Vevor 2 Burner Gas Forge tubes glowing and fire in the choke holes after couple hours usage

[Frosty]

Do you have a tool rental place near by? If so see how much they want for old too worn to rent spade jack hammer bits. Alloys vary but in general they are an impact resistant medium carbon steel. I stopped by our local Home Depot rental desk when one of the guys returned a badly battered jack hammer bit. Hmmm, I know a number of guys who make decent money re-pointing and sharpening jack hammer bits and I have a power hammer. (KaCHING maybe?)

"No it's not worth it to the company, we scrap them." Really? How much do you get for them as scrap?" I reply. "Nah, we have one of the guys run them in when the bucket is full." Is there a place here in the valley or do you run them to Anchorage?" "Anchorage." Really? how much you want for that spade bit?" "Uh, I don't know, $5?" I whip a fiver out and dash out with visions of a new Hardy and several more bottom tools in my grubby mits. 

I posted the idea on the club's FB site and at the messaging before the next meeting nobody had gotten any but everybody was excited about forging some bottom tools. Welllllll, I stop in at the Home Depot rental counter again and tell the fellow manning it I'd like to buy some more jack hammer bits for the blacksmith club to . . . He cuts me off and says "take them all if you want them, they're yours," pointing at a bucket. Then hollers at a guy working on stuff in the shop to bring the scrap jack hammer bits out front and help me load. When the fellow drags two buckets out and I'm dragging the one out from behind the counter the counter guy says, "hold on" and gets 3 more buckets so we can divide the loot into manageable loads.

I not only got about 140lbs. of jack hammer bits in various states of old and dull I got 6 plastic buckets, 3 brand new. The only downside is the two buckets of jackhammer bits out in the shop I couldn't give away. worked out well for Home Depot too, they didn't have to pay a guy to drive the 100+ miles to Anchorage to get rid of them.

Sorry for the ramble but it IS a sweet memory and even the $5 spade bit was a great deal and made a fine hardy and a couple power hammer tools. 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[Absinthe]

I will keep my eyes open. 

My hardy is only 3/4" . I have stuff that big or bigger in all the metals I have. I have even considered some of the stuff I used for these huge tongs. I was kind of hoping I could do it with the S7 or the 41xx stuff. I do have some reasonably thick rounds of 4130 that I was hoping to make a hammer from, not to mention a good couple chunks of 1045. But first hammer eye punch and drift. 

[Frosty]

Hold onto it, you'll develop the skills sets to make good use of it all. S-7 is impact resistant steel when properly heat treated and makes good impact tools but it's tetchy about treating it right. 4130 is great steel, very fatigue resistant, you can flex and flap it for decades without work hardening, makes great airframes. 

How thick are the 4130 rounds? Unfortunately 4130 doesn't have enough carbon in it to harden so it isn't the best for hammers. 4140 on the other hand makes excellent hammers, it will get just hard enough but not work harden further and chip. But hold on till you get to an intermediate level or find a mentor before you try making hammers, it isn't as easy as it looks. 

What do you have for a hammer(s)? 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

 

[Absinthe]

Here is a quick tour of the 4130/4140/4150/1045 then lastly the S7 and then all the odflot 1018. The biggest rounds of 4130 are 1-3/4. 

Most of it I just put the hook rule against.

As for hammers I have from a little under 2lbs  up to 8lb. 

Several are cross peen in the 2-2-1/4 range. One that I am enjoying is an engineers sledge in the 2+ range that I flattened one face and rounded the other. I find myself reaching for this often. 32oz ball peen that I polished and flattened one face. 4 lb sledge that I polished and flattened the faces, and a 7.something lb sledge head that I assume some day I can convince someone to come swing with me as a striker. All in all I have 10 dedicated to this space and one more ball peen that I think is around 24 that lives in the wood shop but I could bring it out if needs be. 

All the ones in this "area" have been re-hafted, and the handles stripped of any varnish and had lots of BLO applied over several days. As well their faces are all polished, profiles, and shaped one way or another. 

[Absinthe]

The ID on those tubes is 1" before the flair. They are 1-1/4 OD and the walls look less than 1/8 so it might be 1-1/8 ID but I don't have a good way to get calipers at it to be exact.

 

Also back in my pictures of the steel, my last image was something I picked up. I think it is a drill or something that you drive with a hammer? Anyway, I kind of assumed it would be similar to a jack bit. I think it was $0.50 so there's that

[Absinthe]

I missed the engineer. You can't really tell the one round face from the finished picture (top) but the pre-handle replacement (bottom) shows the profile pretty well. I did it by eye so I couldn't say for sure, but maybe a 10 or 12" radius?? It does move stuff pretty well for its size, so I find myself reaching for it. 

I have a second one of the Piccard style ones but as the replacement, the handle is definitely mounted well. Unfortunately, the cross peen is almost squared off flat, and the face, although they are calling it a round-square will be seeing some spa time with the angle grinder before I put it into service. For now, it sits next to my work desk in my office. 

[Frosty]

The lengths of the steel you picked up is pretty irrelevant to anybody but you, a long string of pictures of them with a scale is mostly a waste of bandwidth. Pics of hammers laying down on a neutral colored background shows more and better detail. Weight is typically THE important dimension of hammers. I highly recommend you NOT grind on anymore hammers without knowing what works for you.

With an ID of 1" one of those burners is more suited to a 700cu/in forge chamber than the one they're in now. It's no wonder they were bringing your steel to melting temp so quickly. Too hot isn't as bad a thing as not hot enough, you can always turn them down.

Frosty The Lucky.