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I Forge Iron

phabib

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Everything posted by phabib

  1. phabib
    This is outside of the question you asked so I hope you'll forgive my offering an opinion you didn't ask for. I Agree 100% with nonjic. It is a big risk buying something you've never seen from someone who has no incentive to treat you well. This is a tool that will make you money when it works and cost you money when it doesn't. The extra cost of a hammer with a dealer to support it will look like chump change when you have a deadline and your reputation is on the line to get a job done. If it takes me 6 months of tinkering to get my hammer working, its a project. In your case, its time away from your job and costing you.
  2. phabib
    Test. The previous was an attempt to get around the forbidden error. I wanted to see if a short message would post and then try to edit that message. The short message did post, but when I tried to edit it with my actual post I got an error telling me I could no longer edit, possibly because the original message was too old. Maybe a minute had elapsed. I think that all of these factories started with the same copy of the Beche design and were set up all over China back in the old days. Now they are independent and trying to earn a living. I'm sure that the service, quality, support, and attention to detail will vary from factory to factory, and as others have pointed out don't expect much in the way of warranty or help if you're only buying one. I don't know anything about the factory you're looking at so I have no idea if they'll be a good one or not.
  3. phabib
    The hammer ships with an eye bolt in that spot so I think they mean for it to be used for transport. I'm supposed to get a video of it in operation along with the request for the other 2/3 of my money within a week or so. Then it will be probably 6 weeks to get from their shop to mine. Just in time to arrive for my and my son's birthdays. We share the date.
  4. phabib
    The manufacturer says my hammer is about a week away from being ready to ship. They sent 5 photos showing the hammer from various angles as well as the dies that I ordered with it.
  5. phabib
    What's interesting is that in a 1920's USGS publication where they talk about the commercial value of the black sand from that beach, they mention that the resulting iron is "contaminated" with a certain percentage of titanium, but they say it doesn't hurt the iron's qualities so it can just be left in there. I don't think I'll be encouraging my son to burn out the iron with a thermite reaction, as much fun as that would be.
  6. phabib
    I did a bit of research and found out that right near where I'm going to move in Santa Cruz there was a company in the 1920's that owned 2 miles of beach near a river and refined the black sands that gathered there into 50 tons of iron blooms per day. They used a 6 stage electromagnet setup to pre-sort the sand. They also used the black sand in special concrete mix that was extra heavy to make counterweights for equipment and window sashes. That sand also contains a titanium iron oxides and the titanium can be refined from it by burning up the iron using oxidation from a thermite reaction.
  7. phabib
    With one of my kids being a quad as well I think its beyond great that you're working to bring the opportunity to do this kind of work to people that most would write off as not being capable of it. I've never seen one up close, but I have seen that the Chinese power hammers exist all the way down to a 6 kg size. That sounds like it could fit on a sturdy table or maybe a cantelievered shelf that a chair could roll under. With a heat proof apron or blanket on the lap you could set up a tool like this for safe use.
  8. phabib
    about 15 years ago I met an artist by the name of Finley Fryer who mixes a lot of glass and metals. He did this thing where he hung a bunch of colored glass with copper wire and then fused it all together into huge panels. He said the copper and glass had close enough coefficients of expansion that allowed it all to happen without cracking the glass.
  9. phabib
    The big newspaper where I live is called the Mercury News after the New Almaden mines that provided a lot of mercury for the gold rush. The nearby lakes still carry warnings that pregnant women shouldn't eat the fish and others should limit to a couple servings a week. There is a beach near San Francisco called "Black Sand Beach" which should provide what I need. We're also in the gold country a fair amount so I can look there. I don't have to explain the too many projects too little time problem to this group, I'm sure.
  10. phabib
    Thank you. I was afraid that would be the answer.
  11. phabib
    Any idea how the taconite ore pellets would work for making wrought iron? I think they might result in cast iron rather than wrought since they contain a flux that might cause the iron and slag to separate instead of forming the inclusions that wrought includes. You can get the ore pellets for $1 a pound on ebay where its sold as slingshot ammo.
  12. phabib
    Looks great. I'd be proud to have made that. I hadn't thought of lawnmower blades as stock before. Makes sense they'd be hard enough to stay sharp and tough enough to hit rocks without shattering.
  13. phabib
    Years ago I won a set of Harbor Freight diamond sharpening "stones" in such a raffle. I still use them. Probably $10 from HF, but I doubt I would have bought them on my own.
  14. phabib
    That's really interesting. My son and I have been talking about collecting some ore and trying to refine the iron out of it for a project. I was thinking of a smaller scale project using some terra cotta flue tiles and then throwing in more ore and charcoal as it burns down and (hopefully) taking some iron from the bottom the next day when it all cools down. After that we'd turn it into wrought iron. With no real info to go from, I was thinking that getting 10% iron from the ore would be acceptable to us. A bucket of ore and a couple big bags of charcoal could give us a couple pounds of iron and we'd have enough to make some small project from the resulting wrought. Any advice or reality checks from someone who'd done it?
  15. phabib
    Yes. I hadn't thought of tank safety stuff. The modern tanks have a leak detection valve that interprets high use with a leak and shuts off the gas to prevent a fire. If your tank has a triangular valve handle, it likely won't work. You should be using at least a 100lb tank which is the smallest size where the safety valve is not present. That's also the smallest size tank you can use to avoid freezing the tank and to be able to continue to supply the amount of gas one of these burners demands.
  16. phabib
    Thank you for the story and good wishes. The quote package they sent me included an ISO 9001 certificate. When I've participated in certification at places I've worked I found that it was more about documenting whatever it was you did, rather than doing it well so I don't put a huge amount of faith in the certification. You could certainly argue that looking and documenting processes at least forces you to think about them and improve things you find, but I don't think its a given if the commitment to quality isn't there.
  17. phabib

    i think brick tong

    phabib replied to matto's topic in Tongs

    The brick tongs I've got hold 8-12 bricks depending on how you adjust the jaws. Something like this couldn't hold enough bricks to make using the tool worth it. I vote battery carrier.
  18. phabib
    My quote is in Dollars. Whatever happens to the Chinese currency, good or bad, is in the seller's court. Foolish or brave, I'm always ready to dive in to things I know nothing about. That trait is the biggest gift that my father passed on to all of his children. Sometimes you learn a really good way to do things. Sometimes you learn an expensive lesson.
  19. phabib
    You're right Alan. I meant that as a joke and it obviously didn't come out that way. After writing it I was afraid that might not make it across in a message to people I've never met face to face and thought I should not post it, then I went ahead and did it anyway. I should have gone with my first thought and not posted it. So far, they've been responsive, friendly, and I have only positive reports from other customers and an online search for anything negative didn't turn up anything. As for shipping, the price includes shipping by ship as part of a container and insurance against loss or damage. I'll have to pay customs, some dock fees, handling fees, and things like that at a cost of about $300 and another $95 for a professional who'll fill out the forms for me and tell me where/when to pick it up. I'm less than an hour from the 2nd biggest port in California so I'll go pick up with my truck. The shipping agent could have arranged to have it delivered but I figured I'd save that money and go myself. I'm hoping it will be ready to go around the first week of September and be here middle to end of October.
  20. phabib
    Here's update #1. I just got confirmation that the money arrived and my hammer is on the production schedule. They said they'll send me pictures as it moves through the process. I'll be sure to compare them to pictures another buyer got and see if they're the same.
  21. phabib
    Looks good, not to even mention its a first cutting and welding project. I noticed you used exhaust pipe for your air inlet. Are you taking precautions to make sure your fire doesn't go backwards? For a fire grate on my forge I use some cast iron drain covers that fit 4" pipe. I just lay it on the bottom and replace every couple of years. That expanded metal won't last long.
  22. phabib
    I just wired a 30% deposit. If all goes well, the finished hammer should ship in about 3 weeks.
  23. phabib
    Its good to hear the concerns are gone. What I liked about the 2 piece was that it weighs 90 kilos more. As far as price, hammer is less, base is more. Combo is close to the same, 2 piece a few bucks more.
  24. phabib
    Thanks. Its great to hear from someone who's done it and has first hand knowledge. That's a nice looking fly press there on the left.
  25. phabib
    Thank you for the explanation about the two part hammer. The dealer says the anvil is bolted in place properly at the factory so I can treat the whole unit of hammer/anvil/base together and not have to worry about it, but that I can also re-align by adjusting the bolts if I need to. On the surface that sounds good, but I don't feel very good about the long term stability of bolts in that kind of use. I'd feel a lot better about this if I could see it, or know someone who had years of experience with that design. I'm hoping to hear back from such a person, until then I'm keeping my money on this side of the ocean.
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