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I Forge Iron

Poor man's swage block


Fred Beagle

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When we got failed welding tanks to do a gas forge building class, the hydrotester required us to cut each tank in two before it could leave the site---they even provided the gas to cut them!   A lot of places that have liability worries can become more serene once they *KNOW* that anything they turn loose of is not going back into use in it's original form, forklift tines are another example.

I have scrounged a bunch of tank bottoms over the years as SCA armourers love them: so *old* CO2 fire extinguishers, welding tanks that went through a shop fire (7!), tanks out of spec found at the fleamarket.  Lots of really old tanks---I'm still waiting to find one with the + in a box stamp which often were WWII german U boat tanks  with the original stamping overstamped to deface their original markings.  After the war a lot of such tanks were repurposed in the USA .

I'm always amazed at folks selling out of date tanks and wanting full good prices for them.

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first let me say you are making it work. That is the most important thing. Second as you need half rounds or v's you can always make individual ones to fit in your hardie hole. There many different ways to to have all the tools you want. Keep at it you are blacksmithing you can build all your own tools  

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Well thank you I appreciate the encouraging words. You know I've been really blessed with having had some great teachers in my life .   Yeah my little  swage block has some half rounds and V grooves already plus I do have some jigs for that fit the hardy hole and I'll need to the top matching fuller hammers and I'll make those in time.  Of course a swage block that is solid iron or cast steel is going to be stronger but this design was just so much faster to make one this way though, I mean I would spend probably a month welding up and every nook and cranny were I not of use the aluminum. Around all the edges I have 1/2 inch plate that is also reinforced with a thick 2x2 x1/4 wall tubing plus other pieces of solid stuff so that it will indeed be able to take a pounding. I'm now making a serious stand for it as well and then I'll post the final pictures of it..

As far as the aluminum casting goes I'm thinking about casting my own drive wheels for a belt sander. Making molds has been a frustrating experience though.

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I have several anvils with large hardy holes.  I have made bottom swages to fit them buy buying junked top swages where the part you strike had been totally messed up and then just forging the top section to fit the hardy hole---my big screw press is just dandy for that.  You could do something like that but probably sawing down the top striking section to get it closer before forging.  One time I was at Quad-State there was someone selling old smithing tools with big heaps of worn and abused tools and cheap prices (US$1-3 depending on the heap---and the prices went down each day.  I picked up a lot of stuff with good working faces and trashed striking faces there---tried to get backups and variations  for all my favorite swages.

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Hey that's a great ideal.. I've been thinking about making things like a big rounding hammer by reforging old sledge hammer heads, Of course some tools I'll buy as I need them.

Other things like a guillotine I'll probably make. It's a lot of fun making stuff!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well for those who are interested. This is the stand that I made to hold the swage and it can be turned on all sides and the block alone weight is about a hundred pounds. When I first started I had a big piece of tubing that is 12" wide and 4" inches thick and the block is like 24" inches long. I had wanted to build this thing for a while but I didn't get around to till recently and the tube had really bad rust damage so it really is pitted but It was either do something with what material I had or scrap it And I loathe to scrap anything. So yeah it would look better if I had used new material, Just really wanted to use what I had on hand and as long as it works that's all that matters. I'll still be working on cleaning up the surface of it with sanders and filling in pits but for right now I'm pretty much done with it. I'm building a new aluminum melting furnace and I'm looking for a hard refractory option if possible. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Here's a pic of the melting furnace as well just starting on it today.

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It's the same over all height of the anvil which comes up to my knuckles when I'm standing. This will allow it to act as a anvil support stand for longer pieces. I just copied the ideal from here and I gave the legs a bit of a sprawl rather then straight down..   http://www.saltforkcraftsmen.org/DoItYourselfProjects.shtm#swage stand

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  • 6 months later...
  • 2 months later...
On Saturday, July 09, 2016 at 10:39 PM, Fred Beagle said:

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! :-)

Best piece of advice ive had in a while

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yeah it's a good trick to know for pipe rail, and if you need it to angle slope pitch a bit just keep taking a little bit more off of one side. Another trick Bill taught me that made life much easier in splicing material together and just general fits ups is like when you are welding two pieces of whatever together is to use a flat piece of plate clamped on the side of it to keep things straight an in-line.. If you are splicing pipe together use angle iron.  If the work is too big for the table like a big gate  then clamp and tack weld some outrigers underneath the table..

Another cool trick I picked up off Bill was when making a jig he would often have some stops on a hinge so it quickly move out of the way It depends on what you are building of course but this trick rather than having a buttstop stationary and unmovable the hinge stop get's out the way when you don't need it or serves a duel purpose for longer stock that needs to be welded in the same jig.. One of those things kind of hard to visualize but it's a killer concept.

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Let me further elaborate on this hinge Jig concept.A picture is worth a thousand words,but I'm too lazy to make a diagram so picture this in your minds eye. Let's say we need over a hundred pieces of 1x1 tubing 10" inches long that need a quarter inch hole drilled in them at two spots. Well instead laying every single one of the drill holes in every piece we'd make a jig. For this jig we would probably use a small piece of plate for the jig base and small piece of angle iron down the side to hold the tubing and a couple of butt stops.

We then lay out one piece and figure out where the holes need to be drilled and then we would drill some guide holes in hinge. Now the hinge I'm talking about are usually these weldable 2x2 hinges you can find at any hardware store but yeah after we drill these guide holes in the hinge we then tack it at the right spot on the angle iron and have it flop down onto the 1x1 tubing. And there you go.. You need have a nifty speed jig for drilling thousands of these parts.

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  • 2 months later...
On 7/9/2016 at 11:17 PM, Fred Beagle said:

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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I'm a newbie, in this craft. I have no idea of a lot of the "vocabulary". Yet, I'm learning so much by the reading.

That being said, I've learned to be grateful for Anything I have. But, I've been without so much, for so long, I'm use to it. 

Im just grateful that I've got all I NEED. 

 

Btw, this is the first time I've Ever posted, on Any forum. 

 

Thanks for having me!

the pics are of my first equipment used to bend the rebar to fit the curve of a 55 gallon drum, that is gonna be my forge. 

I used a high heat torch with map gas, 3lb engeniring hammer and the head of a 302 engine. The head had a nice curved area. Took me several hours. 

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You can bend 3/8 inch diameter round bar cold with no problem, 1/2 inch can be bent cold but needs something to bend against and a little leverage. 

Look up JABOD (just a box of dirt) or the 55 forge for solid fuels. Much cheaper than mapp gas and a whole lot hotter.  Look at the flea markets for a 2 pound hammer and save the wear and tear on your body when starting out.

Do not worry about the vocabulary as it will build as you read more and more. The right words just make it easier to communicate, and cause less confusion.

The inside and outside curves on that engine can be used as a swage with hot metal. Use what you have available to make what you need.

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It's important that if you don't know the vocabulary you don't guess at it as the folks who know the jargon  may go to great lengths answering what you said rather than what you meant.  Describe things and ask what the proper term(s) are. (For example 90+% of the people asking about smelting do not want to smelt ore; they want to melt and cast metals and so "melting" or foundry work would be correct.)

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15 hours ago, Glenn said:

You can bend 3/8 inch diameter round bar cold with no problem, 1/2 inch can be bent cold but needs something to bend against and a little leverage. 

Look up JABOD (just a box of dirt) or the 55 forge for solid fuels. Much cheaper than mapp gas and a whole lot hotter.  Look at the flea markets for a 2 pound hammer and save the wear and tear on your body when starting out.

Do not worry about the vocabulary as it will build as you read more and more. The right words just make it easier to communicate, and cause less confusion.

The inside and outside curves on that engine can be used as a swage with hot metal. Use what you have available to make what you need.

Thank you so much for the advice. 

The 55 forge should be completed by the end of the week. I just need to finish the stand and air delivery system. 

And, what EXACTLY is a stage block and what is it used for? Lol

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Do you mean swage block?  (and yes everybody makes typos from time to time here) A swage is a bottom or top tool with a particular shape used to forge hot steel into the reverse shape---they often come as sets of top and bottom swages to forge things like tenons in the end of large stock.  A swageblock is generally a cast iron rectangular item with various swages around the sides and various piercings or dishing forms on the ends. It takes the place of a large number of bottom tools.  Some people use theirs almost every time at the forge; others use them seldomly.  I myself seldom use mine as if there is a task I will be doing a lot of I make a bottom swage for my anvil(s)

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  • 3 weeks later...

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