jlpservicesinc

What's your first project? What was the quote for the motor work?

Corps make out better than sole proprietors.. S and C corps are up there in terms of rewards. LLC is great with no annual fees.. For each business segment there are different rules. I took so many business courses way back in the day.. SBA etc, etc.. Back then I was involved with a whole bunch of different ones for over a year. I was trying to grow the business and every person I met with wanted me to get out of hand work and expand into machinery. Different world back then.. Might be better with all the Etsy, and online sales resources..

Thomas the tax code for corporations is crazy good for the Corps. End of year show excess money in till, buy a piece of equipement that costs 5X more than in till, show a loss but yet the corp is worth more.. End of year have new tooling in stock dump it all in dumpster and right it off as loss. then rebuy.. Years ago at corps there would be people dumpster diving to get the new tools still in the box.. Eventually the Gov caught onto this and made the dumped tools and such have to go into a locked or supervised container so no one can get it. At least that is what happened at Pratt and Whitney, Wyman/Gordans, and some other shops.

Goods.. both the tool rest and the guard that goes around the wheel.. Safety police and all.. I'm still waiting for the time when all these belt grinders are required to have a belt guard.. LOL.. Or they design a knife that the cutting edge is shielded except while in use.. When I was 8 I was cutting a piece of plastic off a round piece off a small storage container with a rather dull knife.. My Mom came in and said.. " You should always cut away from yourself".. next thing there was part of thumb on the floor.

I'd love to find a vintage one like in the photo.. I don't like how the new ones are so flimsy. It is funny to me how many stories of people being hurt by machines only to blame it on machine was user carelessness. I have an old foot powered grinding wheel and while truing it up with the end of a file held against the wooden body my finger found its way between the wheel and wood.. Not a small enough gap to pinch it, but small enough that it removed part of the finger nail and bed. Was my own fault.. LOL.. When I was really young I used to use the electric bench grinder a lot.. My grinding skills were better than my forging skills on shuriken and such.. So I can't count how many times my thumb and finger got sucked into the machine between the guard and the wheel.. So many times (very slow learner) it would happen once or 2x a week. That really sucked.. It raised my pain thresh hold pretty quickly over the course of 2 or 3 years. Was no ones fault but my own. Eventually I pulled the guard off so my digits would not get pinched any longer.. Worked perfectly.. Just checking to see who is paying attention.. I did do this but put it back on when I needed to sharpen a drill bit or something. Yup the danger of no guard and just left it on. Every situation I have ever been in.. Has been of my own making.. The equation always starts with "I".. I used the grinder, I use the milling machine, I used the sand blaster.. Every injury could have been prevented if "I" was more diligent about safety. I does not mean not to use the product, but if I use it foolishly or wrong and something happens no one is to blame but me..

Do you find you use the screw press as much as you thought you would?

Great thread.. I'm always amazed when I miss something. I used a buffalo model for years which was only hand operated. I worked amazingly well and drilled very accurate holes.. And auto feed with consistent pressure will always drill the best hole. the new Drill press is one I have wanted since day 1.. They make a model 17 which has a cast iron mount with a 16 mounted to it.. This is a Canedy Otto New model 16 with factory gear drive. Crazy to see in action. I will set it up in the new shop and love, them.. this needs some new babbett bearings but the old 110V AC motor still keeps it running though it's a little lacking in power. The drive gear on the motor is leather. I thought it was wood, but leather is even better. I have never seen these in a gear drive and was browsing somewhere and found the advertisment. Lucky in both regards. I was shocked to see that it did not have a flywheel on the main shaft.. Not sure why it does not. The flywheel helps with the mid stroke of the handle. I will make a handle drive for it which I can remove when used by hand. I don't want to have a handle going round and round to get smacked in the head.

by the way I've used the Future 1 and future 2 anvils by Delta.. For shoes they work ok, but for any real forge work a real anvil is needed.

Not a good idea if you plan on laying the steel over the lead.. If you figure wrought iron anvils end up with sway or camel back and are wrought iron with a steel face just imagine what lead would do.. Now if you made a hollow base and and poured the lead in to add weight it might work.. As is filling a hollow base with mercury. Weight in an anvil is a good thing.. The idea that it is the initial impact of the hammer that does all the work so having a loosely mounted anvil is ok sure works great for science but in practice I find it less then ideal.

So, true and well said Thomas.. Pure iron can be found once in awhile and many of the older smiths I know on east coast seemed to have fell into a group deal years ago.. It does not care how it is forged but moves like butter.. Almost to fast if one is not used to it. Leading to over strikes/over forged cross sections very quickly. Years ago I had always assumed that wrought iron would always retain it's grain structure and would always be acid etch-able to see the grain structure. I learned the hard way, this is not the case at all.. That Wrought iron when worked thru many cycles will indeed shed nearly all the inclusions and work itself very pure.. Pure iron and/or wrought iron is crazy how it forge welds and I also used to think that Hot short and cold short wrought irons would retain these attributes but was proven wrong with that assumption as well. It is an interesting material for sure.. Yellen was at the right place at the right time.. I was told a story by a Gentleman down in DE a few years back.. He knew Mr Bill Moran and had a Buffalo reverb /smoke eliminator forge I wanted to buy but was 4 days to late as it went to the school.. (His grand pappy forged this item in the photo). So, he told me this story that. Back in the 1920s -30's there was a bunch of projects taken on with the "New deal" and one was to hire Appalachian smiths to make unique works of art.. He wanted to know if I could forge a copy of this.. I said, " Yes, if the same materials were furnished".. What many don't really recognize today is the fact that old wrought iron literally welds, shapes and smooths 3 to 4 or more times easier than mild steels.. Stronger, cleaner joints, flowing bends, etc, etc. While possible in mild steels there is a harshness of mild steels that one must adapt to if one wants to copy work of the time when wrought iron was a primary material. I'm not complaining its just something of interest for myself.

Working wrought iron, just like forge welding is not mysterious, once understood.. Its just another item to work with. I'd rather work wrought iron than mild steel any day. Each batch has its own character and its own "best practice".. but wrought iron "IS" the blacksmiths material.. several of thousands of years of use.. It moves 3x faster, welds seamlessly, cuts super easy even on larger section and besides can be challenging to get the desired item forged. All high up on my list of what I call a good time. DHarris.. As far as a split.. It all depends where it is.. Also a knick in the side of wrought iron (like a cut that was started and left even a small one) can lead to failure. Wrought iron depending on quality can be very strong and ductile but certain things it just does not like. Depending on the material A 1.25" square bar notched about 1/8" on each side can be snapped pretty easy by hand.

Wrought iron unlike modern steels, the person forging it has to determine the best temperature to forge it at.. Super hot is not always the best temperature.. You have to watch how the material is responding do the work being done to it and then modify the technique to get the desired result. Making this Hatchax is a great example.. The wrought iron would not really forge at any heat as it was a bar layup of maybe first run wrought iron.. There is no temperature that it would forge at as the bar is.. I could have layered it and forged it down to gain some finer grain and to make it much more forgable. But did not want to take the time. So I what I did instead is to change plans and put the 5160 in sooner than later and use the steel to unify the material so it could then be held by the steel and forged to finial shape. With this it's an experience thing and little tricks like this are often over looked or not known. If you want to put in a hole that close to the end like in the hammer you can do a layer of wrought iron going to the opposite way to hold the grain in it's proper flow.. Bending over wrought iron, often it will just crack at the bend root if the wrought iron is of lower refinement. The way to overcome this is to forge it with a longer shoulder that has a huge radius. The other huge problem with wrought iron is over working it and not forging it square as you thing larger sections. There are a bunch of little tricks that can be used for wrought iron that does not want to cooperate.. But there are a few. Oh, work the middle of a bar vs and end if you get splitting.. Thomas.. Yes they would layer for sure.. Kind of a neat way to do it and with wrought iron the seam disappears and is really just all the same.. The 2.75lbs hammer build was upset from 1.125" sq wrought iron.. And currently have a dogs head hammer also upset from that same 1.125" sq wrought iron. Technique and understanding of material plays in a lot.. Here is a shot of the wrought used on the hatchet. You can see that the seams even in this bar are poorly welded. You can see this very seem in the pole of the ax and where it wrapped around the sides.. And some photos of the 4lbs hammer build which still is not finished as I can not decide what finial shape of want. It started life as 1.125 sq with the bars notched folded over and welded. then these do sections were then welded to each other to get the proper mass.

Wought iron is much like wood and much like working with wood.. Grain splitting is a tough one to deal with especially when punched.. there are ways around it like shearing the grain to get a really nice end..

Awrksmokey. that is a great visual and descriptive.

Interesting little tidbit.. I always wanted a Starrett 8" chipping vise.