Dewnmoutain

well, i thought id resurrect this old post as it pertains directly to this hammer. because of injury, i now have the (forced) free time to contemplate and work on this hammer. so after a couple months of using this hammer, it was annoying me that no matter how hard id stomp my foot to get the hammer to impact the hot steel, it wasnt leaving much of a mark on the steel. my initial testing and uses were with pieces 1/4 to 3/8ths thick, so the hammer would do the job. But when i moved up above 1/2", especially 1" variety, the hammer wasnt hitting as "hard" as i thought it would. i monkied with the setup some more, and just couldnt, at first, figure out what was causing the softening. So, i just hung the thing up and said "meh, ill get to it later". That was back in January. Had a friend come over, and using my army tenacity and his nuclear engineering thinking, we figured out that the culprit is the springs itself. Turns out, they dont move until they have a 20+ lb load applied to them. So, they are too "weighty" (or resistant?). i scrounged through my scrap steel, and found some old springs, but they too, have a higher load limit in the 20+ lb range. so i thought id ask here, since i now have the free time to work on this, does anyone know where i can pick up some weak springs? ive already hit up the local hardware store, and the ones i picked up were also wound tight and would only extend half way out with a 20lb weight on them. i tried looking at some online websites that sell springs, but this is where my knowledge of choosing a spring is very lacking. anybody have experience with finding or buying the types of springs im talking about?

to frosty: i had the same idea initially and looked at my household knives, but they were plastic handles molded on at the factory. So in my head, i discounted measuring them. to JHCC: curse of large hands huh? to george: I was thinking the same way, making the handle for what feels good in my hands. But lots of people are different, and what feels good for me doesnt for others, hence why i was asking if there was a generic thickness that one starts from and works from there, you know?

I know im overthinking this way way too much, but i have to ask this. 1st question: Ive read other posts on other sites that talk about 3/8", 1/2", 1/4" thicknesses of scales, but no one says if said thickness is for each individual scale, or total overal width including the steel? If i say "yup. I added 3/8ths scales" am i saying that the total width of the scales is 3/8ths, or am i saying that each scale is 3/8ths? 2nd question. Im currently working on a few knives, my first time making generic blades to sell to an unknown person. Ive made a couple blades for people i know, had them come to my shop and custom fit the handles to their liking. So im a bit unaware of what a generic overall scale handle thickness should be. Including thickness of steel, am i shooting for an overall width of 5/8th? 3/4s? Bigger? Smaller? Thanks for the help

I think its gone from "traditional look" to "dragged behind manure spreader".

Tried to work on making spade tip hooks. Just cannot seem to hammer the spade shape just right.

Leather. No idea. I converted it from an old welding jacket

Been looking a bit critically at my apron the last couple months. Its dirty. Grease, grime, metal shavings, my sweat, all intermingled into my leather apron. Was wondering, do you clean it? Do you clean yours? How do you do it? I know, its an oddball question. But one i wanted to ask since im not sure how to clean mine. Obviously, i cannot toss it into the washing machine. Wife would kill me (or at least make buy her a new one) . Hot water, dawn dish soap, and elbow grease?

so i fixed it. sort of. i ended up soaking the whole gear box overnight in kerosene. pulled it out in the morning and the kerosene was a bit darker than before. but, the gears moved real easily. you blow on them and get a full rotation. as i did some trouble shooting, i discovered that the spindle that connects the fan blade to the gearbox was the source of the rattle. when i would spin the crank, that little spindle would wobble just a little bit. and the faster you cranked, the more it would wobble to finally itd start loudly rattling. I messed around with the fan end screw, adjusting it in and out, and turning the crank clockwise and counter clockwise to see what happens. Turns out, it has a directional (helical? im not sure the proper word that goes here) rotation, and when engaged in a clockwise rotation, the spindle would pull itself into the gear box and the rattle would get very very loud. if i cranked it counterclockwise, the rattle would be minimized (unless i was going full tilt with the blower). I think in the end, its the bushing that is a little bit worn out, allowing the spindle to bounce around inside the housing. i ended up putting the whole thing back together because i still had some projects to do. and i got a surprise! when i put the fan shroud back together, it all rotated so smoothly. i added some oil to it, spun it lots, the noise deadened a bit, and if anything, it seemed to run a bit better.

Tracking. Yup, messed with that.

Fan end play?

hello! hows it been? Today, my blower, a champion eureka #140 blower, decided to start making alllll sorts of noises. Grinding in both clockwise and counterclockwise rotations of the handle. Now, ive owned this blower for the last 5 years and i can safely say i "usually" know how this thing runs. I can only spin the handle counterclockwise to prevent the real bad grinding/clacking that sounds when i rotate it clockwise. I can leave the handle at the 1200 position, let go, and the handle will naturally rotate one way or the other on its own for about 3/4s of a rotation before stopping. I can even tell when i forget to add oil to it and it starts to grind a bit too loudly when i operate it. I add the oil, and most of the rattle, not all of it, would go away. It was at the acceptable level rattle/grind. I had, when i first purchased this blower, took the gear box off, and flushed the entire thing with brake cleaner. went through a couple bottles of the cleaner and cleaned it all out. Then i reattached that blower to the fan shroud, added oil, adjusted the fan blades so they wouldnt grind against the shroud walls, and put it all together. ran fine. an acceptable amount of noise. (this was when i discovered the clockwise/counterclockwise noise issue and how it cannot be truly removed). For the last few weeks however, it's been, getting worse id say in two ways. 1) a stiffness in the rotation. If i turn it CW or CCW, it's stiff. it wont move with ease. If i take it to the 1200 position and let go, it just rotates to 11 or 1 spots and stops. i crank the handle, and when it rotates, it feels like it doesnt want to spin easily, like something is inhibiting its ability to spin. 2) noise. the grinding noise, has been increasing. I rotate the handle, and it just grinds and groans, louder and louder with each use. i started wearing ear plugs because i couldnt stand the noise anymore. i kept adding oil to it, and when id add a lot of oil. like a lot of oil, the noise would diminish, but the stiffness in rotation would remain. and sure enough, within an hour, it would just get louder and louder, back to its original loudness. so today, i tore the thing apart. took the fan housing off, removed the crankcase, took the handle off. I shot a lot of brake cleaner into the gearbox. let it sit, drained it, shot some more into it. spun the gears to work the brake cleaner around, and then drained again. i inspected the fan blades, the handle itself, the gears, heck, even the stand. Everything looks to be in proper working order. each gear even has all of its teeth. (aside from the striped paint on the legs). but, when i attach the handle and give it a crank, it sounds like a manual tranny losing a gear. it just grinds, and it is resistant to the turning action. My first thought was to fully disassemble it, popping the gears out, but then i thought "gee, i should look at IFI and see if anyone is having the same issues." kind of... (although, i did make the discovery of what kind of blower i have, and that it may be a bit small for the forge i have. which would explain why i keep having all these issues with heat for the last few years.) my thinking is that maybe there is something up with the bushings. perhaps some crud got into the bushings and is inhibiting the ability to spin freely (as mr thomaspowers suggested in another posting) so, what i am going to do now is get some kerosene and submerge the gearbox in the kero overnight. then put it together and apply some gear oil to see how it spins. im wondering, is there something else i should be looking at/looking for that im not aware of?

Lol! Although, a copper wire wrapped handle sounds like a fun experiment to see what itd look like on another blade

Reason i disregarded the pins at forst was that the only rod i own is just under 1/8". And the tang height is 3/4". Looking at it, to me, it wouldve looked weird. If i had 1/4 rod for pinning, then i think thatdve looked better.

That....thats a really good idea.

Making a 9" chefs knife. Things are going well. Forged to shape, heat treated, thinned down slightly and bevels ground in. Now im working on attaching the handle, and im second guessing myself here. Ive made knives before, big, small, in between. Full tang, hidden tang, even did a couple burn ins just to see what happens. But for all of these handles, i always drilled and set pins in them. Because in the back of my head, somewhere i read or something like that, that having pins helps reinforce the handle for a thrusting motion. Helps keep the handle on the tang. But now im making this chef's knife,and decided that i didnt want to pin it. I would just do scales, epoxied on and sanded to shape. But today, im getting to the point where im about ready to glue it up, and in the back of my head, that little voice is screaming at me that i need pins in the handle. I know the epoxy im planning to use has some 5kpsi rating or whatever (id have to look at it again),and for a chefs knife, itll work. But that dang voice. I guess i just need someone to tell me "yup, itll work" or "nope cuz of X" or "yes, itll work, but you need to do this as well".