thingmaker3

Couldn't you just forge a couple one-offs of any old 1/4" 4140 and measure them before & after?

The carbon percentage specified is a maximum allowed value: 0.03 or less for 316L and 0.08 or less for 316. So 316L also counts as 316. Only advantage for the lower carbon is comes welding the stuff.

Type "sketchup" into Google. Enjoy.

"Art is what artists do." - Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland. These guys say "art" is a verb. Everybody arts, some of us just art better than others on a regular basis. (Personally, I think some art stinks.) "Art is anything you can get away with." - The Medium Is The Massage by Marshall Mcluhan. This guy was a philosopher. I've not made up my mind on philosophers. Andy Warhol thought he was right. I've not made up my mind on Andy Warhol either. I've been told by educated folk that we have to ask "what is beauty." So I read a few papers by the folk who stick your head in a big magnetic donut & take pictures of your brain while you look at pictures. Their scientifically demonstrable observation is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. (Most of us overlap. Study any culture's art to find the overlaps. Or you could go with what David Hume wrote in Of The Standard Of Taste - that good taste is something we can acquire through practice.) I've been told that art should have "emotion." I asked my wife (who has a doctorate degree in shrinking heads) what "emotion" is. She passed me a copy of Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life by Dacher Keltner. Best summary I can give is that emotions are our reactions to things. (How's that for insight?) What I want to know is: What is the definition of "definition?"

I just went and looked up the word "cheating" in a couple different places. None of the definitions I found apply here. But then I've got 5 tongs made from 10 plasma cut blanks I bought online, so my opinion may be biased.

I really like the 16" OCP chainmaker tongs for 1/2" round or square. They light to handle but grip very well.

A buddy of mine used to make a few pounds of steel at a time using the thermit reaction. He called it "Oregon Hagane." Please research and exercise all appropriate precautions. This stuff is xxxxxxx dangerous compared to what we normally do here.

Where do I go to pay for my copy of said book, Mr. Turley?

I will NOT retract that beer! I need it to maintain my athletic profile! What? Sneer not beer? Oh. Never mind. I took some yoga classes a couple decades back. I found I had an increased awareness of my own muscles and skeleton as a result. When folk say "listen to your body" they really mean we should have body awareness - feel how our muscles move and whether they are straining. BillyO says tai chi works just as good as yoga for this.

Okay: Fun & whimsical but with no authenticity... Dwarven counter-blow hammer at the beginning of the The Hobbit. Orcs cold-forging an edge on their bronze machetes in The Two Towers. Totosai adjusting a sword in InuYasha. (Totosai is a fire-breathing demon blacksmith.) Ged & his father in Earthsea. (Just in the movie - in the book Ged was a goat-herder, not a smith.) Buster Keaton in The Blacksmith. And of course that Disney thing with Orlando Bloom & whats-his-name fighting in a 1700s industrial smithy.

What you want is called "yield strength." 5160 quenched in oil and tempered at 500F for an hour or two will greatly exceed your requirements. You can usually get 5160 remnants from places that replace springs on vehicles.

Actually, there was a big study commissioned by a couple of the big name general contractors a while back. They were trying to reduce insurance costs by reducing sprain and strain injuries. They hired some heavy duty medical geniuses to look into the affair. The finding? Construction workers were suffering the identical strain and sprain injuries once common among athletes. The solution? Stretching out before working. They even coined the term "industrial athlete." Ha! Athletes with beer guts!

The folk who make movies don't care about "authentic." Their job is to entertain. They try to tell a story in an interesting way. They NEVER EVER let something as irrelevant as "fact" get in their way. I can rattle off several titles containing fun or whimsical smithing bits, but not a one that is authentic.

Quite right. Thank you for de-typo-ing.

Sodium chloride boils at higher temperatures than we use. When it boils it makes sodium chloride gas, not chlorine and sodium. You need electrolysis to make sodium gas with salt-water. Heating won't do it anymore than heating water would make oxygen and hydrogen. That said, extremely hot molten liquid salt is still a potential hazard. Get moisture or oil in it and you've got a makeshift cannon.

Dice. Ice cream scoops. Doggie barriers. "Portable holes" Beverage holder to stick in the ground by one's lawn chair. Tent stakes. Special wrench needed to service a sixty-year-old fire alarm system component with an obsolete proprietary tamper-resistant cover. (Sort of an inside-out screwdriver. Sort of.) Stove pipe brackets. Other stuff, both practical and nifty.

My 1990 Ford Ranger has just over 300,000 miles on it. A little preventative maintenance goes a long long long way. :) :) :)

In retrospect, my choice of metaphor was inadequate social judgement. I apologize for not expressing my frustration more permissibly.

You might want to look into the master-apprentice relationship. No master would ever let this kind of "misunderstanding" occur. Also, if the bars are so bad, why didn't they bust when being loaded?

This sucker works pretty well: http://www.incandescent-iron.com/dakatoho.html

Thanks anyway, Frosty. I'll just have to see what I can dig up on my own.

Try hardening from a much higher temperature. Black won't do it. If you are using a low alloy hypoeutectoid steel, it will become nonmagnetic about 50F below the critical temperature. Go read the stickies to learn why "critical" is critical. http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/25247-heat-treat-information/

7" dia by 10" long would be just shy of 400 cu in. Go for it. What have you got to loose?

What the heck. I've got enforced down-time. May as well spend some composing exposition. YOUR experience is with high alloy steels. (Said so yourself. Said "A2.") YOUR experience is with much greater amounts of retained austenite than OTHERS might have when using the lower alloy steels. A2, D2, and other high-alloy steels have much lower martensite finish temperatures and much greater degree of retained austenite than simple steels. The extra cold after the initial quench (call it an "extended quench" or "tempering" or call it "Bob.") converts this retained austenite to more martensite. Very little improvement with low alloy steels. Lots of improvement with high alloys steels. For more education on the effects of alloying elements in steel, their effect on the eutectoid, Ms, and Mf, as well as "what cold does to steel," read George Krauss' Principles of Heat Treatment of Steels. What's that I hear? Horses drowning? Oops. Now this is a new one to me. I'd like to learn more about this. Frosty, Can you steer me toward any articles or books? I am, of course, familiar with recrystallization due to nucleation on heating to Ac, but had not before learned of this crushing effect. Sounds interesting!

The notion of steels with less than 0.6% carbon "not getting hard" is one of the won't-die blacksmith myths. Kerry gets it. Read his post carefully. He knows what he's talking about. Don't forget to agitate your oil. Oh, and for "sealing" try an epoxy based enamel. "Sealing" is for keeping out rust! "Heat treating" is for altering material properties. :)