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thanks Frosty, :) I did say "for that amount of stuff". My own scrap pile covers about 3 acres in an oak tree scrub plus a large shed, I am seriously thinking about signposts and a map! I can generally find the piece of steel I am looking for in a couple of minutes at the most, like Glenn says its best to have a plan and sort it straight off the truck instead of just dumping it in a heap and dealing with it later, it tends to build up quick. One of my neighbours used to give me endless grief about my "junk", lecturing me that I should get rid of it, he had sold all his and had a pocket full of CASH :angry:. I relieved him of all of that cash burning a hole in his pocket when he needed me to do an emergency repair to his Combine Harvester. I found the correct alloy steel (in the scrap), lathed a short shaft, cut a circlip groove, heat treated it, pressed it in and assembled everything inside two hours and had him going again that night. The alternative was $2700 for a new assembly + $130/hour labor (for a "real" mechanic)+ travel and freight costs AND 10 days minimum downtime. If he hadn't been such a pr#ck I would have done it for free, he knew what he was paying for when I told him the price and that it was cash up front before I lifted a finger. Perhaps I'm just getting old and grumpy :( it wouldn't have bothered me 20 years ago.

It is much easier to handle and pick through if it is sorted and restacked once in a while. For that amount of stuff I would just clear a space at one end, then pull all the tubular steel out and stack it there, then work my way to the other end. it will still look like one big pile from a distance but up close everything is in groups. 1. SHS,RHS,pipe,tube 2. structural steel 3. solid bar (square hex round hollow bar etc) 4. other (odd shaped) 5. alloy and nonferrous plate (somewhere dry) rubbish (out) good short bits (to shed in containers) No need to be perfect, for that amount of stuff it should only take 30 minutes to an hour to do, unless you start trimming and cleaning pieces up as you go.

Nautilus fossils have been a bit trendy for the last 20 years, something like this?

This is my favorite for morse tapers, its an upturned drawer with tapered holes drilled in it, it would fit nicely in a filing cabinet. Peter ,homeshopmachinist Its on my fantasy "to do" job list but most of my big drills are hand-me-downs and the margins are already damaged from rolling around in a drawer :( I recently saw the Styrofoam technique done with a phillips head screwdriver used to punch the holes. You can stick anything in the holes allen keys, drill bits, die grinders, router bits, chuck keys. The foam grips everything tight so it stays where its put.

Some of the high silica fluxes need to be properly set before you chip them, they stay soft underneath longer than you think. start chipping at the cold end of the weld first. Drying the rods in the oven and keeping them in a sealed container during the days work helps a lot. You can hear them run smooth and you can run a longer arc length to get the heat up. If the slag is really sticking you may need to slow the travel speed down to keep the slag molten longer so it can finish gassing off and separating from the weld surface. if you are running a weave pattern concentrate on the edges more don't just wander through the middle of the weld. On small fiddly jobs going down a rod size will slow the travel speed. Lastly make sure ALL the connections in the earth lead are in good condition, a good earth can make all the difference.

This is probably the handiest chisel I have, its a bent slitting chisel, it looks like someone has sharpened the side and put a bend in it for a prank but it will shear the head off a rusted in bolt in a couple of hits. I tried to make a couple out of truck spring but the steel is not up to the job, I will have another attempt when I get my hands on some good tool steel. photo from rennsteig.us

what about diversedimensions.com or YouTube for some online training videos? Would that work for you?

I got this job in with 2 bearing flanges welded to a length of pipe. The flanges have been damaged around the rolled edge and no longer hold a bearing firmly, so they need to be replaced. I thought about the oxy, plasma cutter, thin cutoff wheel and the burr grinder but they all had their drawbacks in such a cramped space (not to mention all the grease and rust under the lip to deal with) so I tried a bit of lateral thinking. I remember seeing a blacksmith drill then carve a square hole on a piece that couldn't be reforged. It stuck in my mind how quick he worked and how easy the metal peeled off. Here is my attempt at a more basic technique. I have left the original welded flange on the pipe and removed the old rolled edge with a cold chisel, this means that the new bottom flange will fit snug into the original and save me the work of cutting and re-welding.. First cut is to split the ring then using the corner of the chisel I have created an edge that will roll. From there full face of the chisel and follow the curve of the pipe around. Viola! About 4 minutes for the two flanges and the new ones bolt straight in. I know it doesn't look much but I reckon it has saved me about three hours work.

leaded vs unleaded onan pdf service bulletin from 1975

My workshop is not clean enough to get away without using a degreasing solution, I really need a "clean zone" where I can put stuff away from the grime. Something sold as "wax and grease remover" will be a mixture of white spirit and naphtha, that's as good as any to blend the linseed and wax with. When its all wiped back and dried the end result should not be tacky or oily. A tacky surface attracts dust, dust holds water, water leads to rust. Heat will certainly reduce the moisture but on a humid day its an uphill battle. If you are looking for some serious rust inhibitor for bare machined metal a product like corrosionX is the best I have come across, its about the only thing that will stop unblued machined rifle barrels from showing etched fingerprints and blemishes. I use it on my machining and measuring equipment.

I think it needs to be a couple of steps, preferably before any rust gets established on the surface. I would dunk them in a warm (below boiling point) degreasing solution for 5 minutes, make sure the detergent is not salt based. This gets rid of the salts and water absorbing oils on the metal. Rinse the part in running water for a minute or so to remove the detergent. Then you need a paraffin based solvent to displace the water out of the tiny pits in the metals surface. Mineral turpentine (mineral spirits, paint thinner) or a light kerosene is what you are after (non-deodorized works best) Try a wash of mineral turps mixed with a bit of your wax or oil, dipping for a couple of minutes works best but if its too big for that, liberal application with a paint brush in all the joins and crevices is OK then let it dry. The solvent should do its job and dewater the metal surface then evaporate leaving the heavier sealer behind in its place. Now it is ready for a wipe with a paper towel or finishing coat of oil, wax, rust inhibitor or whatever! P.S. alcohol or lacquer thinners (methylated spirits or acetone) wont do anything to remove water.

Some fluxes use ammonium chloride instead of boric acid to get a bit extra hydrochloric acid in the mix for a quicker clean and a lower welding heat. I sometimes buy boxes with old tins of flux in them (with the labels gone) at clearing sales for $1, most work with mild steel, haven't test any on alloy steels....yet

I used to get, "have a look at this, he's made another doorstop" "Ya want to watch that jam doesn't slide right off that ski slope" "surprised that sandwich can stay upright" "More curves than Marilyn Munroe" "looks like the mice have been at this loaf of bread" seriously, I would start off with a lighter hammer with a shorter stubbier head and work on the hit accuracy and body position first, if you start with a hammer with a longer head your brain and forearm will fatigue very quickly trying to hold the right hammer angles, too many things to think about at once.

Part of being ambidextrous is spending the time looking like an uncoordinated idiot and not worrying about what other people think, while you are picking up the skill. lefties struggle with stuff built for right-handers every day of their life and find a way to make it work. It helps if you practice with everything, pouring water, carrying coffee,using the phone, throwing rubbish in the bin, remote controls (maybe not try swinging an axe to start with). My dad give me one of those "how hard could it be" lectures so I secretly swapped his serrated bread knife for a left handed one, after swearing at it for a week for not cutting straight he threw it in the bin. It takes me about 6 weeks to get good enough at a skill to work fast with my opposite hand but I still feel uncomfortable and have to concentrate, after 9 - 10 months I can do it without thinking. About the only one that has beaten me is using a square mouthed shovel. It looks the same both hands but I can feel that I am working a lot harder as a righty because my stance is not quite correct.. You will probably find that your "tong hand" skills and accuracy will improve from the exercise as well, it is more about thinking about the technique as you work than just putting the time in.

Yep, point taken. Do you grind the land/margin off the front edge of the flute to stop it binding in the hole when its spinning backwards?

left hand bits have been a standard tool for repetition engineering for years, it saves the time of reversing the rotation of a chuck. They are still widely available and about the same price as a RH one. I have used them to remove the broken off studs in the alloy block on a outboard motor. It saved a lot of time, half the studs come out with the drill bit, before I threatened them with the screw extractor. :) Strange feeling the first time you sharpen one, very awkward. Even for a lefty like me.

Hi weltall, I still remember the first time I fired one of those up. I had watched some smithing demo's at a working museum's big forge, they were using coke from a local coke oven and it looked like hard work. The flame was small and puny the air was on full blast all the time and the metal took an age to heat up. It didnt look anything like I remember my grandfather doing when I was a child, he made it look quick and effortless. I thought perhaps my memory was playing tricks on me. Someone gave me some coal that he said was "pretty good" so I decided to have a go. I lit it up and poked and prodded for 20 minutes or so and produced some coke (and smoke) only trouble was the coke was the same size as the lumps of coal, it thought it would break up a bit more than that. The heat coming out the gaps in the coke and coal was so intense i couldn't get near the forge after a couple of gentle turns of the blower handle. i straightened half a dozen pieces of bent shafting in a just few minutes and even tried a weld and then thought "what do I do now, I am out of jobs to do and the fire looks like its got plenty of sting left in it?" There wasn't enough room in the forge to spread the coals out and stop the fire so I had to shovel them out onto a big tray. Not the most elegant of starts, but I learned a big lesson on what a difference quality fuel makes and that my fire handling tools were not up to scratch.

In Australia the majority of undamaged quality anvils will be Peter Wright anvils 1880's through 1910. The top plate is very tough, I have seen a few chipped from cold work and abuse but it is not uncommon to see one that has been used regularly for 3 or 4 generations with barely a mark on it. The most common size is #250, some of the #350's can have had the edges too radius-ed for small detailed work. #150's are very popular over here and probably average the most money per pound of any anvil. I would pay $350 for a Peter Wright of that vintage with good edges and corners and up to double that for a #350 with tight square edges (and little or no damage).

I think you should have a small ceremony to celebrate the marathon trip home. Perhaps a kiss on both cheeks from the lovely press model. Then you could put on your best yellow jumper and hold a bunch of flowers and a small stuffed lion above your head for the adoring public. Tour de Beaudry :)

Hi Bobwire, your photos are not clear enough to see how much of the top plate has been welded. Do you have any areas on the plate edges between the hardie hole and the cutting plate that have not been welded up or cut with an oxy torch? if it is just the one damaged and soft area and those bits around the tail you can easily just avoid them with the hammer. If the rest of the anvil is original condition then it is in pretty good shape. If both sides have been welded and reformed along the whole length of the top plate and you want to take it back to virgin tool steel and rebuild it, then I would estimate there is a good 30 hours work for an experienced (and motivated) maintenance welder. Probably 50 hours+ if you have never done this sort of work before. If you do it up and forge with it for the next ten years its worth doing, but you wont get your money back if you are going to sell it. Some electrodes do a great job but you really need to be laying down a large bead and have the experience to control the heat, puddling and bead shape to get the best out of them, if you don't get it right, the welds will be highly stressed and eventually crack, that is always the biggest worry with these sort of jobs. Rods that are just for manganese steel or mild steel are not suitable. Something like nichromang is not suitable either because the cushion layer should completely separate the steel from the facing layer, you shouldn't really butt the top layer up against the tool steel plate and expect it to not shear off along that margin. Both of the stoody rods are suitable for welding to tool steel and are easy to weld with. I used to use a rod called Magna 401 a lot of years ago for some oddball jobs, to build up areas on machines with chunks missing in tool steel (similar to the stoody 2110). That was a fairly forgiving rod too, but I don't recall if it work hardened to the same extent as 1105 for the top layers and patching the smaller cuts. Its not the kind of thing they put in the brochures, they just assume people wanting work hardening will be welding over manganese steel, not some tech from the 1800's. :) If I see someone that should know this sort of stuff i will ask a few questions and see if there is a local match to the stoody 1105. i think it would be a good idea to build up and face some practice pieces before tackling an anvil.

Its a linear or slide bearing, designed to run along a fixed shaft. Once you get your eye in, you spot them everywhere. Is the half round stainless for cutting into woodruff keys?

Is it just a curved tine with some holes cut in it like this pic, or does it have a fulcrum for a pivot pin forged into it? courtesy of beeversales.com

My Mums little memorial to local bushfire victims in her garden. She thinks its pretty funny when I complain loudly that every woman that sees it wants one in their garden and it's keepin' perfectly good anvils out of the hands of us impoverished blacksmiths. No sympathy at all. :o

vulcanising patches were pretty cool to watch as a kid. The rubber patch was on the bottom of a thin metal tray and the tray had a layer of dried paste in it that you lit with a match once it was clamped over the hole in the tube. the heat from the fire bonded it all together. I don't know what the burning stuff was but the temptation to misuse it was enormous.

That is a definite possibility. I have never seen a caulk and wedge shoe made but its the right shape to form a short rounded or half moon cleat. I do know the shop made a lot of gear for draft horses and bullock teams in some hilly wet country.