HWHII

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.

I think your selling the shop short. Call your local tool rental see what they get. I get offers all the time for my mini trackhoes. $100 bucks for a weekend. Last paid shop I worked in the owners bro wiped out 4 large lenox
BS blades in 15 mins thats $180 or $720 per hr plus he was getting paid. Had an old farrier friend finally had
his tool steel topped H-B surface ground. Perfect till some one bounced a 2.5 lb hammer off the face. Theis was someone he knew and worked with every day. Just a thought my friend. Is $10 per hr worth chipping(damaging) your anvil worth only $10. I have a CNC plasma table. Anyone can play with it. Its 10k a minute. If they break it I gotta replace it. Cost this yr $600 Turn it on and it won't work. My bad. Not saying all are bad Just be careful who ya let play paid or not.

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.

Guess everybody has 12 megapixel cameras nowadays! Doesn't IPBoard have a way to re-size them automatically like vBulletin does?

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

$500!!?? Blacksmiths Depot carries a couple of nice ones that have not disappointed anyone. The ones that say "Off Center Products" (just get the small one). http://www.blacksmithsdepot.com/Templates/cart_templates/cart-detail.php?theLocation=/Resources/Products/Forges_and_Parts/blowers/112_CFM_Blower

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 definitely recommend A DC welder, my first welder was this Miller Thunderbolt, the 225/150 AC/DC. And i can tell you that i would weld for hours with this thing. A really good machine for what it is. I'm sure that the Lincoln AC/DC equivalent model is just as good as the miller, but the miller has done great for me, and i was 17 at the time i got it and i would weld at least a few pounds of rods every day for a few years with it. Ive sense moved up to a dynasty for the tig capability's. But with a tig torch and argon bottle you can scratch start tig with those little AC/DC machines - Tig on DC only. I use to go a little bit of tig welding with my thunderbolt.

So I recommend AC/DC Miller or Lincoln

Heres the thunderbolt
http://www.millerwelds.com/products/stick/thunderbolt_xl_ac_dc/

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.

She's on my list!

I guess I should have been more clear.

I do plenty of research, and I don't intend to come here so that people can do my homework for me. I've read every book our library has on welding - my only teacher is this site, other sites and books. I know what the AWS numbers on rods mean with the exception of specifically how the rod coating may or may not relate to the topic of overlays and underlays.

All I was asking was is 6013 the same as 6010/11 when it comes to 7018 being laid on it. A simple "yes" or "no" is all I was looking for because I like using 6013; didn't seem like a tough question that would require someone to "get up out of their chair .... to do the research" for me. I don't recall reading in a book (or somewhere) anything other than 6010 or 6011 (I don't remember which) being used as a root pass. If the electrode coating doesn't make a difference and it all comes down to the tensile strength, then that answers my question.

Just curious - what about 6011 or 6013 followed by 7018? For hobby welding, I like 6013 - no storage issues, decent bead appearance. I have problems using 6011 - haven't quite gotten the technique down yet.

Joe

Just keep track of your blood stats, according to my doctor I'd a been better off with less carbs in my diet and more protein for staving off diabetes.

I am glad it is working again for you. It is a interesting looking older machine. I haven't seen one like it before. By the way nice color! ;)

Box is painted and drying. It is now Oliver green. The guts are on my workbench so I could paint the inside. I painted the iron of the transformer with rust converter.

I decided to buy new leads...the gentleman at the welding store said mine were worth their weight in copper at least. I had 10ft leads, and bought 30ft of wire. Would you

a) have a 15 ft ground and a 15 ft stinger. (my original thought)
b ) have a 10 ft ground and a 20 ft stinger
c) some other arrangement

and why.

I also found that I had an appropriate cord for 30 amp service, it is white and 20 ft long. I guess it will look dirty in a week or so. Much better than the 4 ft cord that was on it. All I need is to find that pesky step drill and install the new strain relief.

Phil

Good call HWHII, I pulled the cord out of the box (was easier to get to than I thought, but was really well fastened overall) and the red lead is in less than wonderful shape. Not only did the insulation fall off when I got in there, it is poorly crimped into its lug AND the screw it is on is loose! Gonna be a few days till I can try it. A few more if I take it all the way down and paint.

JNewman, On other boxes I would have tried that, this one has taps, you pull the plug and move it to another position. I did get in with a bore brush to clean the holes. I am going to get my flitz out and put some metal polish on before I am done.

Phil

As I have stated before I have belonged to two unions, Ironworkers, and Sheetmetal Workers and my father was a devot IBEW man. As for my father the union worked very well for him and our family. That I think was a different time and era. As for me I can not say the same. I have experienced almost all the problems mentioned so far in this thread with other people. Which makes me think it is commmon practice.

In America today I think we have lost touch of a honest days work for a honest days pay and maybe some of the jobs that have been lost over seas might still be here and a pickup truck might not cost $40,000.

I got this idea for this thread yesterday while replying to another.

In the past before I started my buisness, it was common place for me to work for beer. When it came to friends and family. I do not like to exchange money and would rather barter for stuff. This is because I believe money is a root to evil. It is nice if you have it, but it can bring head aches and trouble.

I have done countless repairs, traded tools, tongs and even coal for beer. Recently I had 9 very good friends help me raise my shop in an old time barn raising for beer and steaks.

On the flip side there countless things I have done because of beer that have not been good. Like quote a job over a couple of beers and have it come back to bite me hard.

I do believe Benjiman Franklin was right when he said, " Beer Is Proof God Loves Us."

I would love to hear some of your stories! :D

I would check your imput power and contections. All they way from your electrical box, cord, female plug, male plug, the cord into the power source and internal conections. From the sound of it you may have one leg not connected. It might be as simple as a lose or corroded wire.

Don't get me wrong I agree with everything Larry just posted above. But I also agree with John B's comment "In my experience a union is usually an active defence against bad/poor management,"

Could you provide for your family at those wages?