GottMitUns

Dried Sausage if I can catch a cold front at the right time.

You Might try getting your hands on some Heavy weight expanded metal like used on a BBQ pit and then clipping out a cross and forging it.

Ray, there is a blacksmith group meeting around Victoria/Ander/Goliad Texas this weekend at Otto Bluntzers shop (Goliad Forge). He has a hood that vents his charcoal forge out a window of his shop. If a picture is worth a thousand words,,,,,

Made a little forward progress on this project today before the rain hit. I have it lengthened to about 6 ft and mounted to a base plat so it will not fall over. here is a pic of the union threads. there is a 400 series O-ring inside the cap. empty capacity is about 22 gallons

I just got a gas saver last week and worked it into my existing torch set up, I put it between the reg and 30' of hose, ( at this point in the post all of the old guys are shaking there head because they know it will take at lease 3-4 seconds for all the gases in 30' of hose to burn off before the torch goes out!) next chance I get I will rig it up at the end of the hose with a 5 foot whip hose coming off of it. Food for thought.

I use a large ammo can, I think it was for 40mm grenades. I like it because I'm clumsy the top can be latched down tight :D

Dang it Spanky and Paul,,,now I have to try that!!!

You will get bonus points if you can come up with a Honduran scabbard to go with it. I think I paid 18.00US for it and the machete in La Esparonza Honduras

look at the Ontario Knife Company 18" Military machete 1/8" 1095 50-55rc it is the best I have used and I have the scars from the cheap ones to prove it :blink: you will need a whet rock instead of a file to sharpen it!

I had a phone call with the guys who make Kroil oil last week about putting it under pressure, they didn't throw any red flags in the air but also said they had never heard of it being done. Right now my plan is to use a dual diaphragm pump to fill the chamber from the bottom and bypass the air out through a needle valve on top. I think the pump will put up around 60PSI. To empty the chamber back into the reservoir my plan is to use shop air pressure. With the volume I am looking at I'm going to need around 25-30 gallons of Kroil! at what that stuff goes far per gallon I see why this isn't a everyday question! But for the one particular tool that got me off top dead center on this project it could pay for itself real quick. the tool is about 5ft long 6" OD 2-1/2" ID with 28 10/32 and 1/4-20 socket head set screws and lo head cap screw in various places on the tool. rounding out the head or breaking any of these screws means a trip into the machine shop for the whole assembly. throwing something like that up on a Bridgeport mill can kind of ruin a machinist day. On a side note my new old shop hand (1 month with me ,25 years in the field) told me about how they used to free up some tool connections and it runs hand in hand with something I learned here. they would heat them with a rosebud until the joint was dull red and quench them in the caustic vat, said it had to be caustic, fresh water just wouldn't do the trick. Didn't "SuperQuench" come about because of something like that?

Thomas, Early on I spent 6 months as a rigger on a slickline truck, My operators motto was "if I cant fix you well, I'll screw it up so bad nobody else can either!" I still keep that in mind when building things, along with a funny that came across the fax machine one day. The funny was a drawing of a engineer setting at his desk, face buried in his hands with a caption that read " Oh S#&T, you did it just like I told you to!" I will keep y'all posted as this project goes farther. Russell

Vacuum is a interesting idea! Everything gets anti seize at assembly when we do it, but some of the tools we redress are not ours so I cant speak to what others do. The environment they are in is very harsh! Depending on the well they could be exposed to saltwater, dry gas, H2S, petro distillate, crude oil, paraffin, calcium build up, salt build up and 250-400 deg F to boot. Thanks Russell

I know this is not blacksmith related but I respect the opinions of the people on this board so I am posting it here. I manufacture and redress sub surface oil tools for a living and one of the major hassles we run into on a daily basis are 1/4-20 and 10-32 set screws that are froze up in tools and internal threaded connections that are rusted solid. its just about standard operating procedure to use a 36" pipe wrench with a 60" cheater pipe and a large rosebud to tear the tools down. the average tool size is 6" OD and 6 ft long. Once we get the tool into our shop we usual have less that a day to get it torn down, redressed and back to our customer, so a long soak in penetrating oil is not a option. For the last 10 years I have been rolling around the idea of building a pressure vessel that I could drop the tools into, fill it with penetrating oil and then apply pressure ( 10-100 PSI) to see if it would speed the penetrating process. last month I ended up with 2 test chambers with 9" IDs and high pressure unions on them for free, so now the most expensive of the pieces are in place. Has anyone ever tried something like this? I have built Hyro test units that can go to 15000PSI and I test tools to 5,000 PSI daily so I am aware of the dangers that I am working with. Thanks Russell

Stash, It was the Young Life or "Vida Joven" camp out side of Matagalpa. The bird hunt was real close to Lake Managua, upstream from lake Nic I think.

Vaughn, My trigger finger is OK, the loading thumb and shoulder/bicep are still swollen!! 11 boxes of shells in about 3 hours! :lol: The man in charge of maintenance and construction of the camp didn't know I was a armature blacksmith until the evening of the last day I was there. form the look on his face I'm fairly sure ill be helping them with a forge next time I go down. :)

I was on a mission trip thru my church last week in Nicaragua and happen to find this in the camp workshop, or bodega as its called there. The man who started the camp thought is came out of Russia in the 70s or 80s I didn't happen to have a 1" ball bearing in my pocket but a small hammer bounced off of it real good. I may get to help them setup a forge next time I am down there. This pic is not anvil related but it sure was fun! We got a chance to hunt dove on the last day of the trip. It was the first time I ever stopped shooting doves because I was tired of shooting doves!

Thanks for jumping in Gerald, and please accept my apology for not noting you in my first post as the author of the article in The Hammers Blow! I am working on my second axe head and drift now. I learner the hard way to spend a little more time on the drift :) I figure the asymmetrical weld was done because the smith had no high carbon steel to make a bit out of and by doing it asymmetrical he used the least amount on iron to accomplish the job at hand. Thanks Russell

Yuriy I did make the drift also. I only had 1" bar to start with so my eye is a little small. On the old hatchet head you are correct. The weld is on one side just forward of the eye with no bit. Russell

Eseeman, it took me about 4 or 5 hours spread out over a week to get it this far. I still need to do some shaping and sanding and heat treat the bit. RWD

If you go far enough back you can find ones that look like this. My best guess is that it was picked up when the Presidio La Bahia or Mission Espiritu Santos in Goliad Tx were rebuilt in the 1960's (originally built around 1749). In the pic of hatchet head standing up you can see the forge weld. Thanks Russell

I received my latest copy of The Hammers Blow and saw the axe head article and had to try it! For my first attempt I am happy with it. 1018 body with a O-1 bit. Thank Russell

Made this for a charity auction for a friend of the family. The dome ends were forged with a baseball bat end on one of Salt Creek Forges swage blocks I have to find a candle for it and put some kind of coating on it, probably rustolium. Thanks Russell

Very Cool! RWD

I tried something and it worked out pretty good for once. I setup the heavy, but not anchored down items in my shop so that they can be moved with a pallet jack. It helps that I have concrete floors and some elbow room. For What its worth. Russell

I picked up about 20 Armstrong C clamps 4" 6" 8" and 10" for 1 dollar a inch a few years back, government surplus. Our tax dollar hard at work. xxxx fine C clamps. Russell