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I Forge Iron

rlbaker

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  1. We have PEX buried in the slab of our house, source of heat is propane. Thought it would give us a nice uniform heat all winter, discovered that it would be cheaper to stuff dollar bills in our clothing to stay warm and thats with a professionally installed system with insulation under the slab etc.Now we just use wood to heat the house.Our situation may not be typical, but I would ask around to others that are using similar system to see if they are happy.
  2. rlbaker

    Gas usage rate?

    My propane supplier added a siphon tube to our 500 gal tank so I save a ton of money refilling my own bottles. I fill the big tank in the summer when I get the best deal on propane. Very convenient. The original plan was to run off the 500 gal tank but after hard piping it into the shop I couldn't ever get the forge to run properly. The Chili forge man said all I needed was 25psi sent to the forge with a run of about 40ft through 3/4" pipe but after jacking it up to 35psi at the big tank I chickened out going any higher. I must have had some flow restriction somewhere and need to revisit that project but for the time being I just cycle through 1/2 dz of the small bottles and they are light enough to move with ease, I also use the small bottles of propane with oxy for spot heating with a rosebud so I never have to worry about running out of acetiline .and driving 45 min to town to get more, just step out the back door to the big tank fill up the small ones and I'm back in business. If only I could save the same amount of money on argon etc
  3. my big anvil is permanently mounted but I have a small portable 85lber on a stump that I move with either a handtruck or I"ll a lot of times it seems easier to poke a cheater bar with a 90 on the end of it into the hardy hole and "crab walk" it where ever I need it.Its kinda like I use what ever is close at hand.
  4. I like the idea of marking out a pattern with soapstone , seems like that might help me pull it flat uniformally whem I'm running beads. The table was dead flat when I made it years ago but I guess getting careless spot heating stuff that was clamped to it with a rosebud made the flatness go south. I want to get it flat again cause its my favorite table to weld on for projects that arent real big cause being 4x4 it is easy to reach in anywhere to weld stuff up. I'll give it a shot tomorrow.Thanks,Bob.
  5. I'vhe got a welding table that is 4x4 with 1/2" top.The top has a 3/8" crown to it side to side. It has been tacked around the perimeter every few inches.Any thoughts on a combination of running beads and or using a rosebud to restore flattness using the heat and shrinkage to push/pull back to flat . Would it be better to try with it still welded to frame or should I cut it free?. Before I go crazy and jump in headfirst and make it worse I thought I would seek advise from others who might have more experience flattening thick material .
  6. Drawing your wire down to finished size will give you the exact size you need and work harden it at the same time if needed. All you need is carbide insert drawplate, drawtongs,6x6 with a couple of big lags at one end to retain drawplate while pulling, windlass with larger piece of pipe for drum with stud welded on it to catch windlass rope and 2ft or whatever pipe handles to rotate drum and pull wire, drum is mounted on 6x6 between two vert legs of same material, use appropriate size rope, weld bigger hooks on drawtongs for rope to loop around, anneal tip of wire so no breaking on initial pull,file/grind point on tip, use good lube, start drawing wire,when tongs are at drum open tongs,release tongs reset tongs near drawplate and repeat till you have 8ft or 80ft. Depending on dia of starting wire ,number of passes etc may have to anneal , just have to sequence it so you end up with particular degree of hardness you want for finished product. Remember if you do need to anneal it (you will always anneal tip) make your coil loops touching each other tight and tie with binding wire so you t end up with unfiorm softness throughout s an. Rope is stretchy on startup so acts as shock absorber so you break fewer tips.Don't skip holes, you will just snap off tips or won't be able to pull wire. All this is based on my experience with softer wire, but same principle as steel you just mught have to finesse it more. Also you cant swap ends because the grain is going one direction once you start the process so when you snap tips make sure you repoint same end of wire. Good luck.
  7. While for certain jobs I will use a fixed motor mounted wire wheel for most jobs I prefer to use Metabo variable speed grinders that I slow down to both reduce the wire pieces that want to fly off and stick in my face and the slower speed also allows the bristles to flex into detail areas.I very rarely crank the speed up, for me slower actually yields faster results and a lot safer. My variable speed metabos are maybe 10 years old and still going strong though I don't even know if they still make the VS models and I have been advise that the quality of metabo in general has gone downhill. I need to check out other brands for variable speed models.
  8. rlbaker

    New Vise Table

    I don't know if you are going to do any welding on the table or what the top dimensions are, but have you considered drilling some holes in it for hold downs? At 1" thick you have got plenty of thickness for the hold downs to Bind up tight. One of my welding tables is 1/2" thick and on a need to use basis I started drilling holes here and there and now I've got them scattered all over and I find them very handy for welding stuff up. Your hold downs don't even have to be real close to where you need to clamp down, you just bridge to it with with what ever odd pieces of bar stock you have laying around. I just use hot rolled 1/2 rnd that I neck down a little for 1/2 holes. for the hold downs and all it takes is a whack or two to readjust them when they stop binding up in the relatively thin top. Works great.
  9. The problem isn't the caulk between the anvil and top of concrete base, it is the caulk between bottom of base and the slab. The slab was new and clean and dead flat, anvil base weighs several hundred lbs, anvil weighs 300 lbs so collectively there has been maybe 700lbs pressing one smooth concrete surface to another smooth concrete surface for two years. Combine that to the surface area of an 18" diameter base and it is really stuck together, thats a lot of stuck surface area to pull apart and the fit is so close the layer of caulk is maybe the thickness of a piece of paper. It just occurred to me that maybe I can take lemons and make lemonade and after fabbing an adapter bracket I can leave the base where it is and use it for one of my swage blocks or another leg vise!! Actually I've been thinking I needed to mount another leg vise for quite some time now so this is the perfect opportunity, now I'm glad I didnt go crazy with the jackhammer yesterday. Thanks to everyone for any and all feedback on this issue, sometimes all one needs is the passage of a little time to get the solution to a perceived problem and turn it into a nonproblem.Bob.
  10. Built our new shop two years back and "dry fit" equipment in different arrangements to facilitate the perfect work flow. In old shop had previously mounted my main anvil on a 18"soni-tube formed concrete base.Stout pieces of angle with epoxied all-thread held it to the slab. Did same in new shop but while installing thought I would add a thick layer of silicon caulking between bottom of base and slab in addition to epoxied bolts to further give me the best connection. Today,two years later, when I decided to move anvil to new location I realized I made a mistake using the siliicon , cant get it to budge. Hooked gantry to anvil and tried pounding wedges under base while pulling up with chain hoist, nothing doing. Shifted to hydraulic jack wedged under horn, nothing doing. I guess I will break out the jackhammer with a scaling chisel type bit and see what happens though I'm pretty sure I'll just bust up the bottom of the base and have to toss it. I think I'll go back to a stump base. My power hammer is on a bed of 6x6's and I also laid down a bed of silicon under them, makes me wonder how tenaciousy they are stuck down to the slab, though at least with them I could slide a long demolition blade on sawzall under the sleepers and pry them up one at a time. At the time I wasn't sure what sort of a bond I would get between the two faces of concrete,now I know.
  11. Don't forget height too, visualize where your lights will be hanging and then you spinning bars end for end trying to dodge the fixtures.
  12. If it was me I would go as wide as possible at all costs,even if it meant eating only beans and rice for the next decade.Once you install your equipment ,welding table(s) and then start manipulating long bars of metal you will kick yourself if your shop is too narrow, it can feel as if you are in a constant fistfighjt with your jobs. My old shop consisted of two 20x25 units each with its own rollupdoor and a connecting interior man door between them. It was so crowded that quite often to work on part of a job that was only threeft away I would have to walk out one rollup enter the other rollup make my way through the interior mandoor into space #1 , work on the section and then immediately backtrack .A huge pain. Our new shop is 30x60 and it is still too small.It might seem as if I am belabouring the point, but go as big as you can possibly go, you won't regret it in my humble opinion.
  13. 781, you just reminded me of something I haven't thought about in years, way back when we had a production casting shop for precious metals. All the casting was investment casting,lost wax casting. About 20% of our business was hand fabricated production work and we made our own wire, tubing,plate etc and to make our wire we would use our biggest wire ingot mold, I guess it was about 1/2 or 5/8 square by maybe 8 or ten inches long we would pour a bar, go to the power mill,roll out the appropriate size and then transition to drawplates depending on cross section of finished wire. One year I had a guy work in the shop who was from a family of filigree workers in Mexico. All these guys did was fine filigree work and he showed me how you could pour real long bars using cement mixed with motor oil, I had never heard of such a thing before, it worked great. If you are careful when you are making your wire with the low tech methods we used it is easy to get defects that dont show up until you have drawn your wire all the way down and started using it and then you can have some sharp edges that appear that can run the entire lenght of your wire, however many yards that is.Bad news, have to start all over. This Mexican goldsmith told me that when he was learning his trade as a small boy his dad would make him test his wire by drawing it across his tongue, you learn right away to draw quality wire that way!!
  14. What if you bored an oversized hole,1 1/2, and sleeved it with a piece of 1 1/2 thick wall square tubing,1/4 wall, hammered in whatever sized rd stock fits into the corner gaps and welded the heck out of it then ground it all flat. Maybe us hard facing rod. I know it would be a slow go drilling the hole, but the rest would go fast. Just a thought. Bob.
  15. Kevin, if you are interested I just sent you contact info.Bob.
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