Jump to content
I Forge Iron

John-S

Members
  • Posts

    11
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Aurora, IN

Recent Profile Visitors

1,289 profile views
  1. I've been looking for a way to contribute something since everyone has been so helpful. I'm NOT expert at this, but perhaps I can help by passing along advice I was given and which *seems* to help me when forge welding. Here's the advice I was given: • Cheat to get things together. Tack welding has been mentioned, but I've wired things together (about the time the wire burns off you're good to go). When making a carving or bbq fork I bend a loop in the end of the stock, forge weld it to itself, and then cut through the end of the loop and form the two tines. The idea being to have only one piece to manage whenever possible. •Heat it slowly. You want it hot all the way through, not just on the surface and it's easier to avoid burning it. • Learn to judge the heat it is hard to look at once it gets really hot, some people say it "disappears" against the fire, I watch for it get shiny or greasy looking but it can weld colder than that. I've been told a piece of wire can be used as a probe to see if the metal is "sticky" I've not tried this. • Try welding colder than you think is necessary. Burning metal doesn't weld well, a good solid connection can weld as low as room temperature in certain odd corner cases. (I'm a little skeptical but I've seen a guy jump weld pieces on a branding iron when the iron appeared to be just orange... ymmv) • Avoid the "tire tread" scoring. Instead make the scarf smooth and slightly convex. The hammer blow will force oxidation, flux, dirt, etc. out the sides of the weld and avoid inclusions. • If you can, weld right in the fire. Align or connect the pieces, bring them to heat, use a long "spoon" to flux, then clamp them together with tongs, preferably tongs with the jaws bent to a 90 degree angle. Now, maybe someone can comment on how in the world you get the edges of the weld cleaned up. I've had much more trouble with that than the actual weld, but maybe that's another thread... I sure hope this helps and isn't obvious redundancy.
  2. Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'm going to try John-B's approach since it is very similar to what I did the first time but sounds like it will work better. I do have a followup question though... I did attach the bottom as described,. I didn't do that on top, in part to avoid rivet heads there, but mostly because I couldn't figure out a good way to tenon and rivet both ends. I drove the tenon into a kind of header die or monkey tool for the bottom, by striking it on top... I also riveted against the top of each upright as well. So, how do I tenon and rivet both ends without destroying the second end? (I thought of assembling all the bottoms then all the tops, but the railing becomes too awkward to get into the fire and back to the anvil etc. ) Thanks again!
  3. I searched a bit for a solution to this, but haven't found it. Maybe I'm not using the correct terminology. Quick backgound: I've been doing this for a very long time as a sometime hobby and occasional part time job. Mostly I've done small historical reproductions. This project is the second largest thing I've ever done both in complexity and plain physical size. So, I'm a very experienced novice... I've been a beginner for 30 years... I'm building a set of railings to extend from existing railings around a porch. I've done one side but it was a lot of awkward work and didn't come out as well as I'd like. Now I'm asking you folks for help as a poor attempt at working smarter. The railing is pretty simple, it is about 28" high, 30" long. There are palings or uprights or whatever you call them every 4.5 inches and every other one is twisted. The top rail needs to be smooth as a hand grip, and the bottom has to be about 2.5 inches from the ground. The problem is that top connection. Originally I thought I'd punch square holes part way through the top rail, insert the uprights, then hit them from the side to lock them / shrink them in. I hadn't accounted for how awkward something that size can be once it is partly assembled... What I wound up doing was not good blacksmithing, but worked, I drilled, countersunk, and tapped holes down through the top, put in screws, and then filed them off smooth on top. This works, but there has to be a better way. I've thought of two other ways, one is to have a friend arc weld them in place and then clean them up. Very non-traditional, but probably will work. The other is a thing I saw on an old building here in town where they had bent the uprights at 90 degrees on both ends and riveted them in place. That would work great, but gives a different look than the existing stuff. I keep thinking there must be someway to use the uprights themselves as rivets or to shrink them in place, or.... I can't get over the idea that somebody must know the "right" way to do this... ;-) I sure don't. Any suggestions very much appreciated. John
  4. I think it is designed to have some slop in it, but I could be wrong. That kind of angled, (helical??) cut to the gears combined with no keys or anything to positively hold the shafts in place, makes me think that whoever designed it wanted it to shift back and forth. Why, I can't imagine. I could have pretty easily shimmed out the rest of the slop but I honestly thought it would bind up if I did. I don't know its history before about 15 years ago. In that 15 years it has had brief periods of heavy daily use interspersed with years of storage. According to this site: http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=129 Buffalo started making forges in 1878 so that's the oldest it could be, and I got it in 1995 so those are hard limits on how old it is. The fact it is made of wood, brass, cast iron, inclines me to believe an earlier part of that period, but those weird non-metallic washers give me pause. Then again, it now has washers which positively date to the 1970s... I'm guessing WWII era. I found this thread just now which is on the same topic, more or less. Thanks for the advice.
  5. I thought I'd update this for future reference. I found that I couldn't easily buy brass washers of the right size around here, they'd have to be ordered. They also cost a dollar a piece. So, I bought some nylon washers of the diameter, but too thin. I took some 1970s pennies and drilled holes in the center with my drill press then polished them with 600 grit sandpaper. The pennies provided the thickness and the nylon washers the slipperiness and exact fit. I could see when I took it apart again that the rubber washers were deforming and causing problems. I still didn't know where the washers needed to be, so I started by shimming the fan blade away from the housing. Once that was centered I guessed and re-assembled the rest. It was tightly bound, wouldn't turn at all. Interestingly I could turn the fan blade and the crank would turn, but not the other way around. I took it apart and tested the mesh and movement of each pair of gears and they were all fine. I tried again, still bound. Then I took it apart and moved two washers from the left (fan blade direction) to the right (handle direction) side of the gears. That worked and now the thing is working great. I don't really understand what I did so I can't offer much advice to others in a similar situation other than to begin with the fan blade and keep trying until it works. Cleaning it thoroughly helps too so you can see what you're doing. It does still shift back and forth when you turn it one way or the other, but the "slop" is much reduced. I'd estimate it at about 3/16 of an inch. I hope this will help someone in the future.
  6. Thanks. I'll try some brass washers and play around with guessing how many and where. Do you (or anyone) know why the small gears are cut diagonally? (sorry I don't know the proper terminology) it looks to me like if they had been cut perpendicularly the gears would run straight and the shafts wouldn't shift around. There must have been some reason for it and it seems to me that if I completely immobilize the shafts with washers it will defeat whatever that purpose was. On the other hand, if I let it move too much things impinge.
  7. Good morning, I'm brand new here and jumping in with both feet but hoping not to annoy anyone. I have done some searches on old posts but get the impression that I don't know enough to know what to search for. I have a Buffalo rivet forge with a hand cranked blower. The blower doesn't have any number or model info on it, but it does say Buffalo Forge, and USA, and "Bufco" on the blower cover. This blower has an outlet of about 1.25 inches and the fan housing is about 7" in diameter. I've been using this thing off and on for about 15 years and it has worked very well. About a year ago it started making a "ting" sound every once in a while. Apparently a fan blade hitting a rivet. About 6 months ago, one direction of turn (there's no indication which way if either is "correct") began making that sound continually and I stopped turning it that direction. Last week the other direction started being hard to turn and making a rattling sound. I took it apart and discovered that the shafts were moving a long way. In one direction they would pull the fan blade up against the rivets, in the other it appears the gear teeth were touching the sheet metal housing, though that is harder to be sure of. There are little washers which appeared to center the shafts and some of these were visibly worn almost hollow. In a couple of places it appeared that a washer was entirely missing. I don't know what those washers are made of. They're not metal and I doubt they're plastic. I replaced several of them with similar rubber washers which fit pretty well but I was unsure of the original thickness. Now the noises are gone. BUT, the thing is much harder to turn than I think it should be. Can anyone offer me any advice here? Does anyone know how many washers there were, how thick, and where they belong? I'm afraid my gear terminology is not what it should be, but the smaller gears are cut in a kind of spiral form which contributes to the movement of the shafts. Does this imply that the shafts are supposed to move? If so, how can I determine how far they're supposed to move. Obviously not so far as to strike the rivets.... Any comments, suggestions, or advice would be much appreciated. John
×
×
  • Create New...