rawblacksmith

so...as to the different sand compositions...any expertise in this? silica, feldspar, "silver sand".... i bought what they called silica and that's what it says on the reciept...but the 60grit says "silver sand" and the 90 says feldspar.... as in all industries trying to make up losses from fuel prices, are they substituting cheaper goods for what is ordered? are these the same quality for refractory and casting as the silica i've seen in the recipes?

heh, yeah...i had a '06 softail; funny how the new harleys sound like old japanese bikes and new japaneses bikes sound like harley used to! after harley lawsuit against honda over "copyright" sound failed, they started the twinkie engines that sound like hondas! glad i got rid of the harley, back on a honda til i finish my own diesel bike

i like the dredge; i haven't been here that long, so it allows me to read the history. in the future, i'll skip over what i've read.

getting dacron aortic sheath installed?

i get much cheaper gasoline than you so i think it would be a great way to save money on cutting. from what i've seen in demos, they cut way better than anything...cia, navy, crash-fire-rescue all use and endorse them, but i've never heard of them until recently.

cause i'm not yet seasoned...still raw

i made dumbells that way the first time i tried stick welding...i used train car bearings; looked just like the one you made. then i made others with 2 on each side of the handle,welded end to end... then 3, welded into a triangle on each side.

that's awesome habu68...i saw aluminum foil being welded on miller's website. i'm glad i was taught how to weld by a medical instrument welder...that and having no formal welding education makes me able to weld things "everybody" says can't be done.

yes larry...listen for the fry...pay attention to the sound of the weld as it's made; it's more important than what you can see... you'll get to recognize it quickly like any musical tone

anybody have experience with these? i just learned of them; seems many negative opinions about them, yet they are the choice of enough in the top of the field that i want to know a lot more about them. can a regular o/a torch be used? modified? i know about the pressurized can for the gasoline supply...but is everything else compatible at all?

if you don't have anything else, you can use the welding rods. just knock the coating off and you have wire! i've used all manner of wire, including wire hangers. move the autohelmet up the list... makes all the difference when learning...unless you just want to wreck your neck flipping the hood all the time. remember too that much welding is done with no helmet...no room to get both it and your hands in to where the weld needs to be. i learned much mechanicking from a blind man...welding can be the same, going by sound...stay away from braille welding!

or not....be the ground! i have always done just about everything barefoot; from training horses to welding....everything except rollerskating!!! only this week have i felt current from the clamp...put on shoes? no! solved by sitting on a wooden mechanic's creeper! when i was in school, the welding instructor demonstrated the complete safety of arc welding by touching everybody with the stick...oi, nebraska! sure, everybody is appalled at my barefoot state, but it came in handy to find an electrical fault that the "electrician" had made.... i had made some hay racks for the horses that had shoots going up to the hay loft...so hay could be dropped all the way down thru to the horse...one attachment point was the conduit. when the "electrician" wired up the barn, he somehow made the conduit hot. when the horses wouldn't eat, i found the short too...becauses i was barefoot. the "electrician" wouldn't believe he had made such a mistake because he couldn't feel it...until i told him to take his shoes off! then he decided to check his work instead and found the hot conduit connection!! thanks for the lesson in making sure the grinder doesn't fry!!

the more you know, the more you know you don't know! now i have to start all over learning welding...concentrating on metallurgical knowledge demonstrated here...you guys make me worry about every weld i've done before! i started out as a d.o.t. certified train car repair welder, then worked a short time in a police car muffler plant (i made them wrong on purpose!!), steam power r&d, and finally , my last welding job before going indie....highly decorative welding of structural pieces..staircase railings, spiral staircases, bridges, etc.... with that work EVERY weld is ground to remove all traces of welding... goal is to make every piece look like it was sculpted; especially in pieces that were of organic motif. (see my wine cellar pieces) i always worried about the scientific facts regarding such welds...always used whatever the man provided and remained ignorant about such things as we are discussing here. now that i am starting over, along with new shop with new tig/stick machine and the new skills to be acquired, the liability is mine. i want the other edge of the liability sword; that of the good reputation for great artistic work. you guys make me want to go ahead and start in first day welding classes, but i always find it a crap shoot for who's would teach...i always got lucky and paid to learn instead of paying. well now i'm paying anyway....electricity is higher here in hawaii than anywhere else, and argon was $130 to fill bottle!! (they have to send bottles over to oahu to fill) that gives me impetus to gain master proficiency on stick! i'd only ever been proficient in mig and o/a welding before. never saw a tig machine until i bought one last month. well all this makes forging all the more important to me...so much cheaper to do here than welding with electricity.

my non anvil shaped object ...i have a huge bottle jack of over 100 lbs...even if i could get it to work as a jack again, i doubt there's use for it better than turning it into an anvil. free in loads of metal i dragged home

the trite "billionaire industrialist" ... and can use tools...