Swage blocks in the future

[the_sandy_creek_forge]

For those of us that were in the BP chat Tuesday night I hinted at this, so here it is all laid out.

I've been mulling the idea over in my head for several weeks now. With the seemingly general decline in foundries in the U.S. (especially ones that will do small batch custom casting at a reasonable price) I've been wondering if there wasn't a better way to create a swage block. Some of the thoughts I've had so far-

1). The aforementioned decline in economical casting
2). The growing number of jobshops/machine shops that have hydro/water jet cutters
3). The fact that castings have a draft (I believe thats the term) to them that needs cleaned up to get good even surfaces, and that a hydrojet can create almost perfectly squared/perpendicular cuts without the extra steps (and man hours) of cleanup.
4). The correct selection of steel could yield a block that would be more durable than ductile cast iron.

SO, those are my thoughts, now lets here what everyone else thinks. Don't be afraid to throw in your two cents worth. Let's hear opinions on methods, materials, designs, anything. Once we have enough ideas and thoughts compiled I will look into to the actuall cost for having a hydrojet cut steel block made and see how it stacks up against a cast iron, or even cast steel for that matter, block.

Who knows, this could even be the beginnings of the next big revolution in blacksmithing
-Aaron @ the SCF

[Sam Salvati]

I think the problem with water jet cutting out the blocks, would be yeah it would be easy to get the oputside parts done, but forming the bowls withough alot of expensive machine time would be hard. I would love a 4140 swage block, that thing would last forever:D.

[DocsMachine]

For a swage block with just edge forms, a waterjet would be just fine. You pay by the pump time, though, and cutting 1" or 2" steel is very slow- I would wager the total costs might not be all that much different than casting.

However, for swages with holes (not just grooves on the edges) the holes are intended to be tapered specifically for upsetting rod and bar. A straight-walled hole (waterjet will make a slightly tapered hole in steel that thick) would be almost useless.

Also, the surface finish straight out of a waterjet is actually fairly rough- like coarse sandblasting, in addition to the usual "waves" and tracks from the jet wash. You'd need to do quite a bit of hand finishing with a sander and flap wheel to get good smooth working surfaces.

And last, as above, the 'jet can't carve bowls or channels. Those would have to be ground, forged or milled, none of which will be easy or quick.

Doc.

[Ron Hicks]

How about a Cupola Furnace and make your own?
I bet you could get all kinds of scrap cheap or free to melt.
[url=http://lindsaybks.com/bks3/chcup/index.html]Lindsay: Chastin's Cupola Furnaces[/url]

Just think about everything you could make
I would like to try it someday myself.

Ron

[habu68]

Sandy, if you would like a price quote on water jet, Dan Nibbelink at Colorado Water Jet might be a good bet. He is an officer in the Rocky Mountian Smiths and has a monthly hammer-in at his shop. At least he knows what a swedge block is. Colorado Waterjet I believe they can also make cavities that do not extend thru the block.

Disclaimer: Other than pounding steel with him, I have no connection with Dan Nibbelink or Colorado Water Jet.

[ThomasPowers]

wire edm leaves a nice surface but is expensive!

I don't use a swage block for dishing forms they are easy enough to get elsewhere. The old swage blocks I have seen and used usually don't have much in the way of dishing forms cast into them but rather more "holes" in various shapes.

[frogvalley]

...and easy. I don't expect to have any trouble finding them in the future.

Older one might have just the holes, bu mine has extensive dishing capabilities. A shovel form, a spoon form, three sizes of hemisherical concavities plus a long slow curve down one side that allows for dishing of HUGE forms.

[Pault17]

Being a neophyte smith, I don't have teh funds or knowlege (yet) for using a bunch of the tooling you guys and gals talk about. But, I am a healthy scrounger. I found a block of steel (type unkown) that measures 7x7x4.5 and weighs around 25 lbs. I used a drill press and a 4.5 inch grinder to put three different types of spoon shaped dishes in it so far. I am trying to figure out how to put fullering grooves in it that doesn't go beyond my tools and current skills.

Being a home inspector, I meet all kinds of people and recently did a home inspection for a gent that works in a really fancy machine shop. He has been supplying me with little cut-offs and drops of metals ranging from s-series and d-series, along with hot rolled, in sizes ranging from 5/8 round to 5-inch round. pretty neat guy.

The shop he is in has some awesome tooling ranging from a monster 80+ year old gigantic machine-type drill press, to a 3/4 million$ computerized milling machine. They do water jet cutting and this cool thing with metal sitting in a liquid but usnig a little electrified wire that cuts just about any shape. When I was in the shop it was hollowing out the inside of a metal box. pretty cool.

pax
pt

[ThomasPowers]

dishing forms: lifting/tow rings, bottom of out of spec gas cylinders, top of a valve from a bulldozer (I believe). A friend of mine had a dishing form made with high explosives, quite a nice dimple in the face of a 6" chunk of 1' dia round stock.

The weirdest forms I have came from a lens grinding facility and I have both positive and negative forms; unfortunately they are not rated for heavy work.

Any shovels I make are free handed so that would be just a waste of space for me. If I had to do a lot of them I would make a positive/negative mold for them for my screw press---not hard to do with a forge and buzzbox.

My old swage block as large curves on one side too.

Thomas

[Pault17]

Here is a try at putting a picture of a small spoon or ladle bowl I made after watching last week's tuesday nite class
hope it works

[HWooldridge]

I've been practicing this craft for almost 25 years and have never owned a swage block - primarily because I was never able to find one that was either affordable or in decent shape. As others have said, there are too many convenient forms laying around to work on that come from scrap sources.

For example, section a piece of pipe lengthwise (any diameter you like), maybe 3 inches long. This is done about a third of the way across the diameter. In other words, split it long ways but not exactly in the middle and keep the "shallow" piece. Tack weld it to a piece of plate, interior surface up and then tack a piece of small angle iron to each side for support. Violin! - you have just made a swage block. Make another just like it and weld to a loop - now you have a complete swage pair to use under a power hammer. It won't hold up like solid but works fine in a pinch for a few pieces.

I personally believe swage blocks were a luxury in many small shops. I have been in a few period smithies dating from the 19th century and have only seen one swage block. That was in a shop which had been quite large and probably employed 12-15 smiths at its height. It may be that many shops in my area primarily did agricultural and wagon work but the most common major tools seem to have been anvil, forge, vise and cone mandrel (not counting tongs and hand tools). Many old shops also had tire shrinkers but that is not something many current smiths will find useful.

Back to the original question - there are still a few small foundries that will cast swage block patterns but the finishing is the hard part (Wally Yater could have testified to that when he was making his patterns). Cast iron is fairly soft but swage blocks are not used like anvils so that material or mild steel should work fine. Anything more exotic isn't really needed.

[johnny99]

Habu, is dan still hosting hammer ins on saturday's?
I made my swage block by laminating 10"x10" by 1/2" thick plates to make a four inch thick block. Plasma cut the edge profiles. interior dishing depressions were cut in decreasing steps, then the fillet welds filled in the steps and made it easy to grind to a nice radius. I origianally intended to laminate pieces of pipe, and angle into the exterior fuller grooves, but haven't gotten to it yet. I also cut a 1 1/2" square hole in the middle and welded in a piece of tapered sq. tube to mount stake tools in.
Worked really well , but it was a bit of work, and probably as expensive as a smaller swage block if I wouldn't have had the steel already paid for.

[DocsMachine]

They do water jet cutting and this cool thing with metal sitting in a liquid but usnig a little electrified wire that cuts just about any shape. When I was in the shop it was hollowing out the inside of a metal box. pretty cool.

-That's called Wire EDM, or Electrical Discharge Machining. Basically acurrent is passed through an electrode (wire, a rod, bar, etc.) and as it comes in contact with the workpiece, thousands of tiny sparks are made. Those thousands of sparks erode the metal- ever seen the arc-spot where the ground clamp of a welder made contact with the workpiece? Same game, just on a smaller and more uniform scale. The liquid is simply a dielectric that helps flush the materil out of the cut.

In a "ram" EDM, an electrode, usually made of graphite, is "pushed" into the workpiece, with the spark-erosion creating a cavity in the precise shape of the electrode.

Molds for drink bottles are made this way. A CNC mill cuts a master that looks just like the bottle, out of a block of graphite. That master is then used to erode a female form directly into already-heat-treated blocks of tool steel.

A well-equipped shop can go from a CNC program, to a production-ready mold in at little as a few hours. With the old way, just heat-treating the molds would take days or even weeks.

In "wire" EDM, the electrode is a thin wire, run through some pulleys much like a bandsaw blade- except that, since the wire is also eroded as it's used (graphite is more resistant to the erosion) it isn't on a "band", it's taken off a reel, fed through the workpiece, then discarded out the other end. Wires- and this the cut 'kerf'- can be as small as 0.015 inch.

EDM is slow, as most processes go, but among it's other capabilities, is that it can sail right through pretty much any conductive metal, no matter how hard. Bearing shell? No problem. And no heat-affected zone either.

[/pointless rambling]

Doc.

[Ron Hicks]

I may get a book or two on Cupola Furnaces & Sand Casting.
I found a few things on Casting & Swage Blocks
Some may like
You Can Cast Iron
Marshall Machine Works Ltd.
SwageBlocks.com Special anvils for repousse, artist blacksmiths and armorers
Blacksmith Tools

[habu68]

Habu, is dan still hosting hammer ins on saturday's?

I think so. Here is a quote of the last e-mail I recieved from Dan in January.

There is also a group of roge B/S'rs, in every sense of the the word, that will have a 4 day hammer in the first weekend in june at Rusty May's saddle shop in Loveland I will post more info at ifi as soon as I get a chance to scan the letter.

Dans E-mail:

In January Open Forge will be on January 20th (third Saturday)





I will be hosting "open forge" at my shop in Berthoud, usually on second Saturdays. Start about 10 am, till about 4 pm; come and go as you wish. You should call to verify on future dates.



This is an opportunity to meet other smiths, pound some iron, ask or answer questions, buy/sell tools. If you are just getting started in blacksmithing and don't have the tools this is a way to get some instruction and experience. Even if you think you know what you're doing there is always more to learn, plus you can share your knowledge. You can bring your friends too.



Please let me know if you are planning to come so I can have try to have enough equipment. If you can bring forge and/or anvil let me know. But if you forget to let me know, or decide at the last moment, please come too.



Safety glasses and non-synthetic clothing required, hearing protection and gloves (not leather) recommended. Bring your own hammers, tongs and materials if you have them. Lunch etc: BYO or go into town.



Location: 1932 N (Old) Hwy 287, Berthoud , CO .

East side of (Old) 287, near County Road 10E.

Massage Therapy sign in front yard, driveway on south side of house.

Drive around back and park between the house and the barn. Blacksmith shop to the north.

1.5 miles north of Colo Hwy 56.

3.5 Miles south of Colo Hwy 402.



The bypass ( Berthoud Parkway ) is finally open (hurrah!) so where are some changes for getting to my house.

From the north on 287: A couple of blocks south of the light at Campion (Colo 60) there is an exit to Berthoud, just before the road sweeps to the west. Take that exit.

From the south on 287: Take the Berthoud exit (Hwy 56) and drive thru town the "old" way. Or, you can continue on 287 to the light at County Road 17 (Taft), go south on CR 17 about 1/3 mile to CR 10E. East 1 mile to Old 287, and you'll be looking at my house.



Dan Nibbelink

1932 N Hwy 287

Berthoud, CO 80513


dan@nibbelink. net

[johnny99]

Thank you Habu, especially for the loveland hammerin info at the saddle shop.
I always forget and miss that one. Were you demo'ing at the golden living history museum last summer? I met a really nice smith there last year who was talking about having done demo's at Rock Ledge.

John

[habu68]

Yes I did a couple of stints when I could at Golden, we did a work shop/class and a couple of tours there. Rock Ledge was a full time position and a job made in heaven. It could not have been me you met ,tho, because my nick name is Grumpy. BOG I would like to do more at Golden but my work and my wife's health precludes a lot of activities.

[johnny99]

Habu, Yes that sounds familiar, I belive you mentioned your wife being ill. I talked to the cute little readheaded site manager (don't remember her name) and was supposed to go and do demo's but go buisy w/ paying work, and didn't have time to do it.


John

[habu68]

that would be Angie, They had a paid position for BS this year 35hrs at about $9 I wish i could afford them. good folks. have you been to the Littleton living history museum? A Smithy to die for. My boss at Rock ledge trained there.

[johnny99]

Yes, I have been there but not for a couple of years. Do you know if the position is still available? I might be interested in trying it for a while.

[habu68]

I don't know but here is the e-mail

Black-smith Demonstrator

(seasonal)



Clear Creek History Park seeks a high-energy individual to help bring frontier history to life in Golden, CO. Candidates must know how to black-smith, love sharing blacksmithing with the public, enjoy Colorado history, and like wearing historic clothing. This individual will work with the public on a daily basis to facilitate their fun experience. Occasionally this position will be called on to assist with grounds maintenance and facility projects, to feed our chickens, cut wood; and assist with special events or programs. Requires engaging public speaking skills and blacksmithing abilities (nails, hooks, handles – nothing too advanced required). Applicants need to be able to lift fifty pounds and start forge fires while wearing historic period clothing in Colorado heat. A working knowledge of Colorado history is a plus! At least one year of talking with the public, preferably in a living history setting. Depending on pool of candidates, this position could be 6 hrs – 30hrs/week summer position. Our core season is June – August, Tuesday – Sunday 10-4:30. Some May weekend hours may also be needed.



Pay range is $8 - $9/hour, depending on experience. This position does not offer health benefits. The Astor House Museum and Clear Creek History Park is an equal opportunity employer. Materials are due March 21, 2007. Email a cover letter, resume, and list of three professional reference to frontdesk@astorhousemuseum.org Email only, no calls please or regular mail. Please label each electronic file with your first initial and last name.

For more information about the Clear Creek History Park , visit clearcreekhistorypark.org

Angie's phone is 303-278-3557

This is begining to sound like a chat room, Grin I can be reached at habu68z@yahoo.com or 720-312-4939 (metro denver)

[CurlyGeorge]

I don't have a big swage block. But I cut the top end off an oxy/accetalene valve cap/cover. Then, after cleaning it up, turned it up and welded to the end of a 3" pipe. A plate and pin and she sets right in the hardie hole. The spoon swage I cut out of the heel of a long radius 4" pipe elbow. Did the same thing to it and it too works great.