Avadon

WD-40 works fairly well but only lasts until a heavy rain. What I often use on my outside anvil is a thick lubricant/grease. Harbor freight makes a synthetic grease that's about 4.49 a tube. Kinda pricy but it's excellent grease. It comes in a grey tube. If you heavily coat your anvil when not in use it shouldn't rust. I also bag my anvil with a large plastic trash garbage bag. That and the lube almost stop all rust. Then when you start forging again just wipe down the top surface. Cheers! :lol:

There is no rule of thumb per se, like all tools you make them to suit the situation, considering size of materials you are using them on, what you are using them for, (this helps determine the strength of the jaw, the length of the jaw, and the gap between tham) and then make them to suit.

I like to use leaf spring material to make mine,

If the jaws are not parallel you will have difficulty pulling scrolls level particularly in anvil hardy hole types.

The jaws also need to have smooth radius faces on the insides or they can marr the workpiece

You will probably find a large percentage of your work falls within certain limits, so make the sizes to suit

I have bending forks with jaws 3/8" wide 3/4" wide 1" wide 1.25" wide 3" wide plus other various ones I have made as required.

The ones I use most fall within the 3/4" to 1.25" range which I tend to use on scroll work and when profiling material to forms

When creating bending forks as hardy tools or when creating scroll wrenches what is a good rule of thumb distance between the prongs? (I am of course excluding from this question hardy's or wrenches that have adjustable prongs. I'm curious about fixed prongs).

Avidon-
Why not daisy chain several properly configured plug boxes with a plug-in going to the receptacle you wired in already. Cost would be minimal and no plug-un-plug nightmare. Popping the breaker with too much running IS a potential so keep that in mind. I run my shop with a 50 Amp generator and as long as only one hungry machine is running at a time, I've had no problems. If I'm running say, a 5 HP machine and need to run something smaller, around 1 HP, I leave the 5 HP machine running while I turn on the lower HP machine. Start up amps are about 2/3 more than no load running amps. Nice looking grinder!

Thank you all, this information really helps! :D

Most 220 stuff nowadays uses 4 wires. They use a separate wire for neutral even though it comes from the same buss in the panel. I never could see the logic. Now I kinda do. The ground (green) is just for emergency to ground the appliance, it shouldn't be used to carry current. Many appliance manufacturers were running 110 volt accessories off it though rather than spending money on a little transformer. Actually it's the same as three wire 110 in that respect. In my shop everything runs through bonded conduit and the conduit serves as a ground, BUT NOT AS A NEUTRAL.

Well I had the fire extinguisher and everything ready just in case I plugged in it wrong. But I was definitely sure the green went center and the black and white went on the side prongs. Well I almost killed myself lifting it over to the plug to test it but I got it there.

And now your moment of zen

KMG Startup

Good call I just popped it open. Black and white are hooked up to L1 and L2 (i'm sure that's line 1 and line 2) and the Green is off on a seperate ground terminal. So the Green must go in the middle of that plug and black and white on the v shaped prongs.

I have a 220V 30amp KMG Belt Grinder sander I'm going to run on a dryer 220v 30amp dryer outlet. The machine does run on 30amps and I verified this with them. I got the right receptacle for that outlet from lowes but the instructions have black white and red wires connecting to the 3 blades of the plug. They show the white wire going to the middle L shaped prong and the red and black going to the v-shaped dryer prongs. I don't have that! I have BLACK WHITE AND GREEN. So i'm looking at this plug and wondering does the green go in the middle and the black and whites are the hot's? Or does the white go in the middle and the black and green are the hots?!?!?

I've done an impressive amount of googling already but it's hard to really choose the best option here. For quiet motorless airbrushing where there is no power, for film/makeup type airbrushing where very minimal psi is being done would the portable air tank hold enough? I know a cylinder holds a great deal of air. How long does it take for instance to go through a 5 gallon portable air tank at approximately 5psi? Would that give a day or two of work or would you be out in an hour or so?

Filling up a 5gallon tank with an airpump seems like it would not be very fun. Seems like it would take forever, wouldn't it?

My friend is getting into airbrushing and she doesn't have a compressor. She's thinking about getting a compressor down the road a few months but in the mean time were thinking of using an alternate source of gas. Also we need an alternate in case she airbrushes at places she can't plug the compressor in at.

So my question is what is the best tank/cylinder that's portable to use. I saw these little 5gallon - 120psi portable air tanks, normally for blowing up bicycle tires, pool toys, etc., but i'm figuring that for airbrushing such a tank would only last a day, maybe too. The only upside to those is I can fill those tanks with my 80 Gal 7.5HP vertical compressor. Only problem is I don't see her often enough for her to come by and get fills every day or two.

So what am I left with? Should I get compressed air from airgas, or should I get nitrogen? This airbrushing is going to be on faces and bodyparts (Sensitive areas) for makeup type application so I don't want any gas that is noxious or toxic or dangerous around people. Also dry would be nice and cheap(relatively) as well.

Also what kind of regulator do i need for compressed air or nitrogten? Will any gas regulator work? I couldn't find an "air" regulator. :confused:

Halpz!! :)

Okay my first fear was that I made some to long for customers at 6". Now I realize that they probably don't mind the extra inch or two of steel. I can't seem to get hardies to go all the way through my gladiator anvil. Maybe the hole is still to new. Only goes about 4" down into the hardy.

I guess i'll probably leave them at 5" long shanks. If they want they can hacksaw/bandsaw them off.

Thanks for the help.

What is a good default length for a 1" sq hardy shank? How long should that shank go down into the hardy hole? What is considered standard length. I'm trying to figure out what is best for making hardy tools for friends and customers. I usually make them long like 5-6" but I wonder if i'm just giving them an extra chore to cut it down. My gladiator heal is about 6.5" thick under the hardy.

You could paint the sides.
Here is the link

Here is a pdf that is more towards what you want too do anyway
Gun_Oil_Test.pdf - Gun Oil Test - Dedicated Web Hosting Service

How can I stop rust from overcoming my anvils outside. I've tried thick greases and oils and it always comes off in just a few short weeks. I just hate to see the face and sides of my anvil covered with bright orange rust. Does covering it help much? Should I use wax? Should I use silicone? Mostly I just want to cover the sides and then use something else to lay ontop of the bed that I can wipe clean. Any thoughts?

Excellent tutorial Hofi. Saved many of the pictures for future reference. :)

Love it.. looks great! The leaves are cool too.

hmm I would think natural gas is less noxious but none of those burners say "natural gas" they all say propane. I've used them before in very open areas just to get the radiant effect in very leaky open garages or outside. But in a more enclosed garage After about 30mins to 1 hr of running it started to smell weird.

Well how do furnaces work in houses? They are natural gas and people don't die? so wouldn't this work well?

I had a propane tank with a 3 Burner heater attachment on it for my garage but it seemed to give off kinda smelly fumes so you had to open the window, which obviously destroyed the purpose of the heater.

How can I heat up a large garage quickly with gas. I'd rather not spend a fortune on expensive electric heaters.

Can I put a double or trippler burner heater ontop of a natural gas can from air gas? Would I have less toxic smell, fumes, etc. from burning it in a enclosed space?

The kind of burner i'm talking about is this click here

Horn always to my left. If I didn't have it oriented that way I'd probably rip a hole in space-time and banana pudding would come pouring out of my mouth.

Great repair job. Nice to see someone at the forge with safety specs on!

Looks really good, but if it was me I would have just ground or cut a fitting shape and then laid in a large fillet weld. Prolly easier But this way you've done it is impressive. Now do you have to re-temper that leg?

Looks good I just bought a KMG Belt grinder 3HP 10" wheel 220V V.S. machine Cost me about $2845.50 but that is with all the bells and whistles and attachments + rotary platen. I'm sure you could build it for cheaper but when it comes to some things like machinery and gas forges I just as soon support those who specialized in this one facet completely rather than me try to reinvent everything to save a buck. Your Grinder looks really good though, how much has it cost so far?

I would recemmend a SCOTCH-BRITE deburring/blending wheel. (For those not familiar with a deburring wheel, it is a wheel made of a hard resinous material with abrasive embedded in the resin. It usually comes in medium and fine grades) I use mine a lot to finish punches and chisels, dress hammer faces, etc. A big plus compared to a stone wheel is it does not leave scratches in the metal.