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Anvil, your seposed to hit the hot steel, not the anvil. Anvils generally come in at R55-65 as go good hammers. Thus chipped edges. Big box store hammers don’t even come in close to that hard because of liability. Old hammers and a few good tool brands still make hard faced hammers (not the typical stone maysons hammer is soft for driving hard ended tools)

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Yeah the hammer I've been using as a flatter is quite soft.  As I said, it was cheap, and I ground the face flat.  The "striking" face dings very easily and I check it often for mushrooming and cracks.  Nowhere near hard enough for the explosive chipping you are referring to.  And I ALWAYS wear eye protection while forging.  I appreciate the word of caution though.  

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19 hours ago, Charles R. Stevens said:

Anvil, your seposed to hit the hot steel, not the anvil

Absolutely correct. The key word being "supposed". Accidents rarely happen when you do things that you are  supposed to do. Rather more common with new guys, than those with experience.

And when good advice often given is buy your hammer at yard sales and flea markets, who knows what ya got. 

Safety be what safety is.

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11 hours ago, Anachronist58 said:

A few months ago, it took two hours to remove one of those supersonic bullets from my forearm...... not fun.

Did you have help? Get pics digging? Which tongs did you use? 

Joking aside, what happened Robert? Two hours is a long time, deep, bad spot, both, or . . . ?  Is all well?

Frosty The Lucky.

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Alright you wise guys! First, the synopsis:

Yes Jerry, all is good now!

On a lathe, we retract the tail stock spindle until it hits the stop. Then I, speaking for my self, give it an extra thump, and the Morse Taper (#2 in this case) releases, and then the tool may be changed out. A drill chuck for a dead center, for example.

It would not budge. I went to the cognizant machinist to ask, "What's up with that?". He said that the tang on that taper had been cut off.

Time to drift...... I got out my 8mm x 8"  cobalt broken off drill shank drift and proceeded to deliver heavy blows - a lot of them.  Had the thing backward - hard end out. two pieces entered my forearm. I extracted the first piece myself.......Oh, never mind, surgery on the conference room table, blood everywhere.... I am off topic now and boring people....... I doubt anyone is really interested, but if the OP wants to hear the rest.....although he has not been on the Forum since October.........:rolleyes:

Incidentally, a powerful magnetic field was instrumental......

 

Edited by Anachronist58
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On 2/26/2019 at 11:12 AM, Charles R. Stevens said:

Big box store hammers don’t even come in close to that hard because of liability

Charles, there are two ways chipping can happen.

If you pull a straw temp on a knife and use it as a hammer, it may chip. Wrong temper for the job.

The other way is if two hammers have the same temper. If these strike each other, you may get a flying chip.

So my shop practice is to not strike hammer on hammer, unless you have retempered the one to be softer relative to the other.

On the other hand I always temper the struck end of my hand tools. But I always temper them far below that of any hammer. This means no chipping, and the end takes longer to mushroom than if its annealed or normalized.

Hope this makes sense.

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WHAT?! Some nimrod cut the tang off the tail stock quill? That's about as sensible as welding the hood shut on your car. I'm aghast, an EX-employee I hope. I can't imagine a reason  to do that, maybe in an emergency but to be replaced soonest. 

If you have to use that quill again slip a ball bearing in first, it's not ideal but will work to bump the taper loose. Bumping the quill loose involves a LOT more force than most folk think, the screw is a huge force multiplier, literally driving a wedge into the joint. Next time use a much bigger hammer and a slower swing. 

I still shudder at the thought. 

17 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Shoot a MRI would have it out in under a second---even if it had to pull it through your entire body!

Now there's a vision for you, having a spinning blender blade drawn through lengthwise. :o Let's save that for the especially deserving shall we?

Frosty The Lucky.

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Frosty, tried the ball trick first. No budge.  The thing was practically fossilized. The machinist, who is my brother and a former First Responder, worked on it for an hour and fifteen minutes before I called time. Scalpel, forceps, various anti-infectives, and a 3/4" x 3/4" cylindrical neodymium magnet were used.

Next day at the Urgent Care, After I trained the surgeon on the use of magnets in the extraction of ferrous objects, it took a larger incision and another forty minutes to finish the job. The Doctor was thrilled to learn a new method, and in appreciation I gave him the magnet.

For that particular extraction, the MRI option would have been much more "enjoyable".

5 hours ago, anvil said:

Hope this makes sense.

Makes sense to me.

Robert Taylor

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I lived awhile without health insurance when I was in my 20's. You learn to make some tough decisions.  Life was much less stressful later when I could just wrap the proverbial dirty shop rag around my hand and climb up the basement stairs and say to my wife "I've done something stupid; could you drive me to our HMO's Urgent Care Facility?" (Thats a direct quote BTW; still can see the scar)

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The bearing ball has to go in when you insert the quill. Did you try warming the female taper? Just a couple hundred degrees is plenty, it's how I had to get the bottom die to free up in my Little Giant. 

I'm with Anvil regarding using properly tempered tools under the hammer. Cobalt drill bit doesn't isn't even on my radar as a struck tool, broken or not. 

Sounds like your Brother and you gave it a good blacksmitherly try and no anesthetics! BRAVO! If it's not too serious I hit the local Doc in a Box but I think I would've hit the hospital emergency room, they have people who are better versed at challenges. Just standing at the window outside the MRI room makes me itch. 

After all that I hope you have a sexy scar at least. 

Frosty The Lucky.

3 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

I lived awhile without health insurance when I was in my 20's.

Been there, I lucked out and found a job with good bennies when I was 25. I probably still owe someone for my hospital stay when I dislocated the anterior end of my collar bone. 

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TP,

The idea of having ones wife work some necromancy so as to have the dubious pleasure of killing her fool of a husband sounds unpleasant on many levels...

Anvil,

I understand your point, mine is to the spasific perpose of using a sledge hammer head as an anvil. We are now playing buy anvil rules instead of hammer rules. Anvil rules say that relatively hard hammers and anvils move steel more effecently than relatively soft hammers and anvils...

hammer rules say not to hit hard stuff with hard hammers, anvils being the exception.  

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19 hours ago, Frosty said:

The bearing ball has to go in when you insert the quill. Did you try warming the female taper? Cobalt drill bit doesn't isn't even on my radar as a struck tool, broken or not.

The ball was in its proper orientation. It was the middle of a bad day full of ridiculous, unwarranted delays. The drill shank is one of my eight years old, tried and true go to tools - the shank end being factory treated to very tough and not brittle. I had never before used the thing wrong side out, so it was a bonehead mistake.

Your radar is working properly - I do not endorse my selection on this Forum.

It was a real Bromance moment for sure - long back story!

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Heres my rule.

A hammer should be softer than the anvil. The difference can be small.

A struck tool should be softer than the hammer. The difference can be small.

Never strike two hardened objects together unless you know for a fact that one is softer than another. The difference can be small.

I've heard the box store deal before, that the have decreased the softness for insurance reasons. However I've never seen anything to validate this.  But it doesn't matter.

I'm pretty sure that mass heat treating is the commercial way ht is done. Meaning hammers are not tempered one at a time, but many at a time.

What I dont know is are 16# sledges tempered the same as a 2-1/2# machinist hammer for any mass outlet, much less box stores? 

If both 16# sledges and 2-+/2# hand hammers are mass tempered the same, then there is my problem.

I'm not really a safety nut. I have no problem with how people choose to be. Education as to potential problems is important, and the only reason for this post.

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I had a project where I did a lot of hand drilling of holes into concrete.  The new star drill had to have the struck end dressed after every hole; an old fleamarket star drill did a half dozen holes before needing dressing.  I don't know the *reason* for the difference but the actuality of the difference was clearly evident. Of course this was in the spring of 2004 IIRC.

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 I've done that Robert, the worst mischiefs I've done myself were in moments of frustration or anger. The attack by the Great white. . . birch, is an exception. 

Once we've established the need for following the rules of safety adequately in this thread I'm with Jennifer on coming up with a GOOD story to go with the (hopefully!) sexy scar. Certainly the mark of a heroic warrior. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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