how do you stop the eye punch bending or upsetting into itself when you are bob punching it?

Monty, Take a short heat.It will bend if hit off center, and will upset when hit on center. I take care when making them and don't try to go too far too fast. If you bend it, take a longer heat and straighten it back. And only hit one hit at a time and look quickly in between each hit and direct your punch toward center. Like with all forgings, it can only do what you do. Brian

thank you, after much bending and going wonky on the end , burning and re filing i have a useable eye punch, thank you very much for the information that you have posted,it is really helpful.
monty

This is the most helpful thread on tool making that I have read yet! Many thanks to all. When I get my forge set up again (tring some different ideas) I will be making some tools.

Brian,

Thank you and everyone else for this post. It is helping me to remember what you taught Daniel and I. I have been too busy to spend much time with Daniel forging, but the boy is sure a hit at the farmers market this Fall.

He gave me grief for using "his" punch this afternoon, so I guess I'll put the above information to work this week.

Cheers all.

I'll bring some more spring steel with me when I come next month. I have some straight lengths now.

:)

What length do you guys make your hot work punches and chisels? I'm a horseshoer too, BTW, so if any of you have any dimensions or prints for shoeing tools, I'd appreciate them. I need to make a creaser and a city head punch.

Brian couple questions: Do you taper the striking end? Looks like it in the first post pics. If so is there a reason or you just like it that way? Also what do you use to grind the working ends?

I don't have a lot of metal working experience and I found it very difficult to get a nice even grind with the bench grinder. I have used the flap wheels on the angle grinder befor and thought they mite be better. Also was wondering about a belt grinder. Have to look into how to build one.

I made a chisle today about like the one second from the right end on the first post pics. I needed it to put the viens in a leaf my son and I made. I drew the working end to blue and just let the stirking end cool in the air. Oh I started with spring steel. Had to resharpen once and the striking end is mushrooming just a little. Is that normal? The leaf was fairly larg and took a lot of hits.

Thanks for the great info

Mike R, struck ends will mushroom with use, and that is one reason to slightly taper them to prolong the need to rework them. Also, it is to direct the energy of the strike in the center of the column. I am not that good with a bench grinder either, and I'm just getting comfortable with a belt sander. I have mostly finished both ends with a rasp or a file, and the closer you get to the finished piece by forging, the less there will be to file or grind. Learning to cut material to the center properly with a hot cut hardy will help tremendously with forging and finishing anything you forge.

Thanks Brian. A hot cut is something I need to make. We used a railroad spike to cut the leaf out of plate and to cut the sping off for the chisle.

 So glad alec showed me this :D thanks for posting this brian!

Hi

is there any way that the tool images can be reposted for this thread?  The images no longer exist when I follow the link on page 1.

On 04/09/2016 at 11:05 AM, Dunk_c said:

Hi

is there any way that the tool images can be reposted for this thread?  The images no longer exist when I follow the link on page 1.

I have just read this thread again from start to finish and like Dunc said above it is so disappointing the photos have gone.

I saw them 1st time around but my memory is not that great