Jack Evers

Yeah I figured they were for moving it, I was just wondering what sizes would work best. PVC will break most likely, those look to be maybe two inch OD black pipe?

I think if I had three of them about 30" long each that might be enough.

On a perfectly smooth surface a roller is a roller. 1/8 inch as good as 3 inch. As the surface gets rougher (or dirtier - sweep up ahead), the roller should be bigger. 1" nominal as a minimum should be fine on concrete. maybe 2" on packed dirt. Mine was moved with motor attached and was top heavy. I used 1 inch as I recall, but had ropes from the top to prevent it tipping.

http://www.ehow.com/info_8487128_difference-between-hot-cold-chisels.html

I'm surprised it took that long. 30 KW is a bunch of energy.

Like DSW, I have a long extension cord (100 ft) that can be plugged into a dryer or range outlet. Now I have a 6KW generator and can go anywhere with it, but still use the ex cord to reach vehicles that I can't get into the shop.. One of the ancillary costs to a high amperage machine is getting a 230 plug where you need it. If you're renting, it's not even possible, but an extension cord will work. A Lincoln 225 suggests a 50 amp circuit, Driers are typically 30 amp at 230 volts, but that still allows 180 amp welds (arc voltage is much lower than line voltage) or more. An electric range is more apt to be sized for 50 amps. Your dad can probably help with fabricating the cord. O/A for general welding can be quite expensive - refills on the small bottles are pushing $100.00 for both botttles $60+ on the A and 30+ on the O last I got.

Hourly elec costs are less than running your dryer or electric range and an hour of arc time is a lot of time.

The tombstone is a 225-AC or 225-ac/dc Lincoln shaped much like a tombstone:

http://www.lincolnelectric.com/en-us/equipment/stick-welders/pages/ac-225.aspx

relatively inexpensive and durable. I bought mine in 1964' fan bearings are noisy now, but that's the only problem.

Thanks, I did play with some more compression and it helped. I'll play some more and probably call Sid. Trimming the slide would do it now, but I'd talk to Sid first.

Mine is the old style - SN 4174 about 1920.

I have 2-1/2 inches At 6:00 and both the toggle arms and the crosshead on the Pitman are at max adjustment to lower the hammer. Crosshead is at the bottom of the pittman - think I need to reverse it like you did.

I have acquired a 50 lb LG, done a few small jobs like draw out 3/8 by 1" steel for toe weighted horseshoes and seemed OK, but when I started to strike heavily on bigger stuff, the hammer was coming up far enough on up stroke to have the inner slide hit the flywheel. Upon trying to adjust, I believe the crosshead is upside down. The neck that slides over and clamps to the pittman is below the crosshead arms restricting how far I can adjust downward.Pictures I can find suggest but aren't real clear that this is upside down. I can take pics if nessesary, but any comments?

I bought the big brother to that forge (4" wider) at about that time - I still have it and use it along with two newer ones although I did convert it to a venturi. The forge is easy to reline if necessary. I don't recall the price. I'd say you got a good price on the anvil and the forge was a gift (or vice-versa).

I'd certainly say 3" is too small for a cattle brand - OK for a horse. My personal irons are about 3 wide by 3-1/2 tall (horse) and 4-1/2 wide by 5-1/2 tall (cow).

I heard this story second hand. A talented Idaho farrier and manufacturer of farriers' tools, Jay Sharp, went to England a number of years ago to enter a forging and  horseshoeing competition. Other Americans also went and entered. He noticed that nearly all of the Brits who were contestants had their anvils two or more inches lower than the oft suggested big-knuckle height. He figured that they must know something, so upon returning home, he lowered his anvil height. The following year, he returned to the UK, and when he entered the contest venue, he saw that half of the Brits has raised their anvil height, Yankee style. Har de har har.

 

Sayings and Cornpone

"Two blacksmiths was really one blacksmith, and one blacksmith was no blacksmith."

     David Brandow in "The Iron Trillium" Ontario newsletter

Same type story and I did see pictures. Dennis Manning was on the first two teams to compete in England (as well as several others). He has pictures of the first competition with Americans having tidy shoeing boxes while the Brits are mostly dropping their tools on the ground. A year later it was reversed. The Americans ha copied the Brits and they hd copied us.

My lady friend is an artist and notices the decorations. After traveling with me, she now even notices utility metalwork such as manhole covers and storm grates.

think on the old term for copper brazing: "penny weld"  though US cents were an alloy and not pure copper even before they became zinc filled!

I believe 1981 and before pennies could be used to braze - I've done it. After 1981, pennies are mostly zinc. Fellow that taught me was asked what he charged for a pair of bar shoes. Twenty dollars and 2 cents with the 2 cents up front and in cash. Been a long time, Thomas, since I've thought of of the penny weld.

Copper has been advocated, very interesting.

 

I've got a few old (mid to late Eighteenth Century) pieces of domestic metalware that show evidence of brazing to repair / join wrought iron and, in one instance, steel. So far as I can tell, these all have brass as the 'sticking' medium. I have not yet seen copper used elsewhere either, but maybe this is a local preference - I am in the UK and techniques vary from county to county.

 

So, and I am assuming that the smiths back then knew their business and didn't waste time / money on work that was going to come back with a complaint attached, the question I want to ask is: what is the advantage of brass over copper or silver for these joins?

 

Thanks in advance for advice on this, because in the near future I will need to braze a couple of joins and I want to do things effectively as well as authentically.

I can't speak for the old guys, but cost, availability and suitability all would play a part. It really doesn't take much, so cost might be minor.Two hundred years ago, I would guess that brass may have been more readily available than copper, while today, at least for me, there's always some copper wire or tubing around the shop and seldom any scrap brass in reasonable dimension. In addition for my shoe making, I may need to do some forging (shaping) after the joint is brazed. Copper has a bit higher melting point and makes this easier for me than brazing rod, which is the only brass that I've tried.

In my farrier practice, I often resort to brazing when the ambient temps are low as is my bottle level and I just can't get welding heats. I use copper (sometimes wire, often flattened tubing) since it's melting point - 1900 F - is much higher than braze rod. prepare the joint, add flux (often borax), heat in forge while watching for it to melt. Pull out and press (not hit) with a hammer face - the hammer just cools it quickly. With a copper braze it can be reheated to a red forging temp.

If I could get it close to home for under 50 cents, I buy a whole bunch.

Yeah, cone mandrels. The fabricator has already cut oxygen cylinders for me and I've used the bottoms as bowl sinking tools. I guess you'd need to cut the top and bottoms off, then cut a V shape out, then somehow compress it so the V is closed and you get the cone shape, then weld shut. Easier said than done though and I don't know what sort of machine could compress it to shut the V.

 

At another steel supplier/fabrication yard I came across an off-cut of twisted solid bar that was at least 1.5" square. I asked one of the guys there if he twisted it, he said no and pointed to a machine in the corner and said that it twists cold solid bar. My jaw hit the floor and since then I've thought that anything's possible.

At a large steel mill, I was once shown a machine they claimed could cold roll 2-1/2 inch plate into a 30 inch cylinder in a single pass. Yep, those things are possible. For my grad school research, I had a vessel of about those dimensions (30 inch I.D. rated at 3000 psi)., but don't know how it was formed. It cost over $3000 in the early 60's, close to $30,000 in today's dollars. That's the vessel, not the roller.

I'm a farrier more than a blacksmith - read that as 1" by 3/8" is heavy stock - My main hammers are in the two pound range, one at about 1-1/2 pounds. On a few occasions when I had wrist soreness (from driving 60 to 80 penny ring shank nails in post and rail fences) , I was using 4 pounders, mostly just picking them up and dropping them, not swinging them. An arm therapist told me that anvil height was a biggy and to not get lazy and just pull my anvil out onto the tailgate, but to put it on my stand. I believe it was good advice. By the way, I am 75 years old and have to be more careful than I used to be.

Years ago on a research project, we put out bids for a 30 inch I.D. pressure vessel to contain 3000 psi. The low bid was about half the next bid. When we checked, that bidder knew where to get a closure to fit the vessel, other bidders were planning to fabricate. Don't try to build from scratch if you can find something already built.

Diuralumin (and Aluminum) melt about 1200 F - Not suitable.

Hard to say from just those two dimensions,but my guess would be between 400 and 500. Pushing 600 is stretching things.

Hard to say from those two dimensions,but my guess would be between 400 and 500. Pushing 600 is stretching things.

To me, bad idea. Teflon tape will seal the threads, There is a special heavy yellow for natural gas (propane is similar to natural gas), but the regular white stuff should work. I've used it at a few thousand psi, you're working with a few 10's of psi. Not a big problem. Just use a soap solution to test the joints and have fun. Don't use oil.

I've been using this method alot, but I wonder, how easily does hydrogen embrittlement occur? I thought it took months and years in a pressurized state to get that, hydrogen tanks for example.

Depends on the alloy, temperature and pressure and can occur quite quickly (as in minutes) with high strength steels, low temps, high acid concentrations and high pressure. At room temps and atmospheric pressure it is much slower, but NACE (National Assn of Corrosion Engineers), suggests only a four hour window between acid treating and starting to bake the hydrogen out.