HWHII

When I was working in a large fab shop We had 75 invertor power sources and have seen many shorted out boards due to grinding dust, even on the newer one that have sealed boards. The only thing I have seen work is a rigorous maintenance schedule by blowing them out every 30 days. I have a Miller XMT 304 and I bought it with a shorted out board and I blow out all my machines regularly.

Now I no why I have problems with forge welds.

You should not have to use heat, it could be dangerous! If needed use a cheater bar on the end of your wrench for more leverage. Remember too it has left hand threads.

I work in that kind of heat every day here in the desert. What works well for me is to start earily and finish earily. By that I mean if I have a lot of forge work to do I do it first thing in the morning and get it out of the way. I try to stop by 1 or 2 in the afternoon then come back laiter in the day if needed. Slow and steady works best for me. I will sit down and drink water between every heat instead of doing somthing else. The first warning sign for me for heat exhaustion is I stop sweeting, then my brain stops working, small tasks become a proublem. Then a head ache, at his point I am in trouble. No matter how much water I drink if I over do excert myself it will always come on. The one thing that will always work for me to bring my core temperature down is to run cool water over my head and keep my bandana went will I am working. Hope this helps! B)

I also have seen Lorelei demo on this. It sounds like you got it figured out though. I will post a photo here for others. Sorry if the photo comes out to big. :unsure:

My prayers to you and your wife.

I am guilty when it come to locking up my shop when I have to leave for a short time, even though I am in a secured fenced in property away from the street. After reading this I think I need to change my ways. Thanks for the slap in the head. :huh:

I don't mean to hi-jack this tread but just want say you have great ideas with what to do with all your presses. I have seen your posts here and other sites. Have you given any thought to do a book or DVD? Thanks for all your great ideas!

Congradulations to the both of you! This is the style I love in a bike. Strip down clean bobber. What is the patina used on the springer front end and the handle bars and the head light mount?

Thanks for the idea! Looks like it works good for you.

You can always build a frame out of angle iron for the grate to set down in and it will help you avoid welding to the cast. It would make a great tool rack.

Thanks for your opinion. I do realize I might be on the cheap side but I do want people to be interested and not scared away by the price. My hourly shop rate for blacksmithing work is $80.00 hr. This is what I based my rates on. Also beginners get to start on the old anvil. You are right. This could be a expensive lesson.

I have given the matter some more thought and here is what I am going to try. Keep in mind when you read this, my shop liability insurance will cover this and I have a very low overhead. It starts with; 1. Forge area with hand tools beginners $10 hr. If your making for profit $15hr. 2. Add $5 hr for eachpice of equipment to want to use; powerhammer, welding equipment, ironworker, flypress, hydraulic press, sheetmetal equipment, bandsaws, and so on. 3. $20 hr for instruction 4. $40hr for run of the whole shop except for CNC plasma. What do you think? I know I will have to make some adjustments but this seems like a good starting place for me.

This would be nice!

That is really cool. Not only can you forge with it but you could proubably make pizzas in too. I would heaven with that!

I have two of these blowers and they are all that. They have worked flawlessly.

I am surprised no one here has any thoughts on this subject. I have thought about doing this myself. Currently I have a knife smith who uses my shop every Saturday for about 4 to 6 hours and have another buisness associate who does not have a power hammer come in and use my shop. They both cover there cost with consumables such as propane, abrasives, welding supplies, and electric. If they are doing alot of work they will through me a percentage of the job. They are both good friends of mine so making a buck is not important to me. I have been at a loss to come up with per hour figure to charge for other people. I have had beginners ask if they could come in and try there hand at it before they ran out and start buying tools and others who want to smith but they live in a apartment or condo and can not set up a smithy. I do hope some people well give us a opinion or two.

Everyone has to start somewhere. If it makes you happy go for it! B)

I would like to add to this. The 225amp Lincoln machine has fixed amperage settings and does not allow for fine adjustment. This is a big plus for diffent types of welding you might want to do, exspecially if you want to try your hand with TIG.

I have a Yellow Page add, a 3/4" colum add under welding and a line add under blacksmithing and it does very well for me. The add has been payed for in the first month sense I started running it. There are a lot of Yellow page books out there now. I made sure I ran mine in the official book for the local phone company. Alot of my customers I get from here are seniors and over 50.

Lucky you! I also like your trailer and host set up.