Question(s)/ ideas on homemade swage blocks

[FrontierBoundPrivateer]

Hello! Alright, ill just lay it out. I believe some of the older swage blocks out there were cast iron, right? I think John at blackbear forge mentioned it once. If so, does anyone have advice on casting my own? I'll give some more details.

  I have a nice 10kg furnace, and have done a few sand castings already. Nothing large, but I do have large enough drags to do a decent sized swage. I've never melted cast iron, but I know it can be done with the type furnace I have. (I've seen BigStackedD melt and pour it. He uses a devil forge furnace and mine is a cast master. Only difference I can tell is he has a fixed lid with a hinge, and mine just fits snug on. They both look identical besides the paint job.  Plus his looks older than mine and slightly beat up from use. So I'm not worried about the actual melt.) My plan I'm working on is looking/getting a Styrofoam mold made or get some large thick stuff and cut it out myself and go from there. Possibly look into plaster. I imagine the lost wax method would be better, but with everything else I'm doing I don't have enough time currently for it. I know that I'll need good sand, and planned on getting some professional green sand or Petrabond (I think it's called) for the project. Since I'm only working with a 10kg crucible the piece would only weigh like 20ish pounds. But that would be a great start for me until I can get a larger/steel one later in my venture. 

Basically I'm seeing if cast iron would work, or if anyone has any advice on going about it.  Like I said ive done a few small castings before. Little skull from a hollow Halloween decoration,a bunch of ingots, open face coins, sea shells, a little 3d printed gnome. Oh! Maybe a 3d printed mold would work as well... not sure.

Currently im using a log, and a large steel pipe thingy I rounded the top off of and they dont do quite what I'm aiming for. Having one for projects would be great obviously, and it would be another thing I could add to my skill set. If it works out of course. Besides the larger stuff(anvil, vice, power tools ect) I've made most of my tools I use daily already. And if I can really get it nice, possibly make em an item for sale at my spot at the market.  But yeah, any advice or suggestions/precautions would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you guys/gals and have a great day. 

[George N. M.]

I won't offer any advice about the actual casting except to say, "BE CAREFUL."  20 lbs of liquid iron could do a lot of damage in a worse case scenarion.  If you are going to be melting an pouring why not do it in steel rather than cast iron?

I will say that as to a design  or a swage block to put in the shapes you think you are going to use.  I use the dishing shapes pretty often but I seldom use the spoon shapes.  I use the curved shapes on the edge uch more that I use the 90 degree V shapes.  I think that 60 degree Vs would be useful.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Yes a lot of swage blocks and anvil bottom tools were made from cast iron. That is why we see so many of them damaged beyond use. I think it would be an exercise in futility.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sails.

[FrontierBoundPrivateer]

Well my main reasons for thinking about using cast iron was fuel and the simple ability of my furnace. I just watched some more vids and seen several successful pours of it with a very similar set up to mine. And I've only seen one vid on steel in a propane furnace and it really didn't melt to a proper pouring consistency. I've seen people make a big brick furnace and use coal/charcoal to make wootz/crucible steel before. But I don't currently have enough fire bricks to do that. 

And yes, if I do decide to give this a shot I will use all the proper safety gear and safe location. Before I got into blacksmithing, I spent several years working at a local foundry. Now it was an aluminum foundry, so it wasn't near as hot, but we made all sorts of stuff. Molds to make truck bed liners, canoes, big parts for machines making plastic skids and such. It was a pretty old tech operation compared to some of todays modern equipment. The furnaces were these giant electric ones that use a large rod to melt the aluminum. Huge drags for the sand and no shake out machine. We'd help first shift do the pour with the overhead crane, then use jackhammers, picks and sledge hammers to break it out.  Grind the haul, clean and cut wires, grind, and more grinding lol. 

But I planned on making it similar to the ones holland anvil company makes. The circle dishing shapes, probably one spoon, a shovel maybe or cone and the round/ V sides. And 60 degrees, good to know. 

 

And to Iron dragon forge and clayworks, I thought so. And your very right, I have seen broken/beat up ones on ebay. Makes sense.  It may be futile, very much so indeed.  But if I do decide to, it still may be a fun experiance even if it fails. Watching John and his friend make that clay furnace on his channel and get an iron bloom was so cool to me, and got me on a thought train of all sorts of stuff.  I'll keep this up and post anything I decide to do or don't  do.  Thank you both!

[George N. M.]

I just looked it up and the melting point of cast iron is about 4-600 degrees F less than steel.  So, if you are close to your furnaces capacity it makes sense that it would be easier to pour cast iron.

GNM

[Frosty]

Sure you can cast swages, etc. in iron. What do you know about the process necessary to make malleable cast iron, or at LEAST Gray iron?

Maybe 22-23 years ago, this house still had plywood floors was visiting the state and wanted to go for a drive. We'd known each other on Theforge.list and Artmetal.list for a few years so I took him for a long drive down Turnagain arm to see animals, Beluga whales, the view from the top of the ski lift at Alyeska Ski resort, etc. Among all the stuff we talked about I described the T burner. He'd seen pics of the inside of the forge on artmetal I think and wanted to do some brain picking. I described it, talked about tuning, how to read the flame just how stinking LOUD they are, etc. It was a great day.

Anyway, a few weeks later he posts pics of his new burner and I almost sent the email to the list telling him he'd done it wrong. I'm so glad I didn't send it, I hadn't stopped to look at the flame and dang if it wasn't as nice a flame as I've seen. It was also the last time I went anywhere with a metal head without taking a pad of graph paper!

What he'd done "wrong" was rotate the T fitting 90* and made a "Sidearm" burner instead of a T burner. 

What did Robert do that he needed a propane burner, a 1 1/4" propane burner? He's a caster and wanted something that'd melt something like 30-40lbs of iron. Upstairs I have a little cast iron anvil he sent me. It must weigh almost an ounce and it has a readable logo and name cast proud. He was getting jewelry level detail from investment cast iron.

You just need a big enough burner.

  Frosty The Lucky.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Also a big enough furnace if you are going to melt around 70 pounds of metal..

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sails.

[George N. M.]

Since 10 kilos is kind of on the light side for a swage block IMO I think I would cast several smaller blocks with just one or two shapes on them and with a square tenon to insert into the hardie hole of my anvil.  They would probably be only 5-15 pounds each.  Also, it eliminates the need for a stand for the swage block.  Just a late night idea.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Frosty]

Agreed George, at 10kilos it'd almost have to be bottom tools unless a person build a special stand like a portable hole with a special holder for such a small "block." Grey cast iron weighs 0.256lbs./cu" rounded up to the nearest thousandth. It would make a generous bottom tool but would need a clamping mechanism to keep it in a stand as a block.

It's doable but awfully small to be marketable, ESPECIALLY when you consider what else you'd have to buy or make to be very usable. 

A 40 kilo block is starting to reach useful weight and size and if cube shaped 6 swage shapes. THAT could be a good seller.

 Frosty The Lucky.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I saw one like George described in an antique/junk shop. It was made by Atha and had five or six shapes on it. One looked like it was for shaping the ends of horseshoes and another was a small spoon shape and several sizes of half hexagons. The owner wanted $200 US for it and wouldn't budge on the price. Of course he had 2 Vulcan anvils that were missing a lot of the face and he wanted $450 and $575 for them. Needless to say nope.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sails.

[GNJC]

Well... about a dozen years ago I designed and had a swage block cast, by a professional foundry. I went through thoughts and ideas of smaller blocks, hardy tools etc. etc. and after an awful lot of consideration I found that I had to agree with history and the received wisdom that a full sized block is the best tool for the job. 

As for using cast iron, if you can get the design of the pattern and its making right, and then the mix, the melt and the pouring right, cast iron is probably far stronger than you may realise. Sure ductile iron is good, but I have given a miscast block a hell of a pounding with a sledge and without any problems. But, I did design mine carefully to reduce potential weak spots.

Look at as many pic's as you can in a google search for images of some blocks, you'll notice that the broken ones all failed at the narrowest / thinnest point. Whatever you decide to do, spend a lot of time thinking, I took several months to finalise my design, and even then I included something I would later think better of. Good luck and keep us posted.