Dr Dean

Depends on how bad the current patent holder doesn't want you infringing on his/her hard work. Patent infringment is determined as a civil suit (you get sued). If it's actually infringement it'll cost you, if not don't sweat it.

Oh my, that makes me wonder if Dr Suess was on the design team.

Ok Hillbilly smith now that you have welded on the pop can without cheating (cheating is welding 2 together at the ends). How about welding 2 razor blades together by the sharp edge. I am going to admit that I've never tried it myself. I also don't have the equipment to weld aluminum. Now that I've thrown out a new challenge good work! I've gotta go get some razor blades.

Wow man you are way more ambitious than I am. Cool to hear about something like that working out for you. How about some pictures? I have a fingertip control with my tig torch. One thing that I noticed is it's very difficult to actually change the amperage setting when welding. I'm saving for a foot pedal.

Hey Evfreak looking good. What do you have for a welder? I might be able to help you out with the foot pedal issue.

I really wish I could have stayed longer, had to leave at 3. Watching the demo's really made me feel like a rookie. The pattern welded pieces, all I can say is wow that's cool! Skunkriv, it was good to meet you and get a chance to chat. We are planning to go to the state fair this year, we'll definatly stop in and say hi. I bought a post vise Saturday that needs some help. The screw was siezed, got that apart tonight. Now I need to tighten up the rivet for the pivot side plates, make a new pin for the front jaw pivot, and make a top mount.

After coming home from the hammer in at Little Giant I felt inspired. On Sunday my daughter and I got the forge with all the associated equipment out of the garage. We built the fire, practiced some tapers, twists, and some small scrolls. At about the samt time my Mrs was headed to town so I asked her to get some Borax. When she got home her confusion was at an all time high. Being the gentleman on rare occasions I went and put groceries away and told her to come out and watch. Mandy and I practiced the moves once, we brought the pieces to red heat and applied the borax. Then we brought the parts to welding heat and went through the moves, 3 hits and it was a done deal! My Mrs was still lost so I sat down and explaned what the borax did as flux, she knodded in understanding. I'm pretty sure she doesn't understand or really even care. Watching all the smiths this weekend turned out to be a great learning experience for me. I highly recommend to anyone that hasn't gone to a hammer in to go to one. Thank you to Sid for hosting and all the smiths for sharing thier knowelege.

I am going also. I've never had the chance to go to a hammer in, I can't wait!

When your children ask Santa for coal! Even better yet they ask for Pocahontas #3!

I agree with Bob, however my wedding ring hasn't been off my finger in 11 years. I now have a callus(sp?) that is thicker than the ring. One thing I never do is to jump off any machinery, that's where most fingers are lost due to a ring. In addition to getting a finger removed keep in mind that a ring is an excellent conductor of electricty.

Minimum thickness depends on skill and machine. It is possible to weld 16 guage vertical up. I had to prove it to myself. I used 6010 1/16" rod at about 20 amps. My welder has infinate amperage ajustment from 5 to 200 amps. The main reason I use stick welding is that I can work in most weather conditions, working in the wind. Tig and mig welding don't work well if the shield gas is being blown away. Flux core (FCAW) is a diffrent story, no shield gas to blow away but there is the same clean up afterward.

How about a picture of your new welder. If I had to guess it's probably a stick welder with a HF box added on. If that's the case most likley there won't be any way to add a foot pedal or fingertip control.

Last week I was reminding my 8 and 10 year old daughters that Santa was watching and if they didn't shape up all they were going to get was coal. The response was almost as good as the look on my wife's face, it was almost as if they had practiced. Cool we can use it in the forge! My wife said that all she wanted was girls.

I decided to post this as I was doing my Dec 1 household maintance. Yes the smoke detector batteries is included as well as changing oil in air compressor, oiling-greasing motors and changing furnace filters. My buddy that lost his machine shed with 2 million dollars worth of farm equipment is my inspiration to stay on top of the safety items.

Do you have fire extinguishers in your house and in your shop? Yes, good! Now the next question, how long has it been since they were serviced? Ok so the pressure is good but is the dry chemical packed in the bottom? I check my own and service them annualy. To service a dry chemical extinguisher first check the pressure on the guage. If that's ok then turn it upside down and rap it with a rubber mallet untill you hear a change in tone and you get more rebound. You'll know when you got it. Ok lets all go out and do our part for our families safety.

Agsoldier, I agree about the wire size in the cord reels, Now that you mention it all my cords are 12 guage wire, and all my outlets are on 20 amp breakers so proper wire size is 12 guage. I have been known on service calls to cut the end off of a customers extension cord because of damage to the end or the cord. If it's just the end I do have replacement ends in my truck to give to the customer. I will also replace the end on a block heater cord if it's damaged. I'd rather have a customer mad at me than have a customer that just lost all his machinery because of something I could have prevented! So far every time I have felt the need to go to such drastic measures it has been appreciated. Back to the cord reel, if it catches fire when you're there you have a heck of a lot better chance of putting it out than when you come home and wonder what the heck happened!

If you use or want to use one of those cord reels either spring loaded or hand wound DON'T leave it pluged in! A friend of mine lost his machine shed and 2 million dollars worth of farm machinery because of a cord reel. I immedatly threw out the one I had when he told me what the insurance ajuster told him. I roll my cords up in a 5 gal bucket. Each cord gets a loop of rope around it to keep them seperate so if I need the one at the bottom I can get to it.

I agree with what has already been said. 3 weeks on an item like that is long enough that not a word should be said to you about problems. Whatever is allegedly wrong with it was probably caused by rough handling. If his parents call do your absolute best to remain calm and make your case completly clear to them, NO WARRANTY from previous owner! Good luck and if you lose a friend it would happen anyway about something else.

Hmmm not good. FWIW I never use power tools to sharpen my wood chisels and gasket scrapers. Grab a file and use that to get the first stage of sharpening then go to sandpaper glued to a piece of 1/4" glass. I usually start with 180 then go to 320 then 600 grit. If I really want it scary sharp I finish with 1200 grit. Now for the problem at hand. Rather than risk destroying the heat treating I'd probably err to the side of caution. Start with flattening the back 80 or 60 grit on the glass and taper the back down to take off the bevel on the back or at least most of it then work on the face and go through the grits to 600 grit. Sam can you post a profile pic? I might have a better idea after seeing what you're up agianst.

The stems are 4GA solid wire(ground wire) and the petals are made of copper trim coil. I tig weld the petals to the stem at about 80 to 110 amps. The petals are a great heatsink and it takes alot of current to get the job done. The other thing that I do is drop them into a bucket of water when they are still at a red heat to anneal the copper and also to remove most of the scale. Here's a link to boilerman's tutortial that I used. Making of a Rose - Shop Floor Talk

Thanks. I did a run of a dozen after those pics were taken. I did sit down and study our rose bushes outside and tried to simulate what I saw of the real thing. If anyone has some hints for making leaves I'd apprecate some advise. My duaghter and I tried about 2 dozen times and nothing really pleased me so we decided to go with no leaves.

I just wanted to post some examples of my latest work and see what everyone thought. It is copper though. I made these as a birthday present for my wife.

Dodge I might be able to come up with a motor that you could try out before you spent good money on something that doesn't work for you.

It's what they call me at work. My real name is Dean Applegate.

Preheat to 400 weld with nickel rod then post heat to 400 and bury in new floor dry to cool slowly.