First forging tools

Von Gruff

KNIFE MAKER
I had built my gas forge and got it running a couple of weeks back but was not getting the heat I thought I should be from it so I rang the regulator supplier and he recomended that I drill out the jst from .7mm up to a 1mm and when I did that it was night and day different so I had a crack at forging a couple things I needed. The first thing was a slag hammer as I had been given a stick welder on permanent loan, so used part of a small jackhammer chisel, cut the top off, forged the chisel end out flatter and made a point on the other end. Some of the videos I saw had them drift a hole through the chisel and taper the handle then rivet it on the other side of the head but that was more than I decided was necessary so I simply welded the handle on. Not too shabby for a first effort I thought.


I had a bit of trouble holding the chisel when I was hammering on it as while my extended handle pliers would open up wide enough, the handles were miles apart and not able to be held in one hand so vice grips sufficed even though I had to double handle everything to get it out of the forge and then take a grip wth the vicegrips to take it to the anvil so the next thing I really needed was a set of tongs that would hold something larger than flat stock. I had picked up some 1/2 in round rods so cut a couple of pieces and went to it. Again it was difficult to hold but eventually a rudimentary set of tongs emerged so I was reasonably happy. Will try a different tack next time as the full tong from 1/2 stock makes them quite heavy so will try to do the jaws from the full size then forge the reins down through 3/8 square to 1/4 in round at the hand grip.
At least these will help to get the next set underway.

Having done that I put the head of the pliers in the forge and when they got to heat I simply closed up the handles till they would hold the knife blades with a single hand grip. Really leased with them and will continue to use them for placing knives into and retrieving them from the forge.
 
While I have a couple of ball peen hammers and forging work can be done with them, I see thatmost of the serious "smiths" have a special hammer that is flat on one end and radiused on the other, weighing about 2 1/2 to 3lb so I thought I had better get one as well. At the scrap yard last time I wanted a bit of round stock to make one and the guy asked if an old sledge hammer head would do as they had a few 'out the back'.
I found one that was about 4 lb so thought that would be a good base to work from.

I needed to shorten it a little to lighten it and after a while of cutting on one end it struck me that it would be hardened so I fired up the forge and when it had got to heat, put it in a bucket of sived ash for the night to anneal it. Made the cutting a little easier so rounded one end and radiused the edges on the other and after a bit of a clean up, put it back in the forge to heat treat, did the quench in water then tempered it in the cooling forge. Found a suitable piece of beech and knocked up a rudimentary handle and now have a hammer that weighs right and swings nicely.


 
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