Forging Hardies ~ Upsetting Flattening | Power Hammers and Presses | Forum

Grant how do you make the offset hardy cutter? Is it a different die or an added operation?

Rad.

Is it just not time effective enough to perform the two processes in sequence, preserving the initial heat?

nuge;3094 wrote: Rad.

Is it just not time effective enough to perform the two processes in sequence, preserving the initial heat?

Nuge,

Just a guess:

The first operation, upsetting, uses a heat in the middle of the bar. Both ends of the bar (including the part that will become the cutting edge of the hardy remain cold. (Relatively speaking 😉 The part of the bar that gets heated for the second operation is being held in the big clamp at the front of the upsetter, if it were hot most of the heat would be lost to the clamp and Grant would have the additional problem of keeping the clamp cool. (That clamp is a big chunk of metal, but Grant's batch appears to be a big pile of metal too.)

So the heat from the first operation is not in the right place for the second operation.

It looks to me like this is the kind of operation where the induction heater excels. It would be very hard to get that middle of the bar heat in a gas forge, and the second operation would still require a second heat because of the cooling from the clamp. The induction heater puts the heat precisely where it's needed pretty darn quick and saves on a second scale producing soak in the forge.

Grant;3099 wrote: Hard for Brian to even relate to this sort of thing. Is it blacksmithing? Not really, but it's forging. Brian can show you how to forge things with a minimum of tools, a fire, a hammer and an anvil. We're poles apart in how we do things. He can show you things you can do, I can show you cool stuff I can do.

My "creative reward" is in designing tooling for production and in understanding how metal flows. Unlike the heavy forge industry, we're both constrained by limited power to do what we want. We both work, as much as we can, within what the metal wants to do rather than using total brute force to bend it to our will.

I kinda have a love affair with machinery.

Grant, I can totally relate. You are forging with more modern equipment like they would have back then if they had moden equipment. You are just lacking the robotic arm and computers. I have been talking about this for years. That is the way to forge with modern technology, not making things look as though they were forged with outdated welders and torches and sticking pieces together where ever one chooses. I would call that forgery, not forging. My approach is very barberic, but the people like a freak show, and I have learned alot from the metal doing it this way. But if I had access to technology, I'd love it. Forging is just a heat, a hold, and a hit.

As for the shape of the chisel or hardy goes, I'll say what I've said before. I don't know who came up with the straight hot cut hardy, but I am pretty sure it was not a blacksmith. Blacksmiths do not use straight chisels.
Forging is all about surface area contact. The smaller the surface, the more the movement.

Grant;3101 wrote: Brian! You should do a tutorial on the hardies you make. I was just grinding up all these hardies when I was reminded of yours. You need to educate these guys more. When I grind a nice curve in the cutting edge, they don't sell. The closer to straight across I grind em, the better they sell. Can't bring myself to do them straight across, so I do put a little curve to them.

Grant, we, Lyle and Patricia and my wife, Karen are on our way to New York to demonstrate at the Northeastern Blacksmiths Association's conference at the Asokan Center.
http://ashokancenter.org/
Our first 2 or 3 hour session we will be forging a hammer, a large horse head and a hot cut hardy. I will try to get photos of the steps on forging the hardy to post here later.
This could be done in one or two heats but it will take us five heats doing it this way and about 15-20 mins. to complete the forging.