stretch

I will give my 2C here. I make a lot of Clavos for putting on my strap hinges. They are 3/4" with a 1 3/4" head. I then drill and tap them to 1/2" bolt and use ready rod cut to length for fastening my hinges on. I had a customer twist off 3/8" so now use 1/2". Here are some pictures of the tools used in my flypress and the resulting clavos. I will send along a picture of the hinges that are put on with these clavos. Almost all of my hinges have a strap on both sides so the doors are kept together and almost completely supported by the hinge which is usually 1/2 thick. Clavos is nail in spanish I was told so I am sticking to it. When I make nails I drilled a hole a bit smaller than the shaft of the nail and just used round rod and pointed the end, almost cut it off on the cutoff tool and put it in the header, left about 1/2" to whatever, depending on the size of material I am using, and head it in a couple blows, all of this done in 1 heat. I will send along pictures of the heading tools I use for nails too. The header for nails is just a set of tongs drilled to different sizes and ground lips on it so it isn't driven through the vise and that way the nails are easy to drop out when done. Works great. You could make one for square nails too if that is what you need.

I got this lathe awhile back. It has been repainted, before i got it. It works good for me. It is made in Taiwan and is a 16" gap bed. I am not a machinist, just a blacsmith who needs a lathe. It is big and heavy and quite short, being 30"bed. Just right for me though. Don't have a lot of room. I needed the 2" hole though the headstock for my hinges. I could use a 3" a few times though. I am learning to do a few things on it and my caliper skills are getting better. I have a machinist friend who helps me out. The price i paid was perfect. Works real good.

Thanks Grant. Excellent idea.I think I will upgrade to this bottom tool, looks good. Here are some pictures of what I used and the product I made with them. I have made quite a few of these joist hangers out of 1/4" and 3/16" material. Now I will try to post the pictures, I am new to this. There pictures on. I use this on a 10 ton Hframe flypress. Works real good. Would rather have a Cframe press, I think it would work better.

You are pretty close to an old Helve Hammer out in my back 1/4 acre. Here are some pictures of hammer slide detail and adjustment and overall hammer. It is still out there if you want more pictures.

I used my punch press for 1 job and converted it to a hydraulic press. It works real good because the ram dosen't wander when pressing hard. I used it for a job upsetting the end of 1 3/4" bars to make hinges and it saved me quite a bit of tired arms and time. I love it so far and it took me only a year to put together.

You will need to round all the edges some to eliminate cold shuts. After you do the dies then take them apart and round all the corners with a die grinder. Then put back together and heat up some metal and hammer.

I used to trap in my other life. Most of the time the ones with teeth were man traps. They used them in Europe to keep humans off their land. Most bear traps in north america with teeth came from europe and had been man traps. The bite of the trap comes not only from the spring coming up but the way the spring encircles the jaws it holds the jaws closed very effectivly. When they are open they are quite easy to hold open once the spring is fully compressed. You have to compress the spring and then open the jaws, it is almost impossible to open the jaws without compressing the spring first. When you set the trigger it is very simple and effective. One with the spring that is a coil is the conibear trap. It is used where the animal goes into it and the animal is killed by the blow, usually immediatly. In the case of the beaver and rats they are set in a way that the animal does not get above the water and drowns if not killed right away. I never saw traps with teeth, for wolf or anything else because of the way the spring is built they are not needed. The teeth were for to trap man, to damage him enough he could not compress the spring and get out. Just a bit of the love of man towards his fellow man.

Here is my old truck with side rails. I thought it was unique set. I don't have the truck anymore, thought I would show them though

I started talking people into making them into a sculpture for the yard or garden, because you are right, the neighbour enjoys your artwork. They look good as a work of art in the yard. I have to scan it in so will gettoit later. I have an airplane I did before I had a digital camera I will post.

After the hardening and when you are tempering the wider the color band or the slower you draw the temper the better. To narrow of a color band the more likely you will have a fracture point in the tool and could break off easily. Heat the struck end, not to much, or the way I do it is only dip about 1 to 2 inches, when hardening, into the cooling liquid and when all the red heat color is out of the unhardened part take it out and polish the hard end and turn it with hard part up in a vise and let the heat you want reach the end and quench the whole tool. It usually runs real slow and have had great success for a number of years now. It speeds up the process too. I take most tools to a straw color, sometimes light straw and sometimes to a dark straw.

I forget where I saw this, I used an 8inch piece of 1/4 inch brazing rod and pointed it on the belt grinder. Does a nice golden fine line on steel. Works great.

I don't know a lot about Migs, one thing I have heard about is the liner wears out. The hose up to the gun has a liner in it that has to be replaced. I know of two that have been replaced. I think that would make the rolls slip or ball up because of friction in the liner.

I think you must be running for something, and just a kid(Oh to be young again) Very nice Dan, good work and good interview, they are hard to do.

I got wind of a 4'6"X 9' top off of a plywood press. It is machined flat and welded to a metal base. It took me about a month of bugging this guy and he sold it to me just to get me off his back. It is real nice and good and flat about 1 1/2" thick. I was real blessed.

Just enough:p:p

If you can get the plate to a big enough drill press I would use a previous idea and drill a 2" hole, take 4 pieces of 3/4"X2" and weld them together with a 1" hole in the middle, weld them real good and machine that piece down to 2" and put it in the hole and weld it. It also come down to how much strength you need with this hole. You might have to weld it real good or just a good bead around the top and bottom and done. Grind it up nice and everyone will always wonder how you got this square hole in the middle of a plate 1 1/2" thick. This would be alot easier on the body than filing or drifting. The hole in one of my anvils is punched crooked and I tried filing it. It is still crooked:):)

I am looking for blackening liquids for my metalwork. I know of birchwood casey and contacted them, I am wondering if there are any others.

I did that to a 4" vise I had. I had made something in it and had used my 4 lb sledge. I bent them right at the eye where the screw goes through. I just took them apart, laid the bent one across a couple of pieces of steel and hit it with the hammer and straightened it out. I built up with welding around the eye and it never bent again. Of course I took it easy on the vise after that. You can straighten them without any grinding or special jaws though. If you have to heat it to straighten it I don't think it will hurt them because they aren't real hard steel.

It depends on what you want the rivet to do on how hard you hit and what size of hammer you use. Most old tongs have different size holes so rivets don't fit to well so a big hammer is needed with hot rivet to fill the hole in the tongs and with enough force to make a head too. If you just want a head and not upset the whole shaft of the rivet then a small hammer works best. The smaller the blow the more you mushroom just the end of the rivet and build a better head. After filling the hole in the tongs and making the head, then with the joint in the tongs red hot then work the joint without bending the handles, work the joint until easy then dump in the slack tub, keep working the handles and dip in and out of the slack tub until cool. Sometimes if they are newer tongs out of the new hot rolled then don't cool them to quick. Cooling them quicker will harden them to make them a bit stronger just don't cool them to fast. Making a joint this way will make a nice smooth joint and nice and tight. If you use a long enough rivet you can use them until they get loose and tighten them a number of times until you run out of rivet, usually takes a few years with lots of use to run out of rivet.

Here is a neat wrench I found in a second hand store. I love it. It is hardly used until I got it. I found out what it shone at when i went to set up and use my sheet metal brake. To set up the brake I had to adjust two different size square head set screws. With this wrench I didn't have to adjust it to set up the brake. I use this wrench all the time.

Have never heard of snappers. Has anyone have pictures of them. Would like to try them.