irnsrgn

BINGO, We have the correct answer. The tool and its modern day counterpart, some call it the last word indicator.

Mike, you have problably used the modern version quite a bit. LOL

I know what it is meco, I use it occasionally, and you are close.

Anybody know what this antique tool is?

Katrina is over and the rebuilding and recovery is about to start, we need to celebrate all our friends coming thru it with no real injuries to their person.

Best way I know is to have something enjoyable like a humor party.

So I will kick it off with a few of my favorite one liner quips about intelligence, I am sure with all the quick witted people we have they will surely have some good ones.

1. The lights on but, nobody is home.

2. A few straws short of a load.

3. Playing with a deck of Jokers.

4. A few Cards short of a full deck.

5. 3 sandwiches short of a one man picnic.

6. A victim of cranial- rectal Inversion.

7. They were at recess when the Gene Pool was open.

8. Dumber than a rock.

9. Engage Brain before Operting Tongue.

10. Fishing without Bait.

remember to keep it clean now LOL :wink:
:wink:

HW, those mats made from old rubber tires are excellent to stand on at the lathe, mill, drill press and Anvil, really makes a difference at the end of the day for me.

In the shop I have a bunch of old door opener mats with ribs that I use, they were free from my neighboring business who installed them and replaced faulty ones years ago, I just cut the wires off short, they have an air cushion so that when you step on them they make contact.

Thank you Bomlin for the update, I am sure glad they and there animals are ok.

Due to the very small slot and the roller catch, It leads me to believe it is for grabbing the end of maybe banding material to facilitate putting the crimp lock on the banding for packing.

My youngest daughters Mother in Law was heard from today, She lived in Franklinton, just north of Buddy Leanord. She lost the barn and the structure of the house is still there but lots of damage to it.

They traveled by Caravan to Baton Rouge for protection against people who would rob and try to kill them for their valuables and the gas in their cars like they did to some travelers.

HW, you might try running it thru a roller the opposite way of the waves. Roll it once then flip it over and roll it a second time with less pressure on the rolls, this works for me on light sheet metal.

Lots of people are getting plasma cutters for thier shops and it seems they are a mystery to some. So I thought I would explain them as they were explained to me. This may clarify things or not. If I make any mistakes please feel free to correct them.

1. There are 3 states of Matter, SOLID, LIQUID AND GAS, Some say that a plasma is the 4th state of matter.

2. A PLASMA in this sense of the word is a Super Heated Gas.

3. A plasma works by super heating common air under pressure and pushing a portion of it thru a small nozzle to literally vaporize any metalic substance in its path whether it be Ferrous or Non Ferrous in nature.

4. If it says the machine uses 5 cubic foot of air a minute, this usually means that 1 cf of air comes out of the nozzle and 4 comes out around the nozzle to cool it.

5. The Plasma stream coming out the nozzle is coming out at somewhere around 200 mph and at a temperature approaching 28,000 degrees.

6. Whatever the Capacity or Thickness the machine is rated at is at a speed of 10 inches per minute. For instance if the machine says a capacity of 1 inch, It will cut 3/8 inch material very well and as the thickness increases the inches per minute of travel are greatly reduced.

7. Whatever the recommended input air pressure is, increasing it will not improve the cutting ability of the machine, but will greatly increase the slag or dross it leaves, and shorten the life of the consumable tips.

8. Plasma is usually limited to the thinner materials as it has a tendency to not cut straight thru like Oxy Acet does on thick material. If you expierience a slanted cut from your plasma, you will notice that the slant is tapered to the outside bottom on the right side of the torch and slanted in at the bottom on the left side of the torch usually in the direction of travel.

9. There are 2 types of torches, those that have to make contact with the material to cut and those with a pilot that are stand off and do not make contact with the material, the later type will usually destroy a tip if contact is made with the material.

10. Don't touch the consumable tip components with your fingers as this will shorten the life of the tip from contamination by the oils on your skin.

11. Some machines have a variable power rating, this is to conserve electricity and wear on the tip consumbables and to make a better cut.

12. PLASMA MACHINES LITERALLY VAPORIZE THE MATERIAL BEING CUT AND THIS MATERIAL IS FLOATING IN THE AIR AND CAN BE INHALED BY YOU AS YOU WORK, WEAR A MASK OR RESPERATOR DESIGNED TO FILTER THIS MATERIAL.

13. Commercial business's that use Plasma on a day to day basis a lot, will have water tables (A cutting table with water just below or covering the material being cut) to keep this contamination from entering or dispersing into the air you breath.

14. TIP - Contact type nozzles or tips do not work very well with painted or rusty material, but this may be overcome on straight cuts by using a piece of flat iron as a guide and making sure it is grounded, pull the torch along the flat iron making sure the tip is in contact with the flat iron, the torch will then perform almost as well as one with a pilot or high frequency option.

15. EYE PROTECTION IS ALSO A MUST AS THE PLASMA STREAM IS BASICALLY NO DIFFERENT THAN THE ARC PRODUCED BY A WELDER.

16. TIP - on contact type nozzles, a light coating of MIG Tip Dip applied by your finger on the contact surface will prolong tip life and also keep dross from sticking to the tip as well as increasing the ability for it to slide along on the material to reduce friction.

17. TIP - Most of you will have a water trap on your air lines, and again at the plasma machine. Oil in the air line is the biggest reason for tip failure or wear out there is. There are special oil filters that use what looks like brown course toilet paper as a filter, and these are the most efficient and sure way of filtering oil from you entering your plasma system, Water traps will not filter out oil.

Thank you Leah, that is good news indeed, I was really worried about Buddy.

Now if we would just hear from Charv.

NIce work one_rod, seems to me by the pictures you are doing fine, be careful, the slide down the coal chute can get kinda dusty LOL.

keep up the good work

Sunday morning about 10 AM from a post by joe rolfe.

Just got a call from Garey Ford. He is doing fine. His power and his phone are restored. Lost a few shingles and tore up his shop "pretty bad". He ran a generator/welder to operate a pump in a 400 foot deep well. Ran a hose to the street so the neighbors could get water and showers. He kept refrigeration and his icemaker never quit working. When he ran out of gas he scrounged through the lawn mowers and unused cars, and the neighbors brought more too.

The Wall Mart has opened back up and he was able to buy fresh milk this morning. Gas is still scarce and tankers travel with four escorts. There has been some looting but "everyone is toting guns". He and Jack Frost and Norma Jean sat out on the porch and watched the storm.

Best wishes and God Bless to both Jwolfe and Jeannette. Hoping you both fair well in the future.

From Joe-Rolfe in early saturday morning pub log.

Just had a long phone call from Cap - Rob Whitehurst, He is fine. House did not flood. He does not know about looting. His wife is in Houston. He is in Tampa and at work.

His Forge is Cold,
His Anvil is Still,
His Hammer is at Rest,
May he rest in Eternal Peace.

The passing of any old smith is a great loss to those he was teaching and to the smithing world in general.

Please accept my Condolensces Marc to you and his family.

Sorry you misinterpreted my reply, but at least you did not grind away the top , emails to you in reply to your last post.

Newlad, things that are easy for one person may not be for many others. when you find something you are good at, practice it till you are very good at it, then teach your way to someone else and they will generally teach you something you would like to learn, You are probably the envy of lots of smiths with your ability to make tongs.

oh by the way files are hot short as they contain a lot of carbon so they cannot be worked at an elevated heat or they explode or breakand they can not be worked at a red heat or they will crack, next time try annealling the file a couple of times before you start working it.

try working it when it is non magnetic, which is 1460 degrees, scale starts to form at 1550 so you can use that as a guide till you get used to the color you want to work it at.

HW, try putting the bricks cross ways 2 high,just back of the opening on the bottom clear across the bottom, seems to make mine pull more suction, kinda like a smoke shelf in some side draft exhaust hoods.

Glenn, I got the translation of an "ocky strap" from Chopper, that's what they call a bungy cord in OZ. LOL and Strine they have lots of uses in the smithy, kinda in the same kit with baling wire, duct tape and WD40.

Tongue is forged with a bulbous end that is put in the mouth and the mouth closed around it


3/8 inch hole is drilled thru the body for the legs and another drilled between them on the belly, rods the right length are slid in half way and plug welded with mig. then feet are formed in forge and finally bent to shape with torch heat.

Forge hoods are notoriously inefficient as the the smoke opening is so far away from the fire and any movement at all of air will blow the smoke all over the place.

A side draft exhaust down close to the fire is the most efficient and will also draw a good portion of the heat out too. With a properly made side draft exhaust the fire will actually be pulled into the opening along with the majority of the smoke.

the opening should be about 10 inches wide and 11 or 12 inches tall. If you don't use a big enough pipe it will still draw some but not very efficiently, 10 inch minumum preferrabley larger.

this is one Honest Bob had for sale at Possum's hammer in.


these show the draft or suction of a simple 8 inch pipe opened at the bottom for a small forge.

Anybody besides me make critters out of ordinary black pipe or tubing? I have made snakes, komodo dragons and attempted a frog so far.

I should probably stay out of this discussion, but what the heck, the posts are comical to me.

I think it is all the fault of the movies and some bad TV shows we have nowadays. All the sword fighting ,even laser swords, LOL

It seems the public especially the younger generation have a fantacy about swords in general, even in my small backroad area I have had several youths and even a coupla older fellas come in the shop and want me to give them a couple of hour long lessons so they can go and make their own sword. Kinda gets them when I hand them an old plowshare and tell them to have at it. After all weren't plow shares made out of swords in the first place.LOL

On the other hand can't you just see two rival gangs fighting it out on a city street with swords, lots of limbs laying around and lots of pain and yelling for Mama, but at least no inoccent bystanders riddled with bullets from automatic weapons and hand guns. Kinda like the middle ages, they drive by each other at breakneck speed in their lowrider cars with one of them hanging out a window yelling at the top of their lungs while holding on for dear life while the car is jumping up and down like a jack in a box and swinging a sword wildly. Next thing you know flag poles will come up missing so they can joust with them. LOL

I don't think you will ever see two rival gang members facing each other in the street yelling at each other "My sword is sharper and longer than your sword", no chivalry in a one on one battle in their warped mentality, not good odds to say the least. A fella could get hurt doing stuff like that.

Oh yeah almost forgot, I have never seen two blacksmiths facing off at 20 paces with hammers either. LOL

Your humor was appreciatted on this end Newlad (after I figured out you weren't serios) that is. LOL