irnsrgn

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

blacksmithteck, In reality, you don't need a perfect face on an anvil to do quality work. The quality in work comes from your skill in using what tools you have at hand, not in how pretty your tools are. A good smith can use almost any thing for an anvil no matter how poor a shape the tools are in. the same as a good machinist can take a well used or sometimes abused machine tool and still do quality work. And if you are still intent on possibly admistering 200 years of wear to your anvil by flattening the face, have the machinist put the anvil face down on the blanchard and square the bottom with the top first. modifing the quote at the bottom of your post; What is left when the hard face is lost?

For those interested in anvils and don't have access to the book "Anvils in America." Go here for some interesting information. http://home.flash.net/~dwwilson/ntba/anvnm.html Thank You, Mr. Wilson

Pam,at least lodging, meals, $.30 a mile both ways, $100 a day plus any thing you sell is yours, for a place to start. Do simple straight forward things to keep their attention span, and have a display of your work handy along with cards and of course a pad to take down commisions on. Remember to get at least half up front on commissions, and give yourself more than enough time for delivery date. Start High and let them fenangle you down a bit, it makes them feel good and like they got a bargain.

Strine its basically 4 sharp fingers with sharp points that will dig into most smooth surfaces except heat treated steel and the spring action of pushing the fingers over the part center it and also helps the points dig into it, when you pull it out it will drag all the way to the entry point thus increasing the tension on the sharp points, it usually doesn't take much to retrieve a small object like that, sometimes spring tension alone will do the job. the trouble with a tong arrangement is the tongs have to have very short reins to open any significant amount and do not exert a lot of squeeze on the object they are grasping. Another thing you could try is a plastic pipe with a bevel on the end to rotate it and center it in the pipe, a pipe that the part will just slide up into that is, and hook a strong shop vacum to it and retrieve it that way.

elk, I think it was a flashlight that got accidently dropped in a place it shouldn't be. by the description.

Strine, I believe a lighter modified fishing tool I made for the local oil patch would serve your purpose well, the original was made with car springs, but for your purpose I believe strapping or banding material would work. A - is a side view of a finger. B - is an inside view of a finger. C - shows either 3 or 4 fingers attached to a small pipe coupling that can be connected to small diameter pipe to insert the tool down the pipe and force the tool over the object. The sharp multiple points will spring out and then bite into the object. This worked well at 1800 feet below ground to retrieve a length of well pipe, of course it had the coupling still attached and only needed to slip over the coupling.

THE LEGACY OF A BLACKSMITH by Jr. Strasil My legacy was to become a Blacksmith. I am proud of this legacy, handed down from my Grandfather to my Father and then to me. I always list my Occupation as Blacksmith, and when someone asks what I do for a living, I say proudly that I am a Third Generation Blacksmith. In this day and age it always solicites a stare of disbelief, and the inevitable question, "I didn't know there were that many horses to be shoed anymore?" Blacksmithing has certainly changed in the 100 plus years it has been practiced by my family, but, it has put food on our tables, roofs over our heads and clothes on our backs. In those 100 plus years there have been 6 Blacksmiths in my family, my Grandfather, my Father, 2 Uncles, Myself and 1 cousin. We have not been Sam Yellin's, who was a master of Beautiful Ornamental Ironwork and left his mark for many generations to see and enjoy in our Nations Capital and in Philadelphia. The Blacksmiths of my family have done some Ornamental Ironwork, but, nothing on the scale or beauty of Mr. Yellin. We have been and are Traditional Blacksmiths who kept busy with keeping the Wheels of Industry turning, the Implements of Agriculture operating and the Tools and Devices of every- day life functioning. We have left our Mark on society around us. But, it is a Mark that is not very visible for all to see. The most we can ever hope for is that someone will look at one or our repair jobs or fabrications and say, "That sure was a Beautiful job of repairing or building that, the person who did that was a Good Craftsman.". We were not looking for fame, we were just doing our job, the best way we knew how, so we could provide for and raise a family that would perhaps have it a little easier than we did. In my immediate family the Blacksmith Legacy will probably end with me, as my only son is no longer of this world, but, has gone to another world to be with his Great Grandfather, Grandfather and 1 of his Uncles. The Strasil Blacksmith Legacy may live on in the form one of my Grandsons. Blacksmithing has been a rewarding, interesting and enjoyable occupation for 54 of the 61 years I have been on this Earth.

Oakwood, I once refused to go out on a job in the local oilfield because the bosses son who was in charge was on alchohol and drugs both. Because of that his father had him committed for the 6th time. When he got out later he kept driving by my parents house slowly, I guess looking for me (I lived at another location) and he was turned in by some suspicios neighbors and when the law stopped him he had a 44 mag pistol with scope and a 12 gauge with slugs both fully loaded. He went to prison for that and stated to the law that when he got out he would get me for putting him in twice. LOL Fortunately when he got out about 5 years later he ODed the same day he got out. I will not work with drunks or druggies at all.

couldn't resist giving my 2

Ralph was never off my prayer list, but I will put extra effort into it now. Tell him we are all pulling for him. Jr.