T-Gold

So I am aware. :)

Hair sticks. Again. The girlfriend lost one and wants a new pair. Also finishing up some old gifts that have been in the pipe for a looooong time. Hey, I'm a busy guy. :)

A few suggestions for your new junque The carriage bolts make good mushroom stakes. The bridge plates make excellent hardy tool plates (bolt to a stump). If you cut off the part that the train rode on you can make a good very small bickern out of those short sections of rail (use the web as the shank, draw one side of the flange to a point). I'm sure you'll come up with some creative uses of your own, too -- please post 'em! :)

Goldangit, I said it here and I said it on the machinist board, and in both places, y'all seem to have missed it... It's in there. LOL, Bruce. :)

Beche are supposed to have been some of the best hammers made. You a lucky guy Ian :)

I'll bug them too. :)

Wanted one since not long after I started pounding iron. Playing with an Anyang 33# just inflamed the need. (Haha, inflamed.) Finally starting to work on getting a pneumatic together. Several pneumatics. :)

Precise, but not enough depth, at least not the folks I've found who do it... they could do a 60mm deep hole of that precision. I will search further.

A friend of mine has a job to do... not due any time remotely soon, thank goodness. The piece is, if memory serves (I will correct later if need be), a large piece of 304 stainless. It needs to have a 1" square hole bored in it, 10" deep, not blind, parallel and true to +/- 0.0001". Yes, one ten-thousandth. Precision shaper is what I was thinking... or pre-drilling to 15/16" and pressing a multi-stage carbide broach through. I'm looking for out-of-the-box solutions to this, because frankly, I'm pretty well stumped. (For the curious, it's for some sort of laser interferometer.) Things which I've thought of and discarded: Cutting the part apart and machining the hole, then bolting it back together (Not allowed) Waterjet (Inadequate precision, esp. at depth) Laser (Inadequate depth) Possible stuff: Electron beam cutting?? Magic Voodoo Just something to strain y'all's brains over. :)

Ralph, no argument here. This is a post about curiosity -- not about using them industrially.

Y'all are simply not understanding... I _know_ that Miller, Esab, Lincoln, etc. are good quality machines and are backed up by their manufacturers, etc, etc. I've used 'em for years. What I'm curious about is _people's experiences with cheap welders_.

Poor low-end torque on the hamsters, I've heard...

Except I was serious. :)

You could always run it off a treadle with a flywheel... ;)

Boy, they sure do look good. I'd like to hear about 'em too.

Okay, so here's the deal. Recently I bought a Chinese inverter welder, set up for stick and TIG. So far the stick is pretty good -- I don't have anything in the same size range to compare it to, but it seems to work well. It was $200 and came with everything needed for stick and TIG except the regulator and gas bottle. Pretty good. Ten-Hammers also recently had a problem with his MIG (a Miller) which necessitated sending it in for repairs. He's borrowing a Hobart right now, and he says it welds very well (testing is ongoing ). Hobart is made by Miller. Thus, my question is twofold. 1) Have you had any experience with inexpensive welders? Not the really, really awful 40amp ones, please. Stuff between $100 and $600, non-major brands, etc. is what I'm looking for. 2) For those who have used Hobarts, how were they? They really seem to be straddling the fence between cheap and expensive, and I'd like to know how well this is going for them and their customers Thanks, guys.

Mine will be in the mail tomorrow (Monday) morning, Priority. Thanks for organizing this, Glenn.

Ian, The tool you couldn't figure out in the armorer's shop is a rolling mill, used for rolling down wire or strip stock. My dad's got one that's very similar but a smaller model. Also, I think those funny curved swords are shamshirs. I could be wrong. Following along with your trip is awesome, keep up the good work!!

If you could get your hands on some cannonballs or something you could build a simple ball mill -- take a plastic barrel, mount it on rollers with a motor drive, put the coke and the cannonballs in, and keep an eye on it otherwise it will mill the coke down to powder!

Not to mention the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Fine Art, right Meco? Didn't know you lived in KS... you should go hang out with Jr (Irnsrgn).

Pretty dang neat! I sure wouldn't waste that ladle on aluminum, since at those heats it would scale apart within a year or so, probably. Now to look for ladles for my own setup... :)

Next paycheck I get, I'll buy one of your babbitt hammers I'd love to see the lead melting equipment, there are a few things that I would like to cast out of lead and seeing someone else's setup is always good.

Hahaha, awesome centurion! Keep up the good work!

Lead can often be had from places that balance tires -- offer some beer for a five-gallon bucket full of wheel weights, or similar. Pretty cool! You should be asking a lot more for the hammers, I'd say.

I second the 1/8. 1/4", I could probably use, but not many other people could. And I wouldn't like the weight :)