Mark Emig

Nightmare fits-sorry for your misfortune.

If I was a real man I would probably put my arm down there to investigate what's on the bottom. There seems to be a bunch of sludge and some metal objects which I am not sure I want after they've been in that stuff. The crazy part is-where do I put my arm right after I burn myself-yep-right in that nasty brew!!

Hey Brian, Keep at it- it took me WAY more than a couple before I could make a nice scroll and therefore a nice scroll form. Now I've done thousands of scrolls and about four 5 gallon pails of forms and a couple big drawers full too, I'm pretty good at it. It was very frustrating for me at first-then got one right and had the AHA moment and it was better from there. Just keep making them until you get it-and you will at some point.

Hey Brian, In one of the COSIRA series of books they have a great tutorial on how to make a scroll jig. Do google search for free COSIRA books, or maybe someone here can direct you to where you can find them. I think it's "the Blacksmith's Craft" that has it. The first scroll you do is difficult-but it is well worth the effort and time invested to do it. It is an invaluable skill. I make all my own scroll jigs. When I do something new like that, I always tell myself if someone else can do it, so can I (it just may take me a bit longer). Good luck and have fun. Mark

Boy, you know if I opened my eyes I would have seen this thread before I posted mine. Lots of great info. Thank you all. And more than likely, the hard time welding was my fault. Just glad I went and got the borax.

I just don't like to make negative comments about a guys product-what I was using is a true flux that people have good results with-I just didn't have the same results.

Hi All, Spent most of Sunday working on my forge welding skills. I decided to do one of the lessons in Mark Aspery's second book-the one where you weld a bunch of leaves to each other ,then to branches. Admittedly, my welding skills are not what I'd like them to be. I am a pretty good smith, but not as good as I'd like to be. To get to the point, I've been using a blacksmiths flux reputed to have almost "magical" properties. I was struggling getting welds to take using this flux-2-3 tries each before it would weld. To make a long story longer, I got ticked off and went and got some good old fashioned borax straight out of the box (want to get some strange looks-go to the grocery store Sunday, right about when folks are getting out of church, when you're covered in dust and smell like coal and sweat). Guess what? Instant success-I could see the borax turning liquid and covering the welds way better than the other flux. I was able to weld at a lower heat, with all the welds taking on the first try. Moral to the story-guess what I'm going to keep using? Maybe you all who are more proficient than I can tell what you use successfully with good results.

Nice work! I go by my shop hourly rate X the hours to produce the item. Make sure you look at all your costs! Overhead-if you are a hobby guy it still costs you for the space. What percentage of your place is your shop space-it costs you for that space regardless if you rent or own. Quality work deserves quality money. P.S. How about a close up of that iron object in the background?

Thanks!

That is a nice machine, but just one thing-it'd look better in my shop :lol: . You should be able to find a drill chuck with that taper. Check Enco, Msc, Mcmaster Carr, or one of those types of places. Cheaper than trying to find/buy drill bits with a #4 taper.

I do the square punch thing every now and then, but once the bar is heated I just scrape something with a sharp edge across the bar-the scale falls into the punch mark and show up that way pretty well-I'm just another illiterate smith too lazy to use the soapstone lol.

Nice try-tough weld to do. You can also use another method to make a hardy block that I saw Mark Aspery demonstrate. He took an 1-1/4" bar-forged a taper on it and then drove it into the hardy hole with a sledge. Nice solution-hardy tool fits the hardy hole like a glove, and you can do it by yourself. I've seen pics of it somewhere-can't remember where-maybe someone else can help with that.

I think the outer barrel is for two things. Noise dampening and dust control, And, yes, there are bearings mounted on the inside of the outer container. The guy I talked to when I got it said it wasn't too loud with the liner in it. I think "not too loud" is a very relative term. I worked in a machine shop for a while, and the tumbler room was next to the water jet I ran-you could hear the tumblers over the jet, so "not too loud" doesn't impress me much. I'm going to line it with spray foam before I run it and see what happens.

Bigger shop soon???? You obviously haven't been in my shop-I need a bigger shop NOW. I keep getting more toys-gotta stop now-no more room to stuff them. There's enough room for me to get around all the equipment and that's about it. A buddy of mine said they should start a new show for and about me-Tool Hoarders :lol: :lol: :lol: P.S. That nice big swage block and stand has a prominent place in the shop. You ought to come up and check the shop out-call me and come visit.

Nope. The outer drum used to be lined with some sort of foam to keep the noise down.

Hi All, Just picked this tumbler up at a plant closing (they made the hooks and stuff you find in hardware stores). Looks like it was built in the plant-it is a nice design-easy to build. If anyone wants dimensions and such let me know. Real time saver. Overall length is about 6 feet-it'll take a 4 foot piece of material. Best part is I got it for $100.

The Yellin shop did use hollow ground end mills to cut tenons-held vertically in a drill press. A rota-broach is basically the same tool-only not as long. I don't know of anyone making a hollow ground end mill anymore.They did it that way for the same reason you are-time-which equals MONEY. I look at things the same way-who cares how you get the end result-so long as you can be profitable. We all gotta eat, after all.

You got it-thanks for the help. I'm sure I'll drive you nuts with questions shortly.

Nice anvil Tim- that'll be a pleasure to work on.

Hey, Thanks. Apparently from what the tech guys said, you can configure VFD's several different ways. Mine is configured to give full torque throughout the range of RPM's. The motor is a 2 horse, 3 phase, 6 amp, 60hertz if I remember it all correctly. I can fab something similar for the motor mount. Thanks for the help. I'm getting busy in the shop, and hope I can find the time to get this thing up soon. What speed is your motor??

Hey-thought I'd add some thoughts on how I'm looking to set this thing up and let me know what you think. The way it came set up is kind of a cob job. It had a 4" belt to run on 2" pulleys so it can only be run on the biggest pulley on the lathe-which is the slowest speed. I am getting the correct size belt and wanted to run it on the smallest pulley (fastest overall speed) with the VFD which will enable me to have variable speed. Going by the pulley size and motor speed (1725) it can get about 1825 RPMs max. I can change the pulley(to a larger size) on the motor if I need higher RPM's. Kind of a PIA with the flat belt, but if I need to I will. Feel free to tell me how you would set it up. Thanks.

Done a total of zero. I found the thing perusing craigslist-decided to get it-learn how to use it, and add it to my repertoire. There's the learning curve thing, but I'm fairly adept and it'll make me some money before long.

Sure-pics would be good. Can't hurt to look. I am going to run it on the smallest pulley, the VFD makes it variable speed. The center alignment is good-first thing I checked.

I am going to mount a 1/8 brass shim on those blocks-seems like those blocks were put on a long time ago. I live in Hurley, N.Y.. I also need to make a proper adjustable motor mount for it. It had no motor mount-originally was an overhead belt drive machine. Before any of the historical purists chime in-it needs to be a WORKING tool to make money from ,so I need to modify it. Prefer not to, but like I said... I saw some of your stuff on allmetalshaping.com -very helpful-nice work also. I'm ordering a wheel and bearing set from May tool, and make the forks myself-got a mill and lathe,so it'll save some dough.

Visitors are always welcome Sam- c'mon by-maybe we can even play a bit. I've got the VFD on the way. Getting ready to make up some tools now. Got all kinds of fun big boy toys.