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- Dec 20, 2009
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OK, got the bottles filled, heated up the ribbon forge (OH yeah, you heard it, I got one. I said RIBBON FORGE)
Using the squaring dies, the first weld compression. Warner will compress the canister in several small presses alternating corners.
Here's a big fish I caught this summer. 32 inch laker, 13 pounds, from shore on a 5 wt fly rod. (ADHD kicking in. Come on Mark, focus)
OK, back to forging pictures. Here's a better look at the squaring dies. We keep compressing while alternating corners.
Then we switch to the "drawing" dies and continue reducing the billet (drawing it out).
I cut a notch in the top die so we can press the ends together. It keeps the ends from pooching out too much and puts more material back into the billet. I think we get more usable material in the end.
Pretty soon, the box starts to fall apart so we take it off and weld the handle to the billet itself.
We have a good billet now and the hammer does what the hammer does.
We go back and forth between the hammer and the press depending on how we feel. I don't know why Warner doesn't have his safety glasses on, if his eyes got injured, his Mom would not be happy with me.
We have drawn the billet out and squared it up. It's about 1 1/4 inches square and 8 inches long. We like it like that.
It goes into the vermiculite to anneal. It goes in at critical temperature and will cool over a 24 hour period. The goal is to have it as soft as it can be for the next step. Hopefully the design we put into the can was reduced in proportion to the 1 1/4 inch size and goes all the way through the billet from end to end. A certain amount of each end will be unusable but we should have some good stuff in there.
What's that green machine to the right of Warner you ask? It's my rolling mill I converted from a horizontal milling machine. It has reducing rolls, texturing rolls for putting patterns into damascus and a billet twister. More about that later.
Next week, we cut the billet into tiles and turn them sideways to expose the end grain.
Thanks for looking, stay tuned.
Using the squaring dies, the first weld compression. Warner will compress the canister in several small presses alternating corners.
Here's a big fish I caught this summer. 32 inch laker, 13 pounds, from shore on a 5 wt fly rod. (ADHD kicking in. Come on Mark, focus)
OK, back to forging pictures. Here's a better look at the squaring dies. We keep compressing while alternating corners.
Then we switch to the "drawing" dies and continue reducing the billet (drawing it out).
I cut a notch in the top die so we can press the ends together. It keeps the ends from pooching out too much and puts more material back into the billet. I think we get more usable material in the end.
Pretty soon, the box starts to fall apart so we take it off and weld the handle to the billet itself.
We have a good billet now and the hammer does what the hammer does.
We go back and forth between the hammer and the press depending on how we feel. I don't know why Warner doesn't have his safety glasses on, if his eyes got injured, his Mom would not be happy with me.
We have drawn the billet out and squared it up. It's about 1 1/4 inches square and 8 inches long. We like it like that.
It goes into the vermiculite to anneal. It goes in at critical temperature and will cool over a 24 hour period. The goal is to have it as soft as it can be for the next step. Hopefully the design we put into the can was reduced in proportion to the 1 1/4 inch size and goes all the way through the billet from end to end. A certain amount of each end will be unusable but we should have some good stuff in there.
What's that green machine to the right of Warner you ask? It's my rolling mill I converted from a horizontal milling machine. It has reducing rolls, texturing rolls for putting patterns into damascus and a billet twister. More about that later.
Next week, we cut the billet into tiles and turn them sideways to expose the end grain.
Thanks for looking, stay tuned.
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