johnny99

As I understand it. Riveted ships were considered superior durring WW-II, but they couldn't maintain production of liberty ships so they started welding them. Had several split apart and sink, giving welding a bad name until they fixed the bugs. (this info brought to you courtesy of the history channel and insomnia). As far as snap rivets, not really sure. Sorry.

Yes, I have been there but not for a couple of years. Do you know if the position is still available? I might be interested in trying it for a while.

Habu, Yes that sounds familiar, I belive you mentioned your wife being ill. I talked to the cute little readheaded site manager (don't remember her name) and was supposed to go and do demo's but go buisy w/ paying work, and didn't have time to do it. John

Hi Ron. Check out either the Mc-Master- Carr Or the Grainger catalog They are on line, and will give the shape and size (shank vs. head) of different size rivets. I just bought something like 700 1/2" shank rivets from Grainger for like $75.00 and reforged the heads into rosets. Way cheeper than labor to make them. Centaur forge also sells a starter set w/a selection of different sizes. To make rivet headers, and sets. I use the split design header that fits in the vise. and just drill into the end of an apropriate rod, then heat and drive down onto a master to make the set.

Thank you Habu, especially for the loveland hammerin info at the saddle shop. I always forget and miss that one. Were you demo'ing at the golden living history museum last summer? I met a really nice smith there last year who was talking about having done demo's at Rock Ledge. John

Habu, is dan still hosting hammer ins on saturday's? I made my swage block by laminating 10"x10" by 1/2" thick plates to make a four inch thick block. Plasma cut the edge profiles. interior dishing depressions were cut in decreasing steps, then the fillet welds filled in the steps and made it easy to grind to a nice radius. I origianally intended to laminate pieces of pipe, and angle into the exterior fuller grooves, but haven't gotten to it yet. I also cut a 1 1/2" square hole in the middle and welded in a piece of tapered sq. tube to mount stake tools in. Worked really well , but it was a bit of work, and probably as expensive as a smaller swage block if I wouldn't have had the steel already paid for.

Dan. generally when doing jigs,I will actually weld them to a piece of scrap plate and then tack that to the table so that when you cut it loose there is less damage to the table, and the jig is still usable. Don't forget to make one extra part for each jig, and wire them together so that in 5 years when someone wants one more, you can find the right jigs in the pile.

I Alway's heard them called breaker bars, or tanker bars in the army. That's what I use also. Short of blasting,or power tools. I don't know of a better way for one man by himself to get it done faster. Sorry.

Hi Dan. I agree about the full size drawing. To answer your question, yes you can make repeat bends w/bending forks. It takes a fair amount of practice to do it quickly and accuratelly though. I.e. No kinks. I usually draw the element full size on a welding table, then hand form 3/8x 1 1/2" FB. into jigs that match the tricky parts of the drawing,(radius,scroll,loops,etc...) and weld them directly to the table. Be careful to leave clearance around jigs to swing the material. Edit: I don't mean that you should weld the jigs onto the drawing ,like you were going to bend a whole pattern in one go. This ussually results in clearance issues, and your piece cooling and cinching onto the jig. Just weld the jigs at oppossite corners of the table or whatever and match the parts up to the drawing piece by piece. I do work like this hot. But the jigs I use would certainly stand up to bending this stuff cold, you would have to allow for springback though. Hope this helps John

OK. A little bit of topic, but I have to share. I was at a blacksmith auction a couple of years ago where I was out bid for a treadle hammer by a smith with only one leg???? (true story) Seriously though I have had several friends who although not paralysed, suffered from reduced mobility. None of them seemed to have a huge problem getting the work done. Several favored the mechanics rolling stools w/the tray underneath. and just set their anvil and forge lower. A lot probably has to do with what your making. A bladesmith is going to have a lot easier time of it than someone trying to do large architectural things. Maybee a shift in focus to knives, reproduction hinges etc... ,or jewelery style stuff. Where more care and less gruntwork is required.

Actually, I think by definition if it has zinc in it, then it would be brass. Bronze is an allloy of copper and tin. Brass is copper and zinc.

Hi, Kristopher. Agreed. I actually thought the black smith was very good. And when torry said The speed of sound?REALLY???? . I almost hurt myself laughing.

Hey Torin. Glad to hear that you were able to convert it to a grinder. And yea all of a sudden they decided that it was the myth of the EXPLODING hammer. Kind of annoying but also really funny. Since they are standing there saying " Well look we have cracks , stress fractures, and chips flying off But the hammers didn't actually explode like a bomb, so the myth is busted!" ????????? The trouble is I personally can think of atleast a couple of things the've called busted that I have had happen to me and know for a fact can occur under the right circumstances. But this one especially is common enough that it seems irresponsible of them to give people the impression that it's OK to bang two hammers together.

Hi Torin. Looks like you ran out of time. I saw the new mythbusters tonite is on hammers revisited. Hope you didn't spend to much money on setting up your experament. Unless of course you were one of the blacksmiths mentioned, in which case congradulations!

Hi. Yes there are several bronzes that can be forged. Although the forging temperature is lower, and more critical than with steel. Yes you can tig weld most bronzes. I suggest that you google Atlas metals. They carry everything you need and can answer most any question you might have. Nice people ,I just talked to them last week about some bronze tube. Also there is a good article about working with bronze cap rail at Working With Bronze Cap Rail that will answer some of your questions about tig welding. Hope this helps. John

Hi, Jerimiah. The only thing I can add is that the smaller the bristles on the brush the better the brass transfers. Or if you know the dangers, you can buy a brass or bronze cup brush from the welding supply and really put some brass onto the piece. Here is a piece I did as described above, start a little to hot, and keep brushing till it grabs. This actually looks like it was made of brass in real life.

No I'm pretty sure he's talking about a block to stand on that brings him up to a better hight above the table to swing a hammer. I use the same thing when I upset stock straite down in the vise. John

Hi Glenn. Most of the blacksmiths,and fabricators I know around here, including me. Use a local place called Buckeye welding supply because the big outfits U.S welding ,etc. Have become so hard to deal with if you don't run a large industrial account with them. Buckeye on the otherhand could quite frankly care less whose tanks you bring in to get filled. They have also hot filled an argon tank for me that was out of hydro, When they didn;t have another to swap out. Which is nice, because around here you can usually find cheap tanks at the flea market etc. Both the small ones, and full size .

Hi, Bsing. It was said on here that you can cut, or more correctly gouge steel w/a stick welder. While this is true, it is a process more suited to demolition than say cutting stock, or tracing out a design. While it is possible to gouge w/a welding rod, it takes a bit of skill. Generally it is done with an airarc which is a seperate attatchment you buy to plug into your welder. They cost anywhere from say $20.00 used up to about 220.00 new. They also require a compressor to supply air to the tip,and the ones I have used need to be run on DC which the welder shown above won't do. The carbon arc torch, (for heating ,brazing,etc). is also a seperate attatchment you must buy. I don't know if they still sell them or not. However I see them on ebay sometimes . They are never very expensive. In short, If you mainly want to cut, but also need to weld something once in a while then you probably should go with the torch. If you primarily want a welder, go with the lincoln, or something like it and find other ways to cut. By the way, I noticed tonite someone listed an older version of the welder above,and a small set of oxygen and acetylene tanks all together for fifty bucks on the local craigslist.

Hi Dr. Dean. Yes, I can certainly agree with all of the points in your second post. I to very rarely do any torch welding because of the speed factor. Generally, I mig for production, stick weld for strength , and tig for pretty. Come to that , most of my cutting is done with the plasma. What I find a torch absolutely indispensible for is heating. However, when the power goes out in my shop, rendering all of my electrical goodys worthless. I can still get those jobs done with the torch if I need to. At least untill I realize I forgot to get the tanks filled AGAIN!!!! Larry, Do you like using the carbon arc torch? I have a couple of them kicking around. I always found them to be so so at a whole range of tasks that other prosseses do better (probably need more practice). But I do like playing with the airarc gouge.

Hi Larry. I noticed your location is clifton Co. while reading one of your posts tonite. Ted is right the Rocky mountain smiths is a decent group. Their main get together every year is in carbondale not to far from you. Last time I checked the cross Orchards living history museum on paterson Rd. had begining blacksmithing classes and maintained a smithy on site. Try checking there I'm sure they could point you to some local smiths, or more likely try to enlist you to do demo's. If You would like to gab feel free to give me a call @ 303-456-0102 the name is john. I usually get down to clifton several times a year , as most of my family lives there.

Hi Dr.Dean. Please belive me when I say I mean no disrespect by this, and that the last thing I want to do is start an argument on this forum,. But this statement: Pratical limits of oxy/acetlene welding is about 1/8 mild steel and even at that it's slow. Cutting with a big tip is pretty much 1" and you have to cut through in 1 pass or you will have a mess. is just not true. As far as welding goes you can weld just about any thickness that a stick, tig or mig will weld. Of course just like the other processes this will require multiple passes. If you are talking about single pass welding then 1/8" is still not the limit. Twice that would not be considered at all unusual. As for cutting well I just don't know what to say? Even my little victor journeyman with single tanks will make a decent cut through 11/2" all day long. If you don't want to bellieve me, ( and I can certainly understand that.) or the literature and rated specs. Then take a quick stroll through the local salvage yard. Even with the prevalence of water jet cutting on thicker material lately, It shouldnt take more than ten minuets to stub your toe on a 2 or 3" dropout that was not only flame cut, but pierced with the torch to start the cut.

Hi. Haven't watched the video yet, but I belive the tool your talking about is called a sen. The easiest way to make one is to get an old file and grind the profile you want in the edge. I have also seen them made using a mild steel flat bar as a handle that holds a lathe carbide tool. Check DonFogg's web site , or the knife network under sen you should get about a million different discussions on it.