saintjohnbarleycorn

thanks for the help, I do have a can of vermiculite, and am trying to get the tempering oven working. thanks again.

can someone give me a link for annealing and tempering o-1 for knife blades. thanks.

I picked up a tempering oven, it has a barbara coleman 560 controller on it. I am wading through the pfd on it. I am not seeing a soaking option on it, does anyone have one or have worked on one, that could help me out. thanks.

since we are talking about this. I have a sand floor, if I throw it on the floor, won't one side transfer heat out fairly well, if the sand is damp? If so should I put it on a piece of steel or something? This is for "don't know what it is mild steel"

i could not open it for some reason. Nice avatar I think we have them here too!

thanks

Yeah, best practice is first to anneal it by heating to 2000F and quenching in water. Then it should be passivated or it can be poished. Or not.

i also got the stiffener with that. BUT I still am using my old furnace and have not built the new one! I also got some zirconium and different clays to make the coating., I got to get going. hope you get yours going faster than mine!

I got the best price from larkin , I got the 2700 degree
send them an email and tell them what you want. they were really great to work with.

http://www.larkinref....com/index.html

thanks

I have been using the same setting , gas , technique as far as I can tell. I am welding mild steel to mild steel. about 3/8" thick flat plate. I not had any trouble with the welds.
Now on this plate it makes a bead but does not penetrate the flat plate I am welding on to. I have ground the surface , and it is smooth and shiny. Could the grinding disc I used have loaded the surface with aluminum or stainless or something else, or am I just missing something here? It is two flat 3/8" plates , one on top of he other and I am welding he 90 degree angle where they meet. thanks for any help on this.

yup make something as a thank you, you will find another anvil and have a clean conscience. good luck

was that a typo or are you planting pampas grass?? 7' wow I never saw grass grow that tall?

some people use car springs the round type, if you want to experiment.

All the ones that I have seen have replaceable parts on them, they are bolted on, or is this one old enough you can';t get one for it?

I will spark test it. I don't think it is anything fancy, it was an ace hardware, about 10 years ago. thanks for the help.

thanks I will do it that way.

thanks for the info.

I see a lot of people refer to soaking. Is this better in all cases, such a high carbon steel with no other elements in it, or more for the more complex steels? I am thinking of making an oven for soaking and wondering if I would use it for all types of tempering. I can see the advantage of controlled temp.
In the more traditional way where you heat to color how effective is that vs. soaking, 90% as good on just carbon steel? thanks for any insight on this.

Phil how is the experiment coming along, I have had the materials for a while and getting around to making a new forge, if you have gained some insight you want to share that would be great. thanks for the info you have given already.

Thanks , that sounds do able for my skill level. I am guessing just use a torch on the end low cherry red bend it and put it in vermiculite. sound reasonable?

I found a crowbar with my lawn mower, and it bent one of the nail puller part, so I have to heat it bend it back and harden and temper it. Is possible with a simple setup. I can't heat the whole thing up, its a 40" long one, am I going to put a hard breaking point on the bar if I only heat and temper one end that I can fit in the gas forge? I don't think that I can just hammer it back, with out breaking the prong, I would guess it work hardened when it bent. Or should I just call it a loss and buy a new one? thanks for the help.

It works fantastic, I don't really know what the tonnage is I have not figured it out. IT will press 1/2" x 1/2" to less than 1/4" in one press more if the dies are small. really helps with stainless and most everything else. IT gets it down to a workable size for me to use the hammer on. I like the aspect of the open front so you and move things around and put large pieces in without the normal restriction of a H style press. It had been hooked up to a pto pump that I had to hook up to my tractor and of course it was outside. I used a 3 hp 3 phase motor, on a variable drive. The standard 11 gpm northern Hydraulics $143 pump. Now its a matter of dies, I wan to make a punch and maybe a cutoff. If You decide to make one, I don't think you will regret it. ONe caution is don't buy the pump unitl you are ready to actually hook it up, the seals can go bad if you leave it on the shelf. good luck.

I got the press pretty much finished with new pump, I have some pics here as attachments with some dies that I have made.

If you guys have some ideas of dies that you use a lot more of a general purpose type or specific use and could put some pics up that would be appreciated. thanks.

I made the mount for the pump its a four hole pattern from an angle iron. When I ran it there was no vibration, it is direct coupled, maybe I should use a lovejoy?