HWooldridge

Good point on the aging aspect...I'll pass that on.

I am not a knife maker but I am going to make a stab (pun recognized) at recreating a copy of an old Bowie knife design from the 1830's. I'm doing this as a re-enactor's knife so it will be "aged". The basic model I am copying is the Searles blade at the Alamo. Here is a link to a replica: Google Image Result for http://www.bladegallery.com/pics/85517_1_n.jpg Looks like almost a 10" blade and almost 15" overall. I was thinking about 1080 for the blade. What is the general consensus on something this large? Would you oil quench and draw several times? How about handle, pommel and cross guard choices? Thanks for any input.

A similar thread is running here... Paco Kelly's Leverguns.com ...with some additional commentary.

Yes, I've experimented by rolling them both around the wheel and lengthwise to rotation and the latter makes for a more directed arc - primarily as the amperage decreases.

Keep your chin up and fight it as best you can. May the Lord bless and keep you and cause His Face to shine upon you.

WW Grainger sells draft inducers that bolt to the side of the flue and assist the air flow. However, it would be better to correctly design the flue in the proper size and let the hot air carry out the smoke without requiring extra help.

HSS is fine for most home use in a non-production environment and common materials. I grind bits on a belt grinder with 120g belt and they work fine. IMHO, a better investment for any lathe is to buy an Aloris equivalent quick-change post and holders. The old rocker style is OK on some work so don't throw it away, but most of the quick change units are robust and will really help your productivity.

UPDATE (also posted on Farwest): Harris has now been at BAMC for about a week and undergone a couple of surgeries - with the latest one being a skin graft. They took muscles from his abdomen and a big piece of skin from his right thigh to cover up the wound on his lower right leg. That was done on Tuesday so Wednesday was a horrible day from a pain perspective. I have never seen anyone in such agony - especially worse since it was one of my kids. In addition, the treatment is pretty uncomfortable - he has been under heat lamps in an 86 degree room since the surgery; this is so the blood vessels remain expanded. His mom and I were simply numb Wednesday night. However, after 14 hours of sleep, he woke much refreshed and asked for some food. The good news is that the docs said he heals at a remarkable rate and they have already downgraded him to stable condition from critical in two days. It helps that he is about to turn 21 and was in great physical condition before the incident. In fact, they took him off the morphine drip today. A couple of people have asked about cards and such. He's not too interested in that stuff and we are certainly not asking for anything, but if you want to send something, mail it to: Spc. Harrison L. Wooldridge c/o Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) Warrior in Transition Battalion 3851 Roger Brooke Drive Fort Sam Houston, Tx 78234 We deeply appreciate all the prayers and best wishes - it's great that we have him 20 minutes away instead of at some place remote from family and friends. A lot of recovering soldiers have no one to visit them and I'd ask that you think about them.

Gunk Engine Cleaner - spray it on, wash it off.

Kneemail sent - please give us an update when you can.

OK - I did not follow the other thread so therein lies the disconnect on my part. However, to be fair, we should further divide MIG into subprocesses. A great deal of large industrial products are made with MIG spray arc so the basic process is sound for heavy weldments. Of course, you can't get there from here with less than 200 amps and a high percentage of Ar in the shielding gas so you are either pulsing or short arc - both of which yield less penetration. A 135 amp unit would most certainly not provide much penetration in a critical application and welding from both sides.

Your design should work fine. Most problems with distortion are for excessively long welds done all at once so it often helps to "stitch" a weld for an inch or so, then go to the back side but advance to a linear position where the first weld would have continued. Repeat the process until done. This allows the stress to balance out and prevents gross movements in the pieces. Just to see what would happen, I once welded two pieces of steel that were about 3 feet long, all on one side, unrestrained and one continous bead. When complete, the start of the weld had pulled almost 2 inches out of the flat position.

The two in the top middle are cold sets (struck cold chisels). Far left lower and small one at the bottom appear to be specialty hammer heads.

I've made several and used 1/4" drill rod - no forging, just ground a long point on the grinder and heat treated. They'll cut most any soft metal and will scratch the tang of a file so are pretty hard.

I worked in the injection molding business for 18 years - up to 1000 tons, had one tool that weighed 26K lbs. I started in cost estimating and worked my way up to running the plant - was managing 400 people and $50 million a year by 1998. Mostly computer, some automotive and industrial - it's all gone to China these days. Longmont used to be something of a center for moldmaking - we had a couple built up there in the 1980's but I can't remember the name of the tool shop. I do recall that they were very fine molds and ran good parts from first shots. Re Gerald's post: I read in an old text that one of the reasons side blasts fell out of favor in America was that they were fuel hogs. The complaint was that the fire got too long under continuous blast. One thing I have done on a side tuyere is to stack a couple of bricks a ways in front of the pipe to redirect the air flow and contain the fire a bit - of course, that makes it look like a bottom blast...:-D

Bruce Wilcock may respond on this as I believe he has commented in the past. 3/4 is often mentioned for general work in British texts - 1" should not be too big. PS - I like your sig line, are/were you a plastic molder?

A lot of machinery from this era was painted gloss black with highliting on any raised letters or numbers - this was often done in silver or gold. I have also seen a few old pieces that appeared to have been painted bright red and they were also highlited with metallic paints.

If you will share his first name, we would like to add him to our church prayer list.

Wow - you can't make this stuff up...

Birchwood Casey makes most of the hot and cold black agents for other retail distributors - like Brownell's. I use Oxpho and it works quite well. You can also brown it (rust) to the point of almost being black with brine, hydrogen and peroxide. Search the archives on this site - I asked for recipes about a year ago and the simplest one worked the best.

Try larger size filler rod.

Oh, buddy - if you only knew...

Way too close to home - LOL...:-)

It is most certainly used on scrolls and other geometric forms. I look for the "hawk's beak" on snub end and ha'penny types. The empty space is very important to the look of the piece.

I use mild steel for vise springs - they are initially bent about an inch past the contact point and then quenched from a bright cherry red in brine and not tempered. This will take some set over time but it works quite well and you don't have to worry about breaking that nice high carbon spring you just made. I've done this on at least 15 vises and the ones I still own are in service and functioning fine. BTW, the German Army used horses throughout the war so it makes sense that a lot of blacksmithing equipment would have been available afterwards.