freeman Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 I finished making the first set of dies for the swage I made over thanksgiving. I'm hoping these will speed up a few other projects I'm working on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 Nice, one possible enhancement is to get a low force coil spring that will fit around the top of you top die and put in a crossways role pin to hold it in place so the die is normally open but closes easily with the hammer blow. My swing arm fuller has the arm go past the pivot and the pivot bolt has a die spring---quite strong---so I can tap the end to bring up the arm and it will hold in place to allow me to slip the work between the top and bottom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeman Posted December 18, 2012 Author Share Posted December 18, 2012 That sounds pretty nice, Thomas. You happen to have any pictures you could post? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Nope; no pictures, no camera even. (until recently no cell phone...) Mine started out as a piece of scrap: a 1" sq bar with a short length of some sort of trolly rail welded to the middle of it. The trolly had a lovely rounded surface to it. One day as I was thinking of throwing it in the scrapyard pile I "saw" the fuller. So I dressed the bottom end of the bar to fit 3 of my anvils and then took an angle grinder and ground a section of the top extension so that a 3/4" piece of coil spring material would line up exactly over it---flattened one side near the end of the spring using my swage block first. Then I drilled a hole through the cut down extension and the flattened bit of the coil spring. A Friend had given me some die springs, small stout open coil springs, so I slid one over my bolt and then the bolt through the two pieces of metal and put a nut on it tightening it till it provided enough push to keep the top moving bar in place and it centered over the bottom stationary die. So to use it I drop it in the hardy hole and tap the piece of spring that extends past the hardy stem raising the working end. Slip hot steel in between the working ends and WHAM WHAM WHAM. Every couple of years I end up replacing the bolt as students tend to have trouble grasping the instruction to "Hit directly over the work piece". Every 5 years or so I have replaced the top bar. (The spring helps keep the bar from being bent outward as it provides "give" in that direction and then pulls it back in line after such a misstrike. No welding done by me and everything was *free* save for buying the nut and bolt. It does lack adjustability for working thicker stock; but I designed it for working on knives---especially the tang/blade junction where I want a nice smooth *rounded* transition and so it's spot on for my usual stock for them. Does this help? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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