DRoberts

i hit 2300F without any problems using 18G kanthal a1 in my 220V furnace. I calculate on the short side for coil length and fine tune input voltage with a 10,000w voltage regulator. Voltage regulator makes the resistance calculation very forgiving and greatly improved pid controller temp variance. my build https://davidproberts.com/diy/2300f-heat-treat-oven/

i'll be tanning it myself, been practicing on gar skins that have turned out pretty well. will be using gar scale on the sheath. shark skin handle gar scale sheath, should be pretty neat.

Yea not wrapping it either, need it to stay non-absorbent as best it can.

Working on a fillet knife for a buddy of mine, he brought me some shark skin from a little shark he caught on a guide trip down in the gulf and wants a shark skin wrap on the handle. I've been trying to work out in my head how best to pull this off to where it will last longer than a month's worth of use. Thought about a recessed guard and pommel type handle where the handle material would be carved down a bit to where it fits snugly into the guard/pom for a mechanical securing of the shark skin. Also thought of flush fitting guard/pom to handle material with little triangle cuts folded over on the ends. Is this too much? Will simple well fitted strips epoxied to the handle material last? Best practice recommendations? Thanks in advance.

I can melt down 2 cups of steel to liquid in about 60 seconds on my induction forge. Costs about 0.9 cents. It won't be desirable for what you're wanting it for though.

Donated to a charity auction at work. 1980's CJ leaf spring, construction paper micarta. First time making my own micarta turned out decent.

built one of those first, works but doesnt heat nearly as fast as this double.

Many improvements made in the last few weeks. I've rigged up a dual pancake coil and can now heat large items. Jeep CJ leaf springs for example heat up wonderfully.

Didn't get any pictures of it but started a new piece yesterday for the wife's birthday - making 1084/15n20 knitting needles. Used a smaller billet about 1.5x1.5x0.75". Had to drop the power down just a bit, around 650 amps to keep the sides from melting but got a fantastic weld in 2 heats. Evenly spread out welding heat took about 80 seconds. Drew it out about 6 inches, zero delams looks fantastic. No flux used. Very pleased with its performance.

found an excellent coil design document http://www.stanleyzinn.com/pdf/coil_design.pdf

You just saved me a bunch of work, thank you so much. just ordered 15 8mm flare nuts from mettle works. neat site there's some good stuff on there.

good to know, please delete my comment about it so it doesnt lead people to copyright infringement.

The pattern welded blade is listed in pdf format on many websites, freely downloadable. I don't know if this is due to copyright expiration or blatant violation. As such I won't post any links, but it took me 10 seconds to find one with a google search.

i havent tested the multi-loop coil thing yet, its REALLY hard to find metric flare nuts for this thing. I may end up doing a metric-->SAE conversion on this thing. i only have 2 spare flare nuts that fit the stock unit that came with it. 8mm flare, unknown threading/size. man I've been tryin though. As soon as i have this flare nut thing resolved i'll make all sorts of coils including a levitation one and the multi-coil and post about it.

had a question on facebook about making your own coils, worth noting my reply here for others. say you made a 1" coil with 100 loops in it, it would never produce any heat. a 1" coil with 1 loop would overload the machine and damage it. but with 3 loops would generate an immense amount of heat, melting anything you put in it in seconds. you *could* use that coil at half power and be ok but its better to remake the coil to say 5-7 loops and run it at full power. same temp as lower power but over a much larger working area.