Fitting new keys in a 25lb little giant/Murco

[Fatfudd]

I'm making a set of new keys for my little giant/Murco power hammer and I have a question that some of you may be able to answer.

The discussion provided on the Little Giant website for fitting new keys is excellent but it seems to me that this process of grinding and filing would be prohibitively time consuming for the original manufacturer. I have found several references on IFI for fitting keys using heat. One discussion suggests using a rose bud to heat small sections of the key and upsetting those portions of the key to fit the dovetail until the whole key is solid. Another thread mentioned just heating the key and driving it in the dovetail as long as the sides are straight. 

It would seem, as I said, that the process of grinding and fitting each key in new machines would have been terribly time consuming. It also seems that many of the machines had pins in the bottom of the dovetail and in the dies. I may be wrong here but wouldn't it have made more sense to just put the die in place with the base pin and then pound in a well heated key? That assumes the key would be premade nearly to the correct size but would upset into the dovetail. Once its cooled and has shrunk a little, a couple of more hits on the key would drive it in securely. Since the heated key is going to be a whole lot softer that the base or the ram there would be no danger of breaking. 

Has anyone used heat to get their keys to final shape??

[BeaverNZ]

I havent tried heat though it may work as described it may have to be made a bit of a shallower taper so the far away end contacts first and a good coating of graphite or antiseize and it maybe abit like pushing string up a straw, but i made one for my power hammer and it was quite wide (about 50mm or 2" and 150 or 6" long) on the platten of my linsher using eyechrometer and bearing blue and over length and cut to the correct length when finished I was suprised how quick it came up Cheers Beaver