Bam Bam

This is a tad off topic, but here is a picture of two pieces of steel that we drilled for a bracket. In the back is a typical piece of 1018 hot rolled flat bar. In the front is a piece of flat bar that the mill sheared off of a piece of A36 plate. Both of the plates are 1/4" thick and both were drilled under a power feed drill with the same drill bit, at the same down feed and the same rotational speed, one right after the other. Note the volcanic burrs on the A36 piece while the 1018 has virtually no burr. I am guessing this malformation is due to the differences in yield strength that allows the A36 to deform rather than cut.

SInce I am currently rebuilding my business plan I feel a slightly qualified to reply to this thread. I started my shop 23 years ago to supplement my income and go to graduate school. Never made it to grad school. My business was born and built from a shoe string budget and run completely by the seat of my pants. This approach has cost me a lot of money, created frustration and worst of all, has cut into my success. I bumped along month to month, chasing money to pay bills, completely unaware of how to price jobs and seemingly in zero control of my future. I was having fun and making good stuff, but never had a handle on the business end of things. It was pure luck and hard headedness that kept the doors open. Then about 10 or 12 years ago I attended a small business class put on by the Chamber of Commerce. It was a several month long course that taught you to develop a business plan and examined all the business apsects of running a business. From that class I created a business plan that was aimed understanding finances and growing the business in a focused direction instead of reacting to whatever came along. Things picked up and I felt better about being in control of the business side of things. So now I have an office manager and want to expand in a new direction, so I am sending her to the same course so she can rewrite the business plan. We have gone through and reworked all of the figures and its an eye opening experience what it costs to produce a product. The most important part about taking this business course is it gives you more control over you derstiny. If you want to make large scale public sculptures, produce furniture or sell S hooks at a flea market, the basics are the same and you need to make a profit to make it worth the effort.

There's no education in the second kick of a mule - ?

I thought that your hammer test was such a great idea that I tried it on my two hammers and used it for my very first IForgeIron post. The first is my Little Giant 25 pounder (1914) 5 blows = 0.873 10 blows = 0.835 I probably could have done some adjusting and got a little more work out of it. It was set up for some tooling and I was lazy. I may try it again. The other hammer is my Nazel 3B (1920's) 5 blows = 0.308 10 blows = 0.155 I am going to get some friends to run the test on a tire hammer and a Phoenix.