rlbaker

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.

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

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.

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.

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 .

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!!

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.

Kevin, if you are interested I just sent you contact info.Bob.

Kevin, part of our product line consisted of cast chain links and normally we would tumble the pieces, rough sand,torch together,take to a higher level of finish depending on item toss back into steel shot tumbler,pull from tumbler,cut buff,ultrasound,polish,ultrasound clean one more time,steam clean,done. Some of the chains were quite heavy some were fine and we never really had any damage issues because the tumbler is spinning at a slow speed and the solution is soapy and foaming so what you really have is a gentle sliding down a slope action on the pieces. Worst case situation we would have to unthread a few tangles. The part of our line that was fabricated chain links from wire,not castings, it was even easier because of the smooth surface of the wire we started with, quite often just torch together chain links ,tumble and give a quick hit on polish wheel and done.That being said you have to make sure you have the right ratio of tumbling media to pieces being tumbled.Our tumblers held a few hundred pounds of shot so we could put a fair number of units in each drum. Even if you use a smaller tumbler it might help cause there is no labor involved other than rinsing out the shot and recharging unit. Load it and walk away and do other stuff. We tested walnut shell charged with polishing compound but it didn't really help for what we were doing. If you are into production work get the largest unit you can afford cause part of the equation is the weigh bear down on the pieces during the slow tumble cycles. Its called "tumbling" but it actually is a slow gentle cascading type slide. I have a brother who is still in the business, I'll ask what the current technology is now. Good luck.Bob.

Picked up the high content silver solder and it worked like a charm, couple of minutes per unit and no fuss no muss done deal. No cracks in the thin stainless, an aggravating job became a piece of cake.Thanks.

We did production investment casting for years and we used all sorts of tumblers for pre-finishing pieces. We didn't cast copper but the same principles should apply. To brighten up the raw castings prior to any real hands on finishing we would clip off the sprues and toss everything into our big steel shot rotary tumblers with shot and a soap solution.The shot comes in pins and cones etc and does a great job of burnishing the interiors of pieces where it is otherwise hard to polish. The best place to check for supplies would be Rio Grande Supply. We also would use vibratory tumblers with abrasive cones but it doesnt sound like thats what you need. Actually I've been out of that business for 20 years now so who knows what sort of advancements they have made. We used to make all of our master patterns,cut all of the molds,did production casting in house, we even made almost all of our tubing,plate and wire. We did this until we finally couldn't compete with imports from other countries, but I digress, a simple steel shot tumbler works great for burnishing soft metal;s like copper. I know I'm dating myself here but we also would strip oxides off of castings prior to tossing them in the tumbler by "bombing" them with a hot solution of cyanide and concentrated hydrogen peroxide. If you did it wrong it would explode and cover you with this nasty solution!! Hard to believe but the cyanide was available off the shelf in a white egg form, looked like white charcoal briquets.Anyway,steel shot is low tech and works great .Bob.

Thank you all for the advice, maybe the silver solder would be easiest for me to try next, I called the local supply house and they said they have got a Harris product 56FC that is designed just for good flowing with stainless used in food industry. I also wonder about the cracks I was getting on the thin stainless , the cracks werent at the joint but 1/4 -3/8 " from the tubing connection. I wonder if the thin material is cooling too fast in relation to the tubing. Maybe I'll bed it all in sand and the second I'm done with the torch pour more sand over it all for a few minutes to cool. Maybe with the brazing rod I was over heating too long while fiddling with it trying to get a nice clean flow all the way around the tubing and the proper silver solder will make all the difference.Thanks again for the advice,Bob.

I've got a problem brazing a drain tube to some deep drawn stainless vessels.I've got no experience with thin stainless so I just don't know whats going on.The stainless looks to be about 26 ga and the drain tubes are 3/8 od with a wall thickness of 1/8. I braze the tube in place and then complete the connection by running a drill bit down through the middle of the tube through the stainless flat material. and it gives me a nice neat connection but everytime I end up with fractures in the thin stainless through the zone where the brazing was done. I tried silicon bronze rod and had the same results.The stainless is paper thin and I know it has a lot of stress on it from the forming operation and the tubing is of a relatively thicker cross section, could the differental cooling be the problem? I started off trying to TIG it but I end up blowing holes through the base material.Any suggestions? Bob.

Bought a container a few years back for general storage and the inside smelled as if it had been drenched in DDT or some other nasty chemicals. It was strong enough to literally start choking you when you walked in. I figured it would air out pretty fast and I loaded it up with stuff. I should have pressure washed it several time s and painted it with a few coats of that special paint they use on studs/framing that has been in a fire cause that toxic smell has has permeated the stuff I put in storage. Who knows what kind of bad news chemicals have been spilled in some of these containers.Anyway I've got a neighbor that has put two boxes on a slab with a nice space inbetween and spanned everything with a truss roof and it works great. He is very happy with the setup.

Nice hoe, I've made a couple but somehow they just don't feel well balanced they felt more like bludgeons than hoes. so I never use them. I need to try again and pay attention to what styles used to be made. I have made forest service type MacClouds(sp?) they seem to lend themselves to different proportions and are great universal dirt grubbing tools. I've never made a mini one for the veggie garden but now the wheels are starting to turn.Hmmmm.

This is one of my alltime favorite videos!!!! I saw it somewhere decades ago and was so blown away with the craftsmanship that about twenty years back I ordered a video of it and I watch it every few months or so, it never ever gets old. It covers all the disciplines from A to Z. I wonder how many people over the years have been hooked on making things from scratch by this tape? I wish more kids could watch something like this instead of playing video games, could open up a whole new world for them. Personally I'll never forget the electric adrenaline type rush I experienced as a kid when I grabbed a hammer,torch and file and made something that I know was ungodly ugly but I created it with my own two hands, the endorphines were cranking on overdrive. Thanks for posting the video of this great craftsman who I'm sure has been an inspiration to many. Bob.

Aaron, do you have access to a Cole drill? Perhaps a Cole drill with cobalt bits? Might have to jerry rig a clamp setup but they do generate tremendous pressure without burning up bits, just takes a lot of elbow grease at least in my experience.Good luck,Bob.