DSW

Knowing what your skill set in general is would help. Some of my clients would have issues building anything with cardboard and tape, let alone wood or metal. I can envision a dozen ways to make this work. As mentioned some plate and bolted angle would work for the table ( points for mentioning bolts as my 1st thought was welding...) My forge has sat for over a year on a set of relatively inexpensive steel folding saw horses I bought at Lowes. I chose them while I decided what to use for legs because they allowed me to break the forge down and store it in a minimum amount of space. A few pipe flanges and some threaded pipe would also be an option. I could easily see making a frame and legs from ( GASP) wood. Chances are you wouldn't get the table hot enough if you were careful and if push came to shove, some concrete tile board would make a decent insulator between the wood and table. I bet you could use two layers over plywood and build the table from that if you had no other choice as long as you kept the pot away from the wood.

If you want some help improving, I'm happy to give you a hand. Start a thread in the welding section and post you a few picts of your welds along with all the information like type of rod and size, machine used polarity and amps, material and thickness etc and I'll try to give you some pointers. I can usually spot some of the obvious errors and get you pointed in the right direction. I will admit that there really is no substitution for good hands on training with someone to look over your shoulder and make suggestions and comments. There's only so much that can be conveyed with still picts. Many times when I'm helping students, I'm watching them, not what they are welding. Body position and so an often cause issues and aren't easy to spot unless you are actually watching the person weld.

Very nice. A lot of people forget what a great heat conductor copper based alloys and alum are. Best bet is to often hit them fast and hot so the rest of the material doesn't heat sink away the weld heat and heat up the whole project. Something that can be really critical if you are brazing vs true welding.

Steven, not a bad basic primer on mig. If nothing else it covers what is in the manual most guys never bother to look at. Sorry I'll go on somewhat of a rant here. Something of a pet peeve of mine. There's a lot more to doing quality mig welds than spending 10 minutes learning to squirt wire at a piece. At the tech school where I help teach, the average student takes about 35-40 hours to learn to do basic mig welds in all positions. This is usually enough to get them a basic job, not really make them true welders. To simply do decent flat welds it often takes almost 15-20 hours of practice with someone to help point out mistakes. I see way too many people who think that just because the metal doesn't fall apart it's "welded", or because they banged on it with a hammer and it stayed together it's a "quality" weld. Not even close. Sort of like how many people think blacksmithing is "easy" and all you have to do is heat up metal and pound on it... Don't get me wrong I'm not ranting at you, just making a general comment on a subject that tends to irritate me. One thing you didn't mention, that I'd strongly suggest, is material prep. While the piece you welded on wasn't bad, you always get better results if you clean and prep your material 1st. A wire wheel usually won't cut it either. You need to sand or grind to shiny steel. Another pet peeve of mine is guys who simply weld over everything and never prep.... As far as electric welding vs forge welding, I'd say it all depends. Given a choice to put something together with welds, I reach for mig before everything else since it's the process I do best. That said I often find tig to be much more useful with forged work. I have more control and can lay down smaller neater welds with less filler allowing them to be "hidden" or reworked easier when aesthetics is the big concern. If all you want to do is tack two pieces together so you can collar them easier some sort of electric weld makes sense. On the other hand there are just some places where "traditional" forge welding better suits the project at hand. One thing would be the fact a forge weld is usually a full weld, vs surface welds that are usually done by most people with an electric welder. Full penetration welds would require a lot more prep and give you a different look to the piece.

Looks like you are just about all set. Congrats. One of my 1st projects was making up some tongs. I'm still trying to perfect the method, but the ones I made are at least serviceable for the time being. As mentioned there are some decent inexpensive alternatives that you can use to make your own, or invest in one or two commercial pairs to get you started. I've got way more than a couple of tongs invested in my firepot and blower alone, not to mention a nice anvil like that.

LOL! Sounds like a neighbor of a customer of mine. His name just happens to be John also... Does he get double bonus points because he drove a city bus and used to stop in the middle of the night to load up scrap off I -95 while on his route?

Very nice. When you wrote ""man sized" hog roast skewer" though, I was expecting a 6' spit for a pig roaster. Guess that's what happens when you have friends who are in the 4-H pig club. LOL I agree marketing wise things like this are priceless. I made a few forged hooks to hang robes and towels from a customers hot tub canopy and a matching hook to hang up her radio that looks like a lantern. I've picked up way more work from her friends who have seen my stuff at her place than I can count. The 2 hours playing at the forge and the $25 or so worth of material was worth every penny. I'd like to see your hot cut Frosty when you get it done as well.

If you do that you'll either have biceps the size of my thighs by the end, or need a chiropractor! LOL. A simple 30 or 55 gallon drum filled with water and rolled around works well.

George I believe October's PABA meeting is Sat. October 5th 9 am. 80 at 40 N. 2nd St. Stroudsburg at Andrews shop. Hopefully I'll make it and get a chance to meet you as well. Take care, Doug.

Each joint we learn builds on the previous ones. Next is Lap joints: Lay the two pieces down like a stair with the edge of the top plate in the middle of the lower one with the sides even, and tack both sides at each end. If you don't, the plates will pull as you weld them up and open up on the back. The weight of the upper plate will tend to tip these so the joint forms a V like the angle iron did. Try and run a bead right down the intersection of both pieces. A good lap joint will look like a 45 deg angle from the end. 50% on the one side, 50% on the other. Tack another piece to this one after you cool it, and add it to the "stair". If you are using small 3/32" rods and 3/8" plate, you can go back and run 2 more beads on each step. Run the 1st one away from you, and the next one close to you. The bead shouldn't come up past the very edge of the upper plate. You need to get 3 consecutive good ones to move on at the tech school. Again the drill is to do this for each of the three rods starting with 7014, then 7018 and finally 6010/11. Next is T joints. Now the piece is stood on edge in the middle of the plate. you do the same drill as before, one in the corner and then 2 overlapping each other when you get singles down consistently. Students add a 3rd piece so the T becomes an H and continue from there.. This is very much like the angle iron exercise, so this should be easy. Now the difference the last pass will be a weave over the last two. To do this you go side to side as you travel along almost like a figure 8 or Z pattern. We'll cover weaves in more detail later. Some times at the tech school we save weaves until the very end, so skipping it here isn't a big deal. Again do the drill with all three rods. Next is outside corners. Now you want the inside edges to just touch and form a V that you will fill. The plates end up looking like an X with the top of the x being very small and you fill that with weld if that makes sense. Similar to the lap joint, but now you have two small edges, not one, and the center has the possibility of melting thru. A good tight fit where the plates meet is important to keep from blowing holes in the root. You want to look at the back when done. Now you should just see the edge of the plates where they meet having melted away. If you don't see that, you need to up your amps a bit or possibly slow down as a few options to correct this. This is building up to the next one that will be beveled but joints.Most times you only end up running one pass if using 1/8" rods, though with smaller rods you might get another to fill it out. Bevel but joints. Prep here will be key. At the tech school we bevel all our plates with a torch and then grind. The angle is roughly 22.5 deg IIRC. these are then ground with a big grinder to remove the slag and clean up the edges. You want a nice even smooth grind. You want to grind off the knife edge and have an 1/8" flat at the bottom. When you put two pieces bevel to bevel, you shouldn't see light thru the pieces. They should be that even and close. Poor fit up will be a PITA in a bit. When you tack these up you want them flat with a 3/32" gap between the two pieces. Note the joint will pull shut when you gap and tack. You may have to cut the tacks and redo them to get the gap you want. Don't skimp here. Too wide a gap and the root will drop out. To narrow and you won't burn 100% of the way thru. 95% of the students who can't pass this have fit up issues. You run the root in with 1/8" 6010/11, then cover with 2 passes of 7018 or 7014. then depending on whether you are using 3/32" rod or 1/8" you may need a 3rd layer of 3 beads before you cover the whole thing with a weave. Students get signed off on each step here. Then you go back to the beginning for horizontal joints and start the whole process all over again with beads on flat plate... Then the same thing for vertical followed by overhead. After all of this, you can move on to round tube/ pipe. Note these drills while boring, are very critical to learning to do this right. I see a lot of people who want to stop and skip to chapter 20. Then they wonder why they constantly have issues. Problem is they never learned the basics. I've probably forgotten some points. I'll add them later if I remember them.

Ok now the one on basic stick welding. Again if you want specific help with your welds, I'd suggest starting a new thread rather than cluttering this one. A bit 1st about myself. I help teach basic welding in the evening program at one of the local votech schools for the last few years. I'm not an "expert" by any means, but I've been told by several instructors at a couple of schools that I have a real knack for getting across the basics to students. What I'll cover is the way we teach new stick students at the tech school with the variation of using angle iron for practice to save material. Best way to learn is to take a class so that someone can watch as you weld and pick up on many of these small changes that you are not aware of. There's only so much that can be done with picts. It's much easier to pick out a lot of this stuff if someone is watching you though. When you sit down and add up what it would cost you in gas, rod, electricity and materials, not to mention instruction, a class is usually stupid cheap. Around me a class averages about $10-15 per hour of class time. One other advantage, most institutions usually have much better equipment than the average student is equipped to start with. This helps remove any issues if the problems you are having are due to the skill of the student, or issues with the machine. 1st go on line to Miller and download their SMAW handbook as well as the manual for your machine. Read thru them and they will answer most of your basic questions on this. Miller used to have a really great free PDF step by step instructional guide to stick welding, but they unfortunately have dropped it from their website. The current link covers some basics on rod angle and so on that's easier to explain in picts vs text. ( If anyone has the old downloaded copy to post let me know. I lost the copy I had on my old computer when it crashed and didn't bother to resave it since I thought it was still up on Millers site) http://www.millerwelds.com/pdf/guidelines_smaw.pdf Get yourself some 3/8" or 1/4" steel ( we use 3" wide 6" long pieces) also it can help if you get yourself some 1/4" angle iron, say 2"x2" or larger and 2 pieces of scrap to use as "feet". As far as rods, I'd suggest starting out with 7014, either 3/32" or 1/8" depending on you machine. 7014 is a drag rod. It will allow you to constantly keep the flux on the rod in contact with the plate making maintaining arc length easier. Amp suggestions are usually printed on the package, use the middle suggested settings usually. for 3/32" 7014 you should be around 95-100 amps, 1/8" about 125 amps. AC machines usually require the amps to be set a bit higher than those running DC. 6013 is also a good starter rod, but some students have issues with slag inclusions using 6013. 1st drill is to try and simply run a bead on the flat plate. Scrape the rod against the plate and the arc should light. A standard rod should lay down approximately 6-8" of weld bead. If you are laying down more bead, you are going too fast. If you lay down less you are going too slow. Almost all students go too fast at 1st. Take your time. You want the puddle to form before you start traveling. One thing you will have to learn with stick is how to differentiate the molten slag form the actual puddle of molten steel. Pay very close attention to what is happening around the rod. This will take you awhile to learn, so don't expect to be able to do this right away. At some point things will click and you'll have an "Ah Ha!" moment and this will all make sense Run a few beads to get the hang of this. You want the rod tipped roughly 10 deg back towards where you were welding ( shown in Miller PDF) When you get everything perfect, 7014 will tell you because the slag will just peel up behind you as you weld or crack off in big chunks with no effort. If you are beating on the welds to remove slag, chances are you have something wrong like rod angle, arc length or travel speed. I tell students to get comfortable and try and rest their elbows on the weld table if possible. I suggest they weld on a bit of an angle, starting close to their body on the left and welding to the right and away from themselves. This is the natural swing of your arms. Remember you need to adjust the rod angle as you weld so it stays the same, and keep the rod in contact with the plate. If you wander all over the plate like a drunken sailor, a soapstone line can help guide you. You can either drag the rod straight or do circles, either will work. I have students who simply can't slow down do circles usually. if not I suggest simply dragging the rod to keep things simple at this point.. 2nd drill is to set the angle iron up like a V and tack the two feet on it so it will stay that way. You are going to fill up this angle with beads. It's important to constantly cool down this piece of angle in some water. If you don't, the additional heat build up will act like you are upping your amps. I tell students if the piece is cool enough to pick up bare handed, it's cool enough to weld on. You may need several practice pieces so they can cool between beads. Run one bead on the very bottom of the V and then chip and brush. A power wire wheel helps clean out all the slag. Then you run another bead over this one starting farthest from you. Again clean the weld, and then run the next aimed right at the base of the last weld. The weld should over lap the previous one by 50%. The idea is to have the tops of the welds almost even with each other. If you don't get it right, you can always use the grinder to grind out the bad weld. Try and keep your welds as even as possible. This make subsequent welds easier. If your beads are very bumpy, don't be afraid top grind them down flat. The reason for using angle is that you can get a lot of welds down in a very small amount of material. The tech school supplies the students with an unlimited amount of flat plate ( though we do recycle it to a certain degree by cutting apart joints, more on that later.) This lets you run lots of beads to learn to determine what is slag and what is puddle as well as developing a consistency with your rod angle and travel speed. If you have a large heavy piece of flat plate, you can substitute this for the angle iron. Most people have difficulty locating wide flat plate, but angle iron is easy to find. Once you can continuously do nice welds where the slag peels up on it's own and the overlap is consistent, go back to flat plate and try single beads again. Once you can run consistent beads the full 6" length of the plate, try overlapping the previous bead by 50% but on the plate this time. Once you can consistently do these, you can change rods. Don't forget to cool between beads. Now go back to the beginning and do the same drill again using 7018. With 7018 you can either drag the rod with some brands, with others it helps if you carry a slight arc keeping the end of the rod say 1/8" off the plate. This takes a bit more practice. Again the bead will tell you if you aren't doing it right. If you are correct, the slag will curl right up. I'll cover carrying an arc later in more detail. Get that done, now we change to either 6010 if using DC, or 6011 if running AC. You'll need to drop the amps some, about 75 amps with 3/32, 95 amps with 1/8". Here I usually suggest students do circles. 6010/11 isn't as pretty looking as the other rods and takes a bit more to learn. Some like to start with these rods vs the others, but I find it's easier to get the basics down with the others 1st. The slag on 6010/11 is very different than with 7014/7018. It's thinner and not as hard. If done right it should come off with a light brushing. If you want you can keep doing these drills with other rods like 6013 etc, but 7014, 7018 and 6010/11 usually will cover what most guys need.

If you can find one, Prestolite sells propane plumbers torches already set up for the 20 lb cylinders. You can also change the tip size to control how much heat you get. I used to have propane tips big enough to solder 4" copper, but sold the whole box with all the extras because I usually solder with acetylene. Then wouldn't you know it, I picked up a propane torch for next to nothing at a flea market on a box of other parts... My local welding supply frequently has the import Prestolite knock off on sale. I want to say it runs a bit less than $100. They show up on CL now and then, but most times the ones I see are for acetylene. Oh Propane runs a bit colder than Propylene does. If I remember propylene runs at about 3600 deg F vs 3450 deg F for propane. This means it takes roughly 20 to 25% longer to heat with propane vs propylene everything else being roughly the same.

Your problem may lie in your foundation. The slab my sit on pylons, but the area in between may be under supported. I've jacked out numerous floors and slabs to find the sub base underneath has settled, or in some cases moves due to seasons or moisture. Some soils expand when moist and contract when dry. Freeze/thaw lifts and heaves things, probably not you issue, but temp swings can also make changes. They put expansion joints in concrete floors for reasons. To me a 6" slab is "thin". 6" is the minimum we used to pour for residential driveways. On poor subsoil or when heavy traffic was expected, we'd go no less than 8". My driveway sits on 36" of crushed stone and then had 8" of 3500 PSI concrete with a mat of #4 on 12" centers and #4 4x4 wire mats in it on 2 1/2" chairs.. I've cut out industrial floors more than 18" to 30" thick with double and triple mats of #8's and larger rebar in them. Then you hit the footings... A good test to see if a floor moves is simply to drive something heavy on it. Check certain spots with your laser and mark them for reference. Then load up the forklift and drive over by your reference marks. If they change, guess what your floor moved no matter how tough you think it is. Movement due to moisture in sub soil is harder to determine, same with temperature changes. Usually you need to take a series of readings when conditions are known and compare them to each other. Good luck.

For those that don't have a tig machine with a remote capability, or those who want to do DC tig using a DC stick welder, things are a bit different than what was listed above. Now the only ways you have to control your heat, is by using some "advanced" techniques. You will control heat thru arc length ( distance the tungsten is from the work), travel speed, and how much filler you add and when to cool the puddle. Here filler size begins to matter. A bigger filler will chill the puddle more than a smaller one will, but bigger filler means you add more filler with each dip. You also have to have your amps pretty close to optimum. If anything I tend to err on the low side with amps if I can't use a pedal. You can then slow down to add more heat if needed or increase you arc length some more. Note there's only so much you can do with these methods, so getting close with your amps to start is important. Since we are on this track, anyone with a DC capable stick machine can do basic scratch start tig. All you need is an air cooled tig torch with a gas valve, the regulator and hoses, an argon cylinder, a power block or tweeco connector to fit your machine, and the tig parts to fit the torch. Guys use these systems daily in the field, doing xray quality welds, so it isn't a huge handicap. It is harder to learn at the start however without a pedal. Rough guess would put all the parts less cylinder at maybe $250-300 new, less if you can pick up used stuff. Note that you can often find really good deals on older dedicated tig machines, especially rebadged units. I've seen old Miller 320 and 330 AB/P's selling for $500-900 plus cylinder and I've seen the rebadged ones made for Airco go as low as $200 in working condition. Down side is these things are heavy (almost 900 lbs), huge ( size of a large refrigerator) and want a fair amount of power ( 125 amps 230v to run full out, 50-60 amps230v will get you 1/8").

I didn't see much here on learning basic tig, so I thought I'd post up some material I've done before when asked these sorts of questions. I'll add threads on mig and stick later. If you want specific help with your welds, I'd suggest starting a new thread rather than cluttering this one. A bit 1st about myself. I help teach basic welding in the evening program at one of the local votech schools for the last few years. I'm not an "expert" by any means, but I've been told by several instructors at a couple of schools that I have a real knack for getting across the basics to students. What I'll cover is the way we teach new tig students at the tech school. 1st go on line to Miller and download their tig handbook as well as the manual for your machine. Read thru them and they will answer most of your basic questions on this. Miller used to have a really great free PDF step by step instructional guide to tig welding, but they unfortunately have dropped it from their website. The current link covers some basics on torch angle and so on that's easier to explain in picts vs text. ( If anyone has the old downloaded copy to post let me know. I lost the copy I had on my old computer when it crashed and didn't bother to resave it since I thought it was still up on Millers site) http://www.millerwelds.com/pdf/gtawbook.pdf I'd suggest starting of learning DC tig on mild steel. I know some suggest learning alum right away, but I've found that most students learn the basics faster with steel since it's more forgiving. Heat control on alum is critical and you almost need to make corrections before things get out of hand. With alum, if things start to go bad you usually need to add more heat and go faster, the opposite of what most people want to do. Trying to go faster usually trips up new students and the crash and burn. This frequently frustrates students. I find if students learn the basics on steel and get them down cold, alum isn't too hard to transition to later. The nice thing about steel is if you start to get out of control, you can usually slow down and back off the amps until you have control again, and then continue on. For purposes of this, I'll assume you are using a dedicated tig with a remote pedal to control the amps. If you are using a DC power source with no pedal, the drills are similar, but I'll cover the differences in another post. Get yourself some 1/8" steel ( we use 3" wide 6" long pieces) and grind/sand off the mill scale, both sides preferably. If the steel is oily, you'll also need to wipe it down with acetone ( do not use brake cleaner!) You can skip the grinding if you buy cold rolled rather than hot rolled, but CR is more money. It's usually cheaper to grind. Note a wire wheel will not remove rust or mill scale, only polish it. You need to grind sand to prep. Unlike mig or stick, tig is does not tolerate contaminants well. Clean metal solves many issues students have. Thicker steel tends to give students a false sense of control. Thinner material than say 14 to 16 ga tends to blow holes in it too fast if you can't control the heat. 1/8" is thin enough to soak up excess heat, but thin enough that you can still melt thru if you aren't careful. Get some 3/32" red tungsten. You can also use ceriated ( what Miller packs with new machines) or Lanthanated ( a good all around tungsten for alum and steel/stainless.) Red just tends to be cheap and readily available. Grind your 3/32" tungsten to a pencil point grinding with the wheel, not across it and set the machine at roughly 125 amps on DC, argon at about 15-20 cfh. Extend the tungsten out of the cup (#8 works fine) about 3/8" roughly. This will let you see the arc better. If you have access to a gas lens rather than a standard cup and collet assembly, I'd recommend using one. These allow you to extend the tungsten a bit farther and still maintain good gas coverage. This makes it easy to see the tungsten and helps avoid dipping the tungsten and constantly needing to grinding. Get used to grinding... you'll be doing a lot of it at 1st. 1st drill I usually have students do is to just run beads with no filler on flat plate. Try and get comfortable and set up so you can maintain a consistent arc length and travel speed across the piece. Try and keep the tungsten about 3/16" up from the material as you go. You will be using the pedal to manipulate the amps in this drill. As you run the beads, play with the pedal to get a feel on what happens as you depress the pedal. Make the puddle smaller and larger at will. Remember the plate will heat up and if you don't keep cooling it down, it will act like you are upping the amps. I tell students the pieces are cool enough when you can handle them with your bare hands. A quench bucket and several pieces to work with will allow you to keep practicing without having to wait all day for coupons to cool between beads. When you dip the tungsten in the puddle, STOP. You need to regrind. Orange "dust" around your weld usually is an indicator you dipped and didn't stop to regrind. Next reset the amps to say 90-95 and floor the pedal. In this drill you will now vary either the distance you have the tungsten from the work, or your travel speed ( drill #3 is to vary the one you didn't do in this drill) Get a feel how these changes affect the arc and puddle. Don't worry too much about these right now, the idea is mostly to get you to understand that varying these will change and effect the puddle. For most of the rest of the drills, you'll want to try and maintain as consistent travel speed and arc length as possible and just change your amps with the pedal. Remember to cool your pieces and to regrind when you dip. When doing drills from this point out, it's important to remember to try and keep everything as consistent as possible to limit variables. I usually suggest students rest their torch hand on the table and slide it along as they go to maintain a constant travel speed and arc length. It's critical to do this as much as possible. As you saw with the drills above, changing these things will affect your welds. Trying to limit the variables makes it easier to learn. After these drills, say maybe an hour of "play time", try to run a bead by adding filler. 1/16" filler is a good size to work with using steel. I usually suggest the students start with a lay wire method where they keep the filler in contact with the plate, and bring the puddle to the filler. It's important to remember that you melt the filler with the puddle, not the arc. You can slide the filler along the plate and into and out of the puddle as needed. If your amps are on the low side, some times the filler rod tends to be "sticky" and want to stick to the plate using this method though. Add a few more amps with the pedal if this is the issue. You can also "tap" the filler in like a drum stick or "stab" the filler at the puddle hit the tungsten and foul it. get used to grinding your tungsten and get in the habit of stopping to regrind as soon ale. I usually don't suggest new students stab the filler at the beginning as they usually will constantly you foul the tungsten. Once students can add filler using the lay wire method, I usually suggest they learn to tap in filler, "stabbing" usually requires more eye hand coordination than most new tig students have at this point. You also will want to practice feeding filler with your left hand ( assuming you are right handed). Get yourself a length of filler rod, and practice feeding it thru your hand while wearing your tig glove when you are watching tv to help develop the muscle memory for doing this. New students usually end up running 2 to 3" of bead, then they have to stop and reposition the filler. The idea is to gain the muscle memory so you don't have to do this. Really experienced tig welders can even grab new rods and continue without stopping. Once you can run consistent beads the full 6" length of the plate, try overlapping the previous bead by 50%. Once you can consistently do these, you can move on to lap joints, followed by T joints, outside corners, and finally but joints in that order. On average a student usually only gets thru lap joints in the 48 hr class term. Don't get discouraged, this will take time and gets faster as you move along. Then you go back to the beginning for horizontal joints and start the whole process all over again with beads on flat plate... Then the same thing for vertical followed by overhead. After all of this, you can move to thinner material and start all over again with say 1/16" and then finally start on round tube. Note these drills while boring, are very critical to learning to do this right. I see a lot of people who want to stop and skip to chapter 20. Then they wonder why they constantly have issues. Problem is they never learned the basics. One other thing. Because tig allows you the most control over the weld, it means that there are a lot of things you will have to manage all at once and keep the same to get good results. Best way to learn is to take a class so that someone can watch as you weld and pick up on many of these small changes that you are not aware of. There's only so much that can be done with picts. It's much easier to pick out a lot of this stuff if someone is watching you though. When you sit down and add up what it would cost you in gas, rod, electricity and materials, not to mention instruction, a class is usually stupid cheap. Around me a class averages about $10-15 per hour of class time. One other advantage, most institutions usually have much better equipment than the average student is equipped to start with. This helps remove any issues if the problems you are having are due to the skill of the student, or issues with the machine. I'm sure I've left out a ton of things, but this should get us started for now. Good luck.

Thanks.

Cool. I'm looking forward to seeing you hopefully next weekend in Lambertville.

That's cool you found it again.

LOL! Good one Frosty. I wouldn't worry too much about how much he eats, I'd worry more about how much beer he drinks. Honestly you need to set your priorities straight. I've seen quite a few "poor college students" who have no trouble springing for plenty of beer. ( probably why they are poor... :D ) Besides how many other college students have a few 200 lb anvils in their dorm rooms? Makes a great door stop. Then again I'm the guy who went to college with a full tool set including power tools and a welder. ( amazing how many friends you make when they find out you have the tools to disassemble and reset the furniture and stuff to cut lumber with to build lofts... :D The college didn't seem to mind the small bandsaw too much, but they did have issues with me planing boards in the studio hallway with the 12" planer for some reason. I think it might have been the noise. :rolleyes: ) 250-300lb Trenton in nice shape would really be tempting. Bit far of a drive though.

Man I wished I'd taken picts of the piles of scrap up at the farm today that they are digging out of the weeds... Glad I went. I reminded them I want dibs on the coal forge when they relocate it if it's still there. I keep wondering how much of the stuff they are pulling out is wrought iron. I'd hate to see that stuff go for scrap. Good thing is most of the old farm stuff they are trying to save to sell. They are mostly junking the newer mowers and stuff her dad used to like to tinker with.

Good for you Thor. It definitely pays to have some one help you learn.

Only reason I can think of would be cost. You'd probably be better served picking up a nice used one and practicing on that. Less money, and chances are you won't damage an expensive anvil by making mistakes while learning. I will say my forging instructor mentioned in a discussion on anvils that if he had to have just one anvil from his shop, it would probably be his Nimba over the other 8 to 10 anvils they have. If I had the money one would certainly be on my list when my skills improved to that level.

I had a great time. Definitely looking forward to the next meeting. The site I mentioned for checking a bunch of CL adds is Searchtempest.com. Like I said I usually use the term "welder" and then sort the list manually. I'll PM you my cell number, If you see something that interests you and want to run it by me let me know. Like I said you should be able to pick up a basic AC unit for between $50-150 and I've seen AC/DC units as cheap as $250 on occasion, though $350-500 is closer to the average. If you need pointers on learning stick. mig or tig, just let me know.

Hey Steve. I know you mentioned your screen name to me Saturday but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. It was good to meet you and put a face to a name on here. I'm looking forward to seeing you again in September hopefully at the next meeting. Take care, Doug.

I use a variety of things for shorts. 5 gallon buckets, short lengths of 4" or larger diameter pipe and I've also got a rack that originally was designed to hold short concrete pins. I'll try to see if i have a pict of the bin on the other computer. I try to use pipe as much as possible for lengths between 18"-36". 4" PVC is easy to find but somewhat limiting. Given a choice I prefer 6" or larger green SDR pipe. You can often find shorts of this when guys are doing commercial construction. They frequently use 6-8" PVC or SDR for the connections to building downspouts. Ask the job foreman or check their dumpster. I managed to pick up 2 or 3 full lengths at the end of one job. They were cleaning the jobsite and all the leftover pipe and shorts went in the dumpster after they cut them up to get them to fit better. Anything shorter than 18" seems to work best in buckets. I have a bunch of square 4 1/2 gal buckets we used to get concrete color in. These take up the least amount of space, but the handles aren't very strong so you can't pick them up even 1/2 full. The round 5 gallon buckets are stronger, but take up more space. I use these where I keep scrap tucked under a bench and need to drag out the buckets to sort thru them. Anything longer than 36" gets either stood vertically between the studs of the wall and strapped in place, or laid horizontally on a wall rack. I like the double slot adjustable shelf standards Clossetmaid sells. Attached solidly to block or studs they hold a ton of weight. You can either lay the material right on the brackets, or lay 2x's on the brackets as shelves and lay the stock on that. The shelf brackets and standars aren't cheap, but they are fast and easy to set up and you can easily adjust them to reconfigure them when needed.