Jack Evers

A doctor friend of mine once said, he thought Phizer was a fine company, he prescribed a lot of their products, but he didn't spen a lot of time reading what they had to say about their own products. Same goes here. I'd rather get some user input than to just google the website.

There are some tips on the net about converting sodium bicarb to sodium carb by heating it in the oven, but walmart for one carries the washing soda.

Well, Frosty, I have lots of Stihl bar and chain oil, I'll try to get some Duralube in town. The reason I suspect old lube is that on cold mornings like today, about 30 degrees in the shop, the clutch really doesn't disengage. Turned it on this morning,it set there running about 25 BPM, not hard strokes, barely touching 1-3/4 metal, but not disengaging. After running a while it was hitting a little harder, but still not disengaging. Works fine at speed, just doesn't totally disengage when cold.I need to pick up some zerks too. Several are missing. I'll get it cleaned up and some light oil, see what happens. Thanks.

Mica is a sheet silicate (phyllosilicate).

Thanks for the help!!

3/4 shaft, Pulley is 2-!/2 OD, probably about 2" effective pitch diam. Clutch does a good job regulating speed down to perhaps 100 BPM, then gets a bit sticky, may be old lubricant and low temps. We've has a cold spring and my shop is an old milk barn with a lot of concrete i.e. thermal inertia. Good in the fall when it's slow to cool off, but also slow to warm up in the spring.

While we're on this, I have a 50# LG, got it tuned up now, don't have much experience using it. I've searched the site and seen numbers around 300 RPM for the hammer speed. Mine is about that, but I would like opinions on a good speed for a newbie at hammer use. I might be able to conveniently slow mine to the 220-250 RPM range, , more than that would require a jackshaft. Any suggestion? My motor is single phase, 1725 RPM. 1-1/2 HP.

In North America, AC electric current is 60 cycles/sec or 3600 cycles/min. An AC motor under no load will run at 3600 rpm or some sub multiple such as 1/2, 1/3. 1/4 of 3600. With load there is a slowing to the often used 3450 rpm or 1725 rpm, but nothing in between. If the motor is cheap enough, it might be possible for a good motor shop to halve that rpm. I don't know what that entails, but you might ask around.and see what it might cost.

Actually, the 15 psi for Acct has a safety margin built into it. I won't say how much since some folks will push it.

Purely from a farrier, shoe building perspective, the rounded bob punch is used from the ground surface of of the shoe, over the edge of the anvil or the hardy hole to push a bubble of metal to the hoof surface where it can be formed into a clip. The tool forming the recess for the nail head is usually called a forepunch or head stamp.

Actually, Frosty, San Louis Valley (perhaps it's been added since you posted) pretty much defines his location for folks close to Colorado. It's not close to me tho. Southern, Co. I'm close to North Park, Co. which would on the other side of the state.

Yep, where I am , 50 pounds/sq foot snow load, that awning would be designed for more than a ton of weight. I remember helping a friend with a barn roof near New Mexico/Mexico boarder. Shocker!! I'd never before been on a roof where I had to worry about keeping my weight directly over a truss.

It's good to -40 in a 50-50 mix and then it won't swell and bust things, just get slushy and hard to move.

I have a 280 pound Vulcan, repaired the edges about 20 years ago using 7018 rod. Still holding up pretty well, but keep in mind that I'm more a farrier than blacksmith and it doesn't have real heavy steel worked on a regular basis. I was moving not forging when this pic was taken and it shows some rust. Gone now.

I have a 280 pound Vulcan, repaired the edges about 20 years ago using 7018 rod. Still holding up pretty well, but keep in mind that I'm more a farrier than blacksmith and it doesn't have real heavy steel worked on a regular basis. I was moving not forging when this pic was taken and it shows some rust. Gone now.

The most common type of traction/hard facing that farriers apply to horseshoes consists of tungsten carbide particles cast into a rod and bound into a braze metal matrix. I used to apply it with a torch which put me right over the fumes. Since I was normally outdoors, it wasn't a real problem, but I now break off pieces of the rod, place them on the shoe and melt it in my gas forge. An amazing amount of white zinc oxide will coat my forge above the opening. True Borium hard face has the particles in a steel tube and must be applied with a torch, but doesn't have fumes. I don't know all of the alloys of brass/bronze, but some are pretty nasty for either heating or grinding.

I have one that I bought with my Lincoln 225 back in 1966. Doesn't see much use these days, but it hasn't been forgotten and gets used if I'm low on gas and don't want to make a trip to town.It, me and the 225 are getting some age.

This value is way off the mark. I have a table in front of me from the Canadian Standards Assn. giving a value of 23.5 CF of air per 1 CF of propane. Using the combustion equation from the excerpt : You would need 5 CF of O2 for each CF of propane and considering air as 21% O2, I would calculate a ratio of 5/0.21 = 23.8 in agreement with the Canadian standards. The shop can still achieve this. I have not checked other values, but you need almost 25 times the air combustion volume given to the City fathers, which could send me off on a rant about unqualified people approving (or disapproving) various requests before them. If things are not opposed, they are likely not checked. Oh well that rant is for another day, but thought the OP might like a correct value.

My ranch has a 100+ year old RR easement across it that has never had a rail laid or even dirt moved.. I suppose I could legally get it abandoned (the holder of the easement seems to no longer exist) but haven't seen the need .There will never be a reason for a line here. I know at least one other nearby easement where the bed was constructed (including a tunnel), but the Union Pacific( the big kid on the block) just threw their resources at going around the little guy before he could finish. Apparently that was the best ROW, but UP went around rather than meet the price to buy it. UP pretty well controlled Wyoming in the late 1800's early 1900's.

Hard to say what the original contract with the landowner said. For a shortline that was abandoned here about 15-20 years ago, the RR did salvage the rails, then ownership reverted to the original landowners. Fortunately about 20 miles was on the National Forest and was converted to a trail system once it went back to the forest service. Sounds like overgrowth may make your line too difficult and expensive to recover the rail and if it did revert to the landowner, there should be several to approach and at least one may welcome you.

Austrailian $ about US $1.04.

As Rusty says, NC is your best source for your specific forge, but my experience (and I have an NC) and farriers that I have talked to is that for general work, some heating, some welding.you'll burn about 2 pounds per hour of flame time in a two burner forge. If you used up a tank in an intermittent use afternoon, the tank probably didn't start out full or it froze up or cooled the liquid too far.. My gauge doesn't work anymore, I just go by the sound of the forge so I don't know what pressure I work at most times, likely around 8psi. Here is a long thread that may help. I chime in with some technical data around post 35. I don't claim to be a real blacksmith, more of a farrier, and blacksmithing horseshoes for twenty years is more of a year's experience 20 times than twenty years experience, but I am an expert on fuel gases, etc. Hope this helps. http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/19531-freezing-propane-tanks-a-different-solution/page-2?hl=+propane%20+freezing

Hint on work. A friend's son (high school) was trying to do yard work one summer. He found people wouldn't pay say $10.00/hr to have him mow their lawn, but if he thought it would take an hour and offered to do it for $15, they were apt to hire him at the effectively higher rate.

My ex gave me a 250 pound Vulcan for Christmas over 20 years ago. Edges had been destroyed with O/A cutting, but I repaired those and I like it. $1.25 a pound, jump on it. Course he's already come way down, a $100 bill might just get it.

An old gun adage is that if you want a bullet to go faster, kick it harder or kick it longer. As long as a chimney is not too long to get it all hot, extra length is good. Diameter would likely be more help, but say the hot fumes are mostly CO2. they would be heavier than air until they were a couple hundred degrees hotter than the air. If they vent out of a short stack and mix with cool air they will settle back into your work area. If they get good velocity in a longer stack they will clear the area before falling back.