Thread: Forging a wootz ingot

Originally Posted by evnpar

I can't imagine a full afternoon to pound out the bar. Thank heavens for your new hammer. Thanks for the video.

The people who were in Texas at Charlie's meet this year have seen me forge damascus for a full day, using a sledgehammer, powered by nothing but vast quentities of bacon and some eggs.

You weren't striking that fast on average.

I am surprised to see the hammer bounce as much as it does. Is that from the wood under it?

Lol yeah I was definitely not striking 3 times per second with a sledge. that would have been an impressive feat
The hammer wobbles just a little bit. Keep in mind that the tripod was standing only 2 feet away from the hammer, so that is visible in the video as well.

Originally Posted by 32t

You weren't striking that fast on average.

I am surprised to see the hammer bounce as much as it does. Is that from the wood under it?

I looked again and it does seem to bounce rather a lot. Well, not a whole lot but too much. I have spring washers between the machine and the nuts, and I think those are the culprit. It doesn't seem to come progressively loose, so I think it is resonating within the margin of the washers. I'm going to try and a) tighten them to remove the springiness, or b) remove them completely and see if the nuts will stay in place with those nylon bushings alone.

This is one of the reasons that I benefit from those videos. It allows me to look in detail at what's going on without tunnel vision.