[TheForge] Advice? Air hammer die and anvil fit-up

Sat Jul 12 06:36:01 2003

        Mike,  If you do have it to 1/32 of flat and perpendicular with the
tup - why not put a piece of 1/8 to 3/16 copper under it to let it pound
itself into a flat plane.
        My guess is you are fighting the overhang on the dies just above the
dovetail from seating the die in the anvil properly.  Copper plate under the
die seems like the fastest way to correct it (especially if your just trying
to get it running to see if it will work for you - and don't want to spend
any further funds on that part of it).

Ralph
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Spencer" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, July 11, 2003 5:17 PM
Subject: [TheForge] Advice? Air hammer die and anvil fit-up


>
> I'd like to have suggestions about how to deal with setting up the die
> and anvil on my 300# air hammer.  At the risk of being long-winded,
> I'll explain the situation.
>
> This is a hammer with a separate, ca. 2.5 ton cast iron anvil that is
> already in place.  Previous owners of the hammer ran it with a loose
> die, wedges it with crude chunks of torched off scrap and, at one
> point, tried to weld the steel die to the cast iron anvil.  The anvil
> was a mess.  Worn, beat up, out of square, swales in both the surface
> and the floor of the dovetail, not to mention puckers and pits all
> around from the failed weld attempt.  The crappy wedges were welded in
> place.
>
> I have it ground down to pretty flat -- within +/- 1/32 -- and
> perpendicular to the tup bore.  But now the floor of the dovetail is
> ca. 1/16" lower than the anvil surface.  The die, which weighs maybe
> 140#, now hangs on the anvil surface but there's ca. 1/16" of space
> between it and the floor of the dovetail in the anvil.
>
>     Would it be reasonable to put a piece of 16ga. sheet under it and
>     expect the die to bed itself into the steel?
>
>     Is it really neccessary to grind another 1/16" off the anvil
>     surface?
>
>     If I did that, would it fast and (relatively) easy to use a
>     hand-held belt sander and, say, a 40 grit Norzon belt to hog off a
>     16th?
>
> It's real slow and tedious to get an even, approximately flat surface
> with a angle grinder using an abrasive disk and a cup wheel and a jury
> rigged gauge hung from the bore.
>
> I think if I *did* grind it down to an eyeball fit, I could get it
> even better by lapping it in.  I have the worm gear drive from an
> automatic coal stoker that outputs about 6 rpm when driven with a a 3450
> motor.  I was thinking of making a little crank and con-rod, mounting
> the rig next to the anvil and connecting the con-rod to the die.  I
> could slather it with coarse lapping compound, then go off and leave
> it run for half a day and the die would be ground back and forth on
> the abrasive maybe 2" in each direction (just under its own weight).
> The steel die is pitted but pretty flat and true.
>
> On the other hand, if I stuck some 16 ga. sheet under the die, I
> couldn't very well do that.
>
> The goal here is not to spend too very much money and time getting
> this thing together utill I find out if it's going to work.  On the
> other hand,  I don't want to leave bits unfinished that will
> neccessitate taking the thing apart again later to get it right.
>
> Mutter, mumble.  Any suggestions, coments or pointers  welcome.
>
>
> - Mike
>
> --
> Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada
>
> [email protected]
> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/
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