Patti’s update and a new project.

 

Patti’s update:

Patti’s is doing well.
At the moment the PT person is here to cause her some new pain.

When she left, the therapist said that Patti was; “doing great!”

A guillotine swage:

I have been looking for different ways to build a swage that I don’t have to hold in one hand while trying to shape the metal with the other hand.
“The spring swage” was my first and unsatisfactory attempt. I decided that I needed to do some research and see what others were using.

While watching some blacksmithing videos on youtube the other day I saw a couple of different approaches to the problem.
The one I liked the best was a guillotine swage.
It was made from a piece of rectangular tubing for the body and some pieces of flat bar for the dies.
It looked very easy to build.
Now I had to see if I had the materials do do it.
I scrounged round in my metal scrap and came up with a piece of 1” X 2” thick wall steel tubing, a short piece of 1/2 X 2” flat bar and a 3/4 x 3/4 bar.

Here you can see the flat par in the upper left, the tubing in the lower right and the
3/4 X 3/4 bar at the bottom. 

As things worked out the flat bar was to wide to fit in the tubing so I had to split the tubing and do some welding.

Here is how it went:

The first thing to do was to mark the tubing for the split and mark the cut out for the mouth of the tool.

The punch marks are for holes to turn the saw in, I ended up cutting it out on the ban saw.

After drilling the holes I welded on a short piece of 3/4” square to the side of the tube as seen below.

The 3/4” bare will fit in the hardy hole on the anvil to hold the tool upright.

Assembling the tool:

After splitting the tube, I clamped the flat bar and a hacksaw blade on edge as a spacer between the pieces of the tube and the flat bar.

I welded some flat pieces of 1/8” thick stock across the gaps.

Here is what it looks like cleaned up a little. You can see the hardy on the left side going into the anvil.

Making the dies:

The next project was to make the dies. I decided to try making a die that would form a 1/2” round and a 3/8” round.

Here is how I did it.

I took the flat bar, which was about 6” by 2” x 1/2” and cut 2” off the end, then I clamped the pieces back together and  center punched where I wanted the holes along the seam between the two parts.
Next I clamped the pieces together in the drill press and drilled one 3/8” and one 1/2” hole between the two pieces.

Here is the tool body and die laid out on the vice.

Here it is set up to use on the anvil.

Here is the tool in use; putting a 3/8” round end on a 1/2” square bar. You stick the end of the hot bar in the hole and hit the end of the die with a hammer. That’s the theory any way.

I found that the dies were a bit loose and it made it hard to get things to match up properly but I was still able to get a formed end on the rod. I tried adjusting it by laying  the tool body on the anvil and hammering middle of the back in to tighten it up that seamed to help.

Of course if one is careful about purchasing the material so that the parts fit together tighter, this project would be much easier and the result would likely be better. Even so It works and it is simple to make.

Here is the result of my first attempt to form a round end on a square rod.

  

Yah, I know, it looks a little rough but as I said It was my first attempt. I found that I had to do some of the reduction the traditional way on the anvil with a hammer but I finished it in the tool. I think I’ll have to make some more adjustments to the tool and work on my technique.
I’m going to make a couple more dies for the tool and see if I can get some use out of it.

Ok, that was a good project maybe it will help me later.