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Ed Caffrey's Workshop Talk to Ed Caffrey ... The Montana Bladesmith! Tips, tricks and more from an ABS Mastersmith.

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Old 11-03-2006, 12:38 AM
jdm61 jdm61 is offline
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press on!

Well, it looks like i am going to pull the trigger on a press. Jeff offered to sell me his personal Imagination Xpress and I'm a gonna dood it! So now i need to figure out what dies I need for my evil plans. I've thought of 5 so far that i can use right away. And 2 or 3 more real crazy ones too! Not sure those will work though. Just warning all of you.....I will be asking even MORE inane questions once i get my hands on this puppy!!! The thing that convinced me that a press might be a REAL good idea was attempting to forge a standard integral chef's knife from a piece of the 3/4 inch round 5160 that i got from Ray Kirk. Although it moved a LOT easier than the 1 inch O1 bar I tried before, it still ended up a mess even with a big hammer. Needless to say, i shan't be trying that again, especially on the big W2 stock i just got. I've come up with some interesting ideas for a couple of dies that should help me forge a couple of integral combat knife designs that are floating around in my pointy little head. guess I have to buy a little welder now. Gonna need some help with that, Ed. More to follow.

Last edited by jdm61; 11-03-2006 at 12:40 AM.
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Old 11-03-2006, 06:50 AM
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Ed Caffrey Ed Caffrey is offline
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Congrats on the press! Your gona love it! Be careful about making dies..... it can become a monster that consumes a LOT of your time. When I first got my press I distracted myself for several days at a time when I would think up a new set of dies to build......trouble is that most of the dies sit in the rack and are only used on special occasions. Combo flat, drawing, and IF your going to make any mosaic, squaring dies are the ones to think about first.

A welder is certainly something that comes in handy for a million things in the shop! If your going to be welding press dies, DON'T buy a small one! Get the best you can afford, that will do the job you need done. My first welder was/is a Lincoln 200amp "buzz box" that I picked up at an auction for $100. It worked great for most of the jobs around the shop, but after a few years I got the urge for a MIG. (the buzz box is a "stick" welder). One year for my birthday my wife got me a Lincoln Weld-Pak 100, which is a portable 110v wire feed. It's great, but won't weld anything thicker than about 3/16.....1/4" material takes multiple passes, and just doesn't hold very well. Last year I picked up a Lincoln Idealarc, 200amp MIG with the tank, new gun, and a 60lb spool of wire from Kelly Cupples for less than $600.....some of the best money I've ever spent!
If you have any welding stores around, talk to those folks and see if they have any used machines for sale.....those who work in the welding trade are always "trading up" for newer and better machines. Keep your eyes open and you can usually run across some scream'in deals on excellent machines.


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Old 11-03-2006, 01:26 PM
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thanks, Ed
right now I figure that I want a combo flat/drawing die, a shoulder die, a rounder die and one that can press an good sized wide 1/34-2 inch by 3/4-13/16th's oval from 1-1 1/4 round bar when fully pressed. Someone on one fo the forums was talking about messing around with a die that does bevels? Any use in experimenting with that? My crazy idea was a full width flatter but with a channel milled down the middle that when the dies come together, it would form a semi triangular slot when viewed from the end. The large end would be around 5/16-38 and the small 1/8-3/16. I'm thinking that i couldeven fit two different slots of varying depth and width on 1 5 inch wide die. Am I asking for trouble there? l
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Old 11-03-2006, 05:33 PM
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Old 11-03-2006, 06:03 PM
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This topic brings forward the question 'Just how many of you have both a hammer and a press?"

Thanks in advance.

Julie


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Old 11-03-2006, 06:37 PM
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I currently have neither and if i didn't live in one of most densely populated counties in the US, i might have checked out one of those small tabletop 40 lb air hammers that showed up on the forums a while back. As it stands now, i can only really forge on weekends becauseof the noise issues except for times like this week when i am home doing the phone call and paperwork thingy and I can grab an hour or two in the late afternoon. The press was about the only way I could go and I went with the Imagination Xpress over one of the smaller H-frame presses because it appears to have a very small footprint that will fit in my one cqar garage shop.......that and our fearless leader had one and his current press is actually a Frankenmagination Xpress.

Last edited by jdm61; 11-03-2006 at 06:39 PM.
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Old 11-04-2006, 12:42 AM
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I have both a hammer and press.....and am not sure I could do without either one of them! I consider the press my "precision", and the hammer my "speed", although with the air hammer there is a considerable amount of precision available too.

Something that came to mind when I was reading about the press dies you where interested in...... Keep this thought in mind about using the press: The larger surface area a die has, the less material it will move. Large flat dies are used more for straightening and truing than for moving mass amounts of material. The reason is that even with a LARGE tonnage press, and a large surface area die, there just isn't enough psi due to it being spread over a larger area. As the surface area of a die decreases, the psi it exerts on the steel increases.... a very good thing to keep in mind when using a press. Also, a general rule of thumb when using a press is to NOT try to compress more than 1/4" per pass. If you try to press too much (IE: Squash the steel) you cause yourself more problems that anything. If you have specific shapes/pattern you wish to produce with a press, it is FAR better to make a series of dies that will shape the steel a little more with each successive die until you reach the desired outcome.
When you press hot steel, the displaced material HAS to go somewhere. That "somewhere" is usually where the dies are not in contact with the steel, and if you try to take too large of a "bite" (or better worded "compression") the steel will sometimes displace to the point where you've got a ton of work to try to get it back where you want it, and sometimes you may never get thing back the way you want them.


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Old 11-04-2006, 02:55 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed Caffrey
I have both a hammer and press.....and am not sure I could do without either one of them! I consider the press my "precision", and the hammer my "speed", although with the air hammer there is a considerable amount of precision available too.

Something that came to mind when I was reading about the press dies you where interested in...... Keep this thought in mind about using the press: The larger surface area a die has, the less material it will move. Large flat dies are used more for straightening and truing than for moving mass amounts of material. The reason is that even with a LARGE tonnage press, and a large surface area die, there just isn't enough psi due to it being spread over a larger area. As the surface area of a die decreases, the psi it exerts on the steel increases.... a very good thing to keep in mind when using a press. Also, a general rule of thumb when using a press is to NOT try to compress more than 1/4" per pass. If you try to press too much (IE: Squash the steel) you cause yourself more problems that anything. If you have specific shapes/pattern you wish to produce with a press, it is FAR better to make a series of dies that will shape the steel a little more with each successive die until you reach the desired outcome.
When you press hot steel, the displaced material HAS to go somewhere. That "somewhere" is usually where the dies are not in contact with the steel, and if you try to take too large of a "bite" (or better worded "compression") the steel will sometimes displace to the point where you've got a ton of work to try to get it back where you want it, and sometimes you may never get thing back the way you want them.
My idea for the beveling dies that are set up, for lack of a better term, like stamping dies is to get the steel to move into a highly restricted empty space. The width of the pressing area on the weird dies i am thinking off would be 2 inches max for the big flat oval die. I was thinking of a beveling die with 2 slots. one that makes a 3/8 or 5/16 1 1/2 slugs and one that makes a 1/4 x 1 1/4 one. I would leave the edge rather thick, espeicially on the bigger one so i could knock it out more by hand if i wanted. So would squashing a 1 1/4 inch bar to a 3/4 inch oval or spreading out a 3/4 x 11/2 flat bar probably take 3-4 heats or does the large mass mean more passes than that?
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Old 11-04-2006, 08:48 AM
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Ed Caffrey Ed Caffrey is offline
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That's a lot of material to move. I would suspect that it would take a few heats, and that you MIGHT even need a couple of sets of dies that progress to the finished dimensions you want. There are so many variables that make up the equation.....it's impossible to say exactly how it will go.....just one more of those things where you'd have to test the theory and see.
I do suspect that the steel won't "flow" as well/as much your thinking it will. I kind of got the impression that your expectations were a little high, which is what prompted me to bring up this sort of discussion.


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Old 11-04-2006, 09:29 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed Caffrey
That's a lot of material to move. I would suspect that it would take a few heats, and that you MIGHT even need a couple of sets of dies that progress to the finished dimensions you want. There are so many variables that make up the equation.....it's impossible to say exactly how it will go.....just one more of those things where you'd have to test the theory and see.
I do suspect that the steel won't "flow" as well/as much your thinking it will. I kind of got the impression that your expectations were a little high, which is what prompted me to bring up this sort of discussion.
Yesterday, I hammered out the tang on an 11 inch W2 bowie that wasmade from stock 5/16-3/8 thick....YOW! That willbe my first and most common ue for the press i won't be trying to press anything as big as some of the average damascus billets I have seen. For some larger square or maybe even round pieces, i would probably try to cut parts of the down with the bandsaw and use the slices to make smaller pieces of flat bar. I will probably have a machine shop make the die bases just so i know that they would be done right and then I would make some of the die surface myself.....maybe... Jeffis sending 3 sets of plates along with the machine. This will be a good opportunity to find new uses and abuses for my mini-mill. As for the big shapes, I am not looking so much for finished dimensions but rough shapes in the correct general size. I figure I could break up the shape and thin it a bit with the drawing die and then press it. I was actually figuring that thopse larger pieces would only move about 1/8 inch per heat. How big do your damascus stacks start out? I was talking to Don Hanson and he says that he starts out with 10 layers of 1/4 in 1084 and 9 layers of 15N20, which i assume is thinner stock. At at least 2 3/4 inches that is still a bigazz bar On something like that do you do the weld on the press and then switch back and forth between the power hammer and press to knock it down to a usable size? How do you control the intricate patterns that you make if you have to use the hammer? Of course, you know that once I get this press, screwing up regular barstock will no longer suffice. I'll have to try to screw up many small bars trying to make damascus

Last edited by jdm61; 11-04-2006 at 09:37 AM.
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Old 11-04-2006, 11:18 PM
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I'm almost afraid to tell you how large my billets start out! OK, here goes. I generally start with a stack of 30 layers. 1/8" 1080/84, and .070 15N20 X 1 1/2" wide. I make the initial weld on the press, let it cool a little, then take it outside to the grinding bench and using a 7" angle grinder, I grind the MIG welds off the outside edges. From there I use the air hammer to quickly get it drawn out to how ever long it will go and maintain about 5/16" thickness. I finish up the drawn bar on the press, doing my best to make it flat and smooth so grinding off the scale prior to re-stacking isn't such a chore. Cool, grind both sides, measure to equal lengths, then cut it up and re-stack it.


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Old 11-05-2006, 02:32 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed Caffrey
I'm almost afraid to tell you how large my billets start out! OK, here goes. I generally start with a stack of 30 layers. 1/8" 1080/84, and .070 15N20 X 1 1/2" wide. I make the initial weld on the press, let it cool a little, then take it outside to the grinding bench and using a 7" angle grinder, I grind the MIG welds off the outside edges. From there I use the air hammer to quickly get it drawn out to how ever long it will go and maintain about 5/16" thickness. I finish up the drawn bar on the press, doing my best to make it flat and smooth so grinding off the scale prior to re-stacking isn't such a chore. Cool, grind both sides, measure to equal lengths, then cut it up and re-stack it.
Dude.......correct me if I am wrong, but that would be about a 1 1/2 by 5 inch stack......holy guacamole!!!!!!!!! Haven't you ever heard of shim stock?
how far down do you press it before you take it to the hammer? Those stacks must have been a red royal PITA one the Little Giant. Ummmm.......should i try some nice 3/4 inch cable for my first attempts at forge welding? By the way....I ordered your basic damascus video from Center Cross today to go along with the basic bladesmithing DVD. I my try to do the old MS cheater Damascus at first.....you know......2 layers?
Do you have any real tightly patterned mosaic or composite that would work well for guard, ferrule and buttcap materiel and would blue up real well? I've got a real good feeling about the big W2 bowie i forged this weekend. Got a disc grinder for flattening now so less to worry about with screwing up with the lighter grit belts... I'm thnking of all kinds of crazy stuff like 20LPI checkered morticed ebony handle, maybe with some inlay and a fileworked S-guard, ferrule and buttcap. I am going to do as much as I can by hand on this one, so I might actually have it finished by the time I am eligible to present for a JS stamp.......in 2008

Last edited by jdm61; 11-05-2006 at 02:45 AM.
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