Punch for tongs

[Hawgdirt]

Bahaha, that's funny, I couldve swore that the guy on the video punched it in the bend. Oh well. 

[jlpservicesinc]

As to you forge and coal prices etc..  Anthracite coal needs a deeper firepot vs soft coal..  You all ready have an electric blower which is another thing hard coal needs to burn well and produce a good forging fire.. 

[Frosty]

On 4/3/2017 at 3:01 PM, littleblacksmith said:

Correct, that was the only thing I could think of that is better than the cross pain. Though, you could grind a round die on the cross pain, you would just hopefully have another hammer that has a flat face.

                                                                               Littleblacksmith 

Ever spend much time using a Drill hammer? There is more than just weight involved. To make 32oz. a cross pein has a longer head and it's either out of balance or the handle is offset. 

A drill hammer is intentionally balanced between faces and they are set perpendicular to the arc or the swing. They were originally designed to drill shot holes in mines where a sledge couldn't be swung. If you're your own driver and shaker laying on your side in a stope accuracy is more than important. The shaker is the guy holding the drill iron for the driver who is swinging the hammer. Picture yourself following a vein in a cleaned stope maybe wider than your shoulders You can't strike the drill off center or it'll go sideways while the hammer skips off and hits you instead.

Drill hammers #1 choice reason to be on my hammer rack is how naturally accurate they are to use and still have enough weight to do good work. 

My reason for recommending them to new folk is their ease of accurate hammer control. If you need a die shape like a cross pein simply strike with the edge of the drill hammer like Uri Hoffi or Bryan Brazeal teaches.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mark Ling]

I tried a drilling hammer when I first started out, and for some reason didn't like it, so I went with the cross pein. You are speaking out of experience that I don't have with a drilling hammer, so most likely you are correct, and have more valid of an argument.

More accurate is important when starting out. Well, it always is, but what I mean is its more difficult to be accurate with a  hammer when first starting out, so anything to aid with that is a win.

34 minutes ago, Frosty said:

My reason for recommending them to new folk is their ease of accurate hammer control. If you need a die shape like a cross pein simply strike with the edge of the drill hammer like Uri Hoffi or Bryan Brazeal teaches.

I am not disagreeing with you on this point. but what I have found is it is easier to use a flat faced hammer like a straight pein, and more awkward to try and use it as a cross pein. I stand tall behind Brian Brazeal's techniques, and tilt my hammer as a fuller constantly. When I'm wanting a straight peen, or wanting to mimic the edge of the anvil when you aren't able to maneuver and forge over the edge. now, I could get by using as a straight pein, but I find it easier to grab a cross pein. I do have a straight pein, and so I'm not just saying that tilting the face to make it to a straight pein is easier just because i don't have one. I do, and I still prefer to tilt the hammer instead of using the straight pein most times.

Re reading this I'm all over the place, sorry, i hope you get what I'm trying to say.

Thank you for clarifying that for me, it makes more sense now.

                                                                                                                           Littleblacksmith

[Frosty]

S'okay Mark relax you can disagree with me. It's not like I'll have my goons come down, jerk your underwear up and tie the elastic around your head like a bandana. You'd have to say I was wrong or something silly like that! 

Blacksmithing is as much art as it is craft, everybody's different what works for one of us may ONLY work for that guy and only that once on June 23 1973 but three guys saw it! We aren't factories with closed die forging presses CNC furnaces, robotic handling machinery, etc. We're sweaty guys who like playing with fire hitting things with hammers and making stuff. 

It's why you can ask two smiths a question and get half a dozen well thought out and vigorously argued answers and arm gestures gentle enough to not slosh the beer. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[olfart]

That'd be ROOT beer in Mark's case...

 

[Daninghram]

Is a drill hammer the same as an engineer's hammer?

[Frank Turley]

Francis Whitaker, the 'ol "Dean of American Blacksmiths" has said, "Don't make tools out of spring steel; springs are made out of spring steel." He further told me one time to my face, "I always drill the rivet holes for my tongs."

Having said that, over the years, I personally have made tools from spring steel and I have punched rivet holes. However, the spring steel works better for cold work tools than it does for hot work tools. For hot work tools, even if tempered, the hot work tends to soon ruin the temper of the spring-made tool.

Tool steel distributors may be hard to locate in your area, but once located, they will ship the proper hot work steel to you. Years ago, when I was horseshoeing, I made all of my hot work pritchels out of H 13 or S1, 5/8" round. They stood up to the work very well. I still to this day use H 13 quite a bit. When you order, get the forging and heat treatment specifications. My H 13 is made in 12 foot lengths, can be shipped by truck or the distributor will crop it into sections at your request and ship it another way. They charge for cropping.

[Frosty]

5 hours ago, Daninghram said:

Is a drill hammer the same as an engineer's hammer?

Here are some pics of "drill hammers" Googling drill hammer hits on "hammer drills" which are entirely different things though . . . nevermind.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Drilling+hand+hammer&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2nemH9o3TAhVD3mMKHQRJAFcQsAQISQ&biw=1094&bih=523

Engineer hammers are typically cross peins but I don't know the origin of that name. When I was in trade school learning to weld pressure vessels we called them boiler maker's hammers and used them to tighten up rolled lips on flanges. If you picture a lid on a round vessel and want to form the edges of the lid down over the rim of the vessel you'll have a picture of what we used them for.

Personally I think they were so common in older times because they were very necessary, maybe critical for whatever they were used for. Maybe the Engineer in the name was driving the train? Anyway, they're everywhere sort of became the standard hammer in many professions including the blacksmith's. Today they are what's commonly known as a "Blacksmith Hammer."

They're good hammers, I have 3 of different weights and pein finish on my anvil's hammer rack. They're right there sharing rack space with my old (30 years?) friend Drill hammer and I have a few other drill hammers one just a longer than average head I have yet to handle.

Just because I like them and have had much better luck teaching blacksmithing using them doesn't mean they are right for everybody or even desirable. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mark Ling]

6 hours ago, Frank Turley said:

Tool steel distributors may be hard to locate in your area, but once located, they will ship the proper hot work steel to you. Years ago, when I was horseshoeing, I made all of my hot work pritchels out of H 13 or S1, 5/8" round. They stood up to the work very well. I still to this day use H 13 quite a bit. When you order, get the forging and heat treatment specifications. My H 13 is made in 12 foot lengths, can be shipped by truck or the distributor will crop it into sections at your request and ship it another way. They charge for cropping.

Are you saying to make the tongs out of H 13?? I'm sure they would last longer, but I have made tongs out of coil spring, and they work just fine and hold up just fine. Even the guy who invented them uses spring steel and for all I know has no complaints. Especially drawing out H 13 by had into one about a 14 inch taper, and then about a 9 inch taper, Twice, is a lot. I do everything with a hand hammer and even drawing out the coil spring took long enough (was 7/8"...). And as to punches, I find punches are dispensable. once they are too far mushroomed or the tip is too wonky they get thrown in the scrap pile. yeah I grind back the mushrooming, but obviously you can only grind so far, and typically its the working ed that goes out first. They tend to last about a year. But the thing is that I am always making punches and they get replaced before that and then give away my old ones. its just cheaper for me at the time, but I wouldn't be surprised if in the long run H-13 punches are cheaper just 'cause they last longer, but then again, I get coil spring for just about nothing.

                                                                                                                       Littleblacksmith

[Frank Turley]

57 minutes ago, littleblacksmith said:

Are you saying to make the tongs out of H 13?? I'm sure they would last longer, but I have made tongs out of coil spring, and they work just fine and hold up just fine. Even the guy who invented them uses spring steel and for all I know has no complaints. Especially drawing out H 13 by had into one about a 14 inch taper, and then about a 9 inch taper, Twice, is a lot. I do everything with a hand hammer and even drawing out the coil spring took long enough (was 7/8"...). And as to punches, I find punches are dispensable. once they are too far mushroomed or the tip is too wonky they get thrown in the scrap pile. yeah I grind back the mushrooming, but obviously you can only grind so far, and typically its the working ed that goes out first. They tend to last about a year. But the thing is that I am always making punches and they get replaced before that and then give away my old ones. its just cheaper for me at the time, but I wouldn't be surprised if in the long run H-13 punches are cheaper just 'cause they last longer, but then again, I get coil spring for just about nothing.

                                                                                                                       Littleblacksmith

I'm saying to make HOT WORK punches out of H 13. Pritchels are horseshoe nail-hole punches for horseshoes. I've made my needle-nose scrolling tongs out of spring steel without hardening and tempering, just air cooling, and they work OK.  I once made them out of mild steel and the jaws opened wider than they should have, under pressure, and stayed that way. Not good. Everyday shop tongs that are about 14" to 18" in overall length, I make of A36. Very large industrial tongs are made of respectable alloy steel like 4140 etc., etc., with no forge welds.

[Mark Ling]

2 hours ago, Frank Turley said:

I once made them out of mild steel and the jaws opened wider than they should have, under pressure, and stayed that way.

been there done that..

I don't even bother heat treating the hammer eye tongs, or any of my punches that will be used on hot steel, its all a waste of time. After the first use they will have lost there temper anyway, so I see why the H-13 would be better. I just haven't had problems with the spring steel, though I haven't used H-13 ever, and hope I never do. And with he hammer eye tongs, not even sure why you would heat treat them, or any tongs.

                                                                                                                          Littleblacksmith

[Frank Turley]

It depends on what you're doing and how much you are doing. Say, you need to punch 50 5/16"D holes. The hot work steels like H13, H21, S1, and S7 have a quality called "red hardness." It means that if the tool turns dull red in use, it maintains its shape and keeps doing its job. The steel is that good! If you're punching just two holes for a pair of tongs, that is a short run, and you could even get by with a punch of A36. An advantage to using hot work tool steel is that it is especially useful for small ended tools like slit chisels, pritchels, and the like, because the thin ends want to get hot right away. Mr. Natural sez, "Use the right tool for the job!"
 

[Donniev]

I just made a few hot work tools from h13, a slitter and a hot cut. After flying through a piece of 2" mild square bar with the slitter, I'm now trying to locate a few feet of it at a decent price. I bought 3 pieces of 3/4" 6" long, and right off was surprised at how hard the steel was despite it glowing. The slitter got red when it got stuck in the 2" piece it was in, it was just fine though after I got it out- spring steel would have been ruined beyond further use.

I'd like to replace some hot work tools I've previously made with spring steel with h13- I've only used it a few months but I'll never spend a lot of time on a hot work tools again unless it's h13

[ThomasPowers]

Sort of stuff I pick up at Quad-State; bought a lot of H-13 that was used as injection die push rods to make dragon carving tooling from.

[gote]

On 2017-04-05 at 4:31 AM, Frosty said:

It's why you can ask two smiths a question and get half a dozen well thought out and vigorously argued answers and arm gestures gentle enough to not slosh the beer.

And all six answers are right!