gote

The terms hardwood and softwoods are misnomers. Broadleaf trees are called hardwoods and conifers are called softwoods and in most cases they are. However there are very soft broadleaves such as poplar and balsa and very hard softwoods such as yew and hemlock. I have used hemlock branches as handles with success.

Yes absolutely if you mean the lateral "edge" of the hammer. I was thinking about using the far edge which seems to be advocated by some smiths.

Does not 'biscornette' mean two horns? Perhaps he had a tail as well Think I am going to Paris at the end of the month. Thank you for the tip where to visit.

Does it really work that way, I tought that the choking up in that situation was because you get more tilt with a shorter distance to the head. I really do not know, I prefer to hit straight and to use the edge or horn (Not london pattern) of the anvil or the pein.

I have dirt/sand floor and it it works well except that it tends to create a lot of dust. Subsidience and moisture is no problem since my topsoil is very sandy. I do not move any heavy equipment around and I have no power hammer. Sometime in the far future I will put in a wooden floor to get rid of the dust. 3/4" tounge and groove on top of close spaced battens(right word?) It will be tricky, however, to do it without getting all the heavy stuff out and in again.

I suggest reading 'The Japan that can say No' - especially the parts writtem by Mr Morita. It is slightly dated but the observations on US business are similar to my own. You can find it under http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/japanno.txt We have problems with the same roots in Sweden. PC is guiding many thing into the wrong direction.

Dear Mr Taylor I am not offended but please forgive me I meet so many people who do not understand the words they use.

If the bolt can pull the taper towards the plate so much that the lateral movement of the jaw is decreased appreciately by gripping in the taper, it will jam. The forces axially in the bolt are increased by the longer lever up to the jaw. Even a morse taper will jam sufficiently to work in spite of the oil on the machine. The shim that seems to be correct is 0.7mm. That decreases lateral movement from around 5mm to less than a half without binding the jaw. Yes the shim will be the same size as the free part of the plate. A ring around the bolt would not help at all since it is the play at upper and lower edge of the plates that limit lateral movement of the jaw. A tapered bolt can be used to adjust the play in a pivot. Choosing right diameters on hole and bolt will also do the trick. I find it questionable if it is more difficult to make cylindrical surfaces to the right tolerances than to make taper that is correct in the plates, jaw and bolt. Anyway, I would think that the bolt is subject to shear and some tension rather than to linear load in the contact surfaces. Besides you are claiming that the load is taken by the wedging and not by the bolt are you not? I have two somewhat related problems with the vise. A: There is too much play at upper and lower edge of the plate so there is uncomfortably much lateral play between the jaws.If this is due to sloppy manufacture, wear, bending or other abuse or what I do not know B: The moving jaw sits a little bit to high. The cirular surfaces that are intended to transfer vertical load from the jaw to the plates do not have real contact. (This is German style) Conclusion is of course that the present bolt is not worn. A worn bolt would let the jaw down to the contact surfaces. The quick and dirty is probably to use a slightly undersize bolt or one that is turned to be a crank with a small excentricity - say 1mm in which case the jaw could be adjusted by turning the bolt. Since I do have a lath but not a set of reamers that is probably the best way to go. Oops sorry I only saw the bottom part of your message. I have to break off now but the moving jaw does not twist it moves laterally.

I am afraid that the Ah Ha moment only goes further away. I apologize if I misunderstand but you wrote: “with the bolt acting as a way to keep load on one side of the bosses while not loaded”. And “The pressure on the side forces of the taper force the jaw mount to one side. This puts force onto one side of the cheek plate keeping the jaws in alignment at the top. Side pressure against only one cheek plate”. I understand this as that you mean that the bolt pushes the jaw against one of the plates because it is tapered. I cannot measure your vises but I measured on the pic. of one of them and find that the side plates deviate by 3.4% from vertical. Since the picture is taken from above it is probably less. The situation when lateral play in the moving jaw is a nuisance is when one is gripping a round object and puts in a twist such as when tapping a hole axially in a round rod. I understand you as that you mean that the taper in the bolt makes the jaw slide to the side. If something is going to slide to the side, the slope must be more than the coefficient of friction and that is several times higher than 3.4%. (already the pyramide builders knew this) Even if friction were zero, the side force is only about 3.4% of the lateral force, which hardly is enough to stabilize the jaw in the tapping operation referred to above. The other possible way that the bolt can move the jaw, is that it pulls by engaging in the taper of the hole in the jaw and with a slope of 3.4% it will certainly jam. The Morse cone is a middle way between jamming too much and jamming too little. 3,4% is less than the Morse and will jam very efficiently. Thus I very much doubt that a tapered bolt can stabilize the jaw by pushing it against one of the side plates. Does the taper in the plates take up the forces from above if the bolt pulls them together? Assume we have a force from above of 100 pounds. There is friction between the jaw and the plates. Say 90 pounds are taken up by friction. 10 pounds left. These ten pounds exert a side pressure on the plates of 10/0.034=294 pounds. Assume the cross section of the bolt is 1 square inch. Thus the tensile stress in the bolt is 294 PSI. Now assume pure shear in the bolt. There are two shear planes thus we get 50 pounds per plane and that gives us 50 PSI. The tensile stress in the taper-jaw-situation is thus nearly six times the shear stress in the pure- shear-situation. Have I assumed too little friction? I do not think so. The coefficient of friction is 90/294=0.3 definitely not too low. If we assume 0.2 instead, the tensile stress will be 9 times higher. Have I forgotten the stiffness in the plates? No since the bolt has been pulled tight the plates do not relieve the bolt. They increase the tensile stress. My conclusion is: Yes the taper will transfer force to the plates but that does not put less strain on the bolt. It only changes from shear to a much higher tension AND it is mostly by friction. The friction will only develop if the jaw sinks a little so it wedges. Thus there must be sufficient radial play in the bolt. Otherwise it is a question of shear anyway. If the bolt is pulling the plates so tight that the wedge-support situation develops without this radial play in the bolt, the spring will be unable to open the vise. The shear situation causes a stress concentration. How important this is, depends upon how soft the pieces are and how close the contact areas are. Is shimming a bad idea? No. In my vise, the plates are much higher than vide. The distance from the bolt to the leg is much less than the distance from the bolt to the upper and lower edge of the plates. The bolt pinches in the wrong place. The edges of the plate will move less than the centre. This differs very much from the pics you show of rusty vises. In those cases you may be right. Tolerances: With a 3,4% taper, the tolerances are about the H/h8 magnitude and that can be achieved with a suitable reamer (100$ if I can find on with the correct taper) and a good lathe (and someone who knows how to do it). With my taper of 0.5% it will cost a fortune to have it done. RiffRaff = People regarded as disreputable or worthless. (Check your dictionary)

Start gardening I use gloves when gardening in cold weather and I occasionally take my right one off for handling something tricky and since the hand becomes dirty I do not put it back and then the phone rings or or. Later I find what the mice and moulds left and put it in the trash bin. In the shop I never use gloves (for the reasons given by JHCC and C-1 ToolSteel) except when arc welding. Another exception is that I use a heavily padded left hand glove when straightening cold work to decrease possible kick back.

Yeah that sounds like a two man job. I use a portable adjustable stand for long pieces. It is intended to be used by (hobby) carpenters to be helpful together with table saws and similar equipment. You will find one on http://www.drapertools.com/category-products/4100/Roller-Stands but they must be available in many places. It adjusts easily to anvil height and folds flat when not in use. The roller is not really the best for smithing but I use it for the original purpose too. If I get annoyed with the roller I wedge it with a piece of wood.

My cousin who was a jeweller told me that there is an optimum price for costume jewellery. His cost was unimportant. the design was fairly unmportant. The price was the deciding factor. If he priced above the optimum he sold less if he priced below he also sold less. This is Frosty's experience in a different branch. My experience on largish jobs is that it is important to tell the customer WHY you are ceaper or more expensive. There should be a reason why you are in the business at all. More experience, patents, low overheads, own production facilities... you name it. If you have no edge over the competition, perhaps you should not be in this kind of business at all. My mother who was an artist painted very rapidly. Her answer to people who asked her how long time a painting had taken was on the lines: Well I started at sixteen and now I am sixtysix so it has taken me half a century to get where I am.

I really appreciate the effort you are putting in. The pic is very helpful. A tapered jaw will obviously take up some of the downward force and transmit to the side but how much? I do not have the time to calculate today but I doubt that it is very much. In the German pattern I have, the jaw rests directly on the top of the plates (which are rounded) so the bolt is unloaded from above. Unfortunately the bearing surfaces are worn so the bolt now takes the force. I will have to open the hole in the jaw upwards. You draw with a play under the head and this of course solves my question regarding the head. However: If the play would be 0 to 1 mm and the taper - as in my case - is 0.5%, the combined tolerance on the pin diameter and the hole is 0.005mm = 5 microns. Somehow this feels difficult to achieve in a blacksmith's vise. Even with the larger tapers shown in the photos, the tolerances will be very narrow. Further if the taper of the pin/bolt pushes the jaw against one plate it will jam in the jaw. Compare a morse cone that has a much steeper taper. Thus it will turn with the jaw which will defeat the key you are showing on the head. My own pin/bolt does not turn with the jaw but sits fixed. That is a good thing, since I consider a bolt that turns that way to be a design error. The nut will quickly get loose unless it is locked positively by peening, split pin or similar method. If the nut is locked against the plate, a turning bolt will tighten when the vise is opened (Assuming nut to the right and right hand thread). Nut on the left hand will open the jaw and counteract the wedging you talk about. What prevents lateral movement of the jaw is the top and bottom of the plates but the bolt sits in the middle. The plates do not necessarily move as flats when pinched in the midde. The corners may move less. I still think shimming is more effective and my test confirms that this works.

I think there is a certain amount of cross purpose here. The Japanese katana maker does not aim to make a nice damascus pattern he is aiming to homogenize a very uneven mix of materials into a usable steel. He sorts his bits and pieces after how they look since high carbon ones look different from low carbon. He choses the mixture he thinks will eventually yield the right compostion and forges them into a billet. This billet is of course very uneven in quality but after sufficient numer of folds it has been homogenied and in the process excess carbon has burnt off and slag inclusions have been squeezed out. He is doing what a baker does to his kokkie dough. There might be a pattern that is visible after polishing but that is not the purpose. The pattern the Katana smith is after is that created at the edge by the diffeent degree of temper. If you use a modern steel the Japanese smith's reason for folding obviously does not exist. It seems that Kapp is talking through his hat since there is not a well defined carbon content at the start and there are no carbon crystals to be broken up. Crystalline carbon is usually referred to as diamonds. Obviously carbon rich parts like cementite are "broken up" but that in itself does not make the carbon atoms disappear. They diffuse into carbon poor parts as already pointed out and those on the surface may burn. Yes charcoal may have traces of other elements (mainly potassium) but if you are a Japanes charcoal smith your steel is made with charcoal anyway. The ash content in charcoal is also not very high and if you add some charcoal to get the carbon content up by a small fracion of percent I think it can be ignored - especially since it will dissolve into the borax.

You may be a little hard on the stupids. It is not necessary lazyness when people are asking where to find things. A newbe who has only been to the visitor's part of a repair shop does not understand that there is a scrap bin somewhere in the back nor does he understand that bits and pieces can be had. He is not too stupid to understand. It is just that his thoughts have never been in that direction and they will not get there unless there is some nudging. A newbe will also not understand by himself that some of the professional shops will sell also to private persons. (But some only sell by the truckload). What is absolutely basic thinking for a curmudgeon is uncharted waters for the newbee. Glenn's advice is excellent and should make anyone who reads it realize how to do things. Please make it a sticky

I am learning something new all the time Thank you. It never occured to me that the plates would not be parallel but you are right I have a taper of about 0.5%. The difference in dimension is about the same as the play between the plates. I still have not time to disassemble the vise but I tried to push in temporary shims. That made the side play in the jaws disappear nearly completely. I still do not understand how the tapered pin can push the jaw against one side. Maybe I am using the wrong word. With pivot I mean the bolt that goes through the plate and is the hinge. It has a head on one side and a nut on the other. It cannot be forced further than the head. allows. I would be possible to turn a pin with a step and let it push the jaw against the plate with different hole sizes in the plates but it is not something I would like to do.

Frosty, I could think out a reason. If you put the spring this way, the bending in the spring is less so you can use a soft steel. There is less risk of deforming the spring. Of course it needs to be heavier to excert the same moment on the jaw.

I do not really understand this. Of course a tapered pivot in tapered holes can be pushed in so that there is zero play but how do you do that if there is a head on the pivot? It seems to me that it is no better than a non-tapered. I would have thought that the play between the plates would be the most important way to control the jaw. The distance from the center of rotation (sideways) is much larger. I have in the pipeline to shim my vise to decrease lateral movement. I do not trust my skill to be able to bend the plates the exact amount. I will also have to figure out how to lower the holes in the side plates since this is a German style vise where the moving jaw slides on circular surfaces on the fixed jaw and these surfaces no longer support as they should.

I think height of anvil is an important part of hammer technique. Read Glenn's sticky about it. I also think that the attention should be directed to whatever you are hitting rather than on what you are hitting with. When it works well, the hammer head is just an extension of your limb just as your fist or forefinger would be. When you sock someone on the jaw you think only on hitting the jaw not on where your thumb is. Trust your body. It knows unless it has been confused by bad advice. If you want power, you hold thumbs down far from the head. If you make small adjustments the hand will naturally choke up to the head and the thumb will creep up. That is OK (in that situation). Some of us use a heavier hammer because we can and some of us choke up because we want extra control but some of us use them because of ego and they will choke up because it is easier to lift it that way. Sometimes a heavier hammer is a boon. If you hit with a light hammer, the deformation tends to be more on the surface whereas a heavier hammer will penetrate deeper. I normally use a 2.5 hammer. When necessary, I use a 4 but only a very short while since it is tiring and the going is slower. If you are tired you loose control. First missed hit: take a pause. Third missed hit: call it a day.

I understand that the ban is on putting the mark on someting not on using a marked item.

Old axes sometimes had steel edges welded into softer heads. If you cut off the edge you might find that the rest has too little carbon to be properly heat treated. In such cases they probably make better hot cuts with the edge intact.

I also learn. I have never heard about flares called fusees. I happen to own my greatgreatgrandfather's pocket watch signed John Ward. It has a (non-combustible) fusee with a microscopic bicycle chain that winds around it; thus I know.

Fusees?? Were the locomotives running on clockwork? Ah now I understand. Our trains stopped using fusees and this is why they nowadays never are on time. Sorry could not help myself.

Maybe someone laid him in the desert to be normalized