LarryFahnoe

Welcome Reindeer, sounds like you may be located near Mpls/St Paul & even if you're some distance away, another local blacksmithing group to be aware of is The Guild of Metalsmiths https://www.metalsmith.org/ I've also taken classes at North House & before Heather and Pam got the fire arts center going, they were teaching at MCTC where I took some welding classes from them. The guild also operates the blacksmith shop located in the Jackson St Roundhouse, an old BN facility which has lots of neat stuff to explore. --Larry

John that's super promising little app! I've just added it to my phone and laptop (appears to only be available for some of the new Macs) and the app's ability to use online sources to fill in additional details is really quite remarkable. I'm a tech guy, so it really shouldn't seem remarkable, but every now and again I take pleasure seeing something with fresh eyes. Time will tell, but this may be just the thing to bring some cataloging and order to a sprawling library! The fact that it also supports import/export operations is important to me so that I can get my data out in the event the app is discontinued or otherwise goes belly up. --Larry

You've done a nice job capturing what looks to me like worry on the face, well done! Nothing wrong with welds to my eye, seems in keeping with the finish on the steel. --Larry

A delightful little sculpture Aric! A happy daughter and teacher is just icing on the cake. --Larry

Great scrap art potential though!! --Larry

Observant readers indeed, very nice John! I note the holes in the base plate, will be interested in how well it works for you as-is, or if you find that it needs to be bolted down. The railing project is also coming along nicely, can imagine that your clients will be quite happy with it! --Larry

With thanks to Robert Hunter... --Larry

Billy, how on earth could one resist after reading such a comment? Yes, please do tell! You just hooked another one... --Larry

I think you're getting some sage advice BMTU, but I wouldn't be surprised if you were still feeling a bit overwhelmed. I class myself as a beginner and find that when I take classes that it is very easy for me to get overwhelmed and discouraged that my project is not coming out properly. I have found, and David (Goods) spelled it out a couple of posts back, that for my mind, I need to see step by step sketches because I get lost easily watching a demo and then going back to the forge to try it. David's suggestion to sketch the steps and calculations helps tremendously and is often what I end up doing during and after a class. The key it seems to me is to turn all these abstract concepts into muscular memories that you can then rely upon. Watching on youtube or reading a description, you still need to get it into a form that fits into your mind, and then ultimately your hands and eyes. Sketching may seem so old fashioned in the digital age, but is really a wonderful skill to develop for both learning and note taking. I hear the frustration, but don't give up, you'll get there just as George and others are encouraging you! --Larry

Well the idea of hot smoke generating a moving magnetic field was curious sounding to me, so after I didn't come up with much of an explanation with some general searches, I thought, this might be an interesting question to put to ChatGPT. I didn't know what to expect, but this is what came back. Curious though as the explanation seems to require a moving magnetic field, but I'm guessing that these are related phenomena. --Larry My question: how does hot smoke moving through a stove pipe generate a moving magnetic field? ChatGPT's response: The generation of a moving magnetic field by hot smoke moving through a stove pipe is a phenomenon known as the "thermomagnetic effect" or "magneto-thermoelectric effect." This effect arises due to the combination of thermal gradients and the presence of a magnetic field. When hot smoke flows through a stove pipe, it creates a temperature gradient along the pipe. This temperature gradient causes the free electrons in the material of the pipe to move, resulting in the accumulation of charge at one end of the pipe and the depletion of charge at the other end. This accumulation of charge creates an electric field along the pipe. Now, if a magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the direction of the electric field (i.e., perpendicular to the stove pipe), the Lorentz force acts on the moving charge carriers (electrons) due to their motion in the presence of the magnetic field. This force causes the electrons to experience a sideways deflection, resulting in a buildup of charge on one side of the pipe and a deficit on the other side. This charge separation creates an additional electric field perpendicular to both the temperature gradient and the applied magnetic field. The combination of these electric fields results in the generation of a current perpendicular to both the temperature gradient and the magnetic field. According to Ampère's law, a current generates a magnetic field around it. Therefore, the flow of hot smoke through the stove pipe generates a moving magnetic field perpendicular to both the temperature gradient and the direction of smoke flow. This phenomenon is often studied in the field of magnetohydrodynamics, which deals with the behavior of electrically conducting fluids (such as the hot smoke in this case) in the presence of magnetic fields. References: 1. Cheng, K. S. (2010). Fundamentals of Engineering Magnetohydrodynamics. World Scientific. 2. Davidson, P. A. (2001). An Introduction to Magnetohydrodynamics. Cambridge University Press.

Aric lots of fun to go back over the progression on your Beastie. Encouraging too to think about how some projects wind up taking a looong time to come to life! Years back I started on a photographer...someday, parts of his head live in a box and his camera keeps an eye on me. I think your experiments with the muzzle/jaw area are moving in interesting directions, will certainly look forward to seeing how it unfurls itself! --Larry

Sometimes I live under a rock (even though I have a background in IT), so your mention of AI tracking piqued my curiosity. While it was behaving itself I thought it was quite effective, providing much more of a sense of the space you're working in. If you had a static camera then I think the reheats would get tiresome, but with the tracking it really provided much more of a sense of just how much time goes into this particular project. One of your youtube commenters notes that you make it feel very approachable & I'd guess that leaving the reheats in might reinforce that for her. For me though, just thinking about what that chunk of 4140 weighs, I have a tough time visualizing myself taking that on. That said, you do make it approachable by giving the sense of continuity with (what appears to be) minimal things edited out. I think the camera tracking also mimics what a viewer might do if they were in the trailer with you, following you around rather than being constrained to a single perspective. Out of curiosity, what were you fiddling with up on the wall above the hammer rack? It appeared that you were using your phone to control the Obsbot camera. --Larry

Another helpful video Jennifer, thank you! I'm a long way from attempting something like this, but I very much appreciate being able to learn from your process and explanation. I thought the AI tracking was quite interesting in the first chunk of the video, but it seemed to go a little wonky after a while...wonder if it might be sensitive to heat in the trailer? It was a shame to loose your audio commentary in the later parts of the video. But minor kinks aside, you give lots to chew on. --Larry

JDW, curious about how the blade in that Allpax gasket cutter does with the stainless in the gasket material? Looks like a pretty robust gasket cutter! --Larry

"... I don't want a pickle Just want to ride on my motorsickle ..." Thanks Arlo!