cami

"cami, Try this one." No, sir! Something like that gets my 30/30 warranty: 30 seconds or 30 feet! I don't know anything about milspec welding. Any specifications I've worked to were ASME or CWB (Canadian Welding Bureau). Curled around the weld? For TIG work outside that's critical I'm all for building a little chanty or at least getting a helper to hold up a wind-break of some sort and getting nice and comfy. I do what I need to in the field, but I don't like to make it harder than it has to be and make use of whatever is at my disposal. Failing an inspection hurts ones pride, drives up costs for the job with re-do's and, depending on the codes involved, can up the inspection frequency; which drives up the job costs even more.

If you want to take on an interesting project you could make a fancified 'lectric forge.

I have to confess to being a professional welder who doesn't look at the flowmeter....I'm not a hack, honest! For TIG gas flow rates my suggestion is as little as you can get away with. Specific flow rates are a good starting point but don't get hung up on them; you don't want to impose absolutes on varying situations. Remember that a small cup doesn't need the flow that a larger one does. Too much flow, in addition to wasting gas, can cause turbulance that might allow air to mix with your gas and get at the weld puddle. Also, if you keep your stick-out to a minimum you shouldn't have too much trouble. As for TIG welding when there is a breeze: You'll get laughed at or even start a fire but a little duct tape and cardboard can make a windbreak that will let you work in marginal conditions; it works well for MIG work too. I've seen some funny little enclosures made when a weld couldn't wait for nice weather to come along.

Don't use that thing as a hammer rack! That little topper could make your burn-barrel the best in the neighbourhood!

Short Swing: Ask you doctor....metalwork is your area and health is his. They had blacksmiths 100 years ago....and what was the average life expectancy then? 50? Also: I see in your profile that your location is God's Country, Montana.....that's funny...I thought that everybody knew that God's Country is Vancouver Island.

Years ago, at an old job of mine, I would routinely splice old wire that was lubricated with used engine oil from our equipment. It was a terrible grungy mess and I couldn't manage to do a splice without scratching myself at least once. I don't think I ever had a shot during that time. Since being married my wife keeps on top of these things. Which reminds me....I seem to remember reading something about married men typically living longer than bachelors. The important question is if this is because there's someone looking out for husbands or some kind of testosterone drop! I remember getting one as a child. I didn't suspect a thing. A nurse painted an iodine rabbit on my arm then a needle suddenly appeared that was used to "feed" said rabbit. What a dirty trick.

48willys: I was wondering about those disposable filters. Obviously they work if you're using them...any comments about their limitations? I sometimes have to paint but it's just rails, guards, and machine parts. I want it to look good, but I won't be asking Chip Foose for a job anytime soon I'll use an extra receiver, a cheapie filter and a dry hose and things are usually fine. Amen on the reels. I worked in a shop where three welders worked on heavy equipment in side-by-side bays. Many days were fine but often, at the end of the day, we'd have our welding cables, an air line, and an extension cord each to untangle. Boss didn't spring for reels in the shop (we had them on our trucks though) but found it fine to pay us 1/4 hour a day to untangle and sweep our bays. I don't think they even did an analysis.

...troubleshooting on engines...I've seen mechanics use comparative temperature measurements of each cylinder can help quickly diagnose some problems. One made the short-list for Christmas presents last year but for now I stick to tempil-sticks and spitting on the work spit sizzles nicely = 250 degree preheat...spit bounces off = 450 preheat. It's more accurate than you might think.

Holy thread resurrection, Batman! Sadly, I am currently without a shop. I know: Wah, wah, wah. I'm strictly mobile and so the compressor goes on my truck and runs straight from a regulator into a hose; easy plumbing. By the way: If anybody has a 1000sf of shop space in the Nanaimo area with three phase power that they'll lease me for $1/year, please send me a message...serious enquires only!

I can't value your anvils for you but want to throw in my two cents: Don't fall into the price/pound trap. I hear guys express the value of their anvils on a per-pound basis and believe it's wrong. Go buy steel and sell scrap by weight, but not anvils. Each anvil should be assesed individually with the thought that a good anvil is a value-added product and should have value-based pricing.

I find the best way to keep files clean is the preventive measure of filling the gullets with soapstone....it also keeps your soapstone shap! A quick pass with a wire brush or even on one's pantleg followed by a soapstone reload and things are good to go again. By the way: I don't lift a file for the return stroke; just remove pressure and let it slide back over the work. I find it to make for faster going than the paced, deliberate, responsible strokes of a conservative filing technique; I have no complaints about file life. As for the quality of finish: It all depends what you do. I'm not an anachronist or machinist; . I do fine filing on occasion but most of my filing work is finishing lands on pipe joints and cleanup work in tight spots. I don't worry too much about dragging, or chips scratching the work; I just care that it cuts. Actually, 90% of the work I do is with a big Nicholson pipeliner, and a little trick I use is to grind a scraper blade onto the end with a small radius; like for l

"...suddenly my girlfriend walked in whit a short skirt, leather boots and a smil up to her ears. " For a second I thought I was in trouble for stumbling onto some saucy webpage.... Seriously, it's wonderful that you can involve your woman with your worklife to some degree; unless work is your "alone time."

I used to smoke a pipe. Sometimes indulge in cigarettes or cheap cigars...if I ever developed a taste for fine smokes I'd go broke. I like to smoke Drum and definately have a weakness for kreteks. I haven't smoked in 10 months because of my wife's comments about the stink. If she had made an ultimatum I would still be smoking, but since she asked nicely....

This 25# hammer is a little too heavy, for my size, buddy, for my size.....

I've heard it said before: Santa is great to blacksmiths. You get to be naughty and then you get a stocking full of coal for your troubles!

Pardon my sense of humour. I can picture the expression you had on your face as you typed your message, ptree. I've seen it at parties whenever I've opened my mouth. Seriously: Gouging with bad air isn't too exciting, really. It's just a pain. I worked in one shop with a rotary screw compressor whose oil seperator wasn't doing its job too well and the boss just topped up the oil each shift. I could take a blow gun and draw oily lines on my work. The gougers ran fine but if you had subsequent welding to do then you had to grind or cook the oil off first. Not too efficient. I believe in thoughtful design but would caution against obsessing too. I'm not promoting the thoughtless git-r-done method but sometimes there is a point where one must just run the line and get back to billable work.

An air system can be quite simple. I don't believe in overbuilding. I, for example, only need to run some hand tools and an arc air gouger. I don't need a marvel of compressed air system design that delivers rose scented air at a perfect pressure with a dewpoint of -40 degrees. If the tools run well and the exaust air is slightly dryer than a garden hose I'm somewhat happy. Wherever I've worked we've just used hose for runs. No fuss, no muss. I recall that one place had pipe for the drops at each work station but everything else I saw was just hose....never did ever look in the compressor shed though. Sidney Brink mentioned running pipe near the compressor end in consideration of the heat at the compressor outlet. I can relate. I had a hose from the compressor to resovior on an old service truck blow out on me once. The six inches nearest the compressor head were in rough shape. It did last for a few years though...

For file and chisel storage when mobile, I cut up an old sleeping mat and went for what might just be the cheapest looking french-fit drawers in the world. The empty hole in the upper right normally holds a scratch awl by the handle; obviously not too well. A little confession I should make is that most of my files bump around against each other in a box of their own....I'm really not a bad guy though.

Have a welder? A little confession of mine is that I don't often use tongs. If you're going to be doing a lot of work on a single piece then weld it to a length of bar. If you make parts from bar stock then you can use the excess lengh of material as a handle in lieu of tongs.

Like Mark Aspery said in his second message, things like where an item ends up, or staying on budget influences the form of the product. Critiques are great, but how is this for a personal guideline for anything you make: If it turns out just how you intended then it's darn fine work. I vein small leaves cold and use small rounded chisels made for the purpose. I do one side on the workbench, then do the other side on top of an old welding glove. The give of the leather allows me to imprint and bend in one operation and gives me a veined, concave leaf. As for the stems: For a lot of texturing work a set of clapper dies could pay for themselves, but for what little I do hammering is fast enough. I'm not condoning inefficiency but for some items there's a certain appeal to something that has been lovingly slaved over. As for chipping hammers: I've never shopped Harbour Freight, but have recycled many chipping hammers and have yet to run into one that was mild steel. Maybe I'm lucky?

Just my $0.02: We serviced a lot of cylinders where I started my apprenticeship. In spite of this I can't offer much advice. We kept chromed rod in stock. The machinist would use a torch to draw out any hardness where he would cut the stock to length with a bandsaw. My only involvement was to attach the ends to the cylinder rods and the procedure was simple: enough preheat to drive off any moisture and weld with 7018....and Lord help you got any spatter on the chrome...

Quenchcrack, it's too bad your men had trouble, and it's too bad one of them was a sensitive type. We keep the best folks for ourselves and a lot of the people we export are actually factory seconds I have to agree with what you say about armed citizens. Were I a criminal, I certainly would think twice about robbing a store if the clerk and shoppers were armed. It would certainly help to keep people honest, if not polite. My only concern is if this causes problems to escalate; with each side upping the ante. Anyway.... Do any of you guys keep geese? I had family in the UK with geese and I would defy anybody to sneak up on their place. Security, eggs, and meat!

Don't take me too seriously....I don't....I just want to ask/share. Any resemblance to a sermon is a coincedance. I don't even own a soap box. Holy smokes! Do you guys live in war zones? Don't get me wrong...I have libertarian outlook on many things, including gun ownership, but I haven't picked up a weapon, or even felt the need to, since I quit the Armed Forces years ago...and all I ever killed were paper targets. Laws aside: I don't own any tools worth killing or dying for. As for family security...the war zone thing again...We're not without our troubles up here but overall it's safe where I live. You just take a few reasonable precautions. For my peace of mind that means that the wife or boy don't go out at night/in a bad neighbourhood alone and the security at home is just good enough that someone can't get in without making a bunch of noise. The worst that's happened to us was having a string trimmer go missing from the back yard. I've known a couple of guys that carried weapons....in Kimberley and Johannesburg...the problems where I live just don't compare to what they faced. I would eventually go mad if I had to maintain a garrison mentality in my daily life...and feeling the need to keep a weapon ready at home/work would make me question my quality of life in that community. If I couldn't help fix things I'd have to move on. How do you guys tolerate the BS in your respective areas?

What on earth is 95% penetration? I've never heard it expressed as a percentage. In my working life penetration issues have been expressed in terms of being too much(think globs hanging inside the pipe), or too little(a low spot/undercut). Either would result in failing a procedure test. Any welding procedure test I've done wanted root reinforcement of about 1/32" and cap reinforcement not exceeding 1/8" if expressed as a percentage this would always be in excess of 100%. You'd be suprised what welding codes (up here in Canada) allow for faults in pipe welds such as lack of fusion... but in a nuclear plant things are different. No faults are tolerated, period. Not one speck on your x-rays...no inclusions...no fusion issues...no undercut on the inside or outside of the pipe....nothing less than perfect....anyway... Here's som OA content: Funny thing though....in British Columbia we still have a PWP, or prequalified welding procedure(a common, industry-wide pressure vessel welding procedure) on the books that uses OA....but I don't know anybody who has it.