Chinobi

in my experience pickeling (i use sparex) will leave you with a somewhat satin surface that is a sort of reddish pink, the acid is eating away the oxides in the surface of the metal, leaving a porous, grainy surface (through my 10x loupe anyway). you will always have to polish the surface afterwards to get it to be shiny (mirrored). the little twisted copper sculpture in post #15 of this thread was plenty oxidized from multiple annealings, and picked for probably way too long (cold pickle is a lot less efficient than warm pickle), low quality pic but you can see its far from shiny. http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/28672-jewelry-anyone/

spoke to one of my co-workers today who is an accomplished welder/fabricator, going to get him to help me build a stand for that beauty that will be portable and collapsible :) all my april weekends are spoken for though, so best case we start work in may, unless we can meet up after work on some weekdays.

cool, thank you Frank, now to see if i can drum up some tangible evidence of its previous owners... :ph34r:

the beavertail is a custom job by the guy i bought it from, he replaced the original wishbone. i am curious as to the actual age of the vise though, if the history that was provided to me can be trusted, the vise was originally outfitted in the Gould Ranch, a Greene and Greene architects landmark in Ventura built in the early 1920's. still trying to chase down some kind of tangible proof of this claim. if that is indeed accurate it would be pretty exciting because i live (literally, no exaggeration) two blocks from that site :) and no, the seller had no prior knowledge of who i was or where i live, so it wasnt a tailored pile of BS, regular BS is still on the menu though. but also if it was installed in a 1920's residence its manufacture date would pre-date the Iron City merger. i cant find anything with a cursory googling for the merger of the two or warren tools itself, do you know if warren tools made vises prior to the acquisition of Iron City?

Thanks Thomas, i have some friends that operate on the same economy, so that shouldnt be too difficult to source if it comes down to it. :) ill see how it handles with the screw as is, if it becomes problematic then ill need to figure something out =/

the decision to cast vs forge will be entirely dependent on the end product, you cant blanket state one is easier or better than the other without the context of the item in question. sorry i cant be more specific =/

unfortunately you are gonna have to be waaaay more specific :) what are you making, what is it for, what kind of metal, what kind, if any, of loads will it be subjected to?

My apologies Juddson, i had no intention of coming off as nitpicking. Pulse provided a well thought out and detailed proposal of his plan, and asked for our opinions and ideas and why we thought that way. to which i have responded in kind, with my comments on his proposal and the reasons why i think that way. i know i would appreciate a detailed answer more than a simple yes or no when the question was posed to brainstorm.

am i the only one that is seeing concentric rings on the two circular studs that retain the backwards C shaped bracket, and possibly on the circular knob/studs on the left too? that keeps jumping out at me as machining tell-tales, but i probably wouldnt know any better :) beautiful piece though, love the work on the key!

i have seen similar restrictions based on how long someone has been a member, a sort of 'probationary period' to keep people from spamming and make sure that the user is actually serious about joining. come to think of it, that might help incentivize people to read through some of the stickies before they lead in with 'halp i needz anvil!' :) (and yes i just doublechecked to make sure i didnt do that myself :ph34r: )

I left myself unvoted, because i didnt see an option for where i felt most comfortable, which would be 'i am infavor of monetarily supporting the site, but i dont like the idea of stratifying the environment'. I have bought IFI shirts, and i will probably pick up more in the future, but im not a fan of status based content. i think if anything a VIP concept should be geared towards physical stuff. support the site with a donation, get a little badge that says supporter or VIP or what have you, and recieve a handful of unique swag comensurate to the level of donation. the whole concept of the site that i have seen and have been led to believe is an atmosphere of open communication and sharing of ideas and information, which a special members only section may hamper. to me it seems that adding a roped off section of the forum only for VIP's will discourage new members or members that cannot field the capital to buy their rank. they may perceive the VIP section as the established community trying to keep out the new folks, or keeping all the 'trade secrets' there, or otherwise as a platform of exclusion. i have been in the 'cheap seats' on many forums in the past, its not the same experience and i did not stay long. as to the other perks as prototyped, necking down the resources (file size, number of photos, etc) feels to me like a disincentive to participation, as it would make it that much more difficult for a new smith to post photos of their kit and setup for critique and advice if they are hamstrung by the number of photos they can post. makes it kind of hard to post pics of projects for advice and questions as well. i will specifically exclude special avatar perks and other non-obnoxious profile asthetics type incentives because that is more along the lines of upgrading your appearance/experience than changing access to available information and is the kind of perk that goes well with wanting to support something you appreciate. however increaseing avatar size may make load times painful for members on slow connections. special online options and sections for VIP status may also incur expanded O&M costs, which could make the cost of upgrading the system prohibitive, or require some minimum number of subscribers before it breaks even. there may also be some tax ramifications requiring the establishment of a non-profit if we were to offer scholarships or otherwise funnel donations to causes outside the site or to individual members (im not an accountant, just musing) TLDR: i think the VIP experience should be limited to the aforementioned cool bumper sticker, or keychain/hat/special edition T-shirt, and some kind of 'power member' or 'VIP/supporter' tag stacked somewhere with the username, avatar, member status etc, rather than significant special privilages within the forums. we want a system like the public library, give name and basic contact info to get your black and gold card(in california at any rate) and access to the nations supply of literature and knowledge, not like a newspaper website where you can only read the executive summary and need to sign up with $$ to see the full article. edit: couple of tweaks for de-railed train of thought.

Mac, i see from your workshop thread that it looks like the floor is wood, or at least looks like it. Is the shed part of the rental or is that something of yours that you can adjust to taste? I ask because my suggestion if you want something that is portable, yet wont move around when it is in use, you could fix some anchor points into that wood floor (find the supporting members) and bolt your portable mount down when its inside the shop. If you dont want to put large-ish holes in the floor you could screw some 2x4 chunks to the decking with countersunk bolts pointing up through it and mount onto those. The blocks can be unscrewed when you leave and will leave minimal holes in the floor, readily patchable with just about any wood filler compound.

Thanks :) i had a couple of smiths at the forge take a look at it and they agreed it was serviceable and an easy fix if it came down to it. looking forward to getting it mounted and in service! :D actually relative to similar 5" vices that they had purchased or seen $140 is doing pretty good for our region too :)

forged artillery shells would make for an entertaining demo for sure :) looks like a pile of almost 100 future hammers waiting to be discovered! some might even have the eye pre-punched too!

Hey all, came across a guy that was selling a variety of tools in my city, one of which was a Quikwerk 5" post vise. I ended up paying $140 for it. The thing i am kicking myself for now is that i didnt pay close enough attention to the body when i was checking it out, and it wasnt until i got home that i noticed that it is cracked! it will likely never be used for anything very large, and will not be subjected to a lot of heavy hitting. is something like this repairable if i grind the crack out and weld it back up? or more specifically *have* it welded back up, as i have zero experience with electric welding. can it be used safely without repair if i keep an eye on it? did i just buy an industrial sized paperweight? the threads are also worn and i will likely have to fix or replace the spring too :unsure: the only marking i saw on it was the manufacturers stamp. specs: Quikwerk 5" jaw mfg by warren tool & forge 40" jaw to end of post 60 lb Thank you for your input!

hit up Adam's Forge in griffith park, reasonably priced blacksmithing school with very friendly staff and good equipment, i had the same question about 6 months ago and was given the same recommendation (thanks again SoCalDave) and i am very glad i went there. how long are you here? by their typical schedule they should be having an open forge day saturday the 13th in the afternoon and every tuesday evening but without you having taken a discovery day intro class (required for open forge and special classes, kind of like their 101 level so they know you know to hold the wooden end of the hammer) they might not let you attend open forge. their next discovery day is the 14th so depending on your schedule that may or may not work. however if you talk to Nancy (email addy is at the top of the classes page) and you can proove your chops they may let you walk in without having attended their intro, but i cant make any promises so dont assume anything. http://adamsforge.com/Adams_Forge/Classes.html im planning to try and be there on the 14th myself, ill try and remember to fly the IFI colors when i go :) definitely contact them though, or if you are up for a drive check out Vista down towards san diego.

could, itd be way too low though, stump is on its way to the can though as soon as i can find some good scrap lumber to make a built up stand with, might be amusing to get a 4x4 and stand it vertically with just that little dolly on top :)

close, see attached photo below for what i was referring to (really quick and dirty, just to show the relative placement of the horizontal and vertical members) you could/should probably keep your triangular feet on both sides of the verticals, or at the very least put something down, like an L bracket or something, opposite the triangular foot so you still have support there and gives you a place to mount the post for your vice. mount your casters as close to the floor as you can without them touching so you only have to jack the far end up a very small amount to enable rolling, and spread them (im assuming you are using two) as wide as you can to give it a more stable base when rolling. with two vices on it it will probably be getting pretty top heavy, to say nothing of all the iron in your racks. id keep the vices perpendicular to each other as well, rather than lining both of them up with jaws parallel to the racks, that way you have one lined up in each axis, no sense duplicating what you already have. set one on the side by the trailer jack because the jack will interfere with the vice's post, and set the other up on the far end so the post threads between the casters, or terminates on another L bracket on the far end, to which you can also mount the casters. the intent is to have one solid continuous member running the length of the whole thing on the bottom, and then attach your verticals to the top of the horizontal, that way your casters and jack are fixed to one piece (though i dunno what the mounting height of your jack will be), rather than two separate pieces connected by a third. edit: image shows as attached within the editor, but its not coming up in the post, probably related to all the technical stuff they are ironing out at the moment edit2: nevermind, there it is :)

if you change up the design at the bottom so the sleeper along the floor runs the entire length and the verticals butt in on top of it you can attach your casters and trailer jack directly to that horizontal beam and the upper sections will only have to deal with the load from the vices and your equipment being a handful of degrees off vertical, otherwise, yea it might be a concern that the entire box frame might be taking too much stress at the corners. you could also go for a triangular design, which would help fight having a 'short' dimension and could reduce the tendency of the whole thing to flip if you do as Thomas says and work a long bar like a lever. or instead of mounting both vices on the ends facing away from each other, take one and rotate it 90 and put it on one of the long sides, so the jaws are parellel to the length of the rack, this will also help resist the whole thing overturning if you need to generate some leverage.

im surprised nobody has chimed in on this one yet, my initial thought was to buy a standalone lense filter from a camera shop for as small a lense as you can find (assuming you are using a small point and shoot, or other camera with a relatively small lense) and set it up on some kind of third hand stand so your camera will be 'looking' through it. however filters of that type are considerably more expensive than i remembered, making it less appetizing an option. what kind of camera are you running right now Dan? do you have the option to screw with the white balance and ISO settings to try and tune your footage? might be worth checking with Brian Brazeal and Alec.S, if memory serves the videos they have shared seem to have good definition of hot metal and background without one clobbering the other for exposure.

yea i avoid melting pennies past 1981 (mid 1982 is listed as the switching point from 95% copper to copper plated zinc) so that makes it simpler than trying to weigh the '82 wildcards and figure out which is which.

could lay another sleeper between the feet as a lower support and to make it more rigid, so long as your tool racks are similarly rigid you shouldnt run into problems with it racking if you lift one end. too bad you cant run a cross brace between the two tong racks to stiffen it up, that would be ideal but you would lose half the rack space between the two spars, you can use the cross brace as a single rack for most of its length. as for mobility, the easiest would be just to keep some furniture dolleys handy and lever each side onto a dolley then just push it to wherever you want and drop it off. beyond that you can design any number of systems to keep wheels mounted and either have them only touching the ground when you lift on side, or lower them with a nut or some other system. one method i have put some thought into for a temporary mobility system is to drill yourself a hole (or cut a notch in the bottom) to accept an axle and make the wheels and axle be removable, just wedge up that side, mount the wheels, drop the wedge and boogie. were it my rack i would consider relocating the hardie rack so i wouldnt have to bend down to almost ground level and navigate a curtain of tong reins every time i wanted to get at a hardie tool or replace it. maybe set your tong racks down a little farther and center the hardie rack above it with enough clearance to let you get at tools on the inside rail without much interference. Good luck!

Francis, that certainly would be easier to neck down a piece of pipe to fit the hardie than the solid shank, id rather have the flat of the football be able to rest on the face of the anvil though, better supported that way. Neg, i cant field a proper post vice yet (dont have one, and no place to mount it!) so best i have in the vice dept is a little 13lb machinists bench vice. i have used it in that vice before, but i want to get some more mass beneath it. and i have definitely been waffling on if i want to keep the top as is, try to forge half of it down to flat (dunno how good an idea that is, but the resulting hybrid would be superbly useful), and forging the entire top flat. i might be able to swing by the larger harbor freight south of me this weekend, maybe they have one squirreled away in the back =/

im confused Av, you say you want to avoid having to pre-plan future equipment emplacements, yet you are actively chasing down ways to permanently install fixed anchor points at fixed locations and spacings to bolt down your gear well in advance of actually placing that gear. that seems like more preplanning(to say nothing of material and installation costs) than providing whole sections of floor with no pex that can be drilled at will, and asking the contractor to provide a detailed as-built drawing of the layout, and leaving yourself some visual markers on the surface. plus you leave yourself open to that network of anchors not fitting what you want to bolt down in the future unless you comit to building a mount for each one. that said, i spoke with one of my co-workers who recommended looking at using Nelson Studs welded to the bottom of a thick enough plate set flush into the surface of the concrete, and then you can weld your mounts onto that and grind them off if you have to. gives you more flexibility with your actual attachment points than the fixed anchors because you are not constrained to a single point. http://www.nelsonstud.com/Portal/Portals/0/pdf/h4l.pdf

not really, i posess a sack of spare aluminum coinage, i do not have another 50 sacks of zinc to get up to the 96% zinc 4% al levels =/ plus no way im alloying and casting zinc in a residential setting. thanks though.