Woody

Take a piece of steel, heat it up, beat it till it looks like what you want then quit. It's all in knowing when to quit.

Kristy is scheduled for surgery at Noon on Monday. Thanks for your prayers. I will keep you updated. Woody

Can you get away with just pouring cement footings, I think that should sufice for a foundation. Where in SD are you, I am in Rapid City.

They might also make nice wraps on knife handles. I like the idea of using them on wind chimes. As for Damascus, if it worked at all, it would take a termendous amount of them but it should make a very interesting pattern. Give it a try.

I had clinkers once but fortunately antibiotics got rid of them B)

May God bless and keep him. Prayers for the family too. Woody & Jackie

Could I please solicit your prayers for Jackie's daughter, Kristy, she was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer, yesterday, She will have surgery soon to remove the thyroid gland and surrounding lymph nodes. Prognosis is good, Thanks Woody & Jackie

We are sorry for your loss, we have you and your family in our prayers. God bless and keep you all. Eternal rest grant unto him O'Lord and let perpetual light shine upon him may he rest in peace Amen. Woody & Jackie

I have a bluepirnt of a pinecone made similar to a russian rose, if you message me with your email address I will send it to you. Woody

They make a paint stripper, orange something. It's an orange gel smells like oranges, safe, not toxic. If you use a paint stripper avoid any that contain Methylene Chloride, that is very toxic stuff, regulated in the workplace with about 37 pages of OSHA Regulations.

Our prayers are with them may God Bless and keep them. Woody & Jackie

Very nice.

Salt Fork Crafters has a place that casts swage blocks for them and others, i have one it's about 70 lbs or so. i think you can contact them through this site, or Glenn will know how to contact them.

Beautiful

Very Nice!

If you health is already comprimised then zinc fumes can have a more sever effect because they lead to other complications as they can aggrivate existing conditions however one cannot use the exception to prove the rule. Nowhere did I advocate breathing zinc fumes I only said they aren't "deadly" which has already been proven otherwise there would be thousands of dead welders with milk on their breath. Seems like this site is supposed to pride itself on the accuracy of information and every time someone tries to get information accurate someone else takes the wildest exception, adds in all sorts of modifying factors and tries to pass that off as the norm. Perhaps we need to anneal it 3 times, normalize it 7462 times, quench it 556 times and temper it at 375 for 3 3 hour cycles. see the following link for metal fume fever http://www.aws.org/technical/facts/FACT-25.pdf

Thomas Paw Paw had COPD, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease from Smoking, the same as my Wife Candy who died a short while before Paw Paw. In Paw Paw's case the zinc fumes aggrivated his condition but to say zinc fumes are deadly is erroneous information. Paw Paw most likely would still be around if he hadn't had COPD. And if you would care to read the two articles I posted, I have done more than a little research. This is the reason I contribute so little to this site anymore. People would rather know what they know than be confused by facts.

Jerome, you might want to do a little research before you start spreading erroneous information. Zinc fumes are not good for you but they are not deadly. You might check out some of the posts in the safety section of this forum, or do a google search on metal fume fever. http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/8272-galvanized-zinc-fumes-and-milk/ http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/8289-zinc-cadmium-hydrogen-fluoride-and-other-toxic-compounds/

You might want to read up on the Hanta Virus carried by rats and mice before you have a lot of them around. Make sure you wash down any areas contaminated with urine or feces with a good strong bleach solution. Hanta Virus is extremely contageous and some strains are extremely lethal. It has been found in every state in the union. Several years ago they tested people in Baltimore who were on dialysis for kidney failure and all tested positive for the hanta virus. They can also harbor the fleas that carry bubonic plague. Yes there is plague in the U.S. I think there was a case or two in Colorado this year. Here in South Dakota we have Bubonic Plague wiping out many large prairie dog colonies.

You got me stumped. Sheet steel from your local supplier should be just plain mild steel. Mild steel is made to a tensile strength specification and the contents of the steel may vary. It is sort of like trying to trace the ancestry of your local alley cat. Give the ferric chloride a try and see what happens. Or perhaps see what acid straight from the bottle does to a small piece. Also is all the wax cleaned off, even minute traces left on the surface could impare the etch.

Acids react differently with different metals. Usually HCL is pretty agressive to steel, but that can be effected by the alloy of the steel. Heating the acid solution will increase the corrosion rate also. I etch my damascus blades in ferric chloride that I warm up a bit (around 160 F) however if the steel has nickel in it, the ferric chloride won't etch it very well. That is why we use a steel with a nickel alloy in it inconjunction with just a plain carbon steel, the Ferric Chloride attacks the plain carbon steel and leaves the nickel steel virtually untouched so you get a high degree of contrast. You never did say what type of steel you were trying to etch. That will make a bit of difference on what you choose to etch it with.

What makes you think that adding hydrogen peroxide to the hydrochloric acid will give you a better etch? You need to think long and hard before mixing chemicals or you may end up with an unpleasant reaction you didn't expect. Here is a procedure that works well for etching using salt water and electricity. Remember that running an electrical current through salt water produces chlorine gas. Not a big concern with the small amount of salt water here but keep your nose up wind. Salt water etching The etching requires three things: a little salt water, 6 volts of good D.C current and some way to mask the surface you want to etch. I get my 6 volts from a power supply I scrounged out of the back of an old computer at work. Typically these supplies provide +/- 12, +/-5 volts and ususally have a sticker saying which color wires are what. They plug nicely into IIOV line current and supply a good quality DC, at least to the 5 volt lines. I found that they only deliver power when one is drawing at least 300 mA or so, so to make sure it was delivering, I put a few power resistors on a couple of the lines so that when I turn it on, it is delivering power. I got some cheap (10 for @2.59) alligator clip at Radio Shack and rigged up a little armature on a board to hold the negative clip at an adjustable position. I place the piece on the board and adjust the negative clip so it is just above the area to be etched, and I clip the positive lead to the piece somewhere else, I put a few drops of sayt water on the spot to be etched and then with a q-tip dipped in the saltwater, clip the q-tip in the negative alligator clip so that it is soaked wtith saline and just resting on the etch spot. Turn on the power and let it sit about 5 minutes. The salt water is just a pinch of salt in half an orange juice cup (2 oz.) I now this sounds-very unscientific but that is what I have tried. Too much salt makes a very rapid etch. Too little and you won't get an etch. You will have to experiment to find out what you like. I have tried several different masks, including waxes of various ilks, nothing professional, but have found that scotch tape works great. I use a sharp knife to cut out the areas I want to etch. Make sure the surface to be etched is smooth and clean. Any grease (from your hands or nose) can make the etch uneven. If anyone out there has some good suggestions for etching masks, feel free to chime in. one of these days I will get around to getting the right material for the mask, but for what I am doing, it is not necessary at this time. The cleaner the DC voltage the better. A 6 volt battery would probably be great, if you could get a used motorcycle battery and then just charge it when you need to. Battery chargers themselves work, but leave a much more ragged looking etch. Experiment some and you will get the hang of it. Its clet , quiet, etc. I do ition the kitchen table and no one cares or worries. One of the best things is that because you do not have to dip the whole piece in the etcliant the mask can be very local. About 1/2 inch around the area to be etched works fine. The saline kind of beads up on the mask and makes it easy to contain and work with.

my gillotine tool is all made from mild steel including the dies which I super-quenched, they have been working well for me for about 10 years. The struck end of top die will mushroom but that's easy to fix on the belt sander, or use Jr. Strassil's trick of welding about a half inch thick slice of 1/2 round bar to the top of the die and hammer on that, when it gets all mushed up, cut it off and weld on another one. Sure saves the top of the dies.

Matei, make sure that piece is flat on the anvil, if the far end is a bit high you could end up in the soprano section of the Vienna Boys Quior :D I prefer my hammers to be just soft enough that a file will cut them and I never use my forging hammers for beater hammers. I have 2 engineer hammers painted red, that way they are easier to find, for my beater hammers and I use them for tool that must be struck. Forging hammers only hit hot iron.

Holey Welding Gloves Batman! The looks of those welds scare the heck out of me. At the very least I would grind them out and start over. It don't look like there is a heck of a lot of penetration in some of them. Looks more stacked up than burned in. They may not fail the first time you use it, but I would want the controls about 100 feet from the press behind something big and heavy. It seems that at time people come here asking questions but in reality they are seeking reassurance that what they have done is good and safe. Then when they get constructive criticism aimed at preventing them from removing themselves from the Human Gene Pool they want to become defensive and argumentative. I implore you to listen to these people, they didn't get as old as they are by being inept or stupid. They are trying to protect you from yourself. If you insist on ignoring their advice that is your perogative get lots of video from several different angles ;)