David Ab

It's weird, because when I carried a fire extinguisher in my car, about once a year I would be driving along, see someone's car on fire, and stop and put the fire out. But then because of the expense, I stopped carrying a fire extinguisher, and in the twenty years since then, I haven't seen even one car on fire. Anyway, one time I saw a maseratti on fire (seriously, a real one), and this breathtakingly beautiful blonde girl standing by it, screaming. I pulled over, got out my fire extinguisher, got the engine compartment open, and put out the fire. She was incredibly grateful and said, "How can I repay you?" Yes, the same thing occurred to me, but for some unaccountable reason I didn't say the first thing that came to mind. Then she said, "My boyfriend's going to kill me. What can I tell him?" I said, "Storm into the house, slap him a good one, and tell him you CAN'T believe that he would give you such an unsafe car to drive." Another time, it was a cadillac on fire, and of course again it was a woman driver, with a young man- I guess her son. As I was getting the hood open, she kept screaming, in a deafeningly shrill voice, "What can I do, what can I do, what can I do?" I yelled, "Hey!!!" as loud as I could, and she stopped screaming. I said, "If you want to help, here's what you can do: just stand there and be quiet while I put the fire out." The young man was trying to hide his smile. After I got the fire out, I told the woman, "Here's how you can pay me for saving your car: take a yoga class or something, and learn to relax."

You may no longer be a youngster if you know how to do anything without using a computer. you may not be a youngster if you remember the good old days when you could deal with crooked politicians by tarring and feathering them, tying them to an inner tube, and setting them adrift in the river.

Superglues contain toxic chemicals that cause asthma and possibly other problems. It might be safer to put vitamin E on your hands, and take zinc supplements.

I believe that what you have there is what is commonly known as a "Nikon Third-Hand Beer holder," used by many Boeing machinists at baseball games. This very handy (pun intended) device allows you to hold a hot dog and a bag of peanuts while making certain that the scoundrel to your left can't steal your booze unless he has a 5 MM hex wrench. The X, Y, and Z-axis adjustments are useful for making up for whatever state of drunken revelry one might find oneself in- anywhere from your common 3-beer 2-degree X-axis tilt, to a full-case 90 degree tilt on all three axes, though the last time I saw someone with the skill to make that particular adjustment was at Molly's House of Not-so-Good Repute in Index, Washington, back in 1936. Actually, I think the other guys are right- it's for holding a microscope.

And if that doesn't work, put it in a cardboard box with birthday wrapping and ribbons and a card on it, and put it out by the street.

Robert, I have a few suggestions. First off, you were right to consult with the people who make the pain med pump- if anyone can give you a certain answer, it's them. Some electric/electronic devices put out more or different kinds of electromagnetic fields than others, and no one has put forth the effort to make a chart. But there are some things you can do, although I would ask you to check with the manufacturer of the pain med pump first. : 1. Get a gauss meter, which measures the field that's put out by many electric/electronic devices. It won't tell you for certain whether your pump will react to a particular induction oven or other device, but it will tell you something about the strength of the field of the induction oven as opposed to the fields of everyday electric/electronic devices that you know you can safely use, and that comparison could be an indicator of whether it will affect the pump. 2. Get a cheap little A.M. radio, and adjust the tuner so it's not on any particular station- so all you hear coming out of the speaker is static. Then go around your house with the radio near your belly, and approach the electric/electronic devices that you normally use, such as the toaster, electric oven, electric stove, television, DVD player, electric shaver, (and so on), with each of those devices turned on, and get as close to them as you are when you use them, and see if you hear any difference in the static that's coming out of the radio. You see, the radio antenna picks up on more than just radio waves- it also picks up on lots of the electromagnetic "garbage" fields that are put out by the devices that you use every day. Then approach an electric heat treating oven that is turned on, and see whether the static coming from your radio is louder or not as loud as it is when you're near the electric/electronic devices that you know are ok for you to use. One last suggestion: ask the pain med pump manufacturer these questions: "If my being near an electric device shuts off the pain med pump is there any way for me to tell that it's off other than when I start feeling the pain, and will it reset itself and come back on, or will it be broken?" Good luck! David Ab

Thanks, Monster. I checked out your web site, that's some sweet metalwork. David

I'd like to answer your questions about the chisel I ruined, but when I did that particularly masterful bit of work, the only thing I knew was, "Heat it real hot with a torch, then shove it into some oil and you'll never have to sharpen it again." Which has turned out to be true, because I put the chisel on a shelf and only take it out to admire it once in a while, and then I return it to the shelf... I think quenching blades is like lots of subjects, where in order to truly understand it, you might want to approach it from a multidisciplinary viewpoint. When I couldn't find the depth of information I wanted about quenching (admittedly, I didn't buy the expensive ASM books or correspond with the old masters of knifemaking...), I turned to wikipedia, physics books, and other sources, and read that there are two types of waves that earthquakes produce: Primary waves, and Secondary waves, or P waves and S waves. Then I did a search for waves and quenching, and found that S waves also occur during quenching- that the cooling effect of the quenching process moves through the steel in an S wave that forces the hot, austenitic steel to cool so quickly that it bypasses the next step in cooling and locks the steel into the martensitic stage. I think of the S wave as a shock wave because quenching certainly comes as a shock to the steel, and as the S wave moves through the steel, if it encounters a sharp edge such as a deep scratch, a sharpened blade edge, or a sudden change of dimension such as an un-radiused 90 degree angle between the blade and the tang, the sharp edge cools much faster than the surrounding metal, which induces a stress line in the steel. So, in preparing a blade for heat treat, you sand out all of the deep sanding marks and gouges, round all of the edges, round all of the sharp transitions in blade shape, and leave a 1/16" or so radius on the sharp edge rather than fully sharpening it, all of which helps prevent a thin part of the blade from getting hit with a very fast S wave that then slows down drastically when it hits a significantly and suddenly thicker part of the blade. It's that slowing down of the S wave that creates stress lines that even tempering might not be able to get out of the blade, because when the S wave moves fast and then slow, the metal crystalizes at different rates and therefore forms a physically weak boundary line between the faster-quenched part and the slower-quenched part. The other aspect of avoiding stress lines during quenching is to use a slicing, edge-first quenching motion through a big enough quench container so you can get the blade cool enough with one swipe through it, or a plunging the tip straight down, pulling it up, and plunging it straight down motion. These motions allow for a consistent vapor barrier breakdown. The speed of the vapor barrier breakdown controls how quickly heat is transferred from the blade to the quenchant. If you use a figure-eight motion on a blade, you can get an uneven breakdown of the vapor barrier and thus an uneven transfer of heat out of the knife, and thus an uneven movement of the S wave through the metal. But after studying this stuff for years, one thing has become clear: there are a lot of unknowns about metal and about heat treating. Sometimes the slightest little difference in whatever, can create a better blade or a worse blade. I don't know if those guys at the factory were kidding about figure-eighting their quench motion, but I've heard some knife makers say that some of the heat-treating methods used for massive pieces of metal in industrial applications, don't work so well for the very slight mass and the shape of a knife blade. My wife says I ramble too much and that I don't know nearly as much as I think I do. She's probably right...

Hey Ouch, I appreciate you bringing up that question, because I just tore apart an old water heater to get sheet metal to build my forge, and now I'm thinking I'll save the burner from the heater, so if I build a bigger forge I'll be able to put smaller orifices on that one and use it. David

I don't know if this is relevant to your situation, but a cousin of mine, who built houses in Dutch Harbor Alaska, told me that air leaks are worse than lack of insulation in many situations.

I don't know about cockroaches, but I got rid of a very bad infestation of carpenter ants in a house, by drilling a few holes in the walls and pumping in some boric acid. Within several days they were gone. And those were some kind of super ants, too, because a pesticide contractor had put so much ant poison around that house that the women who lived there and her dog got very sick.

I've been on the forum for awhile, just found this part of it. I've made a few knives and heat treated some of them with a torch. Had some interesting learning experiences, such as the chisel I heat treated, and then the end of the chisel fell off the first time I put it to wood... I'm getting serious about it now: building a propane forge, got some 0-1 and A-2 steel, going to learn to heat treat and hopefully make some good quality knives. And if I eventually get good at that, I might even try to learn to make damascus. I'd sure appreciate any suggestions or corrections you more experienced guys would care to offer me now or later. As a 36-year veteran of the construction and remodeling industry (retired general contractor), I've done a fair amount of woodworking. These days I'm an environmental inspector specializing in health issues- especially air quality and ventilation issues in the shop, home, and workplace, so I'd be happy to try to answer questions on that subject. David Abbot

A friend of a friend made a crossbow from used material. It shattered and a shard went right into his heart. He was dead before he hit the ground, right in front of my friend. I am not joking, but I am trying to scare you. I can sure understand wanting to make a crossbow, but if I was you I would find a highly experienced crossbow maker (not some weekend guy, but a pro) who was willing to supply the right materials and allow me come to his shop and show me how to do every step. There's lots of forging-type stuff that a beginner can do relatively safely, but this isn't one of them.

I read about a study of coal miners in Virginia, I think it was. Of the miners who smoked cigarettes, 97% got black lung disease. Of those who didn't smoke cigarettes, only about 5% got black lung. But mind you, I didn't read the actual study- this is just what I remember from something I read about 40 years ago, but I think the general idea is accurate. And I read that virtually all of the cooks for monasteries in Nepal get lung diseases from cooking over the fires. You really should have very good ventilation for your forge. I'm making a forge- should be done in a few days, and I'm getting a carbon monoxide detector- whenever the meter says there's carbon monoxide in my shop I'll know I need to ramp up the ventilation. Not that this is necessarily true for you, but a lot of "little coughs" turn out to be something serious, if the person in question is being regularly exposed to two or more sources of respiratory toxins. No one- not even a lung specialist- can tell you with any certainty that smoking is worse for you than working a coal forge. People are far too individual to make a blanket statement like that. It depends on how much of what you have been exposed to in the past, and how your lungs reacted to it. But if YOU notice that you cough more when using the forge than when smoking, or that you cough more when smoking than when using the forge, that might be an indicator... I think you should wear a p-100 respirator when working a coal forge- it will remove all of the particulates that are larger than .03 microns. Take care of your lungs so you can keep forging!

I haven't tried this, so I don't know if it works, but there's information on the web about putting a grinder to a piece of metal and telling what sort of metal it is by the color, length, and "branching" of the sparks. Another option would be to ask one of the metallurgists on this or another forum what type(s) of steel were commonly used for that kind of saw blade. For drill bits you could try Harbor Freight's cobalt bits, which are surprisingly cheap and work quite well. I'd use a drill press at slow speed, and maybe a bit of oil to keep the hole cool. Good luck!