ThomasPowers

Know do you know "cattywampus"?

TW's shop: no walls, no roof, no doors; so a tad drafty---a big plus in the summer!

Prices are LOCATION specific; are you in Australia or the UK? (Or Finland, Crete, Argentina, Israel, ...) Stick it on a bathroom scale for a true weight. Edges look pretty good. normal wear. DON'T try to "fix" anything; for me evidence of a repair drops the price by 50% as I can't tell if it was done *right* just by looking!

You can always light up the dried leaves on the floor for an early morning warm up!

Actually a good sheet metal punch is generally faster than drilling for thin material.

Tom Cat of course!

Billy et al: bending spiral candle holders with a central spike. Make a simple tool for the post vise. I used a piece of 1/8" sheet metal and welded some angle iron to the bottom across a diameter and then drilled a center hole that just went next to the back of the angle iron. To use: Place in a partially open postvise. Taper your spike, reheat, put spike down the hole and close postvise trapping it between a vise jaw and the angle iron leg. Run around the vise cackling and winding your spiral, reheating as necessary. Bend handle and done!

27 Days----how do you do it?

Have you done any hot forging of fine silver? Hammers like a dream!

Did they mention sodium filled valve stems any? I made something like that about 30 years ago; I should go drag it from the pile...

Taking longer to heat up costs money as well as time.

Nope they only had a dozen or so of various heights and end diameters all at different sellers, all wanting over US$1000 as I recall.

I once had a smith weld some 3/4" dia steel to my 2.5" sq stock in a forge at around 7000' by just pushing it against my piece while repositioning it in a shared forge---we had to use a sledge hammer to pound it off! PS: No; we are just coaching you a bit ahead of time...

Well lets just say that it took more than 1 flat bed semi to move my smithing stuff to NM; 3 pallets had to go common carrier. I'm betting that you could move all the tailgating stuff at QS with a couple of Dozen semi's. Will that make the grade? (One year there were over 10 power hammers on-site. Only saw a couple this year; price of gas seems to drag down the amount of HEAVY stuff.)

Hard firebrick are temperature soaks; take a long time to come up to temp or to cool down.

As various families have differing language use within them; perhaps saying "Don't use language that a Medically Retired (for anger management issues) Marine Master Sargent *might* *possibly object to when you were speaking to his darling little daughter..." Sure helps to be able to refer kids to IFI without worrying that their kinfolk will show up at your shop with Pitchforks and Torches---I hate it when that happens!

No "lean" means oxidizing, not temperature related as often lean burners are hotter. As I came into blacksmithing through bladesmithing I tend to run reducing AKA "rich" to decrease scaling. I also use MASSIVE VENTILATION as rich means more CO production.

Pigsticker: if you are worried about confusion; just prefix a reply with the name of the person who you want to pay attention, e.g. ....

"Buying out the tailgating section" sounds like an impossibility! When the NM Anvil collector first hit Quad-State he bought 30 anvils his first visit and a trailer to get them home. Hardly a blip in the number for sale----there were at least 100 post vises for sale this year. Here's a pic of one tailgater I took on our way out going home:

It's possible to melt cable in a single burner propane forge depending on the forge and the burner. If it's running lean you can scale the workpiece up enough it WON'T WELD! If you can't get to a ABANA Affiliate meeting---have you asked them about having a meeting at your place?

200 amp is from the power company to your meter/breaker box. Inside the shop, it's generally running 20 to 30 amp 110 single phase VAC. Now you can run some larger circuits for specialty use: electric dryers, electric stoves or in the shop---arc welders. I have one 60 amp 220 VAC circuit for running an arc welder in my shop. Being as it's HOT here in the summer I have tried to run all motors over 1 hp on 220 and so have run a number of 220 circuits from my breaker box using 10 AWG copper wire---I had a roll of it just waiting for the day! I don't like extension cords and so have outlets spaced along the longer walls of my shop.

This will be particularly hard since you are blind; "the only temp gauge I have is a point and shoot plastic one from Amazon". I've been using my eyes as a temp gauge for the last 40+ years and have never owned an optical pyrometer or thermocouple myself. Forge welding is one of those skills that are MUCH easier learned by working with someone who knows how to do it and can coach you in it. I still remember my first instructor yelling at me "Don't look at it *hit* *it*!" (I was looking at it to learn the correct temperature color.) Have you read the chapter in "The Pattern -Welded Blade" by Jim Hrisoulas on welded cable? You should be able to ILL it from a local public library. I personally like to have the ends of the cable welded over to stabilize it, welders can be found used quite cheaply; or you can grow a friendship with someone with a welder. (My ancient Lincoln Tombstone welder ran me US$40 about 25 years ago; I expect it will get to under US$1 per year...) Welding in a V swage helps keep the wires from "trying to escape". Are you doing that?

We'd need a convoy of semi's for loot retrieval!

My new to me fan is 54" on a side and 16" thick. The propeller is about 48" across. My shop has close to a dozen 220 VAC plugs in it spread over several circuits. Unfortunately the two places we have thought of putting the fan are not near those outlets. If I put it in the eves there is an easy route from the breaker box to the outlet and I have an extra 220 breaker to hand.

They have started the Christmas displays at the local Wally World; I'm hoping for Zombies!