DSW

1" EMT should work just fine for legs, but you will probably want to brace them. Some sort of cross supports or diagonals would work to keep the legs in place so it doesn't want to collapse to the side if bumped.

I'd say start with the basics. Can you draw out and taper? Can you fuller and shoulder? Can you forge weld? How about upsetting or punching and drifting? Maybe we even need to go farther back in basics... Can you do basic fab work and assembly? I am often amazed at how little the kids at the tech school actually know about what I consider basic skills, like being able to square something up or even cut and measure items to the same length.

I'll toss myself in with the group that loves CL. I don't look at it much right now because it kills me to see great deals on stuff and not have any free cash to spend. I regularly recommend guys go to CL if looking for an inexpensive welder. I almost always see old AC transformer stick machines for $50-150 vs getting the exact same thing ( less some dirt and rust) for $300 new. The machines are tanks and it wouldn't surprise me if 100 years from now the vast majority of them are still welding. Same goes with looking for used gas cylinders, though you need to know what you are looking for with them and make sure you can exchange any you buy used or they aren't worth anything. I guess since most of the things I look at are welders, smithing equipment, metal and woodworking tools, that I just don't hardly think about getting robbed. I do recognize most of the scams that pop up on CL for welders. If a $3K to $4K machine is being offered to you for under $1000, there's probably something not Kosher about the deal. It's either stolen, broken or a scam... I use the same basic common sense that I use anytime I go to an unfamiliar area to meet with someone.

I'd give him that. Quite a few people think divers always use pure O2 vs some sort of mix. I couldn't quite figure out why he had an issue with my O2 however. I can have as much 100% medical O2 as I want at the house, but apparently 100% welding O2 is dangerous... Don't ask me why. No big deal, I just went to a friend of mine I dive with who is a diving physician and got a "prescription" for medical O2 ( I used it anyways for mixing dive gas, but now I had all the proper paperwork to go with it) Funny my OA torch doesn't seem to notice the difference. I need to pick up a couple of CO2 extinguishers. I keep thinking about it when I'm over at the fire supply place getting my hydros done. However you may find you still need a dry chemical extinguisher in the shop to make the fire marshal happy since CO2 isn't an ABC type extinguisher. I do have one of those old water ones that you top off with air pressure to handle small fires in the parking area ( seems no matter how far I blow all the leaves, as soon as I light the forge they magically reappear. Down side of having a shop in the woods I guess)

Oxy propane is a good choice for heating, especially with large rosebuds. You avoid the 1/7th rule for withdrawl on acetylene that way and don't need as big a cylinder to use a rosebud, Down side to oxy propane is you can't weld with it. You can however solder and braze with oxy propane. One good thing is that if you get an oxy propane unit, it's not that hard to convert over to acetylene. The CGA valve fitting for propane is the same one used on some large acetylene cylinders. You do have to watch your fuel gas pressures since acetylene over 15 PSi is unstable and propane regs will deliver more pressure than acetylene regs will. You just need to make sure they are adjusted lower, or better yet, simply buy a 2nd fuel reg for acetylene. Everything else can swap over with the exception of cutting tips and rose buds. A good oxy fuel class can be tough to find. Not many places still teach Oxy fuel welding. They mostly do cutting and solder/brazing. However OA will allow you to do a lot of welding at a reasonable price, including alum. I'd stick with a good name brand torch and regs. Something your local guy stocks parts for. Victor is probably the most common, but a lot of guys love Harris or Smith gear as well. They can just be a bit harder to source tips and so on in some areas.

I've cut well over 4" with a small torch. One big key was to preheat the cut line to help get things going. We'd soot the line with pure acet, then heat the piece until the soot burned off with a rosebud and then make the cut. Toughest par is maintaining the right travel speed and torch angle to keep the cut going. Note you will need a pretty decent acet supply to feed a torch rated for 6". It wouldn't surprise me if you needed to manifold cylinders to stay within the withdrawl rate. Propane wouldn't have that issue though,

Auntie Em! Auntie Em! It's a twister Auntie Em!.... ( key music from Wizard of Oz) :P Hope everyone stays safe. Our prayers are with you.

I've used Hilti epoxies to set structural rebar and column anchors in temps well below freezing. ( I want to say when we were doing this the highs were in the mid to high teens in Feb. ) I can't remember which epoxy we used right now, but the data I have on my desk for the typical HIT-HY-70 we use to set bolts in block and so on is rated down to 23deg F ( gel time 10 min, full cure 6 hours according to the spec sheet.) The spec sheet for HIT-HY 150MAX-SD shows material temps to 14 deg F. ( gel time 180 min, full cure 12 hours according to the spec sheet.)They have a bunch of other adhesives as well. From what I recall, we simply told our Hilti rep what we needed to do and he pulled up the data and made the recommendation along with all the supporting data for us to send the the engineer for approval.

Are you planning to do this as a business or a hobby? There's a huge difference in most areas. Home hobby stuff usually falls under codes that typically are enforced by complaint. If someone complains, the local municipality does something. If not, then you go on your merry way... If you are doing this as a business, then things change. Most places in urban and suburban areas are "zoned" You can do certain types of things in certain areas. They don't want someone who runs a chemical plant next door to homes and so on for example. Where I live I can't run any business from my home that has customers that come in, or do any heavy fabrication etc. I could run a computer consulting firm, but they'd have issues if I ran a full time forge. On the other hand they could care less if it's my hobby... as long as no one complains.

I've seen a lot of guys who start their own businesses only to have them fail. It's not that they can't do the work, in fact several were very talented, it's that they can't manage the business side of things. You need to track all your costs. Most guys don't have issues managing the "big" expenses, it's all the little ones that get forgotten that kill them when they all add up. If you are going "pro" vs just doing this as side work to supplement a hobby, it's critical you know exactly what everything costs. Phone, insurance, fuel to deliver finished products or pick up materials, vehicle expenses, taxes licenses and business fees ( it gets even worse if someone works for you), shop overhead ( rent, electric, heat/AC), , repair costs on equipment, new tooling/equipment, office supplies, advertising and business cards, accounting fees,.. and so much more and we really haven't started talking about the projects yet, Then there is all the project costs, fuel for your forge, welding rods, oxy/acet or welding gas, sand paper or grinding disks, paint or finishing supplies, hardware and fasteners ( if you supply them with hooks and so on)... I see a lot of guys who build something and the steel costs them say $25 and they sell it for $50 and think they made money. In reality chances are they didn't make $25 they though they did because they didn't add in fuel cost for the forge, grinding wheels and so on. All of a sudden that $25 gets whittled down quick. That false sense they made money however fools them into thinking they are doing well, then all of a sudden they can't figure out why they have no money. My own small business can easily eat up almost $2K a month is just incidentals like insurance, vehicle fuel, phone and so on before we ever start talking about materials or even my pay. It takes quite a bit of work to cover that cost and you had better track them well or next thing you know you are loosing money. Learning to estimate the time it will take to do a project is another key item. If you need to do 1 or 10 of something and the customer wants to know in advance what this is going to cost them, then you need to be able to guesstimate how long it's going to take you so you know what to charge them. In some cases it's cheaper to buy a specialized tool to go faster than it is to do the work by hand. The same goes if you have to make that tool or jig. You need to account for that time as well. Keep in mind you also have to keep a fairly substantial reserve of cash on hand. This is to cover the next months bills ( or more) etc if you don't make the money you expect then. I do construction and as it gets cold I know my work load will drop off as Thanksgiving/Christmas approaches and probably won't pick back up until after tax season ends when things get warm again and people have some free cash to spend. That means I have to carry enough reserve to cover all my costs over those months until I get work again. You can't just rush out and spend money you made from a big job in June. You need to control your spending because you may well need that money in November. Right now I'm looking at suddenly needing to drop $8 to $10 K into my work truck because the turbo just blew and it's just out of warranty. That's a huge nut to swallow at one shot and it's going to strip a huge amount of my reserves at the time of year when things are already normally getting tight. I'm not trying to scare you off, I think owning and running your own business has a lot of benefits. It also has a lot of headaches. Expect to work long hours, 6 to 7 days a week, year round for little pay if you are serious about doing this full time. The advantage is that you don't have to answer to anyone else ( except the customer), can take time off when you choose and often have the satisfaction of doing something you love as well as many others. However with that comes the headaches of worrying if you will have money for food when things slow down, taking hours and hours beating the pavement looking for work or chasing down payments, knowing you have to work even if you are sick because a job has to be done on time and there's no one else to do it... Many times though it's a lot easier to work 40 for someone else and collect a check, then go home and do what you want. Think about looking into some small business classes at local colleges or tech schools. They often run night classes. It can really pay to get some time under your belt also in the field before going it on your own. Even if it's not in the field you want to work ( not a lot of blacksmiths looking for helpers in general), but getting an understanding of the business and estimating end of say contracting work can easily cross over. Keep in mind that most jobs they won't spoon feed you this info. You'll have to pay attention and ask questions to learn this stuff. It might also pay to start out doing this part time while you use your full time job to support you and keep food on the table while you acquire what you need to run your business. Time management is one area that's easy to work on. Any project, even if it's doing the dishes or cleaning the house. Think about how long it should take you to do the job, and what level will be considered "done", then when you get to that finish point, take a look at how close your estimate was. Did you forget anything, like not remembering that the sink in the kitchen was full of dishes that added to the time? Good luck.

Nice. I can't tell how the handle is retained. Did you fuller the handle and wrap the eyes or are the eyes punched and drifted, then the handle inserted and upset? I think I see a wrap in the eye in one of the picts, but I can't tell.

In general day to day work in construction I almost never wear gloves. The reason is I find most guys who wear gloves tend to think gloves will protect their hands from everything and tend to rip and snort their way thru stuff rather than use a bit of common sense and caution. Most of the times I've had things stuck thru my hand was when someone with gloves on was "helping" me. They'd grab a hold and just yank and not bother to see if the other guy was ready. I do tend to use them around really sharp materials like glass or sheet steel where just brushing against an edge can cut you seriously. Welding I almost always use gloves. However I hate the typical heavy "welding" glove. Most of my gloves are thinner Tilman's. I tend to have small hands, so I have to order the models I prefer at my supplier in medium rather than the larges they typically stock. The smalls fit my fingers perfectly, but are a bit too tight in the palms, The super thin tig gloves in small do make feeding filler easier. One issue I always have with students is that many of them try to cheap out and buy the mechanics gloves at the box store vs decent "welding" rated gloves. To many of those are nylon or some other non heat rated synthetic. Nylon gloves and heat don't play well together. It also never ceases to amaze me how many students can't be bothered to grab their weld coupons with the tongs the school has. They just reach over and grab the steel with their gloves. I walk in to help some one and they reach over and pick up the coupon and you watch their gloves immediately start to smoke because the steel is so hot.

Expect a lot of ignorance on the part of the inspector. Make sure you have as much documentation as possible to back up what you want to do otherwise he'll probably just say "No" if he doesn't know an answer. I got hassled by the Fire Marshal one time because of my SCUBA cylinders. He kept telling me they'd be a hazard in a fire. I finally asked him why he allowed his firemen to run into burning buildings wearing breathing air cylinders if they are such a great hazard in a fire. He snaps back that their cylinders are full of air... And I asked him what he thought the label on the side of my cylinder that said "breathing air" meant... and why his air was less dangerous than mine was when his cylinders were filled to twice the pressure mine were. He just didn't understand what was going on, so took the attitude anything that he didn't know about must be dangerous.

Nice looking little forge. No offense, but your welding skills could use some work though.

Probably not all that hard to remove, you just need to rethink a few things. Instead of bolts, go with threaded studs and nuts to secure the bracket to the post. When done, simply spin off the 3 nuts and lift the vise off the studs and you are done. A cordless drill with an adapter and socket will make short work of spinning out the nuts. You could probably also use knurled knobs to do the same thing, My portable leg vise right now is a 6x6 post attached to a large piece of 5/8" plate at the bottom. To attach the bracket to the post, I simply use my inmpact driver to zing down 3 lag bolts in the holes and back them out when done. It's probably taken me 5 times longer to type this than it does to pull the vise off.

I'm always amazed when guys can do stuff like this from "found" parts. My mind just doesn't seem to work that way. Very nice.

I don't know about the UK, but here in the US some community colleges and many high school votech schools run night classes that teach basic welding. Almost all of them at least cover the basics of oxy fuel cutting and most are willing to go into deeper depth with a student if they are interested. Finding a class that teaches Oxyfuel welding is tougher. A lot of HVAC and plumbing classes include torch brazing and soldering, but welding is some what of a dieing art. However in the US, a lot of home built aircraft guys use OA to weld up their frames. The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) is another good place to look for help learning to weld with OA. I know at their fly-in at Oshkosh Wi they usually do workshops on OA welding and brazing. I'd bet you guys have a similar organization over there. I'll also add this. Here's a decent thread that can help guys learn to cut better with OA.. http://weldingweb.com/showthread.php?63275-How-to-use-a-cutting-torch Wayne did some great videos as part of the thread. He's got the videos scattered thru the thread unfortunately so you sort of have to wade thru it to find them. I think all in all he did about 20 or 30 videos for that thread talking about how to adjust the torch and make clean cuts. If you go to his youtube site you can locate the videos a bit easier. I pulled up just one for reference.

O2 reg looks like one of the cheap import ones. Not worth a rebuild. It's cheaper to buy another one. Fuel gas reg I can't identify from the pict. I'm not a big fan of the adapter and hose barb connection myself. I'd change that out to the correct fitting and ferule or better yet ditch that old hose and buy a new one. That one looks pretty stiff and dry rotted from what I can see. Cylinder is at least 100cf or larger. If it's over 150 cf though you may have issues getting it swapped out at some locations. Many places consider large cylinders leased or rentals and won't swap cylinders unless it comes from them. Torch looks decent, but I can't identify it from what little is in the pict. It doesn't look like my little Victor, my Airco or Purox though. I'm tempted to say it looks a bit like my Harris, but I haven't had that one dug out for quite a while. 20 lb propane cylinders around me are easy to find free if you look on trash day when people ditch their old grills at the beginning of the season. Township building usually has a small pile home owners leave there because the trash guys won't take them. If you can exchange the O2 cylinder it's probably a fair deal.

Yeah, good handles can be hard to find. I picked up mine at a local contractors supply that mostly deals with landscapers and so on. They had a really decent selection of handles. I also found a decent selection at an old hardware store I frequent. The kind of place that has everything on shelves stacked to the ceiling and stuff hidden in cubbies everywhere and in the basement... Of course you could always make your own handles...

We used camp in snow caves every winter when I was in Scouts in Washington state up on Mt Rainer. Getting the roof nice and smooth to avoid drips was the tough part.

I remember years ago there was a company in the US that was going to "recycle" old tires as the heat source for processing Portland cement. They planed to grind up the tires and use them as the fuel to fire the big kiln to cook the limestone. After the EPA changed the regs it made it just about impossible to do it any longer in the US and the company moved its plant out of the US.

Best thing to do is send them out for rebuild. Regs aren't hard to do, but cleaning for use with high pressure oxygen require certain specific processes to eliminate all contaminants and oils. Even the oils from your hands can cause issues. Also it's critical that you use O2 safe or compatible lubricatnts and parts. I've been trained in 100% O2 service procedures for scuba gear and rebuilt tons of scuba regs for 100% O2, and I wouldn't even bother to do a rebuild on my own O2 reg even though I've got all the proper equipment. It's simply not worth the hassle for what it costs to have someone else do it. If you want to play around a rebuild a reg, stick to inert gas regs for mig or tig and don't screw around with fuel gasses or O2 regs. You can probably have your local welding shop send the torch and regs out for rebuild. I've dealt with these guys in the past and had good experience with them. I know quite a few others that have also been very happy with their work. They also won't BS you. Some regs simply aren't worth the money to rebuild. You can buy a new one for less money and these guys will tell you that up front. They also have parts for a wide variety of older torches and regs. If they don't have them or don't know where to get them, you are out of luck. http://www.regulatortorchrepair.com/repairservices.php $200 sounds fair depending on the cylinder size for decent used gear.

Gas fittings are going to be a bit different for you in the UK vs those we use here. In the US, you may or may not need to change the fitting on the reg depending on the style valve on your acetylene cylinder. In the US there are two "standard" fuel gas fittings used on large acetylene cylinders. The one will work on standard propane cylinders, the other will not. The other thing is that most acetylene regs won't go as high on the output side as the propane regs will. You can use an Acetylene reg at pressures up to about 15 to 20 psi, ( the red zone on an acet reg is 15 psi or higher) on propane with no issues. You need to watch though if you use a propane reg on acetylene since acetylene is unstable above 15 PSI. (I'm not even going to try and convert to bar in metric...) As far as used... I'd have no issues buying a used rig from someone who keeps his gear in good shape, especially if I know them. Dirty gear or gear of questionable origin, I'd send out for rebuild. I'd weigh the cost of used with rebuild vs the cost of just buying new and see what makes the most sense. It's not the acetylene that would concern me, it's the O2 side. O2 and oil/grease do not play well together. In fact just about everything can combust in the presence of high pressure O2 under the right conditions. You don't even need a heat source to start the fire as in some cases like oil, simply the force of compression of HP O2 hitting the oil is enough to light up your world. If you want to see what can happen when things go bad with 100% O2, take a look at this thread. '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>

I've always thought about letting them learn by helping me split wood. I'll hold the splitting maul or wedge with a handle and they can hit it with the 8 lb hammer. When they misstrike it won't matter. After about an hour or so I bet their aim improves. Good way to build up a stock pile of wood for the wood stove as well.

I had the opportunity to try one of these one of the guys on a job had with him. I want to say it was a 5" saw that I tried. Definitely on my "to get" list when I have a job that requires something a bit better than my current saw. http://knewconcepts.com/saws.php