Smoggy

Has anyone nearby got an engine hoist you could borrow, or a chian hoist/block and tackle and a handy STRONG tree to hang it from? As long as you can get it out near to it's final destination, a sack barrow or similar could be used for those last few yards of travel.

You are taking a number of different processes from differing aspects of casting different materials and cobbling them together and expecting them to work. I sincerely hope they do not for the simple reason that you are also introducing the potential for a number of potentially lethal situations which you could not control even if you understood it. Moisture entrapment being the obvious candidate. I can make a cello bending iron from many materials, tinned steel, copper, brass, aluminium without the need to cast anything. My limited woodworking skills and knowledge have allowed me not only to bend substansial timbers for boatbuilding but also thin strip when I've had my Luthering hat on. (guitars, banjos, mandolins and drums) by making a makeshift bending frames and jigs, usually from......scrap wood!

Good to know you've got it sorted, it is all too easy to overlook one small detail and embark on an endless cirumnavigtion of head scratching, dropping the problem on the table for others to peruse can often be help in itself.

In an atempt to clarify, billet and ingot. If you are melting scrap aluminium to clean it of various detritus with a view to remelt at a later date, when you have enough good clean material, into a finished casting, typically done in the hobby foundry in uptruned angle iron molds or cupcake tins, they would be ingots. If you are melting aluminium to cast into a solid form intended to then be machined, say a solid cylinder to be turned on a lathe to make maybe a candlestick, that would be a billet. Frosty is assuming, quite reasonably, that you wanting to refine the scrap into ingots to later remelt for casting either billets or more complex cast items, ie bracket. pommel, etc.

Well hello and welcome Nivsknies, you're so close I can alsmost hear your grinder purring! Just had a quick look at the construction, the obvious place to me, given that I can see little fine detail in the pics, if there is anyother issue to be found would be how the head arm is locked in place. Is it one screw on the top at the back? If so that proides a potential for it to become out of alignment after each adjustment. I would have opted for two screws, front and back on the side the belt is mounted firmly locating the tube againts the back wall each time in the plane that matters, it only takes the slightest degree of slogger to run a belt off. The wheel will still need crowning either way. That is a very nice looking grinder.

Unsure on the range of sizes here in the UK, so had a quick check online, for general shop use probably just a handful, for more specialist stuff, far too may to be bothered to count! All are metric sized and most go to a decimal place......are US sizes in metric or Imperial?

... and how many times have we gone to the grindwheel and found it choked up with aluminium...!

Charity or not they owe a duty of care to you as regards your working environment and to the customers, as mentioned above, What is your arrangement with the charity? Do they pay you, or do you hire from them or is it a mutual benefit senario, ie you supply an attraction for free and they let you use the forge. What steps you would want to take will depend on your status. If you are going to start using coal then the problem will get worse. not only are the fumes more noxious, but the dust and soots are much worse. If you can't come to some agreement with the area manager, you could contact the Charities Trustees, they may be unaware and are ultimately responsible under Health and Safety. Local Fire Brigade inspection as mentioned is another possibility. If all else fails you could contact the Health and Safety Exec. But it could mean what ever your agreement is could be brought to an end. So it's in everyone interest for you and the area manager to work out a suitable solution to prevent the inhalation of fumes, dust and soots by staff and the general public. You have plenty of 'levers' at your disposal. Good luck with your meeting and let us know how it goes.

You use a peice of scrap metal to test against the wheel, then essntually you are dressing it in the sense that dressing is a check/correct/recheck process. If it happens to be fine then the job is done with your piece of scrap steel if not then you'll take further steps to correct. Dressing a wheel doesn't always require a full reface. Same as knife sharpening, it may only need stropping or it may need a full regrind. Frosty: Generally all. I've never mounted a wheel and found a problem yet but I know of others who have. I recall watching a fitter having serious problems mounting a wheel on a surface grinder to the extent that he finally regected it and took it back to the stores for another replacement.

Got to agree that UK or more so Europe has likely the most oportunities to learn a diverse selection of Smithing skills and types, within short travelling distances and the chance to gain both formal qualifications and learn from world renown Smiths, some even contamplate taking on trainees and paying them, In fact I know of a renown UK Bladesmith who is currently contemplating doing so. Alternately you could travel the world and learn from as many Smiths as you could find and still be back home in time for your 60th wedding aniversary and christening of your first great grandchild. However, you could just chose to stay put, and seek out local knowledge and skills and add to the pool. As I'm too old to spend that long travelling the globe in search of smithery and happen to live in the UK, I'm taking the final option.

Take a walk into your local butchers shop and ask to have a look at their hand saw blade (explain why, they be intrigued and likely helpfull ) as that is presumably the optimum tooth profile for cutting bone, as mentioned above making it a pull cutting blade may be a good idea for a field kit as it requires less framework so lighter and more compact.......could even be made on the spine of a knife blade for the ultimate field tool! ( I'm unsure but something in the back of my mind keep whispering, crosscut profile......will be interested to know what you find out,)

Absolutely dress a newly mounted wheel everytime, not only is there no guarantee that the wheel is square to the spindle regardles of the quality of the make, there is no guarantee that it is perfectly round. The only way to know for sure is to dress it. Better safe than sorry, even the best quality and most discerning of fitters cannot guarantee total perfection everytime. As an aside if you do not have a wheel dressing tool you can use the old wheel you have taken of, or part of a broken wheel to dress with, it's a common practice in Europe and is akin to derssing hand grinding/honning/sharpening stones, they wear each other away. I use the method to not only dress grind wheels but at the same time redshape parts of wheels as sharpening stones...bonus!

Ausfire, I've also been informed that aluminium bristled wire brushes also work but not tried it, furthermore if you alloy brush first and then copper brush it provides a base that brings the copper out better, I'll hopefully get round to trying it by the month end as I'm due to be demoing with ID so time premitting if we don't get too busy I'll get the chance to try and report back.

Most folks don't even bother sharpening drill bits as Jobbers are so cheap to buy, blunt or break and discard. Not only do they not know how to sharpen a bit they are unaware that optimal geometry differs for each metal, when you purchase a drill it is sharpened for general use and as such it isn't strictly correct for any metal. Those that you have watched sharpen drill bits may well have achieved a well sharpened bit, and then drilled too fast with too little pressure. "Speed and Feed" as mentioned above, most "hobby use" drill presses will not gear down low enough (that's why many fit a set of reduction pulleys). Those who still use the old handcranked drill presses will be able to testify to their ability to drill through just about anything (eventually) and not be forever resharpening bits. (As also stated above, WD40 is not a suitable lube for machining steels but it is good for alluminium alloys.)

Stepping aside from the furnace/casting technicalities, as your in good hands on that score from the replies above, what type and size of telescope is your friend building? You mention mirror cell so I'm assuming reflector but wondering how big the lens is that it needs such a 'robust' mount. There have been some extremely large reflectory telescopes build out of plywood, plastic tubing and scaffolding tube with amazing resolution restrained only by the commercial lense employed as they are generally inferior to hand made lenses. Seems to be a bit overkill given that atmospherics are the ultimate limiting factor! Unless...... .....it's a case of, 'hey this is what we do' In which case, let us know how it all pans out and good luck.

I had a similar problem finding genuine brass brushes, hunted high and low and everything I found was just brass coated steel.....then I realise I already had a couple! BBQ grille cleaning brushes are brass (at least here in the UK)....since made a few copper brushes to try out (not done so yet) from twisted electrical wire. As soon as I try them I'll let you know how the worked.

Interesting terminology, this side of the pond we know those pneumatic/hydraulic hammer (or jack hammer) bits as 'tarmac cutters', what we refer to as 'spade bits' are curved like a spit and used on clay or compacted stone agrigates. All the same metalurgically though so all good for hardy toolling.

You got access to a shaper?

This is only a list of preliminary suggestions intruth and will be 'kicked about' to find some sort of ballance. The porpose of posting such information on the Gov. website is to give those with a vested interest the oportunity to come forth and offer input. Ideally a Bladesmith Accossiation should approah and outline what members already do to ensure minors do not have access to products and how some legislation my impact on the trade.

This is a bt of a grey area Charles, if not for the law, then often for the public. As far as I'm aware there are some 'locking ' knives that are illegal whilst others are not. I believe this part of the law was aimed at the spring action flick knives. ie pressing a button relaeases the spring forcing the blade out into a locked possition. I don't believe it was intended to include the pen knife style that opens by hand and is then locked by a spring be it friction or latch. However I'm unsure if the last (latch lock) was intended to included in the original definition or if it is deemed illegal now. There was a reason why such blades have a lock, safety of the user especially during heavier use. Maybe somone can clarify it. Not withstanding, we can buy the "craft" type knives (replaceable blade) utility knife which has a retracting blade, pushed into the working possition by a thumb slide and locked! Then there is also the propensity of the law to be somewhat loose in it's desccriptions to permit as needed leeway to include or exclude certain paramiters where apropriate. I doubt a carpet fitter taking his break in the cafe would be arrested for possesion of a craft knife, where as spectator at a sporting event certainly would! Essentually, loose definitions provides for some use of common sense on behalf of the police and courts.

I've had half a dozen attempts to post essentually the same reply JAV. Thank you, i was starting to get a headache. Yes click and collect would be one solution, it's essentually extending and paralelling gun regs, ie. buy a gun online and you have to have it delivered to a local gunsmith for collection.

Change area and work clothes are the key, but shop cleanlyness also helps. For magnetic brooms wands or plates, just make them out of steel, your choice of section, and place a strong magnet on it away from the working end. Once you have completed your sweep hold it over a swarf bin and pull the magnet of, a quick tap and it will all unload. I use this method to clean my lathe bed and seperate steel and brass swarf I've vacuumed out of those presky little inaccessible crevices. (I use the brass chips for heat treatments.)

You've found one...... Wile E Coyote is a twit, while Roadrunner is a git.

Are you now the sole rivet maker in NZ? Looks like a shrude buisness plan to me! Now if you make an ejector for tooling to sit one you'll be making them faster that your forge can heat your blanks!

Leverage, the shoulder type can offer an advantage for the same rein length due to being able to hold the work closer to the pivot. There may be other reasons but that's the obvious one to me.