dagr8tim

Thanks for the tip. Once I get the brackets stripped off, I'll go through the axle well. It seems that the axle is a tube that then has a jog on both ends to offset the hub assemblies From what little I looked at it before the rain came in, it looks like the tube is a straight shot with both ends open. It'll probably get atleast wire wheeled and rattle caned after I get it cleaned up. I'll have a chance to inspect it carefully.

The brake parts will most likely end up on my 1997 Jeep Cherokee. The parts physically fit the rim (the biggest fear). Now I just need to see if I can bolt the brackets to the Jeep axle (looking very promising).

Picked up an early 2000's Dodge minivan rear axle. The axle will go under a 4x6 utility trailer I have to convert it to 5x4.5 (same as my Jeeps), and hopefully the rear disk brake assembly will end up on one of my Jeeps as a rear disk conversion. $50, and about an hour and a half of my time to pick it up.

I think I know what you are doing in terms of mods. I'm not going to go into details. I'll just say the whole process scares me. Back to the original post. Non strut shocks tend to not be under so much pressure if you are after the hardened polished shaft.

I've used those before and they are scary. I ended up having to cut one off of a Jeep because there wasn't room to unscrew it after getting the coil in place.

Looks good.

Granted, I don't know much about the jack, but if I saw that somewhere, I would assume the handle was original. I need to expand where I search, I cannot for the life of me find a little forge like that, but not for lack of trying.

I agree with your decision 100%. That being said, *IF* this was something I was doing on even a simi regular basis, I think I could come up with a safer alternative. Take 2 or 3 of these and mount then vertically on a wall. Then build a floor plate with a hold in the center for the strut to hang down through. Then a top plate that is keyed into "rails" on the wall. Then two chunks of threaded rod and some nuts to do the compression. Then again, when my wife's car needed new struts and had over 100,000 miles on it. I just ordered 4 "quick struts" that were the whole assembly. No need to swap parts or disassemble anything.

I've done it with other cheap devices I have bought for coil springs. It's sketchy and scares the xxxx out of me.

Thomas, I took a blacksmithing class at CIF many years ago, and Adlai is the one that got me interested in smiting. Infect he lives about a mile and a half from me. If you are talking about the Terry, I am thinking of. I used to work with him. He talked me through setting up my aluminum smelting/melting furnace.

I'm by no means an expert, but this is what I am picturing in my minds eye. A simple angle iron box to sit it on and you're cooking. Here's a simple (not to scale) diagram of my understanding of the setup. If I'm missing anything, hopefully somebody with more experience will set me straight.

I'm not opposed to coal. I just have no experience with it. I like the sand idea. That's sorta what I was getting at with the lava rock question.

Charcoal. Thanks, that's alot of what I was thinking. I've done brake drum forges in the past. I'm just looking for something a bit bigger.

Thanks for the sanity check. I just ended up with the sink and faucet for $2 and was looking for something to do with this chunk of stainless steel.

While at a yard sale yesterday I picked up a stainless double tub kitchen sink. I was considering doing a hybrid brake drum forge and wanted to know if anyone has ever done this or has any ever seen anything like this. I know the tub is going to get hot and lose heat fast. I was considering building a metal stand out of some angle iron and lining it with some form of insulation, and then rivet some like 20 gauge sheet metal on the outside. I'm playing with either cutting the tub down to not make it so deep, or finding something I could fill in the tub about halfway to take up space. I was wondering if something like lava rocks would work if I should stack some fire bricks in it. My other idea was to use the other tub for the start of a hood for the forge.

Not to drag up an old topic, but I figured it was better than starting another topic with the same basic question. I'm trying to come up with a refractory recipe that will work for a charcoal/coal fire initially and eventually I want to get to propane. The working plan is 10 pounds of bentonite as a binding agent and 50 pounds of fireclay. I'm wondering if I need any sand in the mixture. I know everybody has a prefered DIY refractory formula, and most DIY solutions are not as great as commercial ones. This is a small forge that's made out of an old Balloon Time Helium tank (slightly smaller than a 20 # propane tank). I'm hoping to avoid using sand, but if I have to use sand, using it as a filler material.

Picked up a set of S-10 leaf springs as part of some horse trading.

I'm not sure if this technically counts. But it literally followed me home this morning.

The process wouldn't be too different than the way they cut down Caddy's to make hearses.

Are you guys sure it's a plating? I thought Chrome Vanadium was an alloy of steel. It also appears that knives are indeed made out of it. http://www.ehow.com/list_6130902_properties-chrome-vanadium.html

I've got this old 1/2 inch drive 15 inch long ratchet that I managed to destroy this weekend. I'm wondering if I could forge the handle into something. Mainly I'm worried if there are any health and safety issues with heating the metal. I was thinking the handle would make a great handle for a knife, then forge the blade out of the shaft of the ratchet. Here's the ratchet in question.

I typically use wall warts with the transformers on the plug. Normally I work with under an amp because I'm doing small things. You'll want to increase the amperage as you get into bigger parts.

Good list. We also used to to shine up the metal runners on our sleds when I was a kid.

Really, I probably would have sunk 3 concrete blocks in the ground and then used a thinner chain or wire to attach it to the blocks. You could also do something similar with a concrete pad. Just use something significantly weaker than the chain and the bridge and it will break before anything else does. Atleast IMHO.

So today I cleaned out my fireplace, and I'm left with a 5 gallon bucket of wood ash. I'm wondering if it's usable for forging, and if I should maybe sift it before using it or what to do with it. I didn't burn all the wood that produced the ash, so there could be ash from some of those fireplace logs (wax and sawdust), or even parts of furniture. Before I go any further, I'm wondering if it's worth messing with or if I should dump it on the ash pile behind the garage.