T-Gold

Thomas, drop by our Punahou glass shop someday. I keep telling ya, you gotta see one of these Ransome burners in action! Properly built Reil burners are almost as good and a heck of a lot cheaper, but most folks don't seem to know how to choke them effectively. I should do a BP on that... as an addendum to my burner design I guess.

I am personally the most fond of Percy W. Blandford's Practical Blacksmithing and Metalworking -- I have Bealer's book, had "Complete Modern Blacksmith". Really DIDN'T like CMB because it seemed to be lacking in real smithing projects, although the drawings were good. Bealer's is more good for historical stuff than real technique stuff, although I have learned some good things from it and it comes in handy from time to time. Practical Blacksmithing and Metalworking is also pretty cheap... :)

Wait, is this the same Bomlin from the Slack-Tub Pub? I strongly suspect it is -- I think I remember talking to him about this.

I'd be more inclined to use a desiccant... They make 'em in that come in a little tin with a window on it that tells you how "wet" it is, and you can recharge it by putting it in the oven for a few hours. I have several of these that I use to keep electron microscopy samples dry.

I have a Harbor Freight weed burner (yeah yeah) and it actually has a good needle valve on it for controlling the idle pressure, which is adjustable up to the max output of the burner. Also, it actually seems to burn a little rich, as I recall. But if you notice a lot of scaling you can use some sheet metal to cover up the intake holes a little. I think this is definitely worth a shot if you just wanna get things off the ground!

Look at it this way Glenn... anything he can fit in there, he can SQUISH. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Nolano, I don't know how OWF does it, but I know how I do it. I use what are called "sex rivets" -- copper rivets that can be pressed or hammered together, one male, one female. I predrill the blade and handle slabs, and make sure that the handle slabs are well oversize. I countersink the rivet holes on the handle slabs a little with a drill bit of an appropriate diameter -- just a little. Then I press it all together, usually with a C-clamp. Then I work it all over with the belt sander to make everything flush (blade edge flush with slabs, rivets flush with slabs, etc). Sorted. Only thing you have to watch out for is that it can be difficult to work on the ends of the slabs that lie at the base of the exposed part of the blade; these may need to be prefinished. Some folks also epoxy their slabs on; I haven't started doing this yet, but it's a good idea. Hope this is useful for you.

Very cool! I'll have to play with this as well -- I certainly like the look.

I second what Ed said. I'd like to add that I'm a lazy guy, so when I'm doing work with scrolls or feet, what I like to do is flatten them out to about 3/16" thick and then ding them on both sides lengthwise thoroughly with the peen of a cross peen hammer. This is my take on making a fishtail, and it is easy -- one heat to flatten and one to peen, usually, for me. It spreads a little and fancies up the end to make it look nice.

I use an engineer's hammer (small double-faced sledge) for most of my forging -- one side of it is the "dirty" side and one is the "good" side. Comes in handy for stuff like this.

Any idea where to buy one? Don't think my local welding shops sell 'em, and I can't seem to find 'em online.

Aloha, Y'all! So here's the situation. I'm working at the University of Hawaii with the AHI Sensor Project right now. This is basically the process of setting up a honking big laser and all the support equipment that makes it work. So these lasers that we're setting up, they generate a lot of radiation when they're operating. So we have radiation shielding -- 18" of steel and 6' of concrete. The point? We have several tons of leftover 9" plate from the radiation shielding part of the project that's going to get scrapped out soon. I want some. I need to cut it up into pieces that I can pallet-jack around. The pieces that are left are mostly 18" or less wide, by several yards long, by of course 9" thick. I have a 25-liter liquefied gas dewar rigged for pressure use, and I want to make some burning bars, fill the dewar with liquid oxygen, and go to town cutting these things up into manageable pieces. So the question is, does anyone here have experience with using burning bars, or have any suggestions on how to do this in some easier way? I've thought about track torches, saw cutting, and other stuff -- but the burning bar looks to be the easiest, cheapest, and fastest way to get the job done.

Displayed fine for me...

Wow, you guys are putting in way too much time on this I'll try to get more details but I think my sources have run dry. The folks who want the part are clamming up and my friend who had the drawings doesn't know much more.

Wow, talk about a throw money at it solution You work at Scot Forge or something? I like it, but geez. This is a one- or two-off part. Being jobbed out, and probably won't be made to tolerance... this is what happens when you let the scientists make the decisions... yuk. Anyway. No real call to use sintered stainless and forge and lap when we could use heavy plate and bore and probably use a pressed-through broach, maybe followed by lapping if necessary. Don't know much about MIM -- but heard of it before. Didn't know you could do it with steel, does that require graphite molds or something? Just curious.

Nice work! I love the bookends -- great idea there, wish I'd thought of it. I'll have to make some. :)

Turn down the blast... glove on tong hand... can't imagine why this is happening... :| Hope you're back at it soon, Archie.

Nice! I have one of those blowers too -- they put out about 1000CFM at a relatively low pressure. It is a Dayton or a very, very good clone, and if you keep it oiled it will outlast your kids. You can buy replacement parts for it from Grainger if necessary, and a new motor can be fitted pretty readily. I got mine from a scrapped fume hood, and used it to dry our carpets when we had them cleaned recently... worked a treat! :)

You may also want to look into forklift wear strips... cannot remember the name of the alloy at the moment. Chopper (Dale) hooked me up with a good-size piece when I was in Oz, and it looks like real good stuff -- tougher than woodpecker lips. One_rod, thanks for the idea about splitting the bearing shells -- I'd never have thought of that! :)

Could be flash rust. Happens when your surface is too clean. You can put a few drops of oil on top of your water bath, or add some baking soda, and see if this helps.

Thanks for the tip Thomas -- I'll keep it outta the forge. Wonder what causes that... any metallurgist care to chime in?

Thomas, I might be able to hook you up with a block of 6AL4V if you can forge it to size... in exchange for telling me how to cut it and stuff like that... it's part of a helicopter rotor hub assembly. :)

Er. I beg to differ with Frog -- and I in fact have welded in forges without flares -- they are not that important, and simply provide flame stability when the forge is below cracking temps (red heat). Once the forge is up to temperature, the "burner" is just a mechanism for injecting a certain amount of gas with an appropriate amount of air accompanying it. Ron Reil is a very smart guy who provided a great resource for us all, but his focus on using burner flares to slow flame front velocity to the exclusion of just getting a dang burner working is a bit counterproductive. Anyway, to shorten my yakking. If that were my burner, it would be drilled to #70, and the choke would be opened a bit. #60 would be the max for the jet size. Pressure at forging temp would be 6-10 PSI, initial heat would be 15-20PSI. Also, I can't quite tell how deep your forge is -- so the issue with forge size may be relevant as well. Since you built with Kaowool I would assume you have some left -- maybe stuff it into the back of the forge and see how it works. Also if possible you may want to neck down the front opening a bit -- stacked firebrick works well for this. Good luck!

It looks like a real USING knife -- and it is -- and it's also beautiful. Great work, Garey. :)

You can also heat to nonmagnetic. :)