Chinobi

ok so i will suggest this after all, you are already halfway there. if you want wall to wall pex, and the freedom to mount hardware on a whim without too much prior planning you can take your equipment footing boxes and establish a standard size, then when you pour the slab you can cast some kind of anchoring system directly into the slab. if you set your anchors on a grid that mates with the standard size box you use for the footings then you can put your mounted devices wherever you want, in increments of 1 foot or whatever. ill leave it to you to figure out how to detail the anchors, but before you dismiss it as a field of trip hazards my mental image is of an L anchor bolt set so the top is below flush inside a 2-4" diameter hole that can be plugged flush with a pipe end cap or something similar. even a little better (though i dont know offhand of a product like this personally) would be a nut on some kind of anchor shaft and set flush or just below flush with the top of slab. this lets you screw something temporary into it to prevent it from filling up with scale and other debris, and then install your equipment by bolting down into the floor. look up simpson strong ties (www.strongtie.com) and give one of their reps a call, they may be able to refine your search a bit more or direct you to a concept that will be more in line with your needs, their 'blue banger hanger' was the closest i could find in a quick search, but it is intended for the underside of concrete roof decks to mount plumbing and the like. take a look also at their short drop in mechanical anchors, they are intended to be shallow enough to not clip rebar, so the pex should be safe, but i didnt check their load ratings. im sorry, i ramble. forget installing anything for equipment smaller than a power hammer. do it like a portable crane's counterweight; stacking sections. incorporate a heavy solid base plate in your equipment mounts and then stack it up with plates or bricks or whatever is handy to build up the total weight from smaller more manageable weights.

heat + steel + atmospheric oxygen will still generate scale, just depends on the rate. dont think that the smaller handheld torch wont cause it, its just slower and more localized. get a wire brush if you dont have it, shame to see so much effort go into a breastplate and then have to spend more time sanding out scale texture that got hammered in :( definitely want to see some shots of the stuff you are putting together, sounds pretty interesting :)

Thank you Frosty! thats maddeningly counterintuitive, so very good to know! ill add a fine arkansas stone to my list of stuff to aquire as well, only proper sharpening stone i have is a coarse/fine (325/750 grit) Smith's DCS4, and i dont think that will do well for a drill bit. then again, at the rate they have been shredding themselves sharpening was never an issue! :D

in a real SHTF kind of failure (requiring of course that you are present for it) you could drain a properly sloped system and recharge it when conditions improve.

thank you for your words of caution Rich its a 55lb ASO, and i will likely be fielding a single brick forge, or at the most a 4-6 brick enclosure forge fueled by a propane plumbing torch. 'serious business' is going to be 1/2" stock, if that. if i do end up needing to work on something heavier that needs to be done at home i plan to make the shank fit in all directions so i can rotate the longer end to lap over on top of the main body of the anvil. the hardy is laid out so the waist side edge is only about 3/4" offset from the waist of the anvil, so there will be overlap onto the side of the sweet spot, nothing to write home about, but present. edited to add pic: glad you called that to my attention rich, its a little less overlap than my minds eye was giving it credit for, but still there is some. and this is going to be a pretty light duty setup.

thanks doc, its still got the lip on the tail end of the shank where they didnt trim it and it looks pretty uniform. i just took my ball pein to it and with moderate strikes (didnt want to really whack it hard) the dolly really didnt care. it left a little circular mark but no meaningful dents i figured sparks are sparks as well so i used a little grinding wheel in my crafstman rotary tool (15,000RPM on the edge of a 3/4" diameter wheel, if that changes anything) and sparked the dolly, a chisel forged from sucker rod, and a length of mild steel bar stock from lowes. the dolly spark travels and explodes into a little 5-8 streak starburst, much like i have seen higher carbon steels spark. the sucker rod chisel spark looks very similar to the dolly, same starburst, roughly the same magnitude. the mild steel spark had very little secondary splitting, if at all. so if thats exemplary of anything, theres more carbon than mild, or something else in the alloy that mimics carbon sparks. didnt have enough hands to take pics, and apparently spark testing is a touchy subject around these parts to start with, so no loss :) i was thinking if it ends up still being too difficult to judge with any amount of certainty beforehand i could cut off a bit of the shank tip on the band saw and just see if i can forge it before i commit to forging the entire thing.

no problem mike, i just want to make sure there is enough salt applied to my recommendations :) im still pretty new here myself so you would not be hurting your cause if you stall until some of the more seasoned members can add their thoughts. check with where ever you end up buying the torch kit from and see what their return policy is, that way if you mind out that it isnt working for you, you are not out the 40 something bucks for the torch (you may have to eat the propane tank though). do you have any friends, associates, or coworkers that are 'handy' and may have a torch already that you can borrow to test? make sure if you end up working it at black heat that you dont forget its hot :) good luck!

thanks for the lesson frosty! looking forward to the sharpening class :) with regard to matching your RPM to the task/tools/materials at hand, if you are not so blessed to have a drill press with a robust transmission or speed control, is it better to round up or down to the next nearest RPM setting? my HF 8" press just has a 6 tiered ratio transmission, so i can only get so close to the prescribed RPM setting.

@Glenn: some misguided notion of trying to conserve whatever mass i could on it, and be able to recycle the cut off handle as a secondary tool without a lot of waste. if i just grind to fit as it ill still have to cut off a good inch and a half or so of the end to keep it from bottoming out on the anvil foot. plus if its forgeable then i can reshape the top to taste. but if it isnt then ill just have to eat it and grind away, maybe grind the leftover end to be some other shape, though shorter. @Jim: ill thump it with my ball pein when i get home, wasnt expecting too terribly much from HF, but at 4.99 its worth the learning experience. Thanks both of you.

not an expert by any means, but look at the back end of the vice, opposite the turning handle, that whole bar should be a hollow section, i can kinda see the opening of the channel in the bottom from your first pic. inside there should be the screw and a nut on some kind of mounting, that screw is what has come out of the nut and probably sagged down and cannot re-engage with the nut to allow the vice to close again. get a screw driver in there to lift it up or a finger, or hold the vice vertically or whatever it takes to get the screw to re-engage the nut. Thats how my bench vice works (i dont have a columbian, but its the same basic configuration) and iv dislocated that screw a few times now. however, if what you wrote means that your dad knows that a part has physically fallen out and he cannot find it, then you may just be outa luck =/

what about a weed burner? it sounds like you want to make a fixed vertical flame thrower with a bit of a refractory underneath it. put your fabrication effort into some kind of moveable third-hand stand and blast it with the weed burner. might be a little dramatic for a dense community like an apartment complex though. for what it sounds like you are trying to accomplish you can probably get away with just a propane bottle, search the site for MAPP (it wont accept 3 letter word searches) and you can find more specifics regarding the temperatures involved, but dull red does not a MAPP torch necessitate. how about a regular plumbers propane torch? if you are planning to heat and move to the next zone anyway you might as well go hand held. i have forged (small stuff) with a bernzomatic TS4000T on a propane bottle holding the piece freehand and laid on a firebrick with no enclosure, so it will get you there. a BZ8250 will save your elbow some lifting with the remote line. a burner mounted vertically should not be placed underneath an awning or second floor patio, or the dry old oak tree in the backyard etc. waste heat travels upward, point the source upward and it travels faster. how large and awkwardly shaped are the pieces that you are trying to anneal? without a sense of scale its hard to visualize how it needs to go together. have you tested to see if your process of heating an area and moving on to the next zone will allow for a slow enough cool to actually anneal? at any rate, flip through the gas forge section and see what other people have put together, and take a look at the designs at zoellerforge.com and see if something in that vein wont fit your criteria. Good luck!

Thanks for the reply Frosty, heres a shot of the edge/seam i mentioned and of the 'forged' stamp, i dunno if its more indicative of it being drop forged and then trimmed, or sloppily cast and then trimmed. the 'stamp' does actually kind of look cast in.... ill run it past the instructors at Adam's Forge and see what some more experienced eyes can see. if it turns out to be cast and i try to forge it thats probably going to be a disaster of some sort right? id rather not forge out the entire shank to the correct size and trim, if i just forge part and cut that i am left with an already shouldered hardy tool blank on the other piece, or at least thats how it works in my mind....

Kurgan thank you for posing this question and everybody else thank you for the replies, i have googled this topic a few times myself because i am notorious for breaking my little drill bits (materials vary from sterling, to brass, to mild steel, bits come from HF, micromark.com, or elsewhere. hard to find good quality drill bits that are really small). looking at the replies i can see that i am running my drill press glacially slow relative to the size of the bit, but it seems counter intuitive to run it really fast with drill bits that are so tiny (0.04"-0.1" diameter, give or take). but i will take a look through those charts and see if i can find a guideline, or just extrapolate a bit and test it out.

Not to long ago i picked up an 'auto body half-football dolly with grip' from a harbor freight parking lot sale ($4.99!) i bought it with the intent to use it as a bottom fuller/psuedo horn becaues the horn on my little ASO is pretty flat on top, like a round edged triangle. trouble is the blasted grip is far too large to fit the 1" hardie :( ideally i would like to reforge (handled top fuller over the horn and a striker) the shank to bring it down to about 1" square, or at least close enough to where a massage from the belt grinder will finish it up without wasting too much material. i cant forge the entire shank (around 5" long) to be 1" because the increase in length will bottom it out against the foot of the anvil beneath the heel. that being the case id like to only forge the top end of the grip until i get about 2-3" of 1" square and the remainder of the grip still at the full size beyond that. at that point i would cut the 1" square part in half, leaving me with the football on about 1.5" of 1" square shank, and the remainder of the grip also on about 1.5" of 1" square shank. then it becomes a matter of deciding what kind of tool i want to make out of the grip remainder, be it a hot cut or who knows what. i could also forge the football flat on top, basically turning it into a hardie anvil block, which will give me a more solid surface to work on, and probably a more reliable set of edges as well. the grip remainder could be bent over and forged into a hardie bick too. has anyone worked with one of these, or similar products from HF? do they have a propensity towards using particular steels for particular tools? i should have sparked tested it the last time i was at the belt grinder but i didnt think about it. hardening questions will wait until i have something more than a W.A.G. as to the composition, but they are still there :ph34r: or am i just being stupid and should shape the shank on the belt grinder, cut it off on the band saw, keep the football as is, and maybe take a shot at reforging the grip remainder? to make matters more irritating, this is aparently a discontinued item that they were clearing out in the parking lot sale, so i cant buy more as a hedge against failure, or a platform for lessons learned, or to repeat if successful :angry: i appreciate any input you may have! this is it its about 5.5 pounds of who-knows-exactly-what, black paint on the underside which will need to be stripped. the other side of the grip has FORGED stamped into it, and theres a very pronounced shear/grind/saw looking seam line running the length of the whole thing. minor edits for clarity and skipped words.

not to worry, anything i cast will be pretty small, and would not be a strucutral part of something meaningful. the most demanding application might be structure for some kind of spring powered device (hand held) or just as little fob-y kind of things, or chess pieces. things of that nature. not looking around for more either. we had a tennant that used to use the 5 Fen coins in our coin-op washing machines (insert child friendly explitives here), so i have a bag of them that we accumulated over 2 or 3 years. they are almost identical in dimension to a US quarter :( so seeing as i have a pile of this largely useless material i figured i could press it into service as a raw material.

what if you ever had to move it? or sell it? Av, thats the beauty of the buffer zone, you only have to plan so far ahead as to say 'no pipes within 6 feet of the walls', then you can drill with impunity within that zone, just dont stray outside of it. i had thought about recommending putting some kind of protection over the tubes, angle iron as you also proposed, or a piece of flat steel, or coloring the concrete directly above the pipes so the drill cuttings will show that you are about to hit pipe before you get there. but that will add another item to your budget that can be avoided. edit: pricing can vary widely by location when it comes to construction, you would be better served contacting a local contractor who performs this kind of work and asking them for a rough quote. they may be able to settle some of your questions as well.

if there is pressure in the line the water will make itself evident, if it was dry you will find out the next time you charge the system. if you see bits of not concrete/aggregate in the cuttings that would be a pretty good indicator as well. i cant speak for repairing something embedded within the slab itself, but i have repaired copper water line breaks underneath the slab, which involves breaking up a large enough pothole to gain access to enough pipe to replace the damaged section, replacing said pipe, then backfilling with an appropriate material and concreting up the hole. regular water lines can be leak tested by capping the system with a pressure gauge and pumping it up to a set pressure and leaving it there for a predetermined time(might have to start the clock after the pipes have expanded and come to equilibrium), then check the gauge and see if it has dropped, indicating that water is escaping somewhere. talk to the contractor and make sure there is a provision in your contract for testing of the finished system if it is not included. if you plan your space out in advance you should be able to completely avoid the areas with plumbing during future equipment additions. keep a very detailed set of as-builts of the locations and dont be afraid to leave yourself permanent markers as to where the pipes are. could be something as simple as a chipped mark in the concrete at the perimeter walls or a nail in the baseboard. something you can match up to the other side of the workspace and snap a chalkline between to give yourself a clear view of the 'no drill' zones to prevent disorientation. as you say you are concerned about the perimeter of the workspace being the most likely candidate for bolted down equipment, find out just how large a footprint the hardware on your wishlist will have and leave yourself a buffer from the edge of the concrete that will be large enough to fit said hardware in, and do not place the pex within that buffer. depending on your budget and just how foolproof you want to make it you could go so far as to place colored concrete, some kind of surface finish (color, or texture), or even just spraypaint some other visual markers to denote plumbed areas. reducing the square footage of floor that is plumbed should also knock down the cost of the system, less materials required, less man hours needed to install, etc.

Thanks Tom, that makes sense. I wonder if its close 'nuff to be workable though. i gotta get a few more crucibles and check it out.

Ted i am intrigued by this idea, can you post a picture of your hot box and how you use it in a gas forge? or more specifically, what is the configuration of the gas forge that you have used it in? i kind of like the idea of utilizing the hot box as a sort of cookie sheet in a gas forge, with a handle or a lug welded onto one end so it can be slid in and out of the forge to retrieve and deposit the workpieces. otherwise i think im missing the advantage of the containment system in a gas forge.

Hey Avadon, We had a pretty good discussion about heated concrete floors and layout WRT future heavy machinery penetrations a few months ago, flip through this thread if you havnt already. http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/29684-floors/ to respond directly to your question though, i agree with bob: prior planing. make good and sure you know exactly where those pipes are, and leave yourself some spots ahead of time where you can cut the entire section out if you plan to install a power hammer.

personally i love the colors you can develop on copper, and even just bright copper itself. My few pennies would go towards making the flower from copper, which would give it a more natural color than steel or even brassed steel. My second penny would go towards the relative hardness of the petal vs the earrings. (i originally read your plan as having the earrings hanging from petals, this might make less sense in the correct context...) steel will scratch sterling fairly readily, while copper is much gentler. you could also have the flower itself be on a bearing so it could be rotated (but again, if nothing is hung from the flower itself, nothing gained) that sounds like a lovely project! i hope it turns out well and you spoil us with photos :) Good luck!

love the Uruk-Hai letter opener dude! gonna have to take a stab at something similar meself one of these days :)

agreed, bang up job on the tongs, but i have to ask, how long are your arms? could just be the cropping making them look infinite, but the reins look like you could use them to grab things from across the room :)

thanks, yea the yellow cast is definitely from the lighting. in person they all look like plain aluminum. i didnt exhaustively check but i saw a lot of 1980's and 1990's dates when i was fanning through them.

Hey all, I dont have anything specific projects in mind at this time, but i wanted to bounce this off the collective to see if it was worthwhile to maintain as a raw material, or if it is not worth the effort. i have a sack of Chinese 5 Fen coins, probably about 250-300 of them, that according to my world coinage book and several sources online are struck from aluminum. I have not see any specific alloy information listed anywhere, just 'aluminum'. For the most part they are fairly clean and in good condition, not real heavily corroded or covered in mystery muck. They strike me as having potential to be a good raw material for casting due to being a homogenous material, and already in prefabricated bits of more or less identical size (1.55 grams each), which makes for a more accurate system of measurement for volume purposes. Does anyone know anything more specific about Chinese coinage that can share some insights on the alloy? Many thanks.