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I Forge Iron

Poor man's swage block


Fred Beagle

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Here's my latest project I thought I'd share with you. Me being poor as a church mouse but I was in dire need of a swage block that had punch out holes and so I took some scrap and piece one together but instead of welding up every nook and cranny to make it one solid piece like a regular swage, I instead smelted a bunch of aluminum to help reinforce the top plate. It has a lot of steel internal support but I just wanted to face plates to have some reinforcing too. So tell me what do you think? I may later try and build a steel cone and fill it with aluminum someday, but just gotta see how this hairbrain ideal pans out

 

The picture was one I took yesterday I've now filled it plumb full of aluminum and it will have a top plate welded on.

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Oh you're talking about the little swage in the background? Yeah I bought that off a guy who was getting out of the hobby and he gave me a good deal on it something like 75 dollars and I've made a couple of things using it. But it doesn't have a punch out hole and my little fisher 100 pound Anvil if I start trying to use it very much for what I'm want to try and do I'm afraid I'll break off the heal of the anvil! It has a 3/4 hardy on it and I used 7018s to resurface the top of the anvil, wasn't easy but with preheat and post heat and only welding a little at a time it can be done.... The Anvil face was in pitiful shape when I first got it.

I know some folks would frown on the fact I didn't use hard surfacing rods but I rebuilt 1/4 of the face of anvil and it didn't hurt it too much so yeah 7018s will work!

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Here's what me and my father been working on for a few weeks now. We had to really add some counter weights to the tire hammer because it was really dancing around and I'm so afraid of the counter weight flying off and getting embedded in my skull so I'm gonna have to build a safety expanded metal guard around all the moving parts but still pretty cool. Yep we're poor folks now! I'm talking country church mice!

I guess I'm not as poor as the third world folks that do their forging on the ground but I don't have it no where as good as some you folks in your air conditioned shop but hey it's all good and I'm very grateful for what little I do have and thanks for checking out my work and hope you get some ideals

 

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Exactly! I'm primarily a welder who's been blessed to have worked with some excellent teachers  mostly old men and they have taught me a ton of stuff I never would have figured out on my own.This one old yankee named Bill Sherry who's probably passed away now but in our shop we didn't have a pipe notcher and he taught me to take half of 45 degrees which would be 22 1/2 degrees and set the chop saw up at that angle. And what you do is cut the end of the pipe you want saddled on both sides opposite to each other using this cut angle and it makes a pretty tight pipe saddle.. Now that's a handy trick to know! Other things I learned from these old men are like making lamb tongues from molding cap stuff like that

 

But yeah I'm still starting from near the starting line as far as blacksmithing goes though and I've a ton of tools to make from special hammers and fullers to punches and tongs and I can't wait to get after it! :-)

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40 minutes ago, Fred Beagle said:

This one old yankee named Bill Sherry who's probably passed away now but in our shop we didn't have a pipe notcher and he taught me to take half of 45 degrees which would be 22 1/2 degrees and set the chop saw up at that angle. And what you do is cut the end of the pipe you want saddled on both sides opposite to each other using this cut angle and it makes a pretty tight pipe saddle.. Now that's a handy trick to know!

Angle you use on the chopsaw varies anywhere from 20deg to 30 deg depending on the size of the tube used, assuming the tubes are  the same size. Angles can vary from 12 deg to 45 deg if you are fitting 2 different size tubes. It's even possible to do angles besides 90's this way. You just subtract the angle from one side and add it to the other. It's possible to do notches quite accurately this way if you know the angles. A quick search online will find plenty of posts where the angles are detailed if you want. A lot of the 4x4 guys use this to notch tube for brush bars and so on.

 

7018 is a great rod, but it wouldn't have been my choice for a repair. I can distort it too easily with a hammer, so it's fairly soft. Once done, it's very hard to undo the damage "repairs" like this can cause. Most of the "repaired" anvils I've seen were better before the "repair".

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You know I have a couple of questions maybe you can help to understand better.. Picture this you have two pipes coming together both are cut at 45 degrees so that they make a right angle corner. like in a pipe fence now let's say you want to put a pipe post under this joint. It sort of looks like a football cut in half on both sides of the pipe. Not sure what angle and I have to guess at it till I get close enough where I don't have a big gap sure wish I knew right off hand what angle I should cut the bottom post with. I mean it's still just a saddle but it's a somewhat deeper cut then 22 1/2 degree saddle is and like you mention it depends on the size of the pipe and if the two pipes are both the same. The 22 1/2 degree is just a good rule of thumb. You can always keep wacking at it I suppose.

My second question is this if you look at the little swage block that  Charles R. Stevens mentions in my very first picture on the ground If you look you will see that I made a little sand box to hold it in. Now that is just some 3" inch plate that was cut on 45 degree angle and it would of been fine if it was welded flat in a one dimension but when you start raising this into two dimensions what I found was the angle changes and you have big gaps develop! It's like it needed to be cut at 35 degrees instead. Do you have any insight or formula for calculating this I wonder? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

As far as the anvil goes it is softer on the repair area but it's held up great for over 2 years now no dents as of yet but then I don't really wack the crap out of it either. I do often see totally wore-out anvils on Craigslist selling for what new ones would cost it's just plumb crazy! I do have some brutis rods but I usually use them for unknown metals and they leave a kind of rainbow color weld bead that would of looked really jacked up lol...

 

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I've never tried to do a corner post that way. If I was going to try, I'd cut the 1st say 22.5 angle ( to use your example), then rotate 90 deg vs 180 and cut the 2nd one.

 

2nd question if I'm reading your right is about compound angles. One of the simplest ways I've found to do compound angles is to "cheat" and cut wood templates using some plywood and a compound miter saw. With the stock flat on the table, you tip the saw 45 deg to make your 90 deg corner. Then you angle the saw left/right for the angle out of vertical you want. Compound angles confuse a lot of people. If you think these are tough cut crown molding for stain grade trim...LOL

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As you can see with this pict of my fire pot, 45 deg mitered corner angles aren't needed with flat plate, you can but them up tight and fill the back with weld. In fact the premade "bevel" makes it easier to weld out.

 

The 2nd way is how I did the layout for the fire pot ( though I did cut plywood templates on the chop saw and tape them together for a test demo. I knew my top opening dimensions and my bottom opening dimensions. I laid everything out from a center point. So if the top was 12", 6 " each side of center and marked the top of the bar. Bottom 4" opening, 2" on center, mark the bottom of the bar. Connect the dots.

 

3rd way is the "cheat" most use to cut crown molding. You set the stock in your saw at the angle it needs to be tipped over at, and then cut 45 deg corners as usual. With steel, it usually means building a custom jig to keep the stock tipped at the correct angle and clampable. with smaller stock, I've seen it tacked in angle iron to set the "tip" and then cut "normally". In this case it was a complex shaped alum extrusion used for window well grates and it was cheapest to waste the angle than mess up very expensive custom stock. I could probably have bought twice the angle needed for everything than it would have cost to get 1 replacement length of custom stock, plus the 4 week lead time to get it.

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Historically a peice of flat bent in a "U" was used as was bolsters (a bar with holes of different sizes) was used for shorting work to be punched peices or heavy wall pipe work as well. If you make a "portable hole" as one of the members has (heavy plate with a 1" square hole welded to a peice of heavy wall tubing) and as a prichel hole off one side you can make a round bolster plate with a pivot over the pritchel and graduated holes over the hardy. 

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That's pretty cool, It did cross my mind to make one and I recently picked up a nice thick plate almost 2" inches thick to do something like that. I guess another reason why I made my block the way I did was I wanted those radius to beat stuff around.. I have some wagon wheel type jigs for bending stock around but these will help tweak any flat areas I was thinking. I'll post pics as I progress on the project.

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I'd be interested to see a picture of the finished swage block if you don't mind. Thanks!

                                                                                                                Littleblacksmith

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Yeah it will be a little while before it's done, Till then here's some update photos to show where I'm at and a few other things.

Not pretty but as you can see I have a lot of surfacing grinding still to do,my little crucible can only heat up some much at a time and it took like 12 pots to fill it up. Some may think what a waste of aluminum but the way I see it have you seen what big swage blocks are selling for?!?

Money I would of used on one can now go on something else.. Oh I'll still be wanting one but this will work till I can find one at the junk yard someday<~~~ yep I know I'm dreaming lol..

Here's a picture of the main working side I didn't show yet..He sort of looks like Saturday night live's Mr Bill "Oh No!"

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Here's a crazy ideal that failed to launch.. it kept binding lol.. hmm I think I see a couple of big Bowie knifes in that leaf spring.

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And here's a better picture of my little 100 pound Fisher anvil that my uncle who worked at a scrap yard gave to me,He told me that he was moving a scrap metal load with the big claw and this thing fell out of it.

I do wish I had a before picture that would of showed the damage down to the anvil face it was like left outside in the weather and rust was really flaking it away. As DSW and other folks who know a lot more than me.. 7018 is not the way to go on high carbon steel being that it is too soft. Still I'm really happy so far with the repair I made and no dents so far in like 2 years since the repair but then again I don't beat the crap out of it with a sledge either.

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And I guess this should go into the "It followed me home thread" but one day at the junk yard way up about midway on this 20 foot tall mountain of scrap I spot this angle iron notcher and I went mountain climbing! This might get you kicked out of the scrap yard so do this at your own pearl!

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Here's a cool stand that I made for my postvice, I guess you could use a nickel rod to weld the plate to the cast iron but I used the brutis rod and it did a good job. and I did preheat and post heat and peen the weld all the way around and did the weld in sections.

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I know we're kind off the subject of swage blocks and I'll upload photos of it and the stand for it in a few weeks when it is finished. Till then here's a final photo and what it shows is I had made a foot lever for the tire hammer motor clutch,but my father talked me into scraping that ideal because the 2 horse power motor is pretty dang heavy so we just wedge the motor so that it stays contacted to the wheel and then we turn it on and off with this. And so far so good.

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I stand corrected all I was doing was melting aluminum I believe the melting point is only like 1200 degrees. I have been watching these youtube videos of 3rd world folks smelting iron ore  into a workable "bloom" but they are only make a little blob.  But to make say a big monster size anvil out a huge bloom not to mention forge welding a high carbon steel face plate to it would to take a giant clay smelter and would be way to big of job for a little guy like me.. Besides there's like 40 of them on the duel bellow pots and all I got is a squirrel cage fan!

But yeah my ideal was to build this big monster clay furnace and then take a bunch of charcoal and instead of Iron ore load it up with scrap iron and see if we can't melt it into a big ball of iron!

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Well there is a reason traditionally made anvils were welded up from a *bunch* of chunks or real wrought iron instead of hammered out of one big chunk---not the least is the blooms are really bad wrought iron and generally take a lot of work to get them to better stuff:  Bloom => Muck bar => Merchant bar => Singly Refined WI => Doubly Refined WI => Triply Refined WI  all done at welding heat so a *LOT* of beer!

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Find a place that does hydrotesting of welding tanks, (not acetylene, but any of the others) and explain that you need the bases but not the rest of the tank.

If you can make a connection they have a large range of size and depth and anything that takes 2000+ PSI will be fine to hammer hot metal into!

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2 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Find a place that does hydrotesting of welding tanks, (not acetylene, but any of the others) and explain that you need the bases but not the rest of the tank.

If you can make a connection they have a large range of size and depth and anything that takes 2000+ PSI will be fine to hammer hot metal into!

The hydro shop we used to use regularly, disliked selling failed cylinders. However if you explained why you needed them and were willing to take only half or drill holes in them so they were sure that they wouldn't get reused as pressure vessels, they were much more agreeable. I've been on the hunt for one with a good concave base for dishing. Problem is that the shop is about an hour west of me and I don't go that way very frequently. Last time I was in they had just gotten rid of all their "dead" cylinders. I did have to do a bit of explaining as to why I wanted one, but once they knew I'd be happy with only the bottom, or one cut in half, they were willing to see if any they had would suit my needs. Having a couple of bottle openers to give the shop guys doesn't hurt and they will be a lot more willing to keep their eyes open and call if they get something you can use.

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Here in Texas we have a place called "Kings Supply" and what that is is a dome cap for 6" inch pipe. But it isn't the one I wanted to use seeing how it's not truly domed but flattens out a wee bit on the bottom. The kind I wanted to use wasn't available at the time. But there are other things I guess that could be used like a Oxygen bottle cap. it would be smaller but it's a good dome.

One jig I'm gonna make I'll be hammering different size ball bearings into two solid blocks of  1" thick steel and these will eventually become ball swages for forming ball ends on tong handles. Just upset the steel handle ends to a certain size and then throw em in the ball swage.

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