[TheForge] Superquench/hardening power hammer dies

Fri Dec 31 09:29:55 EST 2004

Hi Don,  Seeing as you asked ........Again.........

I've been making my dies for my air hammr and Little Giant bolt on dies to
the dovetail blocks Bob has mentioned from 4140.  I have just preheated the
block or shape and welded it to the mounting plate and used them for years
this way.  I find that 4140 is great for two reasons.  First it's a good
tough chrome/carbon material that is somewhat abrasion resistant from the
scale in
forging......and second and most important is Bob Bergman and Steve Parker
have this material for sale for about 10 cents a pound where Steve Parker
works at Clifford Jacobs forge house - and these 4-23" sections of 4 x 4
solid bar are DROPS for their saw at his shop!!!   Needless to say 10-110
lbs of
4140 at that price is absolutely foolish to not use it.

I was smart enough to bring some home with me from LaCross and then Steve
Parker brought me another 450 lbs of it in Kentucky to take home with me.
For those who do not know Steve (your missing a chat with an excellent smith
and very plesant person)  You don't have much choice in looking up to
him........as he's close to seven feet tall.   :-)

This 4140 material is great, as it saws and machines just fine, then I can
heat
and weld it for dies to bolt on, or machine my dovetails to fit the Little
Giant if I'm so inclined to make a full set of dies like drawing, flat,
hinge and chisel, combinations, etc.......that go in the hammer for a
particular funtion.

Of course it's kind of a luxury to have this material to make the bolt on
dies out
of as well, and often the smaller cut offs really come in handy for these or
power hammer tooling.

Long story short is I'm finding that if you make a die and just heat it to
red and let it cool, then polish it up for use ..............it is not
annealed any more - and it isn't really full hard, it's what I call half
hard.
  I really like half hard dies for two reasons.
1) they can be easily ground back to a functional shape in a short amount of
time AND
2) the edge of a die doesnt' break off and fly at you in the severe cold
conditions of my shop at times........as those chunks hurt as you can well
imagine.

Like you say, the heating and beating of hot stock doesn't really wear on a
die all that much - but the scale is abrasive and the half hard dies can
really be cleaned up with a few passes of a blending wheel in short order to
take away this abrasive scale maring of your dies.

The one set of dies that I have that are hard are the flat tooling dies I
have in my little giant.  When you take a set of the low profile power
hammer tooling that Clifton Ralph has shown us how to use..........you take
those small tools like butchers, flatters, punches, hacks, etc.......which
are really small in surface area - so the pounds per square inch on the
affected area of the upper die can make dents/dings/and grooves in your
upper
dies........so I find using my hand held low profile tooling with hard dies
to be an advantage and do my best to keep away from an edge shot that can
send a die corner at me faster than I care to experience (again).   (not
really sure if I'm a fast learner - or fear is a good teacher here)

The other thing I've also done is use three types of steel alloy for my
power hammer tooling.  First is of course 4140 due to availability and
formability and "as forged" half hard tool again.  The next is 52100 in
roller and ball bearings which I find "as forged" to be tougher than hell as
tooling - no heat treating necessary.  And - thirdly is 5160 or other spring
steels as the large truck shop around here has this for me to
grap/scrounge/have for the taking.

Again, I like half hard tools so your mistakes are not as drastic in tools
flying apart - and they clean up fast with a blending wheel on an
angle grinder when they tend to get a bit flat on the radiuses surfaces.

So, in answer to your question, non heat treated or "as forged" tooling and
dies I find to be rather nice in the work I do.  And......having 4140 on
hand - really makes me not care if I have any "super" or "rapid" quench in
the shop............I dont' bother.......I use the right material in the
first place, and don't bother heat treating it as it holds up well as is.

And if you don't believe me that "half hard" or "as forged" tools hold up
well
and cab maintain that "half hard" quality that I mention..........just try
to cut
some with your $54 brand new band saw blades and see how many you screw up
before you become a believer.    :-)
    (again, showing the fast learner I can be - when it hits my wallet).

    One note I see you made below in your question was not heat treating a
set of dies you got from Big Blue........if they are as set of those
aggresive double fuller dies that Uri was using a lot at the
conference.......the high impact on those during use - would make them want
to be heat treated for hardness and toughness as they take a beating.

Ralph

----- Original Message -----
From: <PlumDon at aol.com>
To: <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2004 5:56 PM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Superquench/hardening power hammer dies

>
> In a message dated 12/30/2004 5:21:24 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> schade at acegroup.cc writes:
>
> First  thanks for all the comments.
>
> The original question was in reference to  hammer dies
>
>
> Thanks for trying to bring this thread back to the original and more
> blacksmithing related question. I would like to again pose the question as
to  how
> many are actually using non-heat treated dies for the hammers. If you are
> generally using 4140, 4340, 5160, etc., and making the effort to only hit
hot
> metal, do we really need to harden and temper?
>
> I guess my main concern would be that you might forget and bang some cold
> metal sometime, put in some nicks and gouges that would be passed on to
your
> work.
>
> Interested in some other thoughts along this line. I'm currently using a
set
> of non-heat treated fullering dies and thinking about not heat treating
the
> new set I recently got from the Old Blue power hammer folks.
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