arftist

Avadon, send me a PM. I am not that far from you, and would be glad to help you with this. If you want to come down on a weekend, you can use my mill. I will clean the shop and distract you while YOU do the work. Plus then you will owe me a small favor Bwaa haha.

For a large panel like the above, which is esentialy nonrepetitive, one would best draw the entire section on the bench it will be asembled on. As each element is created, they can be set in place and adjustments made as needed. A freind who does similar but slightly less ornate jobs draws the object full scale on cardboard with a magic marker. This works for him since he makes all the scrolls and bends freehand in a hossfeld bender by bump-bending. Since I work hot, I draw on the steel bench with soapstone. For truly repetitive work, jigs, fixtures and scroll molds are an absolute necessity. Without them, different sized elements become difficult to integrate. For some fences and or gates I may make a dozen or more jigs and tools. Of course I always hope they will be used again someday, but that is seldom the case. Making the tools must be figured into the cost of the job. On long runs of fence, I take the overall length and divide it into even sections as close to but under six feet as possible. This is because the handrail code demands a post every six feet. I then make a jig, and "mass produce" all the panels which are Identical, Usualy each having only one post and bolting together in the field. Of course the first section needs two posts, which greatly aids installation anyway. But making each panel identical, decorative elements are easier to fit.

Grant, I use a similar setup to put an offset in strap hinges. The difference is that I remove the bolt in factory vice jaws, and made my own jaws. No slippage or dificulty clamping the work in that way. I also ground a serious radius into the facing edges and one side has a shelf welded on to hold the work square. Both false jaws extend well past the edges of the vice, and the one without the shelf can have a stop clamped to it so all the offset are exact. Additionaly, I use shims to acheive different offsets. This works slick.

Flux is a cleaner... in the case of aluminum it removes the surface oxide, allowing the metal to bond. Go to google, enter sand casting, lost foam, lost wax, moldmaking, read until you are tired, start again tomorow. Casting is a giant feild.

Aluminum can also be soldered. Joints must be designed with solding in mind, and requires the use of special solder and flux.

It is true that you can case harden mild steel. The process you described however would give a very shallow case if any. Carbon is absorbed into hot steel very slowly. To build an apreciable shell thickness requires holding the steel at high heat for many hours. If I remember correctly 12 hours would give about an 1/8'' thick case. To harden a tool with the process you described, you would need to use a case hardening compound. Case hardening chemicals contain deadly poisons and must be used with great care. Furthermore, I would think that a hammer with a hard case would be likely to chip, which would also be dangerous.

Not trying to be argumentative, just my experience, could also be that I keep my shop dark, but I have no trouble bending at red heat, none whatsoever. Stainless is a different story.

When I took a job at a big shop this winter, one of the first tools I made was a simple but very handy bending tool. First I fit a peice of solid square steel to the hardy hole, lightly driving it in hot to ensure a good fit. Always leave the tang sticking out the bottom for hammer asisted removal if needed. Next I placed a peice of thick plate next to the square stock and above the waist of the anvil and welded them together. Finaly I welded a peice of round bar at each end of the plate. Gentle bending is done between the round bars and sharper bending can be done from the second round bar and the top plate.

Grant, please take it for granted that we apreciate your posts. Here is another non traditional method: Start with 1/2''x3'' flatbar (1/4'' or 3/8'' would also work, but I like overkill) Make a bunch of 3'' squares. Punch a 1'' square hole in the center (fits my Hay Budden). Draw out a peice of 1'' solid sq bar, reheat and tap into hardy hole for nice fit. Mark the bar 1/4'' higher than anvil face, cut and return to hardy hole. Place square plate over stem and weld severely. Use this mount as a base for whatever tooling you need. I made a dozen of these plates some years ago and still have two or three hanging on the wall. When I need a tool in a hurry, sometimes this saves me some time. This may seem like a lot of work, but bear in mind that I did the punching and cutting in an ironworker.

After acid sharpening, files should be washed with running water, dried, and given a very light coat of light oil. To remove metal stuck in file teeth, run some brass paralel with the teeth. Anothewr file factoid, contrary to c.w., files need not be lifted from the work upon the return stroke. This advice dates back to the era when a blacksmith might make one file in a days hard labor.

Mild steel will bend readily at red heat. Speed is not the issue, temperature is. Generaly speaking a gas forge will not burn steel, but if it were able to reach welding temperature it would be close to burning. So much scale means too long in the forge. Too many irons in the fire?

Grant, thanks for taking the initiative to post this and other original ideas.

The ultimate is one of those 3 in one sets, fractional, 1/16-1/2x64ths, letter and number. I personaly have no use for metric sizes, though I do keep both metric tap and die sets as well as metric thread files for repair work.

Deeply rusted, pitted steel is one good way to get that deeply rusted pitted look.

It's a combination tool. I have a smaller version, and a freind has one that has a hand crank forge blower built in. The one you found is very nice looking, but the anvils don't work very well. Not enough mass and all cast iron.

Thanks for the pics. I really have to figure out how to post pictures.

Thanks Glen. I really like that device, and would build one, time permitting. I was wondering whether it could be aranged to hold four machines instead of two though.

Hi Steve. I found I have a hard time getting 220 scratches out with 400. It seems to go faster for me if I use 320. It certainly can be done, but it is more work, in my opinion.

If the hard plate is cracked all across and could be levered up, then welding the crack itself will not repair the problem, as the plate was once welded to the body of the anvil and is no longer.

Polishing anything involves the same steps. 1. Course grit 2. Finer grit 3. Even finer grit. 4. Etc. until desired level of smoothness. Some tips; Remove ALL scratches left by previous grit size. Change direction of stroking to better see scratches, left to right, top to bottom, left upper corner to right lower corner, right upper corner to left lower corner. Jump grit sizes by as much as possible to save time. A typical polishing job may go as follows; 100 220 320 400 600 For mirror polish, one would follow with one or several wax combined abrasives and buffing wheels.

At one time there was a blueprint of a stand for multiple bench mount machines that revolved around a horizontal axis. Quite a space saver, and a very nice design.

I agree with Frosty. The larger anvil looks to be in quite good condition.

Hey Quench, not to question your judgement or anything, but I seem to remember from chemistry that there is a jump in absorbed energy right at the point of phase change. With all the water at a rolling boil, it would be right at the point of phase change. What do you think?

Most so called cobalt drill bits that I have seen are just high speed steel once they have been sharpened.

Fractional will fill most shop needs. Number and letter sizes are needed if you do a lot of tapping.