I've been brainstorming on better ways to cut, mark, punch, slit, etc.. Mainly on bar stock, and mainly when working by myself. When I forge with others I have been lucky enough to have friends around to hold stock for me, but I can't always guarantee that. Some of the things I'd like to accomplish are straight lines and accurate measurements for things like centering a mark in a bar, etc. I've started doing a lot more layout cold, center punching marks, laying in lines with cold chisels, etc., and it seems to be helping. But I keep kicking around plans for an adjustable jig in my head. Has anyone else made jigs for this? I know I've seen Hofi's jig for punching/slitting hammer heads. What I'm thinking about would be similar to that, but would work for hand hammering, as opposed to a press..

Lets see if I can describe one nice little center line marker for sq bar I saw: It was an inch or so piece of 3/16" sq with a roll pin sticking out normal to the surface near either end and in the perfect center between them a carbide scribe point.

To use you placed it over a piece of stock and turned it till both roll pins were touching the sides and then scooted it down the bar marking the center. You could make different sized ones to deal with different sized stock but each one should work for several sizes. Not good for marking near the ends of a bar though.

Another I have seen was to take a piece of sq tool steel stock the size you want to mark in mild steel stock and mill the end so that 1/2 the width is removed, then go back and dress the bottom of your cut to an angle so the edge is now "sharp" and harden.

To use place the down hanging section against the side of your barstock and the sharpened edge will mark the middle---tap with a hammer (can make these to work on hot stock too!)

Bad ascii art of the second sort of marker
| |
|||
||

Then my favorite---fence on the flypress carefully adjusted WRT the chisel...

Edited March 25, 200917 yr by ThomasPowers

A bar clamp can be made into a hardy hole hold-down readily. I also use a plate which slips over the anvil face for hot cutting and have one with half a c-clamp welded to it. In addittion, if I remember correctly, there are all number of anvil hold-downs in the blueprint area. Then there are tool holders which position the tool while you hold the work and hammer the tool. Finaly, for the most accurate job, a flypress or oliver hammer with an adjustable fence as Thomas pointed out.

You can also put guides on a guillotine tool to maintain position on bar.

I've considered making a holder similar to a guillotine tool for holding punches. It'd need to be beefier to remain rigid and maintain index on the lower die. It'd free up at least one hand though for slitting, drifting and punching.

Frosty

For a hold down I found the top jaw of a pipe wrench along side the road once and forged the shaft to fit the anvil hardy hole, drilled a hole crosswise near the bottom of the shaft and welded a T handle to the top of the jaw.

To use I drop the shaft down the hardy hole and hook a spring attached to the anvil stump through the hole I drilled. Pull up, insert piece, let down.

Thanks guys for the feed back. Some really great ideas here.

Thomas, I watched a video from UMBA's library where Clay Spencer uses a tool like you describe. The two rollers and the scribe in the middle. Made a lot of sense. I filled that one away.

I hadn't thought about the second tool you describe. It sounds like it might be closest to fitting my needs. And likely easier to make then what I had been envisioning in my head. I don't have a mill to use, but I'm guessing I could get away with a grinder for it I think it most closely matches what I would like to do with it. I need to find several feet of square tool steel to work with. In the past I have used coil spring, and 5/8 round h13 for making my hand tools from. Both of which have worked fine, but probably not for this application.

I think I need to make a few different anvil hold downs, and see what will work for me. That will definitely free up a hand, and get give me one less thing to worry about. What I had been thinking about was a jig that would align the stock and hold the tool. So I could position the stock with one hand, and hammer down on the tool with the other.

I recently made an OK frame for a guillotine, but I still need to make dies for it. I was given a section of leaf spring that fits my frame dimensions well. Just need to cut it up and shape it.


Thanks again for helping me kick around ideas. Your suggestions have been very helpful for me.

for your marking tool look in george Dixion book he shows one there
for the other I think your saying something to fit into the hardy hole to position the work and also hold a punch of some sort if that is correct I saw something on the Flordia guild web site.

Jimbob, got a link? I'd love to take a gander, but google isn't helping me find it this time...

Wow, they have a lot of their newsletters on line. Looks like a good resource that could take me quite a while to digest! Thanks for pointing me towards this.

Edited March 25, 200917 yr by RegionalChaos

A book that would probably help you out is called:

Werk und Werkzeug des Kunstschmieds by Otto Schmirler. isbn 3-8030-5040-5

Lots of pictures and illustrations of the tools he used in his shop, and how those tools were used. The text/captions are in German, English, and French.

For consistent spacing on punched/slit holes he shows a "guide". An L shaped piece of iron to lay on top of your work, with a stub rod below - to set down in the last hole you punched or slit. The upright leg helps guide your punch/chisel at just the right distance from the previous hole. That upright leg could also be a cylinder to hold your punch/chisel - but you would need to beef up the whole jig and add bracing to the sides.

I have an old punch/chisel holder tool. It sets into your hardy hole, and looks like a large beefy clevis. The top loop is sized to hold a square shank punch/chisel. The bottom loop has a hole just big enough for the top tool to go into. It does not have any distance spacer, but that could be added to the side of the bottom part of the jig. Then lay your stock in it, line up where you want to punch or chisel, slip your punch/chisel down and start hitting it.

Hope this helps.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' german blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. This book is a great one for most any blacksmith, especially someone starting out. Because it shows the tools and how to use them. Even the jigs/tooling and HOW to punch/drift a SLANTED round hole through round stock - as in railing elements.

Edited March 25, 200917 yr by Mike Ameling
bad spellin

Jimbob, got a link? I'd love to take a gander, but google isn't helping me find it this time...

Wow, they have a lot of their newsletters on line. Looks like a good resource that could take me quite a while to digest! Thanks for pointing me towards this.

let me look when i get home from work...it took me about a month to go through all of them a lot of good stuff there...if you scroll on down the page they have them indexed

Edited March 25, 200917 yr by jimbob

If you want an alernative method of making centre lines in square stock you can use a 4 1/2'' grinder with one of the really thin cutting discs (over here they go down to around 1mm) Find a long shafted bolt that has the same size thread as the bolt hole in the grinder for the hand grip. Grinders have two and the bolt will go into the opposite one from the grip. Cut off the head and forge it to a point, about half an inch up from the threads put in a bend of about 45 degrees. Screw it into the bolt hole, from there you adjust the point to touch the side of the bar while the blade sits on the face, use a locking nut to secure the distance and the run the grinder down the bar. A bit of practice will sort the depth of the cut but you can end up doing it in one pass, then use a chisel to get rid of the slope at the ends of the cut.
You can save a lot of time on a job this way.

Ian,

It's late in the day and my brain is shutting down for the evening.

Is there any way you can post a picture or sketch of that rig. I just can't seem to visualize the entire process.

Thanks,

Don

Jimbob, got a link? I'd love to take a gander, but google isn't helping me find it this time...

Wow, they have a lot of their newsletters on line. Looks like a good resource that could take me quite a while to digest! Thanks for pointing me towards this.

see the october 1991, dec 2006,march 2003,april 1999,may 1994...just a few

Good tip Ian. Thanks!

Frosty