So, Butch just left here a bit ago after doing some banging and smashing in the new shop. Right now what I have is a temporary hot work area set up in a corner of the building since my Mom will be using a good hunk of the shop for some storage for a little while (she's moving). I did manage to carve out a little corner for now and get the anvil, forge, and new Kerrihard hammer in.
Here's a pic of the forging area as it is now:
The forge is a blown gas forge by Darren Ellis, the anvil is a 335lb Euroanvil, the power hammer is a 30# Kerrihard, and the handtruck is a work holder until I get a proper one built
Oh, and the base the power hammer is on is VERY temporary. I lagged it to some 4"x6" scraps I had laying around so provide some cushion for the floor and to raise the anvil a bit. It will ge a proper base as soon as I get a load of longer 4"x6" cuttoffs dropped off by the contractor down the street.
Here's a better shot of the forge:
We ended up swapping the leaf blower to try the smaller blower I couldn't get working right before...I was giving it too much gas. We ended up getting to 2300+ degrees with a MUCH smaller blower. And, SAFETY FIRST! We made sure the gas bottle was tied to the building "just in case"
Sadly, running the forge and the power hammer at the same time resulted in popping the breaker on the one circuit I have strung via extension cord at the moment. I need another extension cord! :grumpy:
So, Butch set to working down a piece of 1" round W-1:
Once we played around a bit, swapped blowers and got a good heat w/ the smaller blower, I took a couple of pieces of 1050 and tried to weld them together. We had welding heat! (I nuked the weld on purpose to see how well it had set on the first set of blows...hitting it sideways wasn't enouigh to unstick it...since it was 1050 I figured I'd see if dunking it in water would do it...the water warped it and popped the weld...nothing shocking)
Then I remembered the pyrometer and checked the heat at the rear of the forge. 2300+ degrees! Well, that meant it was time for me to get a stack of 1084/15n20 I had welded up earlier into the forge.
I took it throgh a few heats at welding temp, making sure to brush and re-flux each time. those 7 layers are good and stuck! I even worked it down a little sideways to be sure. First pattern welded billet here we come! (At this point I'd like to thank Bruce Bump for trading me some steel so I could have some 15n20 to work with... THANKS BRUCE!
)
We were losing daylight, and there are no lights in the shop, so after a little more forging on the W-1, we called it a day. If there were lights I'd have turned Butch into a power hammer to draw that billet out for sure! I'm going to grind down one side of the billet tomorrow just to check my welds, but I'm certain everything worked just right. I'll post pics of it ground and possibly lightly etched tomorrow. I'm pretty sure though that making Damascus will be like smoking crack....I really need something to attach the leg vise to so we can work a twist....
I leave you for today with a pic of me waving my orange flag of forge welding vistory...Or at least that what I'm calling the crazy motion blur on this one...
I'm gonna be up early and forgin' tomorrow!
-d
Here's a pic of the forging area as it is now:
The forge is a blown gas forge by Darren Ellis, the anvil is a 335lb Euroanvil, the power hammer is a 30# Kerrihard, and the handtruck is a work holder until I get a proper one built
Oh, and the base the power hammer is on is VERY temporary. I lagged it to some 4"x6" scraps I had laying around so provide some cushion for the floor and to raise the anvil a bit. It will ge a proper base as soon as I get a load of longer 4"x6" cuttoffs dropped off by the contractor down the street.Here's a better shot of the forge:
We ended up swapping the leaf blower to try the smaller blower I couldn't get working right before...I was giving it too much gas. We ended up getting to 2300+ degrees with a MUCH smaller blower. And, SAFETY FIRST! We made sure the gas bottle was tied to the building "just in case"
Sadly, running the forge and the power hammer at the same time resulted in popping the breaker on the one circuit I have strung via extension cord at the moment. I need another extension cord! :grumpy:
So, Butch set to working down a piece of 1" round W-1:
Once we played around a bit, swapped blowers and got a good heat w/ the smaller blower, I took a couple of pieces of 1050 and tried to weld them together. We had welding heat! (I nuked the weld on purpose to see how well it had set on the first set of blows...hitting it sideways wasn't enouigh to unstick it...since it was 1050 I figured I'd see if dunking it in water would do it...the water warped it and popped the weld...nothing shocking)
Then I remembered the pyrometer and checked the heat at the rear of the forge. 2300+ degrees! Well, that meant it was time for me to get a stack of 1084/15n20 I had welded up earlier into the forge.
I took it throgh a few heats at welding temp, making sure to brush and re-flux each time. those 7 layers are good and stuck! I even worked it down a little sideways to be sure. First pattern welded billet here we come! (At this point I'd like to thank Bruce Bump for trading me some steel so I could have some 15n20 to work with... THANKS BRUCE!
)We were losing daylight, and there are no lights in the shop, so after a little more forging on the W-1, we called it a day. If there were lights I'd have turned Butch into a power hammer to draw that billet out for sure! I'm going to grind down one side of the billet tomorrow just to check my welds, but I'm certain everything worked just right. I'll post pics of it ground and possibly lightly etched tomorrow. I'm pretty sure though that making Damascus will be like smoking crack....I really need something to attach the leg vise to so we can work a twist....
I leave you for today with a pic of me waving my orange flag of forge welding vistory...Or at least that what I'm calling the crazy motion blur on this one...
I'm gonna be up early and forgin' tomorrow!
-d
