BillyBones

Not my shop but my place of work. I am now the tool maker (to be, with a bit of training that is). The tool room is mine! I am pretty stoked about it. 

On a side note i had a spring slip on me the other day and the hook on the end went about 3/4" into my hand at the web between my thumb and forefinger. I had to use a small magnet to go down inside of the hole, about 1/4" round, to get the chips out. Fun times. 

I can try an seal off my shop but that is near impossible, especially with the 4" x 18" gap at the bottom of the door so the cats can come in and out. 

One other thing i forgot to touch on, do not skimp on the pipes. Get good pipes and not the cheapest you can get. If you are burning coal the Sulphur in the coal when burned will combine with any condensation or moisture. That will create sulfuric acid and you will be replacing those pipes, especially bends, in the next 18 months if not sooner.  

Welcome.

As said before look up what your local codes say about it. They can be kind of tricky if you use the interweb, however your local building inspectors office should be able to give you a print out of what it is. Even if you do not live in a town you still have to find what the county or state codes say. Here i have to have 18" from stack to any flammable object for single wall pipe, triple wall (the kind with ceramic blanket between 2 pipes) is 3" from flammables. THAT IS FOR WHERE I LIVE. (caps for emphasis) 

My stack has 2, 45* bends rather than a 90*. ( i go through the roof but rearranged my shop not long ago and did not want to cut another hole) The draw will be greatly reduced with a 90* compared to 2, 45*s. Imagine how much more you have to slow down driving to take a 90* turn compared to a 45*. I use 8" pipe, becuase 10" triple wall is almost impossible to find here and costs an arm and a leg when you do, it works ok. If i have the windows open and a breeze in the shop it gets a little smoky for a few minutes but not unbearable. However my exhaust fan works great and pulls it out in a couple minutes. Regardless of stack size i would recommend and exhaust fan if for no other reason than to keep air circulating. 

I also second, or third(?), the opinion of making the top of the hood a cone. Think of it as an upside down funnel. 

A bit off subject, but i would either move that fire extinguisher or place a second one next to the exit. General rule of thumb is that they are placed near an exit so that if there is a fire you do not go towards the interior of the building for it but towards an exit.  That is so that you can avoid a worst case scenario of being trapped with the fire between you and the exit. 

Anywho, stay safe and have fun. 

We have a fireworks factory about 10 mins from my house. Unbelievable how cheap fireworks are factory direct. The irony i always seen was just the past couple years they made shooting off fire works legal in Ohio yet i could always buy them from the factory, just had to sign a form saying you were takin them out of state. 

Devil chasers, thanks, i will have to use that. That is much more socially acceptable than what we called them. 

Billy, how did you make the mushrooms? 

We used acorns and walnuts as well.

We used to make bottle rocket "guns" so we could shoot them at each other. Basically a handle with a small tube, it was easier than holding the stick to launch one. 

In high school we used to break off the sticks of bottle rockets and launch them down the halls. Becuase there was no stick you had no idea where it would go. We had a door at the top of a stair well that some kid had busted the glass out of. Made the perfect spot to launch our stickless bottle rockets.

When i was in the Army stationed in Germany it was flares. The kind we had you just hit the bottom and it would shoot a flare up in the sky, kind of like a flare gun just no gun involved. You would be sitting there minding your own business then all of a sudden a flare smacks the turret. Well it is game on then. I may mention we shot them at the tanks and not actually at each other. 

It was my granddad that taught us how to make bows. If a neighbor saw us out with them they may look and then give pointers on how to improve the next one. Followed by asking what we bagged with the bow. My best was i got a squirrel once.

My uncle one time however got his hand pinned  to a tree when he bet my cousin that he could not hit his hand.

All of us had our own rifles and shotguns when we were wee lads so it was ingrained into us that you under no circumstances ever point a weapon at another person and that included bows. 

Green apples and small fruit were an entirely different story. Ever been hit with a green apple? Not pleasant. My granddad had planted peach trees at one time. The first year they got fruit on them me and my cousin got a pretty good but whippin after we picked every single green peach off the trees and had a war with them. 

When i was a kid we used to make bows and arrows. For the arrows we used a horsetail (the weed, we did not cut off tails from horses) a horseshoe nail for the head, and a couple tufts of soft pine needles for fletching. Seemed to work pretty well from what i remember. 

Wonder if they could be trained to put my tools away in the shop?

Reindeer, welcome aboard. 

My dad was a combat engineer in Vietnam. He was a heavy equipment operator, later went artillery.

I chose the route of my granddad and road a tank around the ME.  

The Bedouins used to come running up to our tanks wanting food and water when i was there. We had one guy come looking for medical attention for his wife. While one of our guys was bandaging up her foot the husband tried to give me and a couple other guys his daughter. Not to "use" but the take back to the states with us. 

It is kind of odd but being in a war is both some of the best memories of my life and some of the worst. 

I would guess that is you are adding something new or relevant to the thread that would be OK. But bumping it just for the doing it or for personal gain, like the tail gating section, that would be frowned upon. 

Sodium hypochlorite pumped into the well, or as most people call it bleach. (yes i did have to look up the name) 

We had one of those whole house filter systems but i did nothing for the smell of the water. 

I am not getting this bump thing, isnt that the same as when some one says they are reviving an old post maybe from years ago? 

Anyway, am i the only one who read that story in a Monty Python documentary kind of voice? 

I have used leaf for a few chisels, mostly for wood working though. I made a couple big Bowie knives with leaf a couple years back, of course a few axes, i think i still have a couple unfinished, and the dies for the guillotine as well. 

I am kind of thinking of using one leaf, the one with the bushings on the ends, and build some sort of ballista. Use the spring for the limbs of a giant crossbow more or less.  

Interesting fact i found out, the most mined substance in the world today is sand. 

My knowledge of what minerals that are around me is rocks and dirt. As a matter of fact that is about what i know about geology at all. Really though around here to find anything of value like that it would be either Indian artifacts like arrow heads, spear points, etc. or fossils. 

Oaks Quarry park, Frosty knows of it, is about a mile from my house. Someone there a couple years back found a fossil of some kind of tube worm. Now the shells of them are pretty common but this one had the worm's "head" sticking out of it. Looked kind of like palm leaves. It was valued at many thousands of dollars. I have found a lot of what i used to call natalists but i think someone told me they were ammonites iirc. 

The Indian artifacts that have been found here are really old as well. 500BC old. If you find something you are allowed to keep it but if you sell it you break a few laws. There are ways to sell the stuff but it is not easy.  

I have found a few semi precious stones, carbuncle, garnet, amethyst, etc. And one piece someone told me was jade but i have my doubts. Being this area i live was were the glaciers stopped, we have a town just south of me called Moraine, it can be a toss up on what you will find. So, thar maybe gold in them thar hills yet. 

Ohio also has a lot of flint and if pyrite were valued like gold, we would all be rich. 

I used to live with a girl that was a geologist and here father was a geology professor at an Ivy League school. When she moved in she was the one who told me my water stunk like sulfur becuase there was a vein of pyrite under the house, the bacteria eating the pyrite waste product was what gave it the sulfur smell. She took care of that and as long as we lived there had good water. 

One summer they renovated our old Jr. high school (used to be the high school until the mid 80's). Built in the late 50's. When they were taking out the sinks in the science classrooms they discovered tons of mercury in the drains. For years it was just dumped down the sink from what i came to understand. 

Amazing how any of us survived childhood. Playing with mercury, lead based paint, asbestos, drinking water from the hose, long hours shirtless in the sun...

For a while it will be making rust... with the other dozen or so leaf springs i have. 

Got some road kill in front of the house today. A piece of leaf spring, unfortunately it also explains the loud POP/BANG noise i heard pulling into the drive way. Guess i get to replace my leaf springs next weekend.

Wow, that is way more information about gold than i can digest right now. 

I have not heat treated yet. But was figuring on drawing it back to an almost purple. That is what i figured it would be for more scraping and breaking up soil than hard digging. 

I gathered all that from watching a few videos, like cracks and crevices, where the water slow, etc. That one guy i mentioned, the geologist made a model river to show how hydraulic something or others worked in how heavy material gathers in certain spots. I thought it was pretty cool as a way of seeing physics at work in nature. 

I watched that show Deadwood and deducted this from gold mining. If i were to want to make money i would be either the blacksmith making and repairing the miners tools, the general store owner, or the saloon/house of ill repute owner.   

I know there used to be a couple gold mines here in Ohio. But no, Ohio is not known as a gold producing area. 

I watched a couple of the videos he suggested and one a guy who says he is a geologist said the same thing about panning. Find the gold and then triangulate where the gold is coming from and that is where you mine at. But the pan is just used for the detective work. As far as getting rich, nah, i watched another video where a couple guys spent a day crushing rock and actually smelting gold. 1/2 ton of rock and 6 hours later they got 1 1/3 grams. Seemed like a waste of time to me unless it is just for fun. Fun to watch as well and i learned a bit about smelting. More interesting to me than the gold. 

Me and my grandpa went panning a couple times but never found anything. More of something to do with the grandson most likely and yeah it was fun. I could see it being a fun hobby, getting out in nature and the like though.

I wouldnt know placer gold from a nugget or what ever it is all called. 

What kind of steel? Well the kind made from iron. Seriously though i am not sure. I cut a small piece off and it hardened in oil though. I am guessing that since i got it from work it is in the 1045 or so range since that is about the highest carbon steel we work with. 

Thanks for the compliments. 

I would try the bearing on the seat of an old office chair. 

Have an old guy at work that has discovered youtube, specifically videos about gold panning. He has bought pans and a sluice and all that, i am expecting soon he will buy a mule, a floppy hat, and bibs. But anyway he asked if i could make him a small pick. So anyway yesterday i made this little guy. Needs a bit if grinder work, not real happy with the eye, the bottom one end is a bit thin, and heat treated. Made if a mystery metal that hardened in oil. 

Frosty, you are absolutely right. It is like clockwork, all about timing. And yep, it is all in the set up. Just keep it fed and watch for problems, sometimes those problems can be quite disastrous too. 

Youtube has all the training videos available for the Davenport. They are kind of dated and a lot has changed as far as tooling and and a few other things. Like the training videos say that there is no adjustment for cut off depth, there is now. 

Yes it is a screw machine. Davenport model B. I think the ones we have were built in the 70's and 80's. No electronic controls except for the button that turns the motor on. Adjustments are made by tweeking a deadstop or swing arm. However the new tooling for these things helps tremendously. We use carbide inserts now instead of the old circular or dovetail tooling. Change an insert and vary rarely do you even have to make an adjustment. I must also admit that tight of a tolerance is usually only one or 2 of the dimensions, the rest i usually get +/- .002 or .003 on. One job i run has a +/- of .005" on the tightest, i love that job. I can sit on my but and watch cat videos when i run it. 

I am hoping that soon i will not be doing that anymore though. My foreman wants me to move into the tool room to take over for our tool maker who will be retiring soon. Our tool maker and engineer are also both  trying to get the GM to give me the nod as well. Since the first time i ever set foot in a machine shop that is where i wanted to work. 

We have this machine  that you input the dimensions of the  of part, put parts in the machine, and it uses lasers and within about half second measures all those dimensions and tells you what the measurements are and if they are out of spec are displayed in red. 

Those instruments are by 1/2's to the hundred thousandth but accurate to the tenth. A lot of parts i run have +/- .0005" tolerance. I am also holding that tolerance on a machine that was designed 100 years ago and run anywhere from 3,000 to 17,000 a shift. Depending on material, size, etc.