06/24/2014
This is a recent sledge we made. We wanted it with squatter proportions, so had to start with larger stock to get the size right. Starting blank was 3.75" in diameter. We did not have a power hammer large enough to manage this size (yet) so we did everything by hand. Decided to go out by my friend and striker Bills house, as it was a good project to work on outside on a nice day rather than be stuck in the cave I call my shop. Nice to work outside for a change, but annoying that the sunlight makes you second guess what your actual temperature is. That happens in my shop also, as I have a large skylight in the middle of it. A friend Jim showed up after the punching was through, so he helped strike for the drifting process.
We forge with coal, and this blank took 16 minutes to get to forging temps from a cold starting blank. A lot faster than gas I would think. Once is was up to critical temps we ran outside with it, and began to square it up. One person held the blank with tongs, and another person struck with a 14 # sledge. In between heats we put a wet towel on the anvil to keep it from overheating.
After the piece was roughly squared up, we began punching the hole. We used a flat bottomed oval punch to do this. There is a lot of resistance on such a piece. Took more than a few heats to punch. I ended up having to stand on a couple of boards to gain some extra height to get a full overhead blow in-don't think I've ever struck that hard in my life. Felt good though to get such a hard hit in.
Once punching was completed it was onto drifting. Used a normal drift from a hand hammer to start enlarging the hole. Once it was big enough we went to my first sledge hammer drift, and left it a bit undersized until the final steps.
At this stage it was still a big square with a semi drifted hole in it. We decided to angle the faces inwards a bit. This narrows the mass in towards the faces making for a very hard hitting hammer. In conjunction with the squatty proportions, and that, this beast will pack a powerful punch. We angled the faces in by holding the hammer blank at an angle on the anvil, and striking the top at an opposite angle with a sledge hammer. Did this to all four sides, and then cleaned up with a flatter. It's always nice to see edges that are sharp/crisps that was all done by forging.
Let it anneal, grind, polish, heat treat, temper, make a handle, attach the handle and she's done. Total head weight came out to be about 14.5 pounds. Add another 2-2.5 for the handle.
This just goes to show that if you don't have big tools you shouldn't be intimidated to try larger projects. A heat, a hold, and a hit is all it comes down to. Predicting what will happen from that hit, and what you want to accomplish sure helps. :) Did this with some full heats, and some localized heats to accomplish our needs. This was a fun project, and we ended up making another one the following weekend. That one I'm keeping.
This one was named after a smaller 5 pounder we made to sell at Quad State last year. It was so short and squatty that it got the nickname of the war club. This one is it's very big brother.
