Perpetual tinkerer from Virginia

[HojPoj]

Greetings all, I've been lurking here for awhile spelunking the archives to learn what I can about the processes involved with smithing.  I'm a mechanical engineer by education, though I work in in aerospace (helicopter) technology doing program management   By and large my hobbies have centered around learning new things, and I've been slowly working my way through the various metalworking processes.

I've come to the point in metalcasting where I'm upgrading some of my gear, and the need for proper lifting and pouring tongs has arisen.  While I can probably do an ugly job of cobbling together some equipment, I figured I'd make a foray into heat forming processes to get some of the bends and curves to make close fitting crucible tongs and pouring shanks.  

I procured a hunk o' steel to serve as an anvil last week at the scrapyard that weighed a bit more than I expected (387 lbs).  I'm guessing it was a cast steel counterweight for something, because what appears to be the sprue location has a shrinkage void going into the center of the 'T'.  I know it's at least steel, because in some locations I'm getting 60-70% rebound, no fracturing.  My time with a grinder on it makes me think it's just mild steel.  I was hoping to cut the 'T' off to make a separate anvil, but my oxy rig either isn't up to the task, or I need  some more training to make the #4 tip work.  Unfortunately with the draft angles on the casting I can't get it to sit solidly on its side, and as can be seen with my first go at bashing metal for some lifting tongs,it's way too low sitting on the only stump I had at the time.  Turning upright seems to put it at the right height, but that orientation is sub-optimal for this particular application. (The rebound seems pretty good, I had a missed hammer strike that bounced back and knocked me in the safety glasses)

Given the headache of dealing with the overly large lump o' steel, I may just go to the sledgehammer head anvil until I can find a way or access to equipment that'll let me do some big cutting or surfacing of the Lump o' Steel.

As for how I'm heating stuff, I had a box of insulating firebricks from when I bought stuff for the foundry a few years back.  I ginned up a quick n' dirty ammo can forge thinking my hand torch would be sufficient to get things going, but I was a tad disappointed in the ouput.  The 3/4" Z-burner  have for the foundry would be way overkill for this diminutive experiment, so I dug through my boxes of junk and could only come up some bits for a 3/8" NPT based burner.  Only fitting I had for the rear was a four-way brass body, and I used a .023 mig tip for an orifice.  While I could get it to burn fine outside the forge with coupler on the end as a flare, I couldn't get particularly stable performance when inserted in the hole that was cut in the top.  Hoping maybe it was a flare problem, I banged up a super-ugly flare from some thin titanium sheet (I occasionally get some nifty things from the scrap bins at work, though most isn't steel).  While not optimal, at least when the forge was cooler it seemed to run alright, but after about 20 minutes the output dropped/flame was no longer stable in the forge (no other parameter changed).  I'll probably just buy a 1/2" Z-burner and be done with it, as a final forge likely won't have a chamber much bigger than my current one (2.5x3.5x9 in).  Either that or start exploring a blown propane configuration.  Or better yet, maybe try 3D printing a mold for a small ribbon burner! 

I'd like to meet up with the local ABANA chapter, but all social media or webpages seem to be out of date, so I'm not sure if any of the calendars are actually correct.

That's it in a nutshell.

 

Cheers,

Eric

[Lou L]

I love what you are doing and it’s is clear to me that you have been doing your homework.  I absolutely love your anvil.  I would probably try to use it on its side but with the narrow end as the top and bottom.  I think your stump is limiting the awesomeness of that anvil.  Something that held it a bit more firmly in place in the orientation I suggested would be amazing.  You could have a small and a larger anvil face ground with different radii and potentially drill a pritchel hole for punching in the narrow waist.  You could easily weld on a hardy hole to one end as well.  If you know a machinist who can square it up for you even better....b7t a custome made stand could work just as well.  Can’t wait to see what you do.

Lou

[Farmall]

Both the Tidewater Blacksmith Guild and the Central Virginia Blacksmith Guild are ABANA and still active - I’d use our friend, Google, to find their websites and send them an email.  I wouldn’t worry about the dated webpages - neither one is real good at updating the webpage.

[Glenn]

• Central Virginia Blacksmiths Guild
•  Tidewater Blacksmith Guild

These may be of help to get information on the Virginia groups.

[ThomasPowers]

Tell us about your regulator? Any issues with it freezing up in the hot humid weather?

  Drop off over time sounds like it could be a  bottle freeze issue too; but I assume you are beyond that stage with your casting experience.

[HojPoj]

Thanks all.

I'd already checked out the webpages for the nearest groups, the lack of updates made me question whether their google calendars were still valid.  The Tidewater group appears to have updated their facebook recently, so I'll get in touch with them about attending some of their meetings.

Lou, with the Lump O' Steel on its edge (the orientation I'm hoping to use), the Dimensions of the face are roughly 4.25" x 7" - that seems like it'd be more than sufficient for a beginner anvil.  If I were to separate the T section along with the web from the larger chunk, then I could modify the web to make a horn, too.  The larger chunk on edge is about 9"x9" at the widest, that seems like it's a little too big for the smaller work I'd be doing.  Setting it flat, however, would make for a spiffy striking anvil!  Overall length is 18", width is 12.75". I'd do more to manipulate its position, but at shy of 400 lbs I simply can't move it easily.  I'm either going to have to construct a quicky gantry to use a chain hoist on, or see if there's someone I can borrow an engine hoist from.  I could potentially bring it to work to get the surfaces faced, but just getting in my truck or up on a mill is more than a 2-man lift.  Once I can find a mill big enough to do the job I fully intend to get a couple faces milled flat- this counterweight has seen its fair share of rough handling, so many of the surfaces that should be planar are instead a bit on the wavy side.  With that much material it's simply impractical to try and grind it off.  Regardless, I know what I'll need to do to make a more useable anvil out of it, it's just going to be a matter of accessing the right tools and getting my hands on enough materials to fabricobble up a good stand for it.

ThomasPowers, the one I was using this go round was 0-30 psi regulator with only an output gauge.  I tried varying the pressure from 1-10 psi, didn't really improve anything when it got hot.  There was no issue with the cylinder freezing or reduced propane output, I believe the culprit is just that the effective backpressure in the forge increases once everything's up to heat, and with the marginal air inlet cross section there probably wasn't enough induced air to overcome the overall backpressure.  Truly I was surprised that the 3/8 burner worked at all, my initial searches for a pipe burner that small didn't turn up much information on general design guidelines (I was really just winging it with what I had on hand).  What's good for a 3/4" burner doesn't linearly scale down since things like pipe roughness and all that jazz actually start to become far more important.  I'll probably give it another go with some stainless tubing I've scavenged, and will try to see if there's any improvement.  If I can make a quickly mandrel, I may try to do an integral flare to the tube to make life easier.

As far as hammers, I've got a drilling hammer, various ball pein hammers, and one of the cheapo cross-peens from Harbor Freight.  I definitely noticed a lot of the issues that have been brought up in the threads regarding the Hofi hammers and technique (death grip, tendonitis, etc.) that would definitely manifest in some issues for me.  For anyone that uses the Hofi style hammers, particularly the slab-side handles, does anyone have a sketch of the overall geometry or cross-sectional slices of that handle style?  I'm trying to determine what size chunks of appropriate wood I need to get (5/4 sawn, 1" nominal, or resort to firewood) to make up some handles.  Also, if I can get it modeled up I may just the rough handles out on a CNC router I have occasional access to.

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard HojPoj, glad to have you. That's a fine looking anvil you have there.  The tag sticking out of the smaller half looks like it's another thin section to another weight that broke off resulting in it getting tossed. 

I'd lay it so it formed a fat legged H. Forget about taking a mill to it you don't need perfect most of the  time you only need relatively smooth. If you need a polished surface make a small one that mounts to your anvil. Often called "bottom tools" commonly called "hardy tools." A little angle grinder work is all that puppy really needs.

There are lots of alternatives to a hardy hole in the anvil, I like the portable hole myself, there are lots of examples and construction details here I won't go into it. Another good alternative is a leg vise at the right height for hammering. You know a tinkery guy could make a leg type vise right on that thing and hammer till his arm fell off and not hurt it. Hmmmm. (the vise not the arm.)

You have a couple problems with the forge that jump out at me. It's too long and narrow. The burner is aimed straight at the floor, It appears to be lined with hard brick. 

Long and narrow means it'll have a hot spot under the burner and cooler the farther away.

The burner firing directly at the floor increases back pressure and the flame breaks up into random turbulence decreasing heat distribution.

Being lined with hard fire brick is only good if you're going to keep it going for LONG duration, say days or weeks straight and pass lots of work through it so you need the huge heat sink. Hard brick carries a LOT of thermal mass and is a poor insulator about the same as an equal amount of limestone. Anyway, it'll take a lot of fuel and time to bring it to temperature and it will conduct lots of heat straight through and heat your shop.

Do some skimming in Forges 101 and Burners 101 for tips and discussions of  burners and forges. 

Oh, a 0.023" jet is WAY too large for a 3/8" burner. It's more appropriate for a 1/2" burner wich is good for approx 150-175 cu/in forge, provided it isn't too long and narrow.

Frosty The Lucky.

[HojPoj]

Thanks Frosty, I agree with the H orientation being optimal, I'll get there eventually.  When I said I wanted it milled flat, it's mostly because the draft angles from casting cause it to lean too much, and it'd take a heck of a lot of shims to correct... the other part is that near the corners it has been dropped and deformed to the point that most of the faces have some level of cupping to them, so anything I hit on there could end up bowed.  Mostly I want to knock down the high spots (which at a variance of over a 1/4" over a few inches makes for a LOT of material to remove).  Plus, with a few squared faces I could more easily make a welded stand with all the I-beams I've got. 

Smithing or not, having seen the utility of the post vises I have to say I WANT ONE.  Would be quite handy for some of the other workshop endeavors.  Finding one may be a challenge since I don't get to wander about applying TPAAAT, might have to make the 1.5 hour drive to the other side of Richmond where I've seen someone listing an assortment of smithing tools (challenge is still getting a kitchen pass to do so). 

That ammo can forge is only a temporary measure, and its the insulating brick, not hard (still a lot of thermal mass compared to a fiber blanket, though).  The burner was actually angled about 20 degrees off vertical, and as a starter I wasn't terribly concerned about the hotspot since my neophyte status means I won't properly work more than 2-3 inches of material per heat anyways.  There was a hole cut in the side where I'd originally stuck in the hand torch, but I plugged that with a chunk of IFB.  Likewise, I experimented with restricting the openings or opening them up, but it didn't seem to make a difference. 

I appreciate the feedback on orifice size, looks like I'll have to break out the tiny bits to make a new orifice instead of using the mig tips.  It's quite likely that there's too high a propane velocity for the size of mixing tube, and that's what's giving me the sputtering, makes sense that a smaller orifice would help address it.  Once I get more comfortable with the hammer techniques I'll build a proper forge, since already have some materials and the shopping list assembled. 

 

 

[Frosty]

If you have I beam, welder, saws, etc. then there's no problem making the anvil face as level as you'd like, certainly less time and effort than milling. Remember, the stand doesn't need to be level, it's what's on it that counts. Hmmmm?

If you spend one  minute at the beginning of every forge session with a grinder it won't be long before it's as smooth as you like. If not then you are't doing enough smithing to need much. I do any serious straightening on a wood block with a wood mallet NOT on the anvil face. Nor do I use the horn for much other than a bottom fuller. I certainly don't turn scrolls, rings, hooks with it. I do those on the face and radiused edges. However drawing out things like bottle openers can use a bic. Bull pins work nicely and pipe or round bar for larger. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against horns I just don't think they're worth going to a lot of work or expense to make of buy. 

 You might want to switch to a brick pie forge. A shell is nice but not really necessary and a pile allows you to rearrange the chamber till you find what works best for you OR a particular project. Heating a LOT of material is undesirable in most cases, you can only effectively forge a few at a time anyway. Bringing the stock to forging temps without forging can cause excessive grain growth (crystalization) which is a BAD thing. For most of us heating about 4-6" is a good length though it's hard to not heat some beyond what you're working in a gas forge.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Now I'm picturing a "Cabinet of Dr Caligari" anvil stand...

I don't wander around applying TPAAAT; I use it as I go my daily rounds---in line at the supermarket, after church coffee hour, anytime you interact with someone.  Shoot I talked with a junkstore owner and gave him my card and now he's calling me every time he gets something in...When I got a ticket in the fender bender last June I talked with the cop and the person in the other vehicle...

[HojPoj]

2 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

I don't wander around applying TPAAAT; I use it as I go my daily rounds---in line at the supermarket, after church coffee hour, anytime you interact with someone....

Well, that's my problem! My misanthropic nature keeps my human interaction to a minimum.   Maybe I can teach my 4 year old to ask people, they might respond better to her than me.  

[ThomasPowers]

I was an introvert hermit like fellow, (starting early; I remember my Mother advising me to be more sociable in High School 40+ years ago); but I had to overcome that to smith: learning, finding and buying equipment, demonstrating, and finally teaching.