Thanks Das. Appreciated!

I will get it right next try.... or the next one... or after that perhaps.

A friend ask if I could duplicate a missing wheel of a old clock case for his father. Took some "play time" yesterday, and tried it. I had never tried casting anything, but used to work at a place that did a lot of it. I bought some casting "sand", and made do with stuff laying around shop.  Used some old scrap aluminum pipe for material. This was my 3erd attempt. It needs some file work to clean it up. Al

For a first try (or even a third), that looks pretty good to my uneducated eye!

Thank you.  JHCC, I think he, and his father will be pleased. Al

Seriously clean for a first go at casting!!! 

 

Haven't had much time to forge this week, but got a few small bits done the past two days. 

Nothing fancy, just more of the usual. 

Made a 6 1/2 inch wood gouge for a trade item at our next BOA meeting. Probably should have cleaned it up a little better with the grinder, but it was cold out and my hands were frozen.

Finished the basic work on the treadle hammer. Need to add weight to the head and redo the foot pad, but otherwise ready to go!

I’ll try to get some better photos tomorrow when the light is better. 

What did you leave for hammer to anvil spacing?   No adjustment for material height? 

About 7 inches, just about the right height to use with top tools. I did some test hits on a piece of wood, and it worked very nicely.

I suppose I could theoretically use the front edge for heavy-duty drawing out, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

"When I nod my head, hit it!"

Addendum: fixed the foot pedal, but then discovered that the bottom arm of the treadle wasn’t rigid enough (i.e., it started to bend). Welded on some reinforcement, but then ran out of welding wire. 

But before it bent, I did tap this out:

We’ll see how it is after I add some more weight to the head, but I am impressed with the degree of control from light taps to heavy hits.

Started to assemble the tongs for my fireplace set and realized something wrong. I know exactly what I did. Measured once and marked, measured twice and checked mark then forgot to cut. Forged on and of course the tongs ended up too long. Time to make another set. Guess I’ll finish these up and make another set to match this set of tongs. 

I made a spork from a price of old bedframe my first forged project still did a bunch of stock removal...

My wife loves troll crosses and wrenches... so I found this tiny 13/64 Craftsman in my tool box and made her a troll cross from it. Happy Valentines Day.

The dime coin is for size reference.

Got some more FCAW wire, and reinforced the bottom arm. (Also learned how to clean the liner of the welder, which is a useful skill.)

So, here it is (with an overexposed yardstick for scale):

Here's the pivot for the bottom arm; the anchor for the springs is welded to the underside of the same block.

And here's the pivot for the hammer arm. There's a big bolt that runs through the middle of this that everything rotates around. I'm going to get some grease in there the next time I take apart a CV joint for the ball bearings.

Here it is with the chain linkage disconnected. This pulls the hammer up and out of the way for hand work. The bottom rails, the bottom arm, and the foot pedal slide between the feet of the anvil.

And here's the foot pedal. Just kept adding bits until it felt solid and with good traction.

There's one more bit of welding to do, and that's to add some pieces to the bottom of the anvil stand to key onto the base of the treadle hammer, using the short transverse block in the picture immediately above. The hammer bounces around a bit under load, so I think it would be good to make sure the two always stay properly aligned.

One detail of this whole project is that I wanted to minimize the amount of welding between the treadle parts and the legs and rails I got from @Stitch. If you look, the pivot for the bottom arm is the only thing welded to that assembly; everything else bolts on.

That's one cool and crazy looking treadle hammer JHCC. Does it have enough side to side support to not tip over? 

 

I just got more work done on a hammer head post anvil. It's post heating now to slowly cool for grinding. I added a little horn made from torsion bar. No idea how that will work out till I try it. 

Next up is a lot of grinding to pretty it up a bit. Then attempting to harden it. With a 14lb hammer head this one is really pushing the size working range of my forge. I don't plan on making anything much bigger tho. And if I do I'll make a larger forge. 

On 1/29/2018 at 10:37 AM, Hans Richter said:

JHCC, really nice picture  (of the dogs), didn’t post pictures of my dog  after years with Bordeaux dogs, Staffordshire’s and German boxer's we’ve got now a Pekinese witch is very, very bad for my reputation ones we go out for a walk. 

 

It takes a big man to walk a small dog Hans.

Frosty The Lucky.

21 minutes ago, Daswulf said:

That's one cool and crazy looking treadle hammer JHCC. Does it have enough side to side support to not tip over? 

Thank you!

If side-to-side stability becomes an issue, I’ll weld on some outriggers, plus the socket underneath the anvil stand should help somewhat. In the meantime, those two bottom rails are solid stock and weigh about 40 lbs. each, so the whole thing is already somewhat bottom-heavy. 

Had a dodge 360 engine on a 3 legged stand hanging out in my shop once. I was moving things around and when I went to move it it started going sideways on me and I couldn't stop it. It just dragged me down with it. Luckily I wasn't hurt and only some pulleys got bent on the engine. Since then I worry about things that are top heavy with a little base. 

9 minutes ago, Daswulf said:

I worry about things that are top heavy with a little base. 

A perfectly reasonable caution!

Lil more welding and started grinding. I'm going to shorten the horn a bit since I think I'll round out more towards the face to make a fat round. 

I was just thinking it would be nice if it worked out to be able to poke the horn into the stump to use the back as a bottom fuller. 

Kinda like this. 

JHCC,   By using a movable attachment point (on the handle) for the foot to hammer handle linkage, it should give you a different control and feel to the hammer. You can try several different positions and find what you like. 

For safety, run a slack cable through the inside of the spring. That way if the spring fails, the parts are contained and not flying all over the shop.

Played around with a couple of railway spikes. The smaller dog spike wall hooks on the left are wrought iron and the bottle opener is a mild steel pan head type. Those early wrought ones have a nice texture. I have been unsuccessful in trying to get a loop bottle opener out of even a full sized wrought spike. These are gifts to the railway restoration people who are having a fundraising event soon.

6 hours ago, Glenn said:

JHCC,   By using a movable attachment point (on the handle) for the foot to hammer handle linkage, it should give you a different control and feel to the hammer. You can try several different positions and find what you like.

During the build, I did exactly this, using a prusik hitch as the movable attachment point. Once I found what felt best, I marked it on the arm and welded on the permanent attachment. 

6 hours ago, Glenn said:

For safety, run a slack cable through the inside of the spring. That way if the spring fails, the parts are contained and not flying all over the shop.

Good idea. I think I’ve got a cable dog tether that should work nicely. 

First split cross done with my new portable bandsaw. Many more to come. This was made from 3/4" MS square stock.