Bentiron1946

I just got back from an iron pour where we use a resin bonded sand with a low temperature burn out. Having come from a traditional "lost wax" background the first time I heard of this I expected total disaster but not so. The wax is somehow taken into the resin bonded sand and NO explosion ensues and the castings are wonderful. If a fine enough sand is used you can pull fingerprints, yes, fingerprints of the artist is on the finished castings. I was really stunned to see the high quality of the castings. We also use ceramic shell for the iron pour and it also allows you to pull the artist's fingerprints but you expect that from shell or traditional investment practices but not from sand. Last year at the pour we had a fellow cast around twenty small anvils and he put ten on a one inch sprue with a pour cup, in sand and another ten on a similar set up, in shell. He used a flexible mould to make his waxes, you can try a plaster mould but it can be risky if the wax decides to stick, after it does that you are lost and need to make a new mould so just save yourself some grief and make one to start with, you'll be glad you did.

In this day and age of Homeland Security it just ain't a good idea to walk along the rails let alone stoop over and pick up loose anything along the right away. There was a zealous railway policeman in one small community that was arresting folk for using their traditional shortcuts across the tracks to visit friends, go shopping and to school. The local sheriff and courts got feed up with kind of crap and asked for a less zealous man to be put on the job or at least one with a speck of common sense. The locals were three hours in either direction from anywhere and knew enough to call if they saw a stranger messing with the tracks. They knew they weren't the problem with terrorism but sure thought the railway policeman was. You can get in a heap of trouble scrounging up RR spikes, a friend of mine got some rather hefty fines for doing that, lucky for him he is now deceased so it don't matter that he ended up on the no fly list and is flying with the heavenly host. I think you can buy new spikes from Carr/McMaster and that'd be a cheaper than a government fine. If you live in the Phoenix area I got some old trolley track you can have if you just gotta have some rail for an anvil, PM me.

Watch you stomach with it as sometimes it can cause gastric bleeds so be sure and take it with food. And yes it won't hurt to cut out foods high in purines either, I know it has helped me a lot over the years. Best wishes with your therapy.

Nice work, you done good :P

All three are truly great looking blades and the wood is really nice looking too but I think that black of the bog oak is outstanding and it really sets the silver off. You done good :P

Also to quiet that thing down get some Liquid Nails and some short pieces of 2 X 4 and glue them to the web, it will sure help reduce the noise and make your neighbors happier. It's better than a rock you know.

Lag= lag bolt, a coarse thread screw or bolt.

I have formed thin, your 2 or 3 mm steel sheet metal cold on a tamarisk stump without too much effort when I had somewhat more muscle mass than now. That's not all that thick but it does take some effort to forge it out cold and then you do need to heat it up every once in awhile so that it doesn't develop cracks. I liked working copper a lot better in those thicknesses than steel, much quieter, all on the stump and planished on a homemade ball stake.

itsme seems to have a pretty good handle on how to size the system. Under floor heating is a good solution to keeping your feet from getting cold however I think the idea of good barrel stove is a lot cheaper to maintain but dose pose some risks of fire if you use flammable liquids on occasion. Under the floor is safer in this regard. 

Pleased to hear that he is recovering, still praying for the two of you, Jerry

Take care of your body, God gave you only one, too soon too old so use the brain God gave you to make or find a machine to the most daunting tasks, that is the best pain reliever. Use heat and cold to relieve the worst of the joint pain. For heat I use ThermaCare heat packs, they truly do work at reliving sore stiff joints and if you know of someone that is a member of Costco or Sam's Club they are cheaper there in bulk than they are just about anywhere. The suggestion about gloves is a really good too, cold joints don't help when working, when resting cold can reduce the inflammation but I sure hate to do. Since I have lost my hundred pounds cold bothers me more than it used to but not my knees and ankles. Some of this goes back to repetitive motion damage and it adds up faster in some folk faster then in others sad to say. 

I had some squarish cross section copper wire from an old electrical somethingorother and I soaked it in acetone and it cut that yellowish crud right off. I think it was some kind of varnish to keep the copper from corroding during the manufacturing process. Later on instead of using acetone I would just cut off what wire I needed and heat it up with a torch since it needed annealing anyway, this I would do outside and then pickle it to remove all the crud and leave me with bright but dull copper wire to work with. Don't burn the yellowish crud off inside it does smell a bit like burnt paint and stand up wind.

Well life was pretty much Rube Goldberg back then anyway, you just put together whatever worked for you. There were no manufacturers of tooling on large scale like there is now. Interesting plates, I sent the link to a friend of mine that  has been wanting to build a spring pole lathe and I though that bow was a good idea.

That looks considerably older than what the US Navy purchases for ships now or even when the USS Enterprise(CVN-65) was first commissioned in 1961. Perhaps it was from the WWII ship CV-6, that was scrapped in 1958. That looks to an older anvil than the 1960s.

I have suffered from the affliction for many years and have taken most all of the NSAIDs and the best one I have ever taken is Celebrex. It was a life changer to my joints, low incidence of gastric upset and bleeding. I started out with the doctor prescribing aspirin, then Naprosyn, Clinoril and a couple of others that I can't remember the name of but all in the same class until none of them were working. Knees were killing me, shoulder, wrist, ankle, fingers, neck, back and then I got rear ended and the spine started to get worse real fast and I toughed it out for about five years on Clinoril and my guts got to hurting so the doc said let's try Celebrex. I'm up to the maximum dose and still no stomach problems but my hands are a lot better than they were. Getting old is tough unless you are young then it's really bad to have hand and joint problems. Take a look at how you are holding the hammer a see how you can change things up to ease the discomfort. Then find a machine to do the work that hurt you the most. Use your brain not your brawn.

Looks very nice, you done good!

I don't know that I'd so much afeared of fire on the inside as rot on the outside. Looks like the end grain would tend to split and check over time and moisture collect in there and cause rot to take hold. Looks very pretty though.

Counter weight for a trebuchet :P

I have done casting for years and have used "bronze" in jewelry for awhile now. When I first started out casting I used scrap brass, plumbing fixtures, cartridge brass, etc. and whatever else came along, the results were not always pretty. I next tried mixing my own alloy by purchasing pewter mugs from second hand thrift stores(98% tin) and using electrical wire(99%copper) making my own bronze, better results but still not as good as what one gets from using a good quality silicon bronze, really nice stuff. I haven't had any complaints from folk wearing jewelry made from it next to the skin and it doesn't seem to leave a green stain on the skin either like brass, copper or traditional tin/copper bronze either, I suppose it all has to do with the silicon. If you want good quality pours you need good   quality metals and this is especially true if you are working in your backyard and want to avoid problems. One tool that I have never regretted spending the money on was my immersion pyrometer to gauge the correct temperature of my molten metal. It has been an indispensable tool.

Congratulations to you Frank, I remember seeing you at demo in Tucson a way back in the seventies.We were all so young then.

Congratulations to you Frank, I remember seeing you at demo in Tucson a way back in the seventies.We were all so young then.

I'll be praying for you both during the surgery and recovery period. May God be you both. Jerry

Nice looking "oak" tree, well done!

Some say hardie and some say hardy and some just say that there square hole in the anvil but no matter what you call it it sure is a handy thing to have and I thank the man that came up with the idea, he done good when he put it there to hold my tooling.

If anyone in the Phoenix Metro Area is looking for a section of rail I have a section of trolly rail that is available for free. Local pick up only, of course you have to pick it up as my back will not allow me to do that kind of lifting any more. It is big enough for two RR anvils. This rail is from the old Phoenix trolly system that was dismantled after WWII. Send me a PM and I will give you directions.

I have a 300# Fisher 1945, military surplus, with lugs, wonderful anvil to work on. The guy I bought it from got in San Francisco off of a barge that was covered with Fishers for sale at prices that ranged fro $25 to $75 and he paid $50 for it. This was in the mid 1950s when he was in art school in the bay area.