Jackdawg

Saw a photo of a grinder with a cutting wheel on it embedded in a blokes throat on farcebook last night. No amount of speed or ease of use is worth an injury like these things do. graphic image in the link, rather than posting here for people to get unexpectedly. link removed due to language

Doesn't look like there are too many of us here.

Nice - Reckon you will be waking the neighbours up shortly with that!

Sounds like just the tool to offer free vasectomies to Austal's management with.......

You dont have a national electrical code? Wow. I'm sort of speechless at that.

Just for something from left field - Saw a video where a bloke ground his required touchmark in to a piece of steel, forming a negative, then heated his touch mark tool and beat it in to the ground out bit of steel, seemed to work quit well.

nice! One for each hand, what's her problem

Blacksmith for the stars! Interesting old school video about the state of the industry, must be from the late 60's or early 70's

It's coyote's, they dont need them in all that good a condition for what they use them for......

cute! This sort of thing - it is not hard to physically make the product, - but the mind that can look at the pile of parts and work out how to actually put it all together to make stuff like this is something special!

looked it up - huge carbon content - certainly going to know your on the end of the hammer trying to forge that stuff! High chromium content, is it air hardening.?

Simply stick the head in a bucket of water overnight.

Unless it was an open tender box process - I'd be very xxxxxx off if I was a bidder on job one and my bid info had been given to a competitor.(you)

getting there! You cant these things!

cheers for that.

he's a bitza thats for sure!

I have been playing around with a length of car axle for a month or two. Just realised that it doesn't seem to be rusting like a piece of mild steel would, and it has me a little intrigued. The metal is almost certainly 4140 (of the Australian steel manufacturers, the couple I found that provide info say that is the grade of high tensile steel they supply for use in axle shafts). The spec for 4140 says it has small amounts of chromium in it, about 1%, way less than the minimum 10% for a stainless steel. Firstly I noticed a bit I had beaten into a flat bar and left sitting on the workbench (outside) was still essentially rust free after weeks of exposure, whilst the other bits of metal I left there all had a good patina of rust on them. The other bits had not been forged, so I thought maybe the scale might be acting as a protective barrier. But now I have ground it in to a basic knife shape. But before I could move on from the 60 grit, the grinder died. So the cleaned up bit of metal has been sitting on my workbench for a fortnight, (still have not got around to taking the grinder back for a warranty claim). Was in the shed today and I noticed no sign of rust on it at all, humidity has certainly been high enough to cause rust. So do you think the small amount of chromium in it is the reason it has not as yet shown any sign of rusting? Or do higher quality steels just generally resist corrosion better than my experience with mild steel I am comparing it to.

reckon rebound will improve even more when you clean it up.

no the little ones like this fella keep the mice down, the bigger carpet snakes keep the shed possum free.

Had a little keel snake (only mildly poisonous and fairly timid) wander through my work area this morning. Saw him coming, so I rattle a bucket, he just stopped still waited for 10 or 15 seconds then kept coming, did it a couple of times, realised he was determined he was coming my way, so just let him wander through and out the other side.

Just mill a lump of steel to the shape you want and use it as is. It will work well enough. Don't worry about heat treating or even using high carbon steel. Mild will do because your not treating it. Yes if you miss the hot metal you might mark it. But then again you can always clean up the face anytime you like. In a few years if you find you are still seriously in to smithing, then chase down a manufactured hard faced anvil if you want to.

I'd be sanding it wet Frosty.

If you cant or dont want to burn it off, cut off a short length - what you think you will need for your punch, get a sheet of sanding paper, wrap it around it and go to town until it is clean.

Very nice, and ring ends is still serviceable if he finds himself short a spanner

A test of your gas axe skills, see if you can blow it out without damaging the wheel brace Yeah, summer has arrived hasn't it, been stinking down here near Brisbane - got to 38 here yesterday, with a miserable excuse for a storm dropping about 5mm of rain and taking the humidity up to 85% about 4pm.