Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 "tortoise question"??? Yes, them be the world famous OCP swages ("We've upped our quality, now up yours"). 4140 in this cross-section works good. Springs are mild. Welding is mild, done with the whole thing at 700° F. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youngdylan Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 "tortoise question"??? Yes, them be the world famous OCP swages ("We've upped our quality, now up yours"). 4140 in this cross-section works good. Springs are mild. Welding is mild, done with the whole thing at 700° F. I've got a bad habit of asking a whole list of questions and people often zone out so I throw a swerve ball in at end. I think a while back I must have had sentance with 1/2 dozen questions in, probably power hammer related. I ended it with "why does the tortoise have such a streamlined shape" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youngdylan Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 "tortoise question"??? Yes, them be the world famous OCP swages ("We've upped our quality, now up yours"). 4140 in this cross-section works good. Springs are mild. Welding is mild, done with the whole thing at 700° F. You do realise this forums giving me an identity crisis. When started I was determined not to stoop to the imperial level, all my post were going to be in millimeter, metres, kg, Newtons etc etc. Steel was going to be EN19, EN24 ..., copper alloys CA104, CS101.... Bit by bit I find I'm going over to the dark side and doing inches, 4140, 4340. Not good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 You do realise this forums giving me an identity crisis. When started I was determined not to stoop to the imperial level, all my post were going to be in millimeter, metres, kg, Newtons etc etc. Steel was going to be EN19, EN24 ..., copper alloys CA104, CS101.... Bit by bit I find I'm going over to the dark side and doing inches, 4140, 4340. Not good. That's funny, one of my favorite "die" steels is EN30B. Actually, my all time favorite for swages and such was 4150 (Maxell "B", as us old duffers remember it). 4340 makes some nasty scale, think it's the nickel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 "Give in to the dark side, David"! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youngdylan Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 That's funny, one of my favorite "die" steels is EN30B. Actually, my all time favorite for swages and such was 4150 (Maxell "B", as of old duffers remember it). 4340 makes some nasty scale, think it's the nickel. I've never fully "mastered" metallurgy, I just lucked out a few years ago at an old fashion stand around, freeze tour t**s off, get bored sensless auction and bought about 400kg of EN24 (4340) for £40 and about 100kg of H13 for £30. All in small billets from 25mm to 200mm dia. There were other flavours there but I went for these because they were the only ones I'd really heard much about. Was about 5 years ago (before scrap skyrocketed) and I'm still dining out on it. Most of my tooling these days tends to be made from 4340 or H13. I know its totally geekish but I really love these steels, espicially the 4340. Tough as old boots, "weldable" and never cause me problems with heat treating. I also love the punishment H13 can take hot. I've got a pile of leaf springs and other "who knows what" steels which I give a "trial by combat" to find out what they're good for, but it's always good dealing with a known quantity. Kinda find it funny when people go to the trouble of unwinding coil springs when for a few £ they could buy a nice straight length of 20mm EN24T. A lot of smiths over hear like EN9; a "basic" 55points carbon steel. Didn't know about the scale with 4340 ... thanks. Do you know what the french for 4150 is. Actually the original anvil/ tup in my KA75ish were lumps of 4340 I just happened to have lying around. Replaced them with mild because the anvil needed more mass and my "pile" was starting to get low. I sorta built it just because I'd got some lumps the right size. ... and whilst I'm rambling, kinda curious why you went for a "small" anvil with the KA75. That said, it's got a very good reputation. Xxxx I even copied it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 Shipping cost. And it worked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youngdylan Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 Shipping cost. And it worked. ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 wanted it to portable, two burly guys can get it in a truck. Easy to move around with a hand truck. Nothing to do with forging. Reminds me, once I was talking about my "little" screw press and the guy asks me what I meant by "little'. So I told him it was eight feet tall and weighed about 4,000 pounds. He say "you have to understand, to most people 'big' is a 200 pound refrigerator they're trying to get into the house"! Perspective! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youngdylan Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 wanted it to portable, two burly guys can get it in a truck. Easy to move around with a hand truck. Nothing to do with forging. Reminds me, once I was talking about my "little" screw press and the guy asks me what I meant by "little'. So I told him it was eight feet tall and weighed about 4,000 pounds. He say "you have to understand, to most people 'big' is a 200 pound refrigerator they're trying to get into the house"! Perspective! Thats another good thing (besides the metric system) over here. Shipping rate is per pallet space (4'x4' and upto about 1Tonne). Typically from £50-90 for most parts of the country. Thats a small power hammer nationwide Sent some gates 6'x6' led flat for £200 to London Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 Blacksmithing give you a total new outlook on "portable". At our conference one of the demonstrators brought his own treadle hammer, 50# LG and a rolling mill---and unloaded and set it up with his dominant hand in a cast (and surgery on it the day after the conference!) Thankfully portable to my wife is a spinning wheel that folds up and can be placed behind the seat in the car... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bentiron1946 Posted March 16, 2010 Share Posted March 16, 2010 ....and after you are totally gimped a half gallon of milk lacks portability :blink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mainely,Bob Posted March 16, 2010 Share Posted March 16, 2010 In between arm/hand surgeries I kept either an adjustable dog leash or a length of cord in my pocket or sling. Instead of trusting my grip or if I needed the one hand I could trust to open a door I`d either make a loop and sling whatever over my neck or shoulder or put it down,loop the door,pick it back up and then pull the leash/cord. Got real good at tying knots with one hand and my teeth too. During the winter I could string up a couple plastic bags of groceries,clip the other end to my back belt loop and drag them thru the snow. Bigger,more durable things got knocked to the ground and kicked/rolled to where I needed them and then stood back up. Nothin` like being cut on to make you get inventive real fast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youngdylan Posted March 16, 2010 Share Posted March 16, 2010 I thought about extra relief in the middle but hoped that enough of the reduction in diameter would take place before the bar made it to the middle. However I trust your STOCK answers. What do you mean by dies rather than swages? These are typical of the speciality dies I use rather than spring swages. The finials are forged from 1.5" 316 stainless (giving into the dark there Grant). They're roughed out on the Anyang with 1" radius fuller dies, shaped on the kinyon with the dies below (they only work about 3/4 of the length of the finial) and the "tail" drawn out on the Anyang then cut of on guilotine tool. All done in one heat. Reheat them to orange and anneal to prevent corrosion problems with chromium carbides. Note how the dies are made with the business ends from 4340 and they're well radiused everywhere Where ever possible I use dies rather than wibbley wobbley swages. Takes just about the same time to make dies as it does spring swages. It's a few more seconds to swap over dies than swages but this ain't an issue with more than one hammer. They're then rough "ground/polished" but I leave in the hammer marks and then get them electroploished. They come back all shiney and rustproofed. Because of the hammer marks they've got an almost faceted jewel like quality to them. Ive got to do a batch of over 300 in varying sizes and they'll have some of the blown glass ones mixed in with them. Because of the quantity it was well worth spending a bit of time at the start playing around with tooling Note also how they're fixed to the stems, I've drilled and reamed a 12mm hole in the base and they'll be glued onto the 316 satin finished stems. It is the 21st century and we've kinda moved on from forge welding!!!! Doing it this way gives a nice crisp line around the join and it's one less place for corossion around welds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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