It looks like it moves metal real well too. Thank you for sharing with that video. Could you let us know the stock size that was used? There isn't that many pictures and videos showing the tire hammer. Thanks again. Spears

I fabricated this wheel barrow vice so I can do my flame cutting out in the driveway. It opens up 22+? inches wide and has come in handy for certain things. Its made out of junk except for the acme screw and nuts and handle. Those acme threaded bars can be ordered from the ENCO sales catalog for less than $20 three feet long. The acme rods and nuts are all low carbon easily weldable and you can build the kind of clamps and vices you want. Also pictured here is a Post-like vice I made from junk. These are very useful and portable tools for the metal shop guy with more "time and junk" than money. Stick a big enough acme thread in it and you will surely get more honest to goodness "smash" for your hard-earned cash. Spears

Mine holds more wine, but I like yours a lot better! Very nice!

Yes, You're right ironstein, there is a 9 foot wide spider web with a 10 inch tall spider in the middle in the fence section next to this one. It's almost entirely welded except the spiders legs which were hammered using an oxy-acetelyne torch before I had my forge. Most of my big sculptures in my yard have been welding projects. I just didn't want to flood this forum with all the welding I do. I kind of wanted to stick to the forging area here. You folks really do have an eye for details. Thank you all for your compliments. Spears

Here is a fence section I did for out in front of the house a bit over a year ago. It has weathered nicely and is almost ready for a linseed oil treatment. It was done to practice and help exercise my technique for tapering points and curling rat tails. I also practiced some twisting. The big letter "B" is for our last name. If I'm going to do more fence sections like this, it will be after I get my power hammer constructed. Spears.

My first projects didn't look that good. Some of my later projects don't always look that good either. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you everyone for your compliments. I'm a bit modern day fine art compared to traditional methods. I love to look at what these blacksmiths do with techniques like forge welding, but processes like that are limited with much of the stuff I do. So if your very strict on processing methods, please forgive me because the added value from obedience to time periods won't be found in my art. I have taken awards for some of my work, (not this piece) but these are art exhibitions, not blacksmith competitions. The people who jury art competitions won't hold respect for anything except looks. You don't see a lot of hammered steel. Making something from steel is just downright tough to do. Regardless of how you fabricate it. Well anyway, back to the important question. The middle of the flower is like Phil said, sheet metal. How I went about this piece is take a strip let's say 1/2" wide length depending. Cut a zig zag pattern (perfect or staggard anyway you like) along one edge. Wind it around in a circle until you get to the diameter of the disk you plan to weld it to. Stick a long leg of an insect or in this case the beak of a hummer through the pattern and weld. Make sure the assembly is as rigid with tack welds as you want it. Shape it against the convex part of a sheet metal candle holding dish you might make a candle stick holder out of before all the tacks are finished. Tack weld the dish/disk to the back of spiked assembly and sand smooth to your liking. You can curl the little points with needle nose pliers to your liking. You now have a fine art flower middle to place inside a pedal array of your choice. What kind of flower? Who cares? Its art right? As long as it is something you might see in a book or museum, let the eye of the beholder figure it out. Actually, as long as your spouse likes this stuff around the house, keep on hammering! Spears

Here is an art piece I did recently.

Please forgive me. Peace :-)

Hello Tim, Just wanted to comment here. I work in a factory that has some and many more giant stamping presses and anytime a piece of steel is put in service not necessarily containing wear conditions it is most likely a low carbon ASTM A36 structural grade. Very weldable, decently formable, but not so easily hardened. Without having the carbon content already there, it would be very difficult to input a significant amount of carbon even if someone gave you two five gallon buckets of Kasenit hardening compound. The amount of work it would take with a home setup far exceeds any significant result beyond the use "as is" that the others and myself would suggest. I made my anvil out of hot rolled low carbon steel 3"x4" stock and a professional heat treat factory carborized it using gas in a furnace for 20 hours just to achieve a 1/8" case. There is nothing wrong with trying things because we don't learn much by doing things right. We make mistakes to learn more often than ever. I just wouldn't want someone to waste a terrible amount of time for little to no results. However, that piece of steel you have will make a beautiful anvil just as is! It will be easy to dress after it gets some dents too!! Have fun with it. Spears

Thank you for the replies. I live straight east of Redstone Arsenal on 5 acres of what used to be a swamp. Now it's a pretty cool yard I can put up my sculptures in. I made the flower petals out of 1/4" x 1" flat stock hand hammered and wire wheeled. I buy quite a bit of 1/4" scrap plate from work because they just recycle it. It's good low carbon hot rolled steel very forgeable and very weldable. I've learned a lot from this forum and I'm happy to be a part of it, Spears

Hello Everyone, Someone commented about how clean my shop looked so I figured I'd drop in here and introduce myself and leave a few pics of my shop and my work. I go by Spears even though my real name is Brad and I do fine art like big welded yard sculptures and forged furniture and forged art items. I've only owned my gas forge for about two years now and it has expanded my art capabilities to an outstanding level. I don't fall into the league of extraordinary blacksmiths and I'm kind of the opposite of traditional methods. That doesn't mean I don't respect the time and effort some folks put into performing their craft in the traditional way. Nor do I look up to someone who talks down my work because it isn't "forge welded". I only wish I had the time to work in my shop more than just 2nd to my full time job. I try to keep the floor swept in case some wealthy art clients want to visit and look at my work. You can bet the lady will be wearing sandals or shoes worth more than tires on my car. I just now acquired all the materials to build my David Robertson air hammer. That will allow me to work even thicker stock so my capabilities can grow even more. Most of my knowledge is in machining but if there is anything anyone thinks I can help them with, I'm a very easy person to contact. Regards, Spears. Hope you enjoy the pics!!

I'm glad someone liked the looks of my self machined anvil!! There were four of these things made. I only have possession of two of them. Seven years ago I was a machine shop teacher and had access to a very nice CNC mill. I don't have any pictures in process, my apologies. (We just got a digital camera a few months back anyway) Quite a few pieces of 3"x4" hot rolled had laid around that shop for awhile. The top piece with the horn and tail I didn't put a hardy hole in. Had no easy way to get a square hole in that monsterous chunk of junk steel anyway. I was very fortunate to have a heat treat company tired of the same old "same old" that liked to do special stuff now and again. They donated their time and materials for the job to the school. They even were able to shield the bottom part of the top portion from carborization knowing I was going to weld it on to the lower parts. I didn't know at the time the case hardening process is as capable as it is and I learned a lot from them. The anvils are tongue and groove constructed and then pre-heated a little and mig welded by myself. No longer having the job with access to that level of machining equipment makes me sometimes want to kick myself for not building more blacksmithing equipment. Attached is a picture where you can see I put the second anvil under a treadle I built. Once I get my air hammer completed, I will be giving this treadle attachment away for free. I will be keeping the anvil with its stand though (to difficult to replace). The treadle I find handy for only certain processes. Regards, Spears

This anvil was cnc cut from 4 pieces of 3" X 4" hot rolled steel. It was case hardened by a company that does clutch bearings for helicopters. Twenty plus hours in the furnace with carborizing gas to get an 1/8" case. Perhaps not as good as tool steel, but for the times I do miss the workpiece, it is holding up extremely well !!

Just ordered my set of plans from David a few days ago. I will purchase the materials as I get the money and let you folks know how it goes. It may be sometime, but when I finally get there I will do a test. It looks like a very good tool for most all of the work I do. Spears

Hello Wes, I'm going to be purchasing a power hammer near the end of this year. I've beat the web to death reading anything I can find on this subject. I don't have tons of time and money to travel and see all these things in person, but I can tell you what I've read. Yes, the tire hammer is the cheapest form of power hammer to build or buy. Mostly what I read though is people looking for parts. There isn't any tire hammer store or name brand with corporate backing full of shelf items. Some of the tire hammers get built with different sized parts. I know a local guy who said he built his with a 5" dia. anvil post. Probably didn't want to pay $700 to buy an 8" dia steel post. From what I've heard, you can probably build them up or down to you're liking with all sorts of different sized components. Machine shops can sometimes give people sticker shock with what they need to charge for their service. If you have an industrial lathe and mill, without a doubt, its probably a good way to go. If you're in good with the local machine shop and they can be reasonable with you, probably also a good way to go. That way you know you can always have something made to cover the "no shelf items" available issue. On the other hand, an easily placed phone call to BIG BLUE with a credit card, model #, or serial #. could probably get you the part you need the next day! Just some food for thought. Regards, Spears