Cool, thanks

I used a piece of half inch re-bar. It works perfectly, the re-bar has just the slightest amount of spring which helps immensely.

Regards, 

Viking

I also used 1/2 inch rebar in a half inch hardy hole.

                                                                                                                            Littleblacksmith

That's a good Woodwright's episode, One of Mr. Ross's techniques to take note of is how he isolates the heat in the work. While not all of us may agree with some of his techniques and reasoning it's still always worth watching and listening to him demo.

By time you get finished smoothing rebar to make a decent hold fast you could've made enough watch fob, zipper pulls, etc. to just go buy a bar of 1/2" rd.

Of course that's just my opinion I could be wrong.

Frosty The Lucky.

My wife has very strong views on starting her spinning students out on *good* wool rather than the very poor quality stuff.  She says it's so much easier for them to learn on the good stuff and not need to deal with all the possible issues in the "other" stuff.

I find that I am tending to agree with her on my smithing students and so we start out with known good stock and move on to the oddball stuff as they get a handle on how steel works.

I tend to agree with you, when I was first starting out I used salvaged materials for knives.  I learned a lot, but wasted a lot of time with poor steels and not knowing what to expect.  I always advocate learning on a known steel, then branching out to experiment.

Anyway, I managed to get over to my friend's house and check his hold fast out.  Basically the end of the holder doesn't go all the way through the pritchel hole and has a flat with a bit of a kick to it.  I'd brought mine over, we cut the end off and put a little flat on it and a bit of a kick and it held great.  Got home and had to forge a bit of a nicer one than what I had.  Anyway, this is what I came up with, could have used a bit more planishing on the head, but I was burned out from the heat today.  It's forged from A36 1" square bar as that's all I had on hand big enough, I did use super quench on the end of the nub to maybe make it last longer, if it wears and starts slipping it's easy enough to fix though.

Thanks for all the help

Very interesting; glad you found a solution. Questions: how tightly does it fit in the hole before you tap it down, and how well does it accommodate different heights of held-down material?

About 3/32" slack or so.  The end of the hold fast is about 1/4" shorter than the end of the pritchel hole, so I've got 5" to play with, it'll hold down an inch or so, any thicker and I'd need to make a longer hold fast.  mainly what I need it for is 1/4" thick and 3/8" thick flat bar.   Now that I see what's going on, if I need to I can make another easily enough.

 In other words, the little nub moves the bottom contact point up the pritchel hole to roughly the equivalent of where it would be on a thinner heel. That's very interesting.

Pretty much.  The only other option would be to counter drill the pritchel hole from underneath, but good luck finding a reasonably priced cobalt 1 1/4" or so bit to drill the 60-61 rockwell anvil.  The 5" thickness is great support for punching, but makes it tough to fit a hold down.  My friend also has a London pattern and while the hold fast I'd made before wouldn't fit in the pritchel hole, they would lock up good in the hardy hole which was about 2 3/4" thick.

I'm really amazed that the hardness 5" down from the face would be the same as the face---have you verified that?

The hardness is only an inch or so, but it's all around the anvil sides and bottom as well.  Think of it as a 1" jacket.

I've never seen a hold fast with the finger so close to the same length as the shank.

What kind of anvil is this Will, I don't recall if you told us already.

Frosty The Lucky.

It's a Refflinghaus, 330 pound German pattern #57.  It just looks the same length due to camera angle, but it's only 5" longer than the shank to keep it within the pritchel hole.

I made holdfast but i had issue it wiggle too much, first it was too tight now it wiggle.

Mine go to hardy hole since i dont have pritchet its 1"by 1" .

 

On 8/1/2016 at 10:45 AM, Frosty said:

Hold fasts is a good place to use coil spring though mild works fine. A sharp edge isn't what grabs the shaft, it's friction generated by huge pressure when the steel is bent.

Below is a hold fast I made for holding RR spikes so the heads won't interfere. The large foot doesn't mar hot steel when tightened though I should've curved it up, as the inside edge bites thicker work. It's 1/2"  hot rolled rd.

Frosty The Lucky.

COOL!

It wiggles when you put stock under the holdfast and give the top of the holdfast a couple taps with your hammer, or it wiggles when it’s placed in the hardy hole?

I have a large square shank holdfast for woodworking with no real flex in the neck to help with wedging - it takes a couple really good whacks to lock it in place, but it requires stock underneath to create the angle on the stem.

It wiggle after I whack it with hammer it even jump .

I’d be inclined to change the angle of the neck a few more times and play with it.  Also, it appears your hardy hole has a Lot more depth than most of us, which could make it more difficult to catch the hardy shank off center.  Ultimately you may have to end up drawing the neck out more to create some spring potential.  That being said I can see functionality in that piece even without the ability to lock tightly. 
 

Curious to see other feedback and what ends up working.

That gooseneck looks much too thick. My guess is that your hold-down is too rigid, so you’re not getting the spring action you need for it to be effective. 

Remember that this kind of hold-down works by contacting the anvil at the top and bottom of the pritchel hole (or the hardy hole, as in this case) and at the point where it contacts the workpiece.

Hammering down in the top pushes the shank farther down the hole and forces the gooseneck to be a little bit straighter. The gooseneck resists this force, so it pushes harder on the workpiece. At the same time, the shank pushes harder against the sides of the hole, increasing the friction that holds the shank down in the hole. 

To release the hold-down, you don’t hit upwards on the bottom end of the shank, but horizontally on the back of the gooseneck. This breaks the contact between the shank and the hole. With no friction holding the shank in the hole, the pressure on the gooseneck pushes the shank up out of the hole, releasing the hold. 

If the gooseneck is too rigid, it can’t flex, and if it can’t flex, it can’t put push the shank against the sides of the hole.

 

I noticed that grip worsened when I changed angle of tool , I had too long material and instead of cuting it I curved it back making more curve perhaps that's reason why it lost it grip?

I tried fixing this by welding some beads around holdfast so it can be tightened, it's obvious that u didn't understood tool right .

 

I will have to reforge it I guess. 

JHCC thank you for that explanation and sketches! Now that I understand better how it works, I'm thinking I'll remake mine from coil spring. It's currently made from rebar - and while it will hold most things down for a few hits, any big hits on the piece it's holding sends the hold skittering off. Now I see it's probably just too stiff.

I tried with coil spring too thin for my hardy hole had to bend it twice and it get messy, and it twisted, after all that whacking i break it

 

I think i accidently quenched cane part of it.

where there is bend i mean tha part, maybe i forgot but it snapped, and it wanted to twist in hardy hole.

myne hardy hole is 1" squere.

 

Good Morning Natkova,

You have the right idea for a 'Hold Fast', but your material looks like it is too thick. It needs to have some spring in the top and it needs to contact the 2 opposite sides of the Hardy Hole, like John (JHCC) showed. We use an "L" shaped Wheel Wrench (from a car, used for changing wheels). In North America they were the Wheel Wrench that was supplied by the Auto Factory (up to about 1960). A front Sway Bar would also work (sometimes called an anti-sway bar. It is found in the Front Suspension, linked to both lower control arms). A Coil Spring would also work (It can't be too big, it 'HAS TO BE LOOSE' in the hardy Hole.

Neil