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I Forge Iron

BobStrawn

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  • Location
    College Station, Texas
  • Biography
    I'm serious about onions!
  • Interests
    Gardening, woodworking, metalcraft
  • Occupation
    Tec Geek

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  1. Bloody Brilliant! I love simple! Bob
  2. Soaking a file or rasp in vinegar overnight will do a great job of loosening rust and sharpening it. Additionally it leaves a dull gray finish, that is a type of rust that protects to a certain degree from further rust. File teeth are quite hard, but brittle. The last thing you ever want to do with a file is to let it contact other files. It dulls them quick to let them rattle together in a bag. Since a file is brittle, a file can dull as often by tiny fracture as it does wear. Back dragging does just as much wear as pushing, so you double the life, at least if you avoid back dragging. Since the wedge shape reinforces the tooth, on a back drag, the tooth is missing the reinforcement. This is the same reason you don't drag a saw. Don't fear the occasional back drag, but it does you no good, and your files will last twice as long. Another very important bit of advice, Boggs Tool and File Sharpening is the best file deal you can do yourself! If you send them a file, be careful when you get it back, it will be very sharp! If you see files that are stored touching each other, you can be assured that the user is not a file expert, and that they are not as good a deal as they could have been. New old stock files can be really nice. I try to buy them in the original box, so that I know the wrapping has been protecting them. This forces you to buy several at a time, but the quality of some of the old files, is hard to beat. Bob
  3. I use the zinc that I remove to protect other tools. First I use phosphoric acid to remove the zinc. After that, I use the zinc laden phosphoric acid to parkerize steel. Then I treat with oxpho blue to finish the process. I originally got the method from Bob Smalser, a rather brilliant woodworker. Then I added zinc to the formula and have been happy with the results since. The ferrule on the knife was a nut that I removed zinc from before heating it on the forge and then pounding it on a tapered punch. Bob
  4. Yes, I admit I had the drill press speed to high for tool steel. In my defense, I was drilling through a bloody bed frame. Who knew it was good stuff? Then again, as I dug through my piles of collected steel, I was looking for ridged and solid. I should have figured it was somewhat decent steel. Now I need to see how well it holds an edge and how it holds up to heat and hammering. It would be neat if it were Corten, but I don't think this one is. I keep looking at some of the worse sculpture around town, wondering if the people who own the property are as tired of the sculptures as I am. I am tempted to offer to haul the sculpture off for them. This would be win-win, no more eyesore, lots of scrap corten! I will try working it as if it were 1055. 1055 with an edge temper makes for a seriously tough blade. As I recall, it makes decent throwing knives, since it can take a beating. If it holds and edge at all well, it might make a good chisel. Bob
  5. So I am innocently minding my business making a jig for the belt grinder out angle iron from an old cheap bed frame. I cut sections, grind the ends to eliminate burs, no problems. Then I chuck in a brand new mid grade drill biit in the drill press, and start to make a hole. I am using water mixed with ballistol for cooling and lubrication. Steam is being produced, but the bit and hole are staying wet. The hole just starts to punch through, coolant is flowing through the hole a bit, still it is all staying wet, when suddenly it is like skating on file steel. check the bit. not dull. I try another bit, skates. I chuck in a serious and sharp carbide bit, and it skates. I have used some nice work hardening steel before, but this is amazing. I am going to have to fire up the forge and punch this stuff. The bed frame is pretty cheap, if the old plastic feet and fittings are any indication. What sort of monster weird steel have I run into, and what should I be using it for? I may try making a rasp out of this stuff. It sparks about like O1 does. Seems a bit high on carbon, for a bed frame Bob
  6. I prefer to use Safflower oil. High Linoleic Acid safflower oil is a superb drying oil and is used in quality oil paints. It does not tend to mildew or yellow the way linseed can. It does dry slower, but heat just below burning will dry it in minutes. If the nutritional label has Polyunsaturated fat as a much higher number (11 to 2 or so) than Monounsaturated fat then it is the right stuff. The other safflower oil (High Oleic Acid) will have the opposite ratio and will not dry. Wax does a great job of preserving tools. Beeswax can give a warm luster, but is more likely to pick up grime on a tool. Best for wood shelves and the like. Paraffin is a great preservative and gives a good finish. Great for tools. Carnuba can be swapped into the recipe to make the wax very hard and wear better. I mix 1 part turpentine to 1 part wax to 1 part safflower. Melt the wax in a double boiler, add the safflower and stir it in. Once clear and melted, add the turpentine. Be ready with a damp towel, and take care not to ignite this. Electric is better than flame for this heating application. This makes a paste. If you reduced the turpentine you can make a bar. If you increase the turpentine you can make a liquid. This does a great job of preventing rust and has a good feel on wood. Drying oils oxidize and become a thick reasonably tough resin. In some cases this resin is not ideal, such as when treating a band saw blade. In these cases it is better to replace the oil with mineral oil. Because I get it on me at times when machining, I use food grade that I buy from a pharmacy. Baby oil works great, it is food grade mineral oil, and leave your equipment smelling baby fresh. Renaissance Wax is considered the best preservative mix on the market for serious conservation. It is made with microcrystalline wax, a component in paraffin. Microcrystalline wax stays soft, so it is not perhaps as good for working equipment preservation, but it also does the best job of preventing oxidation etc.. Paraffin is a good and inexpensive wax for everyday use and preservation. Bob
  7. In the case of a ship the lathe is much closer to level. Sea level. Bob
  8. ammonium laureth sulfate and sodium laurel sulphate That is coconut or palm soap. Added to just about every soap mix because it will foam at low temperature. Bob
  9. This has helped fill in a lot of blanks in my data. I knew brine was faster, but not that it was more even. Makes sense though, better conductivity, higher thermal mass and an elevated boiling point. So are you looking for a less conductive quench with an elevated thermal mass and an elevated boiling point? My wild crazy guess would be that lecithin might do just what you want. It is available in most health food stores and is a nice lipid that will combine with and even thicken water. Use about one part lecithin to 16 or more parts water if you want them to mix well. A low sodium/electrolyte protein drink quench might also have the qualities you are looking for. The right carbohydrate might work too. In general, the more different stuff you mix in, the greater the thermal mass and the higher the boiling point. Bob
  10. Here I show my ignorance: Here is what I think I know, but would not mind correction on. A harder quench, as in cold water, shocks to very hard, but is can be quite brittle and may fracture some metals. A softer quench such as warm oil is less likely to warp or fracture the metal in quench. Some alloys produce more desirable crystals in one or another quench. Air would we the gentlest quench unless you include cooling in ash or pearlite as a quench. Wouldn't placing the slab of metal in question in a big solid vise be a reasonable way to produce another gentle if not perfectly even quench? You could even warm the vise and fairly well calculate the final temperature if you weigh the metal and the vise. Bob
  11. Ultra solid tools are nice for turning. A blade with wobble can chatter and dig in, ruining work. Long tools are better for fine control and details. A long tool with it's tip on the tool rest can be fine controlled by movement of the long handle. A longer handle means finer control. So the paradox is that huge heavy turning tools allow for finer detail. As far as precision goes, Turners often regrind tools as soon as they get them. Often they have all sorts of jigs for sharpening that no one else would use. Turners have to sharpen tools constantly. So the precision as far as manufacture goes, is in the cross section. The tip is going to be mangled or perfected by the turner in short order. Bob
  12. Finally a conversation in my area. I seriously enjoy turning mesquite. It has a great grain, and can turn to a polish. The stuff is lovely and durable. It' major flaw is fairly low split resistance. Apart from that, it is one of the best woods you can get. It is the most stable wood I know. Osage orange is the horror. You can watch the metal wearing off of a solid well tempered M2 tool as you turn. Some pieces will turn fine, some will wear you out. O1 can do quite well as a turning tool with one small but important note. High speed cuts can overheat tool edges and ruin the temper of the tool. Because of this, HSS is generally preferred. I usually don't burn my tools, but I don't make a lot of bowls. Large diameters, such as bowls, at high speed means a lot of wood wearing past the blade in a short time. Easy to turn a blade yellow. If the angle of the cut is correct, and the blade angle is correct, you can often cut for a long time without wearing the blade edge at all. The wood can do a controlled split just before the edge and leave a very clean, even burnished surface. Mesquite is so even in behavior that it is one of the easier woods to do this with. Mike Darlow in his book 'The Fundamentals of Woodturning' details the split before the blade edge at the beginning of the fourth chapter. Bob
  13. It is usually used as an attack on welfare or taxes. Often by the same folk that object to all business regulations. Whenever I hear the word 'socialist' or any of its forms, it is usually associated with a profound lack of overview. Odd when a word, a tool for thought and communication becomes a tool to negate understanding. A selfish country is a weak an unprepared country. A leader who believes in selfishness first will not serve anyone well. A selfish leader will try to appear to understand, but will never care to understand. Ancient Rome, had a welfare system. It helped a healthy underclass ready to be drafted or enlisted. Was Nero a socialist? Was the bread free? Odd that Eisenhower was for welfare as well, Lots of poor folk were not healthy enough to serve well in WWII. So they instituted measures to provide healthy meals for the less well off. Not only kind, it helped maintain healthy fodder for war. Was Eisenhower a socialist? Were the school meals free? Nice Public roads were welfare as well, but were established so that the military could travel quickly in time of need. It is interesting that people believe that capitalist and socialist are opposites. The kibbutz system is a strong demonstration that socialist and capitalist can be very effective together. Socialist and capitalist can both be good or evil. The devil is in the details. Bob
  14. I don't see the point. If we don't use any gas, then we may have some impact, but stocking up today so we don't buy Tomorrow is not going to effect their quarterly profits one bit. Weather strip a door or cook on a grill instead. Bob
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