Jacques

My brother-in-law used to be a spraypainter in a car factory, and he said one thing to remember is that you have got organic salts on your hands, and if you touch the work after cleaning you leave that behind. Eventually the metal will start rusting there in a few years time. The most important aspects of painting is surface preparation and film thickness, and the film will eventually wear through. Jacques, who has messed up enough painting jobs.

A Mad Mac Viking wet/dry sodablaster and sandblaster. Ten years ago we had a salesman demonstrating this sandblaster at work, but we decided not to buy because it was too expensive. Saturday I bought this for less than 10% of that price. I won't do a gate with it but for the small stuff I make it is perfect.

Plans for a slip roll Gingery's Slip Roll Machine

I bought this hydraulic press at the scrapyard on Friday. It is complete and have it's own hydraulic pump. I've seen worse, have to replace the wiring and some of the rubber tubing and do something about the rust. It even got a little pneumatic cylinder that could be connected to a foot pedal. The press has been standing there for a few months now, and the manager wanted to repair it for their own use, but I just had to wait until he realized they do not have 3 phase power for the motor. I just have no idea what sort of capacity it has. If anyone know how to calculate that I would appreciate it.

Finally a good description of the things I (try to) make. May I borrow your expression?

Baie welkom hier, ek is bly om te sien jou Afrikaans is nog nie te erg verroes nie, my neefs se kinders kan dit nie eens skryf of praat nie. Is Boksburg to Minnesota an improvement or not? Notice to the foreigners: (I'm trying to be funny here, thanks for the effort Frosty.) Swahili is spoken in East Africa. We are in South Africa, specific the Highveld So Hello here can be done in any of the following languages: Afrikaans: Goeiedag Sepedi and Tswana: Dumela Zulu: Sawubona And just to confuse everything the word to greet a single person and a group differs with some languages. The other languages like Venda, Xhosa, South Sotho and a few others aren't very wel represented in this area, so I don't know them, and I have enough difficulty with English as it is.

A friend of mine used to work at a place that made medals, and they had a few of these presses about twice the height of yours. I stood and watched as the guy punched medals with it, and it was very impressive. I would just not allow anyone to work with one of those without very good safety measures and a healthy dose of cowardice.

So THAT is what Art Deco looks like. I spend six months looking for thick steel, and couldn't find anything even remotely thick enough. The only other option was buying new steel, in full lengths, and that was very expensive. The square bar is available locally, and then I got it a bit cheap, so I went with that. The first fire was interesting. If fire tending becomes second nature I'm afraid I'm not even at first nature. It was my first coal fire, took a while to get started, but eventually became very hot. I made a taper scroll as an exercise but managed to burn it while being distracted just when it was starting to look good:mad:. That is also a first for me, never had a forge that could get that hot. I also understand now why people make stuff like fire pokers and coal shovels, just using pieces at hand just wasn't good enough, so coal forge equipment will be my first project. After about two hours I stopped, pulled the fire apart and seperated the clinker, coke and coal by hand to see what it all look like. Intersting enough, the air from the blower kept the clinker breaker cool, so the paint didn't burn off, just became dirty. The underside was still looking brand new.

Welcome here. The only local people I have found so far that do training is Conrad Hicks in the Cape ( Conrad Hicks - the artist ) for general smithing and two knifemakers, Heavin Forge in Belfast ( Home ) and Stuart Smith in Johannesburg ( Stuart Smith Forged Knives )

I finished my new coal forge today , and will burn it in during the weekend. I do have a gas forge, but since I am trying to forge a lot more the expense of gas has made it difficult. And since I'm living close to the biggest coal fields in South Africa, coal is cheap. I can buy 350kg (770#) worth of coal for the price of one 19kg bottle of gas. The basic design considerations were: 1. Must be mobile, since I am going to forge outside (so a chimney won't be neccesary) 2. 600mm wide, must be able to go through a single door. 3. cheap. The firepot were welded from 12mm (1/2") square bar, that I got as off-cuts with a discount from the metal dealer. The clinker breaker were also welded from square bar. The table were an old gun safe door that had some jigs welded to it that has been lying around for ages, the wheels come from the concrete mixer that got car wheels a while ago, and the other pieces were whatever I had lying around. I hesistated a bit about painting the contraption, since the paint will burn away, but realised that even the most beautiful woman in the world will put on make-up before going to work. And the paint will also hide my welding a bit. The primer is a fire resistant etch primer for stoves, and the black and yellow is a catalysed lacquer I had available. I still have to make some handles for the clinker breaker and the air gate, but I ran out of ideas, time and inspiration at the same time. For a blower I have got a very old Tedelex vacuum cleaner motor until something better come up. Time: Making the tuyere, air gate, clinker breaker and ash dump, 15 hours Welding up the firepot, 5 hours Making the trolley, 15 hours Cleaning, painting and assembly, 10 hours Total cost were R200 ($20) for the square bar and R100 ($10) for the primer, of which I used about 1 cup. (I just can't manage the pictures to come up as attached thumbnails, so forgive this.) copy the Linked Thumbnail: from the gallery and paste into the post