T-Gold

I've got to join a piece of ~1/4" tubing tangent to a short (less than 1/2")section of thin-walled stainless tubing. Figured it would be easier and prettier to braze. I think I'd have trouble getting all the way around that joint fast enough when welding. The prep's simple enough that I'll probably try one of each, though.

Use the soft bricks. They insulate FAR better than the hard bricks, and come up to temp as much as 20x faster. I wouldn't be ordering Kaowool from the states if I had firebrick available at that price.

I got some feedback from one of my coworkers that has a lot more welding experience than I... still wouldn't mind hearing from y'all though :)

Stainless. Salvage. I don't know what that is... it's my neighbor's car. Sure is a beauty! I'm not much into representational repouss

I've got some small stainless parts that I was thinking about TIG welding... but I'd rather braze them, and if possible I don't want to use flux because there are small spaces it could get trapped in. My thoughts went to TIG brazing. I know Tom Stovall does it -- can anyone chime in with a basic procedure for SS and silicon bronze filler, or something? Thanks, guys!

Dry-fit the counter a while back, but didn't occur to me to post pics...

Also note that to reduce tip wear, rollers should not be set tight enough to leave serious impressions on the wire... those impressions work just like a file on the soft metal of the tip and ream it right out. If you can feel more than a couple thou of play between the wire and the tip it's a good idea to replace it.

If you don't plan to ever use this burner outside an enclosure... just add a choke to it and set it up in your forge. Dang near anything will burn in an enclosure. That's how mine are.

Is there any way to easily tell the difference between cadmium plate and zinc chromate plate?

All is well over here... my area was among the last 1000 people to get electricity back, and school's got me busier than a beaver in a lumberyard. No rest for the wicked!

Possibly... I'm open to ideas. :)

Wow! That's some very good-looking work on the cover there -- and the cover itself is appealing, too.

For the paint, I'm going to clean and reprime all the rusty areas, and then have a friend of mine who's a fantastic hand with a spraycan and a marker decorate the sides. I'll coat over that with clear polyurethane or something.

Engine runs strong, 3B, but does need an oil change -- that is HIGH on my list of priorities for it.

Dale P, you check the fuel filters?

Dang, I want one of those... it'd look good next to my 18# (8kg) hammer.

I bought this postal truck from a friend of mine... it's a 1984 AM General with only 50,000 miles on it. Automatic tranny and a rated load of 1/2 ton... yeah right! With the 250+ CI straight six in there I'm pretty sure it'll handle quite a bit more. Right hand drive, too! Needs only a few minor bits of work (plus registration) and it'll be back on the road.

I use a 2.5#, which isn't an option! Dang metric system. :)

Pallet jack is a dang handy (and not TOO expensive) thing to have around for moving heavy stuff, provided you have a hard floor to run it on. Most of them will happily shift 5000lbs... but getting the stuff onto the pallet in the first place can be a bear. :)

I would suggest Inventor... the engineers at my work use it and love it. Looks a lot easier than AutoCAD.

Hillbilly, another oxygen tank? If you are heating with a torch, you may not be getting a through heat -- stainless is notorious for being a very, very poor conductor of heat.

Excellent work. Well done :)

Archie, your piece's "shrinkage in the annealer" may be what I took to calling "visual shrinkage" when I was doing glass at Punahou... IE, piece looks bigger on the pipe than it does in your hand. Make a pair of smith's calipers or something to check for actual size. (Grin) Helped me a lot. Especially handy if you start doing encalmo...

A while back I took a couple of oak planks and drilled a series of matching 2-1/2" holes in each, then screwed each to a pair of vertical members with feet. About 18" between planks and a few inches' clearance above the floor, if memory serves. Nice because you can see the parts in there (unlike PVC), but only good down to stock the length of the rack's height. If this idea really does it for you I can take pictures of mine and post them.

Pretty dang snazzy Would make a fine eating knife.

Hmm, does that mean that the bright-finish wrenches are not galvanized, and that's just a tumbled finish or something on CrV steel? I can't really figure out to my satisfaction what that surfacing is. I'm pretty sure it's not galvy but it does look like some kind of plate...

Very fine work! I like those. May have to give that a try.