Quarry Dog

Makes sense. A couple months ago we were running .065 wire inside a galvanized culvert and the flash was bouncing everywhere. It wasn't long before I decided I'd just work with my torch goggles on and string out our 400 watt equivalent LED worklight. Now that you mention it, If I would have had my shade 3s at hand, or a pair of shade 2s, they probably would have sufficed and I wouldn't have needed the extra light.

You would be very surprised about their value in UV protection. If you look up a spec sheet (google search "UVEX tinted lens brochure" for a good example), you will find that all their welding "shade" lenses have a UV absorption of greater than 99.9%. A good thing to keep in mind is that this particular color green, although a darker shade, is very commonly used for electric arc welding, which has EXTREMELY intense UV radiation that can cause permanent damage to your eyes in seconds without a filter lens. As it is, even the shade 2 lenses are recommended for welder's helpers by UVEX, although I haven't the slightest idea what you'd use them for around an electric arc, since it is so intense and their shade is so light. I know I wouldn't trust them for that, but as sunglasses I wouldn't see a problem, except if you're driving, because they do affect color perception.

It isn't so much hiiting the anvil, as it is not hitting the work. It is a rest, a stop and think, a "let the anvil hold the hammer, I'm tired.", or a time to readjust your grip.

I'm looking pretty closely at the digital copy I found, and there is definitely a very little bit of fidelity loss. It seems about the same as the other COSIRA books I've read. It's just barely noticeable, but in landscape on my tablet there is the occasional pixel that sticks out in the fine crosshatching, and my tablet is a 7" and runs at 1080p. Not enough to detract from the technical/instructional value, but enough where you can see it when you zoom in.

A billion gerbils is a scary thought to me for some reason.

I'll readily admit that paper copies always feel and look better, especially hardbound, but digital media has a few things going for it too. You can find a lot of good digital for free, a lovely price when you get so much more than what you pay for, legally off of google books I might add. If it is available, you can find exactly what you're looking for and be reading it before you'd even be in the door of the library, even if you live next door, and you don't have to wait a week for it to come in. Also, if you have a big monitor, or you're hooked up to a big screen TV like my home rig, you don't have to bust out a magnifying glass to read some of that small type lettering. The screen protector on my tablet and phone are also decidedly easier to clean, and I don't need good light to read either. All of that said, I still like adding to my small personal library when I see a good title, and nothing beats the feel of paper.

Well, if he asks just about anyone here, they'll have roughly the same opinion of "yard anvils". Hey Frosty, or anyone who'd know, would one of those "cooling, heating, and air" places have drops of ceramic wool? I've had horrible luck finding furnace supply/repair places and I just now had a realization that maybe, just maybe, they call 'em something different down here.

Google search "Lillico power hammer pdf" and click on the first hit. It looks like a good read from what I saw when I was skimming through earlier today. Thanks for the new reading material guys.

I figure I ought to throw in a disclaimer on what I've said so far. I still try and not look right at the fire unless I have a reason. I just know that I have a tendency to forget to look away until I'm ready to come out of the fire. I'm not saying that my way is "safe", just that I've taken what appropriate measures I can to protect myself as well as I can, given my tendencies.

The tint is the one downside I find with shaded lenses. It's not so bad though. It took me about 5 hours of forging over 2 sessions for my eyes to get calibrated for the "greenscale". Now I don't have a problem with it. It probably doesn't hurt matters that I can now watch the flux as it melts and not see spots or have a headache later.

They're gone until IPS fixes their software, or someone reposts them. Even then, I wouldn't be surprised if they're lost for good.

I think I remember reading somewhere that didymium is not sufficient for IR, and that it was originally only intended for sodium flare, a common cause of cataracts in glassblowers. I also remember reading that the gold coated (?) safety glasses are good, until you scratch them, at which point they become a liability, as the scratches don't even have to be big enough to see to degrade the performance beyond acceptable levels. That's all just food for thought. YMMV. I'll stick to appropriately shaded lenses, which weldors have been using pretty much as long as torches (more intense version of the same hazards as a forge) and arc welders have been around.

I wish I would have thought of wikipedia when I did that math. I did it the hard way from some random google search websites that only gave me parts of what I needed and had to put it together myself. I now have a circle segment formula reduced to pretty simple terms. I'll have to post it here if I can just find the paper I wrote it on, and maybe someone can point out a glaring "V8 moment" if I had one.

That's why I wear the shade 3. Found out that the ones I was wearing took the brightness down, but the spec sheet said they didn't do much for IR, whereas the welder shade 3s take out a lot of the IR and I can still see what I'm doing fairly well. The only thing I've found with a better spec sheet for IR reduction is higher shade welding lenses, but after about 7 (and that's on a very bright day) you can't see a darned thing. I have a pair of 5 safety glasses laying around, but I don't wear them as I prefer the "Mad Bomber Goggles", as my buddies started calling them, strapped to my hardhat with shade 5 lenses. I guess I could use the glasses for forging at night when the days start getting short, but I hope I can see what I'm doing in them. Funny thing though, a lot of the welding suppliers around here don't carry the round lenses, but they do carry the goggles themselves. Same with the banded earplugs I like. A lot of places carry the bands, but not the refills. On a tangent (forgive me), for the past few months they've been enforcing the requirement (CFR 30 "Mineral Resources" for any miners in the USA that are as ignorant as I was) for full goggles and/or faceshield for any grinding/molten metal work (torchwork/welding/etc). Once word came down about that, we all went out and got hardhat adapters for faceshields, so now when I'm torching on some rusty, wet, piece of future scrap that's liable to pop all over the place, I don't hesitate to snap a faceshield onto the bracket. I look absolutely ridiculous, but the spots in my eyebrows are finally going away. If it's good steel though, I usually just stick with the goggles, and still try not to lean on anything I'm not 100% sure is safe to touch (but it still happens every now and again).

I know I'm a firewatcher (along with other primitive tendencies) so I always wear shade 3 safety glasses when I'm manning the forge, I haven't afforded myself the opportunity to forge at night, but I have my own forge now, and the days are getting shorter, so I guess I'll have to wear 5s for that. Boy won't I look weird...er?

Nelson studs, gridded wire, and some sort of castable insulating refractory? Make a heckuva doodad (glory hole?) for blowing glass

You too, eh Charles? Lemme see if edit works.

I've heard of a video of a guy hitting a smal piece of cold steel fast and hard enough that it started glowing. He started his forge with this "match".

I agree with tom on the face. As for the horn, stop by a few equipment rental places and see it they have a rockbuster (long taper, sometimes with a pointed tip, usually stops at 1.25" radius though) jackhammer bit that they can't use any more, like perhaps the shank broke off at the collar. They make excellent hardy bicks, and all you have to do is maybe forge what's left of the shank down (or build it up) for your hardie hole and give it a nice bend, or leave it straight so it's easier to use as a ring mandril if you find yourself doing a lot of that kind of thing (the pointed ones make excellent mandrils).

I got tired of the chasing flipped pictures on my phone and tablet(both android), so I got an app called "screen rotation control" that locks my screen in whatever position I tell it, and all I have to do to turn it off is pull out the drop down menu and tell it to buzz off. It works really well on this site

And don't get discouraged if the only thing you can find is what would be a good answer, if only the pictures were still there. Also, don't get discouraged by the "Forbidden" glitch. If it pops up, just wait awhile and try again, or follow the other various Voodoo Chicken methods that have been posted of getting it to go away in the "Feedback and Support" forum under "Found a problem, anyone else experiencing it?" post. Finally, don't be surprised if/when this post gets moved to introductions.

Did you get the "Forbidden" error? it's the software that runs the site. It has been rather buggy/glitchy/kludgy lately, and that particular bug has caused many problems and probably caused a few people to leave.

Yeah, sorry for asking you for all that again, but I was just trying to consolidate it all in one place, from one source (the horses mouth if you will) until you get your blueprint up, so that people could be directed to this thread until that one gets pinned up (it will be pinned in this forum? that's how things are seeming to work nowadays, and it would be totally appropriate). My first response was longer and more polite, but you know how it is to be forbidden, probably better than any of us, except maybe Steve, Thomas, Charles, and all the other "senior curmudgeons" who are probably on equal terms in that respect.

I see a lot of bent handles on vises at work. Something about truck-mounted work benches. Of course noone's EVER backed into something tougher than the vise handle.......

What are we looking at here? I know the admins think it's a gas forge, but you said blower, and it looks more like a workable base for a side blast forge (just needs some creative trimming and a lot of clay/sand/dirt/something), but it's missing the tuyere. I can't figure out what the...refrigerator coil?...is for.