Ralph

I
have a 4 foot round half inch thick plate. my plan assuming my cancer alows, is to drill bolt holes and bolt on pipe couplings 3 inch, then use 3 in pipe and flange to hyold up vise. should work. if not try try again. Nice thing is that most stuff was gifted, the vise was given by aa friend who was dealine with MS,
Grizz also gifted me with 6 years of friendship a forge,a motorcycle and more than I could ever say cya one day buddy

only way to get good enooguht is to do it.
Ask Dr H HOW long he tryied to get as good as he is.
better yet work with daughter.

RALPH

ELLEN - is going to have an kidney removed tomorrow. They have detected a hickey in it. They will remove the kidney to make sure the problem is isolated to the one kidney.

We need to give ELLEN all of our support and prayers.

Thanks in advance.

Chuck

Ellen I knew you were headed into mor surgery, BUT not as severer as is so to be. YOU GOT ALL PRARERS. hold tough . need anything ask and i will try to help

Ralph @ Dawn

so far was in Doc occife for 5 hours and no real results other than no real results. othan that the hosptpitl makes good oatmeal. SIGH sofar be both have good out looks. now I need to remember where I parked. think it was is in the hostpitl visitor parking. but that is for a new day.

Unugh on me. how about y'all?


Ralph

i can only say I HAD a blast at the 2000 ABANA CONFERERECE especially it only intended for use to visit my Daughters, graduation of Santa FE,which was good.
Wife and familily were gracices enought to see all the collrgee stuff, AS WELL AS ABOUT 65% OF THE DEMOS%. YES I DID HELP WITH LORE LIE AND DOROTHY sEGLIER, AS HER DAUGHTER HAD TO BAIL AT LAST MOMENT. GOOD FOR ME.
HAH,HAH! GOOD TO HAVE A CLOSE KNIT GROUP.

Ralph BTW DOPRYHY ANY TIME YOU NEED OR WANT A Astrriker or back up man j ust ask, i will be ready.
Ralph

I believe Ralph was referring to this part of your opening post. " I've built more forges than anybody."

irn, you hit it on the head. smithing more or less 12 years. usuall as a volunteer at Ft. Vancover . NHS Have a fantastic time trying to learn.Got some folks there that know vmore than I WILL EVER KNOW but I keep tying. Also folks like irnsrg. but just keep ploding along. i might vjust miss the nasty cowpie and find the jewel
ralph the hopefull

uh that is rather large claim making more forges ESPECIALLYATy at age 16.
just my opinion at age 47.

I have some four foot round that I plan as a base. Plan on usuing a 3 in pipe thread as the base then use a vice 3 inch flange to hold the vice?

Ralph

More talent than I will have. Congrats!

Ralph

actually miine is not made by them any longer but pieces parts might be had

I have an old DIvillbiscast iron pump, but none of the internal pluming yet. one day.
ralph

well I do have a poorlk made leaf to send off. mrbbee later this week.

ralph

going to have to deal with poor speeling.

On hammer handles I do drive them in. But I trim the wood wedge so it will go through the eye,and start it in the grove before I install handle,sometimes I wasn't able to get it in after installation.Wedge it and set in water for a while.J

NEVER set in water! The water will swell the wood crushing it against the hammer head and then it will be loose. Glue is for folks too lazt to do it right in my opinion. But linseed oil on the other hand is great. Scrape the handle to the smoothness you like and let the whole thing take a bath in linseed oil for a while(a day or so) and after using for a week or so the handle will feel very very nice. AS well as being tight in the hammer head.

To me nut sized coal is still 'pea' sized. I like my coal to about the size of walnuts. less drops thru the clinkerbreaker/air inlet. I know that at Frank Turleys school part of the morning is spent breaking up the large coal into smaller useable coal. Each person does his/her own.

Ralph

First off I want to tell all of yall that Dawn and I greatfull for all the prayers, it works!

Now update. yester day Mar 16 ( Weds) Dawn had her modified radical masectomy And lymph gland removal with no problems. And after a typical
hospital night ( woken up evert 2 hours) She was doing good enought that Dr let her come home about noon PST. She is now resting comfortably ( I hope) Lasagna is in the oven and dinner in 30 mins...

Ralph

One fellow had a hardy mixed in with some plumbing parts---I bought it and asked where the anvil was, later that day I picked up a mint 100# Vulcan that had been "too heavy to haul to the fleamarket" I bought it for $1 a pound and sold it for $150 a pound that same day---I'm not a big fan of Vulcans even with *SHARP* edges and an unused face.


Thomas

WOW 150.00 a pound! you are the re-sale KING.

Ralph

Chain is one of the easiest things to make. Especially good for learning forgewelding.
Depending on size of link cut off a section (ROund or square) Bend to a U and slightly bend the open ends in as if you wer going to have them touch but not quite that far. place a scarf on one end flip over and scarf the other end ( ends need to be scarfed opposite sides so they will overlap) finish bending scarfed ends so they overlap. After a few of these you should be able to do the cut bend and scarf in one heat, as well as have enough ( red) heat left to brush and flux. Back in fire bring to weld temp and join the ends. Brush reflux and back to weld temp to finish the weld and dress it up.
The hardest part of chain making is dealing with the mass of chain as it gets longer.

Ralph

not sure hard faceingf is the way to go. But I am not sure. Seems I was reading about how hardfacing rod will work harden and get brittle and then you have new repairs to make. BUt one of the real welding folks can step in and correct me if so.

Ralph

Seems to me an induction forge would use a lot of amps etc, thus be rather costly.
Also it would only push the pollution out further to a electric pwp plant most likely an coal fired plant.

Ralph

Just remember NOT to stray into the beam area from the collectors to the focal point....:)

I will agree with Dennis on this one. Mention to EVERYONE that you are getting into smithing and ask if anyone knows of an anvil and other tools that might be had. I mean everyone. Dr Barber, Doc, grocery cleck family freinds. Stop at estate sales, Go into your towns older industrial area and see if any of the business used to have blacksmith repair shop ( you will be suprised as to what all business has smiths). And be pateint. I waited 3 years and finally ran across one a PW 149 lber for 67 cents ( UDS) a pound

Ralph

The Setting:
I Have now in my little corner of the garage a Whisper Daddy (3 burner) gas forge,with front door and side ports (neighbors do not like the smoke of a coal forge and I can roll this out doors for working) Even filled the Tank.
I have steel to hit, an Anvil to hit on, a hammer to hit with and have metal shavings and "20 mule team" to flux (for all the good it has done me)
Again any help would be great!
Thanks in advance & God Bless
cheftjcook

My own opinion is get rid of the metal shavings. It was a common additive during the wrought iron years. The wrought iron already had a lot of inclusions in it so some extra metal crud was not going to do much to hurt it. BUt today you do not need it. I believe it will make for a dirty weld seem. Just use 20 Mule.
My rule for welding is this bring the metal with flux to about the same color a pat of butter is on a piece of toast under a broiler. Just as the butter starts to melt and get the swirly liquid movement on the surfacce. If you metal and flux look about like that remove form fire and place on anvil and immedieatly hit with hammer. Not a hugh whopping hit but a nice FIRM tap. Mebbe a few taps then you will need to brush off crud reflux reheat re-weld to shape the joint.
Ralph

Just got back from seeing the Dr about Dawn's cancer.
So what is next is a radical mastectomy on her right breast including removing all lymph glands in the right armpit. Then depending on what is found in the 4 areas of concern in the breast possible chemo ( pretty likely) and perhaps radiation.
This will be done at 1130 PST Wednesday MArch 15.

Glenn I will look thru my records and see if I still have my nail header demo and then it can be presented as a BP.

Bruce,
There are many different methods of making nail headers. My way is some what more work to make than some but it is a good way so you can make one header head and many different nail 'dies' that can be inserted.
But simply a nail header is a tool that will have a square tapered hole for the nail stock to go into . It will have a domed top with the square hole centered in it. the taper on the hole will be smaller at the top and wider at the bottom to allow for the nail to release. I usually dril a small pilot hole then use a square punch of the correct size to make it square and tapered.

The nail process is you take nail stock ( 1/4 square usually) and make a sholder on the stock on two sides this should size is going to dependent on how thick you want the nail to be ( or the smae size as the nail header hole)
Then draw down the stock from the shoulder and then form the point. Then reheat ( you can do this first part in one heat , and after a while you can do the whole nail in one heat.) But then take a 2nd heat and abour 1/8 to 1/4 inch above the shoulder cut almost thru the nail and then if the head is still pretty hot a goo red or better then insert into header and break off and then hammer the head on ( over pritchel works best. I do 5 hits on top center to set the nail then 4 hits to make the 'rose' pattern. One far side of smith at an angle and the same on left right and near side

With regard to chrome plating and galvo giving off fumes, I agree that the fumes given off would be dangerous, even fatal, but would it still be the case for a spanner as rusted as the one in the picture?
Surely the coating would be corroded away?

!

My take on this is why take a chance? You only get one run at life here on earth.

Ralph