Steve Sells

a very high percentage of the population has allergies to peanuts, not a good choice. Try making one good project, so you can sell it and buy s few simple items.

we can make blades on the cheap, but there are limits.

actually steve i do not have oil. and that was the first knife i have had fail in the quench. also the guy i got it from was a fellow smith and said somthing along the lines of 'if it is just above critical it will work 90% of the time.' and it worked for m skinner (a thinish blade). it was just me not normalizing. i learned the hard way on that and normalized my skinner twice not once. also Mr. hale i made serveral knife like objects in mild steel. i wanted something i could use and i use what i have.

didnt it get hard enough in oil first?

"
I cast my vote for not devoting anymore time on this one...

Normalizing or not wont normally cause that, what temp was it before the quench. what temp was the quenchant, and what did you quench in, and what was the steel, and was that new or used?

At room temp it does not do much for a smith. This is one problem with some of the things we use, the MSDS is made for normal usages, and they don't all include our high temperature effects on the item. We need to know both.

If you search the posts in the knife section, there is a thread about veggie based oils going rancid, from natural decomposition.

yes, you don't really need to get real hot, it just makes it faster. Overworking it will work harden, and can get brittle.

All steel mill melt spec's have a variance for the alloys content. the 5160H is a tighter allowance in how much of what they have added. So rather than a carbon variance range of 0.56 to .064 in the specs as with a standard 5160, this is closer to 0.58 - 0.62 carbon allowed, etc...

so I assume H is short for Higher tolerances?

This machete was a joint effort between my 15 yr old student Chris and myself. His grandfather has been bringing him to class for about 3 years now. So Chris wanted to make him a blade for the farm work, as a thank you. Grandfather told us what tasks he wanted it to perform, we did the rest, some gift huh?

15.5 inch 5160H blade, 1/4 thick, 2 1/8 wide, 21 inches over all, and tempered at 450F. POB is 2 inches in front of stabilized and figured maple handle, with 4 brass pins. you can see it is full tang to take abuse with an Oil finish. Works well on up to almost 3 inch green maple and pine branches with single chop, needed 6 chops for an old 4x4 fence post.

I added an edge to the tip curve also for getting to roots, as this will be carried in the tractor, he has a little land to clear of sucker trees.

For me the reward of teaching is seeing the project grow beyond what I taught.

I want my people to learn how to do things, not just copy me. I follow the old adage of teaching a man to fish and plant, rather than just giving him a meal. When I see a noob asking the same old questions over and over again, I get upset they are not paying attention, BUT when the questions start to evolve and go past the original topics parameters of what I taught, WOW, that is what makes it worth while for me.

SO sometimes I get hate Mail for what I do here, I can live with that. As long as I see a possibility for returns like I have seen in some of my past teaching, I will take that risk.

And if they offend me too much, as staff I can Nuke their login like a World of Warcraft character:)

Boric acid works
Boric acid is not the same as borax.
Borax is an acid at welding temps.

Right handed here, my Horn points to the left.

and they seem to be much less messy than the 2 legged variety, Cuter too

as the resident typo king, I would like to welcome you to I Forge Iron, if they can read my typos here, then they can read anything.

Welcome to I Forge Iron, look around read, join in our Chat room. Tuesday nights we have our blue print session. 10pm eastern time, where hows to's are presented.

The term is not super member, its Moderator. We try to guide people and keep the site running smoothly. We tried to let you know its not that simple to just jump in and forge a sword. I have no idea what you think photos of His work has to do with you being able to learn how to make a sword in only a few months.

Also its a crime in many places to sell or assist a minor in building a weapon, with out parental consent. And it is never considered mature to call staff foul names. Learn some manners. As for arrogant, I should have Banned you for the foul private Mail you sent me. This is your last chance to act like an adult. We will not tolerate that type of attack on anyone here.

the power coming to your house technicaly is NOT 120v its actually 240v.

To get us a 120v volt line we use only one power line (left or right) from that pair, the other line (normally colored white) is not actually power, but a line to the center tap off the transformer Maybe this wil help.


coil of main transformer
MWMWMWMWMWMW
. . . . . . .| . . . . . . . ./
Left . . Neutral . . . Right
. . . . . . . . |
. . . . . . . . |
. . . . . . . gnd

This graphic may or may or may not look right depending on your browser. I added . . . . to assist in positional alignment of things..
the thing is left and right sides are 180- degrees out of phase. when combining 2 (or more) its still 240 volts. the available amps may increase a bit, but voltage is the same. In single phase power.


John, Mark... if one of you have a better graphic or picture Please post it.

Good morning and welcome to I Forge Iron. When I am not being a smith I am a union electrician. Trying to provide information for you, I will assume you are in the States, as you didn't declare where you are.

Stepping power UP is not efficient, we only do that for small variations of less than 15% to 20% step up. Not only will your transformer get extremely hot because there is also a conversion loss within transformers do to efficiency, but that will cost a lot more than the power you are using at the welder, because you will also pay for the electricity used to make that excessive heat at the transformer.

But if you wanted to go that route, you will need a lot more than a transformer that can deliver 480v12a, because at first glance one may think the simple math states the input power should be 240 volts at 24 amps. But first there is NO free lunch, NO 100% effective transfer. That not transferred as electric power is turned into heat.

The ability to withstand that load and keep the heat generated to acceptable levels that will not burn up the transformer, means that rather than using a 240v30a supply you would need closer to a 240v60a or higher supply, I would need more than simple name plate ratings of your welder to calculate this. Because there are converters (not really a transformer) that will do this for you, but its not cheap at all to run, and installation costs are more than you might think.

IN the long run, due to instillation/operation costs... I would suggest you either have the power company install a new transformer to your shop that will supply 480 volts directly from the main lines, to its own breaker panel (the primary residential lines are from between 4000 and 9000 volts depending on where you live, and you did not tell us) and that's easy to step down to lower voltages, This route is also not cheap, but over the years will cost less than using conversion units.

the Best idea may be to clean up that welder and re sell to a place that can supply the needed voltage, using the money from that sale, to buy another welder the correct voltage.


note
(220 or 440 mentioned are NOT standard voltages in the USA, the name plate label is a minimum power rating for your unit before failure. and FYI standard voltage choices are are 120v 208v 240v 277v 480v 575v)

A woman walked into the kitchen to find her husband stalking around with a fly swatter

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"Hunting Flies" He responded.

"Oh. ! Killing any?" She asked.

"Yep, 3 males, 2 Females," he replied.

Intrigued, she asked. "How can you tell them apart?"

He responded, "3 were on a beer can, 2 were on the phone.

Like all proud Fathers, showing off Pic's of the kids
they look just like you

very nice. even balanced pattern, stylish. Get er done and post more pics.

when i said old craftsmen i should have said VERY OLD, it does not have a motor. Just a pulley with a belt to remote motor dust is not a problem.

Over the past week or so, I have moved and relocated 4 subsections of posted things, with a total of over 1,500 posts, I can't get them all right the first time Re-bar...Ka-bar an honest mistake.

With my dyslexia, you are just lucky I didn't accidentally get a baby picture of my new grand daughter posted there, and a knife thread moved to my In laws Email, although my Father in law might like the Ka-Bar thread... hmmm :rolleyes:

I had not thought of that, Since I replace my 14 inch chop saw blades when they get too small, I have a free source of those blades for the table saw as I replace them when they are about 6 or 7 inches, and that's the size this Old Craftsmen table saw ($20 at yard sale last summer) uses.

not only will that assist the angles, but depth as well Frosty is da Man !