Thank you Daniel for the video in which my tools are made!!! Again I learned a lot, such as why to make the hexagonal taper. Keep on making beautiful tools and those great videos.
Really liked the video, it is the first of yours I have seen. The hexagon method was very helpful and your detailed explanations were great. I hope you continue to do more blacksmith videos as you have a knack for teaching. Thank you!
Excellent video. I was having a hard time finding one inch bar stock, then u mentioned axle rod and that reminded me that I have two of those. Your technique worked amazingly. But now I can't drive my car. Lol. J/k
One really good tip for measuring at the forge if you dont have a metal ruler, find an old steel divider. With that you can take measurements from any tape or folding rule or even from a scale drawing(!) without measuring anything. Dennis from DF - In the shop has a video on how to forge a devider like that yourself but you can also find them on yardsales/fleamarkets or brand new from china. They might not very pretty but do work!
Great information in the video, I do have one thought for you. When you were doing the hot cut at the end to remove the excess length, you were cutting at the far end of the heat and it looked a bit tough to get through. Center that heat for your cut in the future. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Ryan, I unfortunately heated up the piece not in the perfect place but I wanted to cut it at a certain spot so I had to make do with that low end heat...
Daniel, Thank you so much for all that you do to help us understand making tools. Can you tell me what the standard hole sizes are for a hammers? Is it based on the weight of the hammer?
Hello Kent! I don't drift the holes to a specific size. I kind of go with how much I need to finish the hammer properly and what looks right to me. For a normal 3 1/2 lbs hammer I'd go with about 1 1/4 x 3/4 inch. But that is up to you, your material, hand size, etc.
Hello, I live in Brazil several times and watch your videos in order to learn about the art of forging. I would like to ask if you have any technique that could use to conduct a spring drive to leave it as a straight bar without cutting it into pieces? If you can help me would be great. Grateful, Luiz
If you want to make a long piece of spring you need to straighten a little bit first with your hammer and then always heat up the section that you want to straighten and stick the end of the spring in the pritchel or hary hole or into the vice. The use your hands or tongs to bend the piece and use the residual heat to straighten it on the anvil. Continue that process until you have the desired length of straight spring steel. Make sure not to put dents into the steel by hitting with a too small hammer with too small eges or accidentally having parts of the bar on a sharp edge of your anvil when you straighten it.
HI Daniel, great work and great video as usual! I am copying your drift and using the same process. How long did your tapered section end up ? I started at 4" from the end as you did and just want to make sure I tapered it down enough. Thanks
Hi, excusesme but I havent understand why your hammer have a a round head. Is it to avoid mark the metal or is it just because it's just more efficient ? Thanks for the video, I at least understand how to make the tool to make eye for hammers and maybe axes.
Hello Daniel, great viideos, I really love your channel. Just one little question, were do you buy your steel? Is there any chances that you know an European online dealer with good materials?
Nerfeel There are a few ways to get ahold of that kind of steel. First of all of course steel supply stores. They´re usually wholesale companies that sell to metal work businesses. If you can´t find one or they won´t sell to you in small amounts ask some of your local machining and tool making companies. They should have steel or at least be able to order steel and sell it to you. Some might even have scraps they´ll give you for free. Otherwise one can also find steel on the internet. I´ve actually bought steel off of eBay a couple of times. But for Europe Abrams Premium Steel is also an online supplyer. If you´re looking for cheap material go to a scrap yard and ask for car axles.
It wouldn't make any sense to harden a drift since they heat up anyways when used sometimes even to red heat. So they'll just lose their temper anyways.
Have you ever used an "Induction Forge" to heat your metals? (versus a coal/coke forge). The heat time seems to be much faster with the Induction forge, and One doesn't have to directly breathe lots of Carbon monoxide, and coal/coke ash. (They run on Electricity).
I have never used an induction forge myself but I know they're very fast and very clean but also extremely expensive and use shittons of electricity. They are rather something for big constrution shops than for a little hobby forge like mine.
I'm a bit confused on forging a drift. I am a bit confused on how to make sure I am turning the piece 60and 30 degrees. Making the hexagon and taper seems to be the hardest part for me. Any tips? Also, I am making this so I can make a rounding hammer and I see you use a rounding hammer in the video, so can it be done without? Maybe I will just buy one from you or Brazeal or someone cause this seems to be so difficult to me. Thanks
+Matt Behnke It is hard to explain. You basically first make 1/3 turns in the beginning. So you will get three flat sides and 3 round sides. And then you just hit all the sides that formed. If you can't get the hang of it just forge it out square and then forge down the corners to make it 8-sided and then again to make it 16-sided and then make it round. Sure you don't need a rounding hammer for this but the hammer should have a substancial weight of at least 3 1/2 lbs and a properly dressed face. And it should be over all comfortable to work with because you need to do quite some heavy forging with it.
Thanks for the response. I am 13 so I can't swing two heavy a hammer cause I don't have fully grown muscles yet but I think 3.5 pounds I will be able to swing. Thanks for all the help
+Matt Behnke It is two pieces of tool steel flat bar, ground round on one side rivited inbetween two plates of steel with a shank that fits the hardy hole split, fit around it and rivited to it. You might want to google for "blacksmith's helper" "smithing magician" or "guillotine tool" for more information on such kinds of tools.
No you don't need to do that as the drift is a hot working tool anyways and any temper would be thus lost whilst the drift being used for its intended purpose.
thanks Daniel for you great wisdom as im still learning off my own back and have not been able to get a Apperenticeship with a blacksmith here in Ireland
+Gary Busby Hello Gary, Drifts are tools used inside the eye of a glowing piece of steel and thus heat up very quickly way beyond any reasonable tempering point, which is why it would be senseless to heat treat a drift.
+Gary Busby I usually don't. But you can heat treat a slot punch for punching small things that won't heat up the punch so much. Gotta work fast and careful then though.
Benjamin Schemme Für die Durchschlage empfehle ich 42CrMo4 (AISI 4140 / Deutsche Werkstoffnummer 1.7225). Den Stahl habe ich auch im Video verwendet. Wenn du nicht direkt einen Stahlhändler in deinem Ort hat, kannst du u. U. auch bei Werkzeugbaubetrieben nachfragen, ob die dir welchen besorgen können. Online gibt es immer wieder einige Angebote auf eBay: www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR2.TRC1.A0.H0.X42CrMo4.TRS0&_nkw=42CrMo4&_sacat=0 Auch hier habe ich einen Großteil meines Werkzeugstahls bestellt: www.marks-gmbh.de/Rohmaterial-Zuschnitte-rund-flach-gezog.-6kt-selbst-kalkulieren/Material-Laengenzuschnitte-nach-Ihren-Vorgaben-selbst-kalkulieren.html
Die Blockdrahtbürse habe ich geschenkt bekommen, als ich in den USA war. Die gibt es so nicht in Deutschland zu kaufen, nur die aus Kunststoff, diese werden als "Hackblock Bürste" im Fleischereibedarf verkauft. Stahl kannst du entweder second hand von Werkezugbauunternehmen und Drehereien bekommen oder von Stahlhändlern, die auch an private verkaufen. Wenn du einen Gewerbeschein hast, oder jemanden mit Gewerbeschein kennst, kannst du den Stahl auch direkt vom Großhändler beziehen. Es gibt auch Onlinehändler wie Marks Normalien GmbH oder Abrams Premium Stahl, bei denen du Stahl bestellen kannst. Ansonsten haben auch die Messermachershops und einige Anbieter auf eBay Stähle im Angebot.
If you use it very carefully it should last you for a couple of tools. But generally you want to get something more ductile than 1045. But if that is all you have it will suffice at least until you can get your hands on some 4140.
Daniel Lea you were right about 1045 lasting a couple tools. Two top tools and one 2lb hammer and its developed a small crack about 20mil from the tip. Im ordering some 4140 now but my goodness is it expensive. Lol $70 for 4 foot of 1 1/2".
4140 will also not hold forever but it is a little bit thougher especially for hot work. 4140 can sometimes be even cheaper than 1045. If you don´t have to pay shipping it shouldn´t cost more than 50$ per 4 feet.
Daniel Lea I decided to just bite the bullet and dump a couple hundred in some 5160 of different sizes. Its worth it in the long run. Tools are not easy for me to make so I want it to last as long as possible. Lol. I still struggle on the hexagonal tapering you showed.
Daniel Lea ok Daniel I really just cant seem to do this right. How much is the commission for this tool. My email is cjv3904@rocketmail.com. I am state side and don't know if that's and issue for shipping or not. I made crap of some 5160 and blew my 1045 apart.
trustinJesus Certainly not the easiest decision to make. Personally I would prefer a steel that is not too hard because otherwise it would chip easily from the impact on stone. On the other hand it should be resilient to erosion. So you mainly want a tough steel. Then also it has to be forgeable which rules out some of the high performance steels which can't really be hand forged. So in conclusion the steels which come into my mind are the shock resistant high strength low alloy steels (HSLA), such as L6 or 4340. Those are also commonly used on jackhammer bits and are fairly easy to forge and re-work.
Well that is actually rather difficult to explain. Like if you would try it you'd immediately see that it makes no sense. Uhhmm basically when you forge you're squshing the material between two tools or dies so either hammer and anvil or the top and bottom die on a power hammer. That makes it nescissary that the material needs to have force applied from the top and needs equal support from the bottom. That is why you need a sort of polygonal shape because if you'd try to forge round it would just get all crooked and wouldn't really work. It would also twist the material which would make it tear.
chance kiki Actually a drift is not necessarily a punch. A drift can be used to enlarge an already existing hole hence not a punch. Better to listen to the terms used for a certain crafts tools.