Questions about dies

[Grundsau]

Spent some time today with the LG getting a feel for it and controlling how hard it hits.
Was surprised at how easy it was to get light and smoothing blows.

There is a set of flat dies in it now.
A shallow curved fuller-type die set also came with it.



That set looks like a cross between a flat and fuller die.

Generally, what do you do with either style of die or work with the most?

Am going to work on some large strap hinges and will start the bean end on the anvil before moving to the LG.
Would you go with flat or fuller-type dies to draw out the body?
I've seen youtube vids of a hammer using fuller dies which moves material fairly fast.
How about a combination die?

thanks,
Allen

[mike-hr]

Looks like the radii don't match in your top and bottom die, you may be troubled with generating hockey sticks using those. I use flat dies exclusively, with additional spring-clapper dies for specific uses. I'd reccommend finding a copy of the Clifton Ralph videos, an occasionally boring but invaluable look at what can be done with flat dies. Branch out after that.

[clinton]

Well 99% of the people on here will tell you that flat dies are the most useful, I am the 1% that will tell you that combo dies are quite useful. I made my own and I have not ran into anything that made me want flat dies. Ya I know the hammers sweet spot is in the center of the die, and ya I know that you can use tooling with flat dies, I use tooling with combo dies and it works just fine. I find it rather hard to do much drawing with flat dies on my hammer and it is a 75 lb hammer, yes I can use tooling to draw out but I prefer to use the fullering die it gives me better control
I do not see how that one die is going to be used at all with no dovetail

[Timothy Miller]

I always called dies like that drawing dies. I use those dies for about 30% of the work I do the rest of the time I use flat dies. They are nice for drawing out long smooth tapers. As said before though there is no dove tail on one of the dies so I'm mot sure how the small die would get fitted to your hammer you could mill in a dove tail its not a huge job. secondly as also said before if the dies radii are mismatched the work piece will curve towards the die with the smaller radius. This could be over come by frequently flipping the work piece but this will result in a rougher forging than if the two dies were matched. Then to your anvil for unnecessary clean up this sort of thing gets old fast but its better than no power hammer. You could also grind the wider die to match the small die but then you will have edges that don't match up in some cases this may be limiting. If it were my hammer I would just call up Little Giant and order a matched set and sell those on ebay to help cover the cost of the new dies. I don't really like combo dies I like to have the full possible width available of my die. One of these days I will get a second hammer one with flat dies and one with drawing dies.

[Grundsau]

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[peacock]

The small die is just fine. the other half of the dovetail is the key. 25 and 50 pound LGs use this system. If you get a new die from Sid it will be the ssame setup. If I wanted to match up those drawing dies I would measure to see what I had then see if Sid had a top or bottom that would match one of them. I have gotten a new upper from Sid to match the bottom and ground it to the same profile as the lower. That set of dies are for sharpening plow shares, ideal for that job.

[Timothy Miller]

Ah the drawing dies have a half dove tail might work with the proper key. I think LG made mismatched drawing dies for drawing out plow shears the mismatched curve may have helped to put a curve into the plow shear. You will get a smooth taper with the flat dies because its only a 50 lb hammer. My hammer is 130lbs it leaves distinct marks when drawing out with flat dies. You could also use a hand held power hammer combination flatter fuller tool. Its flat on one side and a broad fuller on the other with a 18" loop handle. Its a very handy tool.

[monstermetal]

Another thing..... I dont think those "flat" dies you show in your picture are intended to forge with, they are much to short for your little giant based on the height of the dies you have in the hammer in your video.. My guess is those are tooling dies to use with swages or tools. They would give you more space for spring swages and the like and as such could be quite useful... Id hold on to those

[Fosterob]

Keep all the dies and if you must buy new ones, get the new ones to make a matched pair of drawing dies for what you already have. Even if you do not use the extras for their intended purpose they are easily modified for something else later.
Rob

[Timothy Miller]

Another thing..... I dont think those "flat" dies you show in your picture are intended to forge with, they are much to short for your little giant based on the height of the dies you have in the hammer in your video.. My guess is those are tooling dies to use with swages or tools. They would give you more space for spring swages and the like and as such could be quite useful... Id hold on to those

Couldn't he just drop the Pittman arm down. You could do that with my 75 lb Fairbanks.

[Grundsau]

Ok, I'll hold onto the dies for now.
You folks are great resources for info.
Thanks for helping me out.


Does the crosshead stay in position on the pitman via friction?
I looked at the parts diagram on the LG site but didn't understand how it tightened up.
Can't imagine how it stays where you put it with all the oil on it and movement of the toggle arms and ram.

Looks like there isn't alot of "up" adjustment:



I plan to add an adjustable toggle link to the right side later on.

[monstermetal]

Couldn't he just drop the Pittman arm down. You could do that with my 75 lb Fairbanks.

There is only so much adjustment and on a 50lb LG you loose about 50% of the power if you put several inches of tooling under the standard dies even with the pittman adjusted... take half the dies away and you can still get largish tooling in there and a full power stroke... The down side is you have to change back to forging dies because with short dies the toggle arms with hit the guide on a old style LG

[nuge]

Flat dies are more versatile but there's nothing like drawing out tapers and reducing cross section with a radius-ed die. Its so much more efficient and pleasurable and you're moving metal properly. I have flat dies as well and use spring drawing dies with them and it kinda stinks, it's not precise. You're 50 lb'er doesn't have too much surplus power so why not help it out? Get some combo dies in there.

You could turn the low profile flat dies into something like the bolt-on system Little Giant sells.

http://www.littlegianthammer.com/pdf_files/50pound.pdf

[don schad]

Does the crosshead stay in position on the pitman via friction?
I looked at the parts diagram on the LG site but didn't understand how it tightened up.
Can't imagine how it stays where you put it with all the oil on it and movement of the toggle arms and ram.

The crosshead has a slot and is compressed with the big nut on the left side of the crosshead. Your spring guard appears to be mounted on the stud which is responsible for the compression. So you need to loosen that nut (or both if there are two nuts on the stud) then you can slide the crosshead up - this is fairly easy to to if you first put a 4x4 on the lower die and then rotate flywheel until the spring starts to compress (because the lower die is pressing on the wood). Then loosen the nut and continue turning the flywheel and the crosshead should slide up the pitman. Re-tighten once it is in the position you like.

Note that on the new style LGs it is possible to move the pitman arm up too far such that the ram will crash into the spring (i.e. the pitman has 2.5" of travel, but only 1.5" is usable). I don't know about the old style, but you should check that things aren't going to bang together after your adjustment...or at least squint your eyes and tilt your head to the side when you start her up...

don

[Grundsau]

Thanks Don.

Is there a rule of thumb for die adjustment when working with different material thickness.
With the flat dies in it now I was able to take 1/2" round down to 1/4".
What about 1.5" x 3/16" for a strap hinge?

[RingingAnvil]

combo dies, almost never change them.

[RingingAnvil]

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[fciron]

The small die is just fine. the other half of the dovetail is the key. 25 and 50 pound LGs use this system.

Ah the drawing dies have a half dove tail might work with the proper key. I think LG made mismatched drawing dies for drawing out plow shears the mismatched curve may have helped to put a curve into the plow shear.

Another thing..... I dont think those "flat" dies you show in your picture are intended to forge with, they are much to short for your little giant based on the height of the dies you have in the hammer in your video.. My guess is those are tooling dies to use with swages or tools. They would give you more space for spring swages and the like and as such could be quite useful... Id hold on to those

These three guys said everything I would have said. The upper die in both my 25lb LG is held by a key that tapers along its length and along its height, so the die only shows a dovetail on one side. It's kind of a pain to make a new one, but they work well and if your luck both of yours will be held by the same wedge.

Sid at Little Giant sells an 'oversized' top die that should have the same size face as the lower of your drawing dies. I bought new dies last year and I'm quite happy with them.

Lewis

[dsloan]

I would like to agree on a few points. Most damage caused to Little Giants is cause by short dies. If your die height is to short the arms could strike the ram guide. If the picture that you posted is of your hammer, that is why the toggle link is rewelded. You can find the proper die height on the Little Giant website.

The gentleman was right on the pitman adjustment if you need to adjust the die gap only do this on the pitman. Tightening your spring will only affect the performance of your hammer. I would also consider a new spring by the looks of the picture. If the type of spring or age is in question alot of performance can be gained by a new spring.

With the proper adjustment of the pitman I knew a gentleman that could tell the difference of how hard his hammer hit between a 1/2 inch and 3/8's.

I hope this helps.

Dave from Diller

[Grundsau]

Thanks Lewis, after talking with Sid, I ordered a set of drawing dies which are out of stock for about a week.
Looking forward to trying them.

Hi Dave, that toggle arm baffled Keri when I sent her the photos.
The ram guide appears to be undamaged though.
Will replace the spring right away when I switch out for the adjustable toggle arm.
Keri thought it was ok to run for now but looking at that thing hanging crooked just seems odd.

Sid mentioned the crosshead could be flipped for some additional adjustment.
Btw, Keri could find no info on the hammer in their record books.

Allen

[don schad]

Is there a rule of thumb for die adjustment when working with different material thickness.
With the flat dies in it now I was able to take 1/2" round down to 1/4".
What about 1.5" x 3/16" for a strap hinge?

In Kern's book there is a reprint of the original LG instruction sheet (single page). Regarding height for the 25# is says:

"...crosshead is set so that dies are approximately 1" apart when crank pin is at lowest center. This is the approximately correct adjustment ... for nothing up to 2" diameter or 3" wide flats ... edgewise"

So the lowest position should work for your flats.

You can experiment and start to feel/hear when you need to move the head up. Sometimes it is a tradeoff of power verses flexibility...for e.g. if you are forging wide flats on edge you can optimize for power for the wide dimension, but you might not be able to rotate it 90deg to flatten it without tooling.

don

[Grundsau]

Hi Don, this is for a 50 though.
The crosshead is already at its lowest adjustment.
Before I go making any adjustments I'll just try it and see how it goes.
thanks.

[don schad]

Hi Don, this is for a 50 though.

Hi,

Sorry, for some reason I was thinking 25#...anyway, the appropriate values for the 50# are just different by 1/2:

(from the Kern reprint:)

1 1/2" between dies when sitting in the lowest position, and this adjustment is appropriate for "nothing" to 2 1/2" diameter, 3 1/2" flats on edge.

If your spring guard makes it difficult to adjust the height you might consider re-engineering that attachment. If you keep the wrench and 4x4 handy changing height can be very quick. If you have to work things that are broadly different a flatter can be helpful to make up the difference.

don

[dsloan]

The new dies at the correct height will really help out with adjustment. You should be able to get good cross head attachment on your pitman, plus it is not taboo to flip the crosshead if you need more. One other thing to check is bottom of your sow block, make sure it's not hollowed out. When the new dies are seated in the sow block make sure you have about an 1/8" of clearance between the lip of the die and top edge of your sow block. If not put a shim under your die to bring it up. This will definitely help with pitman placement and correct die gap.

Dave from Diller