gote

We used sulphur to fix measuring points to samples in the seventies. The reason was that it was quick setting and very rigid. Afer the test it coud be melted out and reused. Göte

One could cut a thread in the "pulling bar" Put on a nut and presto you have an adjustable quick acting vise. Göte

I get away with exhaust on top + 6” galvanized pipe and long horizontal section but I have invested in a fifty years old vaccum cleaner to force the draft. See thread: ’New to the forum, new shop question’ last entry. Göte

Agree. Fifty is plenty. If you work alone, I would assume 25A (three-phase) to be enough. In my corner of the world,the electricity bill is a mixture of actually consumed power and maximum supplied power. The grid may be designed for a 50A input but if I have 25A fuses in the meter I pay for 25. Good Luck Göte

I assume that you have the same kind of grid as we have in Sweden: three phase 400V . In your setup you will have three lines (phases in my language) neutral and ground, hand tools small motors and lighting is 230V. This you get between one of the phases and neutral. A typical socket or lighting fixture is thus connected to neutral and one of the phases (plus the chassis, if metal, to ground as safety measure). The installing electrician will try to distribute your 230V loads evenly between the phases so the neutral remains (nearly) neutral. Ideal neutral has the same voltage as ground i.e. zero but this is not perfectly achievable. To find the Amps consumed by a 230V appliance, divide the power in Watts by 230. (or multiply kilowatts by 4.3). If you are running three 5-kW motors (6.7 hp) from the same socket, you will draw some 60 Amperes and need that supply. If you are putting them in different sockets connected to different phases you will need only 20 Ampere in each phase. This will be considerably cheaper to install and cheaper on your bill. Thus it is important that you and a skilled electrician find out the best way to distribute the phases between your 250V appliances. Larger power consumers run on three phase = three times 400V. (The voltage difference between two phases is 400V). If you have a 400v resistive load like an oven or kitchen range you divide the kW of the appliance by 0.7 If you have 14kW consumption you need thre 20A phases. If you run motors or transformers (read welders) you have to compensate for that max Amperes is out of whack with max Volts so you have to put on some 20% Thus If you have totally 14kW load you should have 25A input. Our American friends have another type of system with generally lower voltages. That will force higher Amps. The 200A recommended in a post above will be sufficient to run a 200 horspower electric motor this side of the pond. I think three phase appliances are more common here. The higher voltage means thinner leads in the power lines. A three phase motor is less complicated to build and more reliable. I hope this is clear enough to be of help. Göte

I have not thought about it this way before. However, reading this I realize that the first thing I made in my own setup was a tool; a rake for the fire. Göte.

my first picture Göte It worked! This shows my funnel with new coals added to show smoke Göte

I am using an exhaust with forced draft. I have a conical funnel (8" back 12" front) above the fire. A 6"pipe (Yes sir only 6") up to 6" below the ceiling and then horizontally (I did not want to take hole in the roof) out of the building. At the bend -Tee actually - I blow air from an old vacuumcleaner. This way I get a kind of ejector that pushes the smoke out. A real exhaust fan for hot smoke is far too expensive for me. All air that leaves the shop goes through this funnel. All smoke is sucked into the funnel and pushed out through the wall. I have zero smoke problem. This works perfectly if I have the doors shut. As soon as I open a door, the resulting draft pushes the smoke to the side so some of it escapes the funnel and goes into the shop. If I were to have a second exhaust in the shop, that exhaust would pull the smoke back into the room. As I see it, the important "ventilation" is to get the smoke out. This means to have the exhaust close to the forge and no other air exit that competes. To put in a fan that pushes extra air into the building will of course improve the situation as long as it does not disturb the smoke from going into the funnel - an exhaust fan in the wall will pull smoke back into the shop. I do not believe that my ejector makes all the difference a good vertical flue would work the same way. I realize that your situation is not my situation but this is what works for me. Cheers Göte

Mostly brain work Frosty. Is that what we mean by: When I nod my head strike it??? Göte. PS Yes you are right but I could not stop myself

Hello Frosty, Älg and moose are the same animal alces alces if we want to be scientific. However they vary a little from area to area and zoologocal splitters name a number of varieties. The Swedish cow is usually 270-360 kg. The bull 350-450 kg. A really big old bull may be 700 kg. The last day of the hunt, a couple of hunters were on their way back home. They had not seen a single älg. In their frustration they stopped at a farm and shot a cow. They then went into the farmer, explained themselves and paid for the cow. The surprised farmer went out to his cows and found a dead Älg. A farmer was on his way in the forest on a horsedrawn sled. Suddenly there is a shot and the horse falls down. The farmer walks up to his dead horse and hears a loud wisper: ”Shall we take the calf as well?” Göte

If I want to have a bend in a precise place, I usually do not mark at all. I put a fixed stop onto/below the vise. C-clamps are useful. I then drop the piece through the vice until it rests on the stop, close the vise and bend. Unfortunately this is not always possible. But when it is, it is obviously a very quick method and saves on the heat. It is accurate and repeatable. Göte

Neat Idea I might steal it some day. BUT Have you tried the glasses full? The center of gravity will be much higher. Göte Post script: The lt. colonel coming out from the liquoir store in full regalia dropping his bag onto the pavement. Bystander:What a disaster. -- And you are drafted as well poor chap. I do not know if the translation to English works Göte

In Sweden moose (Älg in our language) is THE animal to hunt. They can be dangerous A woman got killed a couple of years ago and the police promptly jailed her husband. Eventually the forensic people cleared him "Its not our fault he was jailed - you did not ask us to look for moose DNA" However they are shy so most people have never seen any at close quarters and it is extremely rare that they attack people. Thy are a common cause of road accidents and our main roads have fences for hat reason. The really dangerous thing is not that they come through the windscreen but that many cars have too weak window frames. A direct hit will push down the roof and break your neck. Air bags and seat belts are no help. Göte

I certainly appreciate that you curmugdeons feel the need for this thread but I doubt that anyone of the targeted youngsters will read it. If they do not read threads directly answering their query why should they read this? I think that you are a bunch of very kind and sometimes humorous people. I would probably show more irritation than you do if I had to answer the same question again and again. I think that you do a wonderful job and I am very grateful. Someday I will even have time to show my bottleopeners, anvils, shop and perhaps contribute my own slant on the art of blacksmithing. In the meantime I am only lurking and do the odd post wihout any pictures. By the way I am unable to see the pictures which are referred to by URLs. I get a 404 error Sorry we cannot find.... All the best Göte

C2H5OH can be helpful too Cheers Göte

How true Thomas Göte

I do more or less what Frosty and Smooth Bore do. Most of my flue/chimmney is horizontal since I did not want to make hole in the roof. I use an old vacuum cleaner turned backwards as a jet to get the smoke out, I have a funnel above the fire that goes into a vertical pipe that is a meter or so and ends into a 'T' The cleaner is blowing into one side of the horisontal part of the 'T' and all smoke is blown ot through the other (which is around 3m long). It really works very well. I get away with 16cm spiro pipes They get a surface temp of around 100 deg Celsius. The vacuum cleaner is of the type that has a body running on the floor and a hose (which I used) connected to the business end. The horizontal part lies loose in a "cradle" so it pivots away if I need to service the forge. Have a nice weekend Göte

Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it. I beg to disagree! Not weeks - days Göte

It has been pointed out in another thread but square tubes are quite useful in the hardy hole. I recently used it on a ( bought) hotcut that was very loose and waggling in my hardy hole. The anvil is old and the hardy hole is not quite square and slightly tapering. I took a piece of square steel tube, heated it and hammered it down into the hole. When it cooled down it was easy to get out. I cut it just below where the anvil face had been. I then ground the hardy shank down until it wedged into the tube. Result: the hardy sits squarely on the anvil so the force is transmitted to the anvil surface. The shank does not jam in the hole but the play in the edge is less than half a millimeter. However, since the hole is not perfectly square it can only go down in one direction. I did not need to worry about heat threating an unknown steel. My anvil is not London pattern so the hardy hole is very long and the risk of splitting the anvil is nil. I think that this is a safe method also for a London pattern anvil since the tube deforms easily. A thought: If the shank fits very well in the hole it should not need to be very long. It should be possible to (stick-) weld inside the tube to fit a tube-shank to a fuller or whatever that is flat on the underside. For someone who does not have a power hammer nor a big spring fuller nor a helper this seems to be a workable way. Comments please Göte

Steel lying around on a farm is often rusty before being cleaned. Göte

I use a variation of Glenn's advice. Some years ago I bougt a large box of fireworks, You know the type that fires a sucsession of balls into the air. After the fun I had a box full of sturdy cardboard tubes. The box now houses my saw chain sharpener and the tubes are used to store steel rods. I took out those tubes that were not pointing straight up and put a frame of board around to keep them togehter. It works beautifully. Göte

Dear Neil, I apologize for using the wrong word. Perhaps you could enlighten me, who is writing in a foreign language, what expression to use. I also apologize for using my old education in physics and geometry to express my opinion as to their usefulness. Sincerely Göte

In "normal" tongs, the gripping force at the jaw is inversely proportional to the distance from the fulcrum to the point of contact with the work piece. In this one, the force is independent of the distance from the fulcrum. The force is the same as if the jaw were as short as the distance between the two pins at the jaw end. In addition to this we have the bend of the moving lever. In the picture it looks like around 20 degrees. If the bend were to be increased to sixty degrees the force exceted by the jaws would double - with a corresponding loss of jaw travel. This loss of jaw travel is the drawback of this design. The distance between the jaws must be very well suited to the work piece because the increase of gripping power is achieved by longer travel by the reins. The force of the gripping is taken up by the two pivots at the jaw end. The other two pivots have only a fraction of the load (about 1/5 ) so the friction there is neligible. The friction in the other two is not more than in normal tongs gripping with the same force. It is an interesting design but the usefulness is severly limited by the requirement that the work piece dimensions fit the jaw distance very closely. Göte

I doubt that there is any leverage lost. The geometry will give the same force at the tip as at the outer fulcrum. Gripping thick objects there is a definite increase in pressure excerted by the jaws. I think this will ofset any power lost by friction in the linkage. Cheers Göte

Thank you very much Matt. You make me want to start making shamrocks - it has never entered my head before. It will be a nice ending insted of plain leaf. I appreciate both sketch and photo The combinatino is formidable. Göte