TASMITH Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 (edited) I thought perhaps you might like to see a couple of pictures from the last place I worked. The hammer in use in the picture is a 10,000# air operated hammer used to make the largest forgings in the shop. The item being forged in the one picture is a "Contact". This was a part used in the smelting operations of aluminum that we made for ALCAN. The bar being forge was 3 " in diameter by 27" long and weighed approximately 54#. This is a closed die operation and there was a trim flash that was hot trimmed after forging. I didn't run any of these hammers myself. My job was to make all the tongs for the hammer men, heaters and trim operators.One end of the billets forged in the big hammer was pressed between a pair of flat dies to form a tong hold on the billet. The tong hold was approximately 2 1/2" square and I fit the jaws of their tongs to it. The heaters tongs were made to fit the full 3" rd billet and had handles(reins) approximately 5 ft in length. The furnace to heat the billets was to the left of the picture and the large hot trim press was to the right. Also pictured are some of the smaller auto parts we made in the plant as well. Some were made on drop hammers, some on LASCO (Hydraulic) hammers, and others on either the 1,500 or 2,000 ton forging presses. I made all the tongs for all the hammers, heating furnaces and presses.The last picture in the series shows the backside of the big forging hammer. The trim press is on the left side and the furnace is to the right back in behind the hammer. The two bins out front were the scrap hoppers for the trim flash from the forgings. If requested I can write more on these things and see if I can track down more pictures. Terry Edited March 23, 2009 by TASMITH Description of last picture Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archiphile Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 (edited) I am assuming that that the forge was a gasser. Also lets see some of those tongs that you forged. Or consequently lets see some photos of tong that you made for home use. Edited March 23, 2009 by archiphile to fex ma spelln airrors Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 Thanks for the pics Terry, it's good to see modern operations. Do you have any of tongs the other guys destroyed? I'm assuming you weren't doing such a booming business making them because they treated them like family heirlooms. Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TASMITH Posted March 23, 2009 Author Share Posted March 23, 2009 Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of any of their tongs they used myself, but I am trying to track down some more pictures. They wouldn't allow us to bring cameras into the plant and any pictures taken were either done by the company for promotional purposes, or for quality control. If I can track down some more pictures I will post them. Frosty, Family heirlooms? ya right. All the older hammer men did take care with their tongs, but unfortunately with only a 1/2" to 3/4"(max) length to use as a 'tong hold' on most of the forging bars it was quite common to pinch the ends of the jaws between the dies. The square tong hold on the big hammer was only used on bars bigger than 2 1/2" round. All others were just the 1/2 to 3/4 grip for a tong hold. All the stock used for all jobs in the shop was round and ranged from 0.843" up to 4" in diameter and all sizes in between. Lengths ranged from 14" to 27" long for bars. You can see the end of the billet that was the tong hold for the chrysler rod with the flash. That was the average tong hold the men had per bar. The tongs I made had to grip a bar by that amount ONLY. You can imagine what kind of pressure needed to be applied to only 3/4" of a 1 1/2" rd bar by 16" long (8#) to keep it straight while you forged it to shape in a closed die. That size and length of bar was used in a four impression die (edger, blocker,rougher and finisher) to make yokes for universal joints. It took anywhere from 7 to 9 blows to make one set of three yokes per bar. They had to lift the forgings from one impression to the other as well as lift them between blows to clear the scale from the impressions with scale blowers. The jaws on the tongs I made were approximately 2 1/2 to 3" in length and sized to fit a particular bar being forged. The handles(reins) averaged about 36" long and tapered from a max 1/2" thick up at the eye to 3/8ths to 1/4" at the ends of the handles and weighed about 4 to 6 lbs. Some hammer men liked them lighter and others a bit heavier but never more than about 6#. There were usually three hammer men and one heater on each crew and each hammer had a pair of heater tongs and for some jobs separate trim tongs at each unit. There was always at least 4 and at time 6 hammers and one or both forging presses running at a time. They also worked three shifts and some weekends overtime while I worked one shift, Monday to Friday.All the hammer and press operators kept their own forging tongs locked up when not working plus a spare for each size of bar used in forging. That meant that I had to keep a good supply of spares for each job on a rack for use in the off shifts in the event somebody smashed() a pair of tongs or pinched the ends of them. This resulted in my making about six new pair of forging tongs per day plus repairs. In addition I also made replacement heater tong, as the jaws would eventually crack and deteriorate with the constant heating and quenching of the tongs themselves. The furnaces were large rotary hearth furnaces with the hearth being about 12 to 16 FEET in diameter and the furnace set around 2250 Deg. F. It didn't take too many bars for the jaws of the heater tongs (shaped like pick-up tongs) to get red and needed to be quenched every few bars. This thermal shock created severe checking in the steel of the jaws and eventually needed to be replaced. And again, they were all different sizes to accommodate the various bar diameters. I worked there for 22 years and estimate I had made between 50 and 60 THOUSAND pairs of tongs and countless repairs. I also made most of the hand hammers, pry bars, chisels and numerous other tools used by the set-up men (who set dies in the hammers) and the maintenance men and various other tools for the tool room and cold work finishing dept. as well. I was also responsible for all the heat treating of various tools, cold coining dies, hot trimmers etc. used in the shop, so I wasn't just a tong maker. I do have some pictures of tongs that I used myself to make the tongs for the shop and for my own use. They look somewhat different from any others I have seen and I will post the pictures and a bit of an explanation of why I make them that way. It is the same type and way that I made the hammer mens tongs and heater tongs as well so you will get an idea of what they looked like. Terry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archiphile Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 Sounds like you had a great time working there. It would be cool to watch you make a pair of tongs. I would imagine that you are quite adept a making the strong and making them fast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markb Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 Terry Enjoying your thread very much. A glimpse into a world I didn't know existed. I can only imagine your skills perfected after years of hard work. I'm looking forward to any more details and pics, you're descriptions are very good, I can almost feel the heat, vibration, and deafening sound. Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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