matt87

This DIY fly pres idea may be more or less dead for many good reasons already mentioned, but I just had an idea of how to make the 4-lead screw. Take an appropriate length of, say, 2" square . Put it in the gasser for a nice even heat, clamp end in the (securely mounted) vise and twist. The square shape probably wouldn't give you the best thread cross-section, but I suppose you could swage into something better first.

Not sure on how to make the internal thread. Perhaps tacking 4 lengths of stock that mates with the male thread, heating, wrapping, and then offering it up to the body of the receiving part. Tack weld the wrapped threads to receiver at the other end and grind off the tacks holding the threads onto the male thread, and remove the male thread. Put the receiver in the forge and braze.

I built mine out of a

Interesting. I wonder if it would work with less potentially toxic oils?

Don't forget also that iron was very expensive until c.150 years ago, and steel c. 5x more expensive than iron. I don't know what economic class these might be wielding this enormous hammer, but it's my thinking that only nobility could afford such... or possibly courtiers and high-ranking, highly skilled 'peasents'; armourers etc.

Apologies if this has already been proposed, but I think I have an idea:

Take a piece of suitable size mild or wrought rod (perhaps 1" square), and make a tight pineapple twist for about 1-2". Upset this twisted end so it's fairly bulbous and cut off. Drill it down the centre so a suitable piece of cable is a close fit. Pass the cable through the hole so it sticks out maybe 3/4" and braze or solder in place. Fray the cable ticking out the top and finish. You could cut a few wires in the cable long the 'stem' and fray them out to represent leaves.

This may be a little left-field, but does the thread neccesarily need to be cut? Would a wrapped-and-brazed thread like on old vises work I wonder?

Tape measure is for scale (inches top, cm bottom).

Anvilfire sell 'reasonable' sized quantities IIRC.

Well shoot...I was hoping you had found a wad of $100 bills jammed in at the back of the screw

Hehe there's so much black crud (oil + dirt) in the screw boss there could well be and I'd never know about it!

Pics will follow tomorrow.

BTW, anyone here know of anyone doing typological studies on post vises? (If you don't know it's an archaeological term that means looking at the various features and so developing a way to determine the age of an artefact. For instance, the tenon-mount appears to have gone out of fashion in the period of 1820-1840 therefore if your vise has it it probably dates from this period or before.)

Well I didn't expect this! I got a leg vise recently in pretty good order for little money. Only problem except some dirt was that the spring didn't spring enough to push the jaws any (I figure on it being stored too many years tightened up all the way). So tonight I finally managed to drift out the wedge (no mean feat in itself; the wedge is bent and the whole wedge/clip area was choc-a-block with rust and dirt).

Pulling the parts out to get to the spring I notice something odd; the spring and non-moving leg are punched for one of the older-style mortice-and-tenon mount. ()

I reckon the old one must have gone missing or broken at some point and the owner just decided to make a new wraparound mount. Anyone ever heard of this before?

I find my little charcoal forge lights in a few minutes. I clear it out, place a firelighter and bit of charcoal in front tof the tuyere, and apply a match. Once it's lit I switch on the air and add charcoal on top of the fire. I then get tools and stock I will need out and about 10 minutes later I am placing the first iron in to heat.

Shutdown is quite simple; switch off blower I usually douse the fire and save as much fuel as I can unless I'm leaving somethign to aneal overnight. I usually have less than 3 handfulls of fuel in the forge at a time though, so just switching off the air doesn't waste much.

Welcome, Scott!

What do you want to do with the forge? Temper steel? Bring metal to forging temperature? If the former you're better off with a toaster oven (or even your kitchen oven), if the latter there are many simpler designs around that are tried and tested. Not to rain on your parade or anything, ingenuity and DIY (even for the sake of DIY) is to be encouraged, but if you have a forge which is known good and you work with it for a while, you'll get a feel for how to design a good forge.

That must be one xxxx of a gasser you got there!

Happy birthday! Did the Birthday Faery bring you any WI? :D

Don't forget oil forges; like gas forges but you can run them on waste oil you can probably get free or cheap from your local takeaway joint.

Well most force-air WVO burners I've seen simply use a gravity feed, with an on/off ball valve or a needle valve to allow more linear control. I've thought of having a small foot-pump providing a small pressure of air in the oil tank (there's something like this on the site I linked to in the OP). An electric pump might work too. I've also considered the possibility of using a diesel pump from a car; WVO is a little more viscous than diesel but many people run their diesel cars on it exclusively, so there shouldn't be a problem there. The blower I would use needs 24VDC @ 5A for full blast and it's noisy so I'll probably be building a custom PSU anyway, so I could just add another bit on to vary the fuel pump flow rate.

You could of course make it out of mild, then quench into icy brine; IIRC it'll give you a hardness of approx. 52Rc; better than nothing.

Hehe you ought to try mine... 14" of train rail set on end in a bucket of sand! :D

These sorts of stories are why I want to avoid bottled gasses and the like. I'm thinking a good blower and some (filtered) WVO, just like the oil burning forge I linked to.

This may be stating the obvious, but... you tried getting it hot first?

A 4" jaw, 50lbish leg vise apeared on my doorstep an hour ago... set me back

Welcome mate! Which middle part of this green and pleasent land do ye hail from?

Inspired by the various oil-burning forges and furnaces I've ben noticing around the interweb and not having the money/space/inclination to deal with potentially explosive gasses, I've been wondering about the usefulness of an oil-burning torch for blacksmiths. My ideas so far are quite simple; basically a smaller injection-style oil burner as demonstrated here:
A homemade waste oil burner

Considering it's capable of melting cast iron I'm sure it'd be useful as a general heating torch in the style of oxy-gas torches. Heck, with a powerful blower, I'm wondering if torch cutting would be possible?

Any thoughts on the issue anybody?

Well I finished making it today and tested it sucessfully. The raw material was a

IIRC, wrought iron is the most ancient and primitive ferric-based raw material and was made from iron ore that was often "black sand" or slightly larger pieces of ore. The melts were done at relatively low temps and the puddle was a mass of material that never quite fully melted like cast iron does to fill a mold. It was still a very hot mass and was worked while hot to refine then forged repeatedly if additional refinement was desired. The native carbon content was quite low and tended to be less than .15% along with some level of silica that initially existed in the melt as slag.

More or less yes, though it isn't a melt; the process is a reduction or a smelt as (as you point out) the iron never actually melts.

To answer your question, I think it would be difficult to convert cast iron into wrought. Just based on carbon content alone, you'd be better off starting with mild steel.

That's what the puddling or finery process does; it produces an oxidizing atmosphere (one with lots of O2 but little or no CO or CO2). Since much of the carbon in pig or cast iron is in its free state , when it is melted in the furnace the carbon reacts with the 02 to produce CO and CO2; this evectively lowers the carbon content of the iron.

Practically speaking, this is probably not worth it on a small scale -- as HWooldridge and others say. Sounds like a heck of a lot of fun though...