Thread: Steel Block Needed

Originally Posted by BobL

Swings and round-a-bouts during manufacture.

Having two holes close together means heating only one area of the steel plate
BUT
As you drift one out it will affect the other so there will be a bit of counteractive work going on.
Perhaps leaving the drifts in the holes and working them simultaneously would be the go?
I'm not a purist !!! so for something that size I would be drilling out the holes to size before drifting them.

Bob my plan in theory was to drill the holes ⅛" under size then drift to square. I will drill both hole and drift the first one, then plug it with a sized square block and drift hole number 2.

Those hole placements were working on the theory of laving as much flat working surface as possible. However it occurred to me none of them will be suitable due to the stand being a tripod and hole that close to those edges will interfere with the legs.

Hi Dale,

At the risk of depriving you of the fun of drifting a hole in 2" 1050... what are the chances of getting the guy you got the offcuts from, cutting out a couple of square holes for you?

Maybe a few hammer blanks as well while you're there...

Ray

Ray,

It wouldn't be worth his trouble or cost effective for me. I did pose the question but it be about $50 for a hole. The main reason is setting up the off cut. What I may do at a later date is draw him up a cad file and leave it with him for when an opportunity arises to add my file inside an off-cut of something else much larger he is already cutting. This means I'd only pay for the cut and not the setup, registration, loading etc.

I'll spend a day drilling my holes, forging the square drift and pounding it through the plate with a sledge hammer to save $50 or more for two holes. Although I may wait to drift it until I get the results of the 24hr blood pressure monitor back. The last two times the Dr tested me I was 158/102 and something similar (Hypertension). Don't want to have a stroke!

Probably a stupid question,. I had a vice with an anvil when I was young and it also had the square hole on the top. What is it for ?

Thanks
Alan

Originally Posted by DocBug

Probably a stupid question,. I had a vice with an anvil when I was young and it also had the square hole on the top. What is it for ?

Thanks
Alan

Hi Alan, the square hole is known as a hardie hole. The come in various sizes I think from ⅞ upto 1¼" Scaled with the size of the anvil. A Hardie is an accessory tool with a square shank that fits in the hole in question.
Hardies may be a bottom fuller, bottom sawge, cut off tools, scrolling forks all sorts of things.
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Sam e cut off hardie in hole and lying on top of anvil
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Thank you for that, I don't remember ever seeing them. but I'm sure they were around somewhere. If only I still had that vise

Making Square Holes….. Both Plates have a 1¼" Hole and one also has a 1" Hole.

The rectangular plate is 3" Die Steel and the 1¼" Drift was tool steel. This one came out quite clean.


My plate is mild steel (60 mm thick) and the 1" Drift was also mild steel, it didn't come out as clean and the drift did deform, where the tool steel drift didn't. We had 3 Strikers all with different sized sledge hammers so we had to move around a bit to try and keep it even. Someone (not me) also missed a few times and you can see the mild steel while hot dented quite easily. The dents will be filled with a bit of weld and ground back.


I'm also going to have to redrill my oval pritchel hole round. The pritchel holes are centred to two different scribed circles with the hardie holes. So I can place a round bolster plate with a pin in the pritchel and have the holes in the punch plate line up with either hardie hole etc.


The small hand held Slitting punch is made and so is the eye drift and the riser blocks. Next will be the slitting punch top tool.

Hi Dale,

That came out well, you'd have to be chuffed with a result like that.. nice and clean square hole in 60mm thick steel. Very impressive!

Did you get any pictures of the strikers in action?

Ray

PS Nice looking swage block too!..

I let one of the other guys line up the larger drift and I shouldn't have as it isn't square to the other edges/hole. It has no ill effect to the use but it bugs me. Over all I am quite happy with the result and was a lot of fun doing it. I have to cut some steal up now so I can get the stand welded up and put it to work. I clarified it and mine is 350 Grade. Andy's is an unknown Die steel. The big block which will be my anvil is K1045 aka Duraflex.

Sorry no action shots I needed both hands on the sledge hammer.

That's Andy's swage it was surplus army stock.

Very good work, love it!

One thing though, aren't those tongs you made supposed to be "backwards", ie the jaws spread when you squeeze the handles? That way you punch your handle hole first and then put the tongs in the hole for all the other operations.

Ew

Edit, Should have watched the vid first..... You may find a pair of what i know a hammer tongs or eye tongs very hand for holding the head whilst forming the faces etc.

I have forged a long drift for the eye of the hammer head & can use thus to hold the head to format the faces and spread the cheeks.
P.s. Keep it clean

Hehe...

I tried doing it with a long drift but fount the drift got too hot and started to deform in the eye, making it impossible to get out without damaging it. You need to have the drift in place to form the cheeks but personally i would go for tongs for the other steps.

Ew

Ok, I'll keep that in mind Ew. Have you got a photo of your tongs you mentioned?


I'm teaching myself Solidworks, So I drew up the stand how I plan to make it.

8 Deg leg splay so there is plenty of support under the striking anvil and a little lateral support. The legs are 90 SHS with a nominal 5mm wall thickness. I plan to fill the legs with sand and oil to reduce the ring and add some extra weight.
8 Deg Striking Plate and Stand Assem.jpg

The legs are cut so that the plate is let into each leag to locate it and there is a piece of angle iron running under the plate between each leg. The angle iron has the angle towards the centre of the stand as I figure it is strongest that way even if only minutley.

Since Andy can weld he has finished his striking anvil and we put it to work. Other than the ground was soft and we kept beating it into the ground it was brilliant.


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The tools I made are on the left and Andy's on the right.
From the outside in: Hammer tongs, again worked really well in rotating the job between each blow on the punch. I think I need to modify the angles on mine slightly to accomodate smaller stock. Eye drift, mine is much larger and worked perfectly it can also cover a much larger range of eye sizes. Slitting punch, now redundant unless I'm working on my own.
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Andy drifting out the eye in his top tool.
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My newly made top tool, Slitting punch. This can be used with a striker and sledge so should go through much faster, than the unhandled one used to make this one. Please ignore the dodgy piece of timber attached to it. That is an old piece of fence post that came out of the fire wood pile, and since the move I can't even find any router bits, so it got a rough rounding of the edges on some scraps of sandpaper.

Tool is forged from unknown metal that was a car axle so should be equivalent of 4140 is my guess
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