Jacques

My present ad says "The Advantage of Knowing". (Some financial services company.)

Most of the old castles in europe are in ruins. The ones that are still standing were the ones that were build correctly. Proper drainage, roofs and gutters. The things you cannot see is the things that makes it last longer.

A nice 1:60 worm drive gearbox from a local pawnshop. Suddenly making a rolling mill seems a real possibility.

I really have to be more sociable, that workshop look really nice. One question, what do you use the nibbler for? Mine is standing unused at present, I don't want to sell it but would really like to get a job for it.

Good luck, I hope it goes well.

Like everybody else I tend to worry about the quality of my blacksmithing, but James Clear has a great way of making me feel better. The complete post is here.

Took me a while to get around to posting this Why Procrastinators procrastinate.

Two wrought iron wagon wheels from the scrapyard. Found it a few months ago and rolled them into the back corner for the time I had some money, and thankfully they were still there. Wrought iron is very scarce around here, I think this is the first I saw in years.

I would love to compare that pattern with my little anvil. Mine is marked 26 kgs on one side and 56 lbs on the other, without a name. But the letter type is the same. And as a bonus you get a picture of me.

We also use an concrete mixer occasionally to tumble parts. We use ceramic media, with a little bit of water. But the supplier also gave us a type of soap with anti-rust properties that we add to the water. In the end I just flush a few times with fresh water and then spread the lot to dry. Very little rust. We bought two 25 kg bags media around 8 years ago and it will probable last another 8 years. The soap was also in a 25 kg bag and will last another 100 years. I also use the soap in the plasma cutter's water bin, helps a lot there as well.

Woodworking most of the time. I would love to do much more but life tends to interfere. On my crafty bucket list is making a dining room set, by hand, no electricity, with tools I've made myself. It will take a while. And every year in November I participate in Nanowrimo and write a book. But my primary hobby at this time of my life is beating depression. Everything I do now is aimed towards that.

Draftsight

From the scrapyard today. 90% rebound over most of the face, corners not too bad, 163kg (350#), R900/$90 Am already considering what sort of tooling I can make to fit in the slot.

"Oh yes, this is cool, and cheap. I am sure I can repair it." Anything that I have said that about turned out to be a bad idea. If the only people bidding against you are scrap metal dealers it is time to stop.

Been looking for a pipe for a chimney for a few months now. Today at the scrapyard, 6 meters long, 220mm diameter and 4mm wall thickness. One third of the price I was quoted for a new chimney. It will probably outlast me.

Welkom. Forging is fun, I mostly use coal because it is cheap, but I've also made my own gas forge.

Right handed, but since I write left handed it took me a while to realize I am not a lefty.

If I ever win the lottery my place will probably end up looking like this. Fascinating.

My dream machine, I would love to own one. Do you have pictures of the other dies? How do you change them? Yours look great, another picture to save to my to-do list.

That is a very well written post. It should be immortalized. Now if I can just get my boss to read and understand it.

I would like to see a picture of how your wheel is mounted. Mine is now out of service for an engineering change, and any ideas will be helpful.

And if you make something you are very proud of, nobody will be impressed. And if you throw something together from some scrap metal on a Saturday afternoon, everybody would compliment you.

We once bought a bearing heater on an auction that is used to heat bearings to fit over shafts. Some sort of induction heating, it was a long time ago. Ended swopping it for something else

It's not a real gloat if you don't show pics. (Somewhere around here must be a jealous smiley but I can't find it.)