ciladog

And the word is "spelled". Spelt is wheat. :rolleyes: unless you are from old South Africa.

If the vise is going to be exposed to the elements I suggest you use a marine grade grease such as used on boat trailer wheel bearings. It will repel water better and won't emulsify. You don't need to 'pack' the box. Just coat the screw and run it in and out of the box a few times.

Now you're talking. Pretty tools don't make you a better blacksmith!

The question that was asked is about making a template. It was not about liability. I don't see the liability since Farmweld did not produce the stairs. But I know nothing about liability case law in Australia. So you guys might be giving good avice. However, on the topic of making the template on this uneven staircase I don't see a problem there either. Make the template as you would on a uniform stair and then mark it for each step. Then find the measurment that matches the greatest number of steps and use that as the standard. Then for each step that is at variant with the standard you mark the template with a + or - of the variant. Compensate for the variant when you produce the railing.

What is this obsession with rust all about? What is rust anyway? Fe2O3.nH2O that is iron + oxygen + water = rust. Rust is just iron oxide and believe it or not is a protective coating to prevent a further degradation of the iron it forms on. When rust forms it prevents oxygen from reaching the iron so the reaction stops. Now when you clean off all the rust what happens? It rusts all over again. Think about where that vise has been and how old it is. Did it rust away? Is it still a useable tool? As long as there is no electrolysis going on like in contact with wet soil or soaking in water where there is present a less electro-negative metal rust only goes so far and stops. So grease up the box and screw and don’t worry about rust. That vise will outlast you by another hundred years. Tools are to be used, they are functional. They don’t have to be pretty.

Now when you say tool steel exactly what are you using? If it is an air hardened steel you will not be able to anneal it without some serious HT setup. If it is oil or water hardened then I would soak at critical and burry it in vermiculite. Then use a slow speed on the drill. If that doesn't work, buy carbide bits.

No John, I have not changed the control that uses two control valves. I am saying the new Bull design (cylinder on top) uses the single 5 port control valve and does not have the telescoping control rod. Perhaps someone with an newer designed Bull could post a pic for you. It's one valve that has one roller and is actuated by a lever that is attached to the tup through a simple linkage. The diagram is just standard for the 5 port, 2 position valve. In the picture the two top connections go to each side of the cylinder. The bottom center is air supply and the other two connections on the bottom are cylinder exhaust. The spool control connections are not hooked up in the picture yet but they are the small connections on top at each end of the valve. Reguardless of what type of control used the spool would be connected the same way. The pressures are the same on both sides of the cylinder.

The valve used in the Bull hammers (original and new design) Two-pressure-output (4 Way) Valve with Five Ports and Two Positions This is not spring loaded. The original design uses two (3 port) pilot control valves to control the spool and the new design uses one (5 port) control valve to control the spool.

If the bearings are bad change them yourself. It's no big deal.

56 =3 1/2 inches from center of shaft to bottom of mount. C = C frame face mount. Z = non-standard shaft (probably short) or other non standard housing dimension

Look for a supplier in your area that sells sandblast sand. Usually mason suppliers. It cost a bit more but it is graded and dry and comes in big bags (I think 90lbs.).

Camera magic Larry. :lol: The place is a mess.

If the gear spins on the bolt then there is no need to try to remove the pin (looks like it is an oil hole that someone stuck something into). Soak it with PB Blaster. Then weld a large nut to the head of the bolt from the inside of the nut. After you get the bolt off you can cut or grind off the nut. Great minds think alike. :)

I wonder about your alter-ego.

What Thomas wrote is true and I can agree with it. Spark testing is a good way to itentify samples if you already know what you have in your hand. Provided there is enough difference between samples. Approximation works in spark testing. I dentification of unknows does not. And since Thomas posted after the initial post it was not my point to prove him correct or incorrect. My intention was to say that it is not possible to identify unknow samples of alloy with a spark test as some claim they can.

Straw man; yes. Because the original position is unsupportable (no one can identify an alloy with certainty using a spark test) and so my challange can not be achieved. There are many ways to make a point.

Here are a few. Don't know if it's for your 5900 http://www.ebay.com/...vectorid=229466 http://www.ebay.com/...=item43ad9f418e Pretty pricy. You have the lathe so why not make your own?

Hey Dave, Relax. I’m not criticizing you. I have plenty of tongs made of spring steel. Just not bolt tongs. If you make your tongs out of heaver material they won’t bend.

If I have 5 known alloys in my hand and I spark test them, I have no doubt that by approximation and the point analysis of each, and I may be able to assess which is which. But given an unknown sample I have no chance.

Hey, bring that bottle of vodka here and I will tell you what you have. I will probably be wrong but I don't think we will care after that bottle of vodka.

Thanks Sam You can definitely do hot forging on a punch press despite what some might say and here is how you can do Damascus. Make two-step dies, that when closed gives you the thickness of the finished material and the width of the finished material. Attach the bottom die to a plate (say 5/8 “) and the top die to the ram. Adjust the press for maximum shut height. Then make a bunch of step plates that you can put under the bottom die plate. Maybe 1/8 “for a 2 ton press. Each time you make a forging pass you just add another plate under the bottom die. Hook the punch handle to a foot peddle and you have a press with 70-80 hits per minute. Just don’t make the dies too deep. It will take some trial and error. You do have to consider the maximum travel of the ram per stroke. But it can be done. Oh, don’t you have something to make?

Very nice blueprint Dave. Something to consider though is that tongs made from 5160 may crack if quench in water if they get hot enough. Mild steel works just as well and no chance of cracking.

I suspected your success had something to do with the size and mass of the piece and getting the core temp down quickly. I don't think I will ever have to HT something out of 4140 where the size would require a water quench but I will keep it in mind.

Some members on IFI tell us they can identify what tool steel or alloy they have by spark testing. I say that is just bunk with a capital B. Historically smiths would determine that there was carbon present in iron and spark testing just told them about a relative content. So if you are one of those IFI members that think he or she can tell me what an alloy is with a spark test, you post here and I will give you the challenge. I will send you 5 alloy steels for your testing and we will see how well you fair. No spectrometers allowed!

JNewman Science by definition is an exacting discipline. Given a set of procedures the results must be repeatable or it is not science leading to a given conclusion. So if I or anyone else takes a given alloy of a specific volume and heat treat exactly the same way we should get the exact same result. That is a given. Is there a chance for variables? Sure there is. Is the alloy exactly the same? If it is certified and falls within the accepted analysis then no that is not a variable. What was the temp and volume of the oil quench? What was the core temp when it came out of the quench? What was the time lag between quenching and tempering? What were the ramp-up times? All of these are variables and will influence the outcome. But if you and I do exactly the same thing we will get the same result or it is not science. Now you mention that you have some rather expensive dies going to a heat treatment company. Do you want them to experiment with your dies or do you want them to heat treat according to what has been done thousands of times and yielded an expected result thousands of times before? I agree with you that Phil is an exceptional person and some of the things he does (makes) is mind boggling. But I don’t know enough about the 4140 he quenches in water to make any judgment. Is hot water the same as cold oil? I just don’t know. Look, the point I’m trying to make is that for us dummies it is far better to follow what 4000 years of development and experimentation has produced then to try to reinvent the wheel . I have been told about a smith that took a piece of alloy that was so hard it could not be drilled. He took it and heated it up to critical quench it in water when it is oil hardening alloy and then proceeded to drill a hole in it like it was butter. Go figure.