BillyBones

Scott, parabolic, high helix, low helix, etc. are not very common to find in general. They are not just something you pick up at the local hardware store. Most people i have never run across them either. Grandpa being a machinist many of those in the coffee can may have been made for a special propose as well. Like the single flute, i use single flute spot drills all the time, mostly for cutting the chamfer in holes. If interested look up a company called Guhring and all the different types of drills they make just for cutting metal. As a side note i watched guy on you tube do a comparison of a bunch of different drills. From an $11 set of Dewalt to to a $200 set of i can not remember the name. The $11 set came in at 3rd place just behind a $30 set of Bosch drills and #1 was the $200 set (IIRC). But best bang for your buck is the cheap Dewalt drills.

IDF&C, those are amazing.

Something i have noticed and hate about the internet. With forums, chat, comment sections, etc. you do not get the small inflections of voice, facial expressions, etc. that you get when talking in real life. You only get the words. And while you may say something in jest or humor another may take it as an insult or in anger becuase of not being able to read the person. You do not get the way a person speaks. Ok that is my 2 cents about that. Ok, so like many have said usually steel is sold annealed. So if you got a remnant from a machine shop, steel supplier what ever i would say that yes it is annealed and treat it as such.

Nobody, who were you with at Ft Hood? I was there with A co. 3/8 Cav in 93/94. Our barracks was across the street from Popeye's chicken if it was still there.

I have a question, what are you planning on doing with this peice of 4340? If you are planning on forging it, it really does not matter if it is annealed or not.

I thought it had been finished as well. Now i have a reason to try something i have not done to much of.

TW, when i was in TX a freind asked if wanted to go back home with him to his family ranch. That is how i ended up trying to stay on a bull.

Smithing and in general working with my hands has been a part of my life for as long as i can remember. From the time me and my grandpa made our first lead pour, to nailing 2 boards together, to troweling concrete, to the first time me and my dad worked on cars. When i was a kid i would take nails, heat them up with a propane torch, and make little knives with them. Then as a teen i was into D&D and wanted to make swords and daggers. When i got out of the military i went to work in a machine shop. That is where i got my first taste of metallurgy. Fast forward a few years and my therapist at the VA suggested a hobby. Around that same time i learned that you do not need a whole bunch of special equipment to heat metal and shape it. So i built a forge in my backyard and got an "anvil". That is when the mystery of steel really too a bite. I have taken no classes and only read maybe 2 books. Everything i have done has been self taught by watching others. I have always had the attitude that if you can do it so can i. When i was in high school i was a pretty good artist in ink and pencil. My art teacher then commented once that i have a natural ability to use negative space. Those pictures where they ask "what do you see first" like the one of the young lady and the old lady in one drawing, i can almost always see both immediately. Which i beleive also gives me a better than average ability to "see outside the box" so to say. When i studied the Tao Te Ching one lesson always stuck with me "it is what is not there that makes something useful".

Scott, i do not think those are rejects. The top one looks like he was trying to make a "faster" drill. The steeper the angle of the flutes the "faster" the drill is. Not cutting speed but chip evacuation. The bottom is a type of drill, that for the life of me i cannot recall the name of, i keep thinking parabolic but that aint it. The deep flutes give better chip clearance.

I got to snow board the Alps. Well, fall down on my drunken behind and roll down the mountain. When i was stationed in Germany we took a trip to the Alps and one of my cohorts got me liquored up and talk me into it. I had never done it, nor had i ever skied, skated or anything. My experience with snow sports was snow ball fights and sledding down a 20" embankment on a piece of cardboard. I made it about 10' before i rolled. I was provably on the beginner kiddy hill working my way up to kiddy hill as well. Good fun though and no broken bones, that came later in the trip.

Gewoon, that is a nice twist. Much better than i can do. Mike is also right about the bend. It will bend in the fullered spots. That is a pretty tough bend to make. You may want to look but i am sure that their is a ratio somewhere that will say if you have "X" diameter of material you can only do "X" radius of bend. Then you can figure out how long of a fullered section you will need to make a 90* bend with the diameter of material you have. For example if "X" diameter can make a 1" radius bend, 2" diameter, you will need 61/4", 1/4 of that for a 90* bend, so ~ 1 1/2" of fullered section.

I have my great grandfathers post vice. My grandad was a master carpenter and i have a whole lot of his old tools. Then from my mom's side of the family i have the FS fighting knife my grandfather carried in WW2. I have the Af cap (shell casing) from the 2nd round that we fired when i was in the ME for Desert Storm. My driver who was do to get out when we got back got the first round we fired. I also have an unused ticket to the 2nd night of the Grateful Dead at Deercreek in Indiana. The only concert ever canceled by the dead. I like to think that is my ticket to what lies beyond.

I would also bet that somewhere in the instruction manual it says something along the lines of "use a minimum of XXX# tank". I just got a new convection heater for my shop and when buying it i made sure that it was compatible with a 20# tank. Huh, that did not post earlier. Frosty, it was a brand new heater so it may be idiot proof. But then again i have noticed that idiots always find a way so nothing is really idiot proof. George, i have slapped that boy in the noggin more times than i can count.

Yes i did. I also suggested floating the tank.

Think i may have saved my nephews life today. He was in his garage working on his truck and to heat it he had his new torpedo heater. Big old nice thing that had his garage up to about 80*F in almost no time. However he was running it with a 20# propane tank. The tank froze up, the heat started dying so his solution... turn the tank upside down to "flow better". I am no propane expert but i am pretty sure that is quite a bad idea. Anyway. Did some of the smallest work i have ever done. A couple more parts for the latch i am making. Would have finished it today but messed up the backing plate. But here is the keeper and lifting knob.

SBV, that is some real history. Hope it stays in the family and future generations get to relate the story. My post vise was my great grandfathers. My grandfather was a carpenter and i have a lot of his old tools. I see them as family heirlooms.

Got my shop up to about 40F while outside it is about 10F. I got my toes frost bit when i was in Germany one winter and standing on the concrete floor with steel toed boots makes them hurt bad. But i did get most of the parts for a Suffolk latch made.

I have had pretty good luck with 1040. I tested hardness on the last one i made at work one night and it came out at just over 50 Rockwell in an oil quench. It is also a pretty common steel to machine so if you know any machinists they may be able to get you a bar end or 2. The ones i got were 1 3/4" diameter and ~6" long or so.

My absolute favorite band since the Dead, Gov't Mule. Warren Haynes played with the Allman Bros. for a while. One of the best guitar players i have ever heard. Then Matt Abts is the best drummer i have ever had the pleasure of seeing live. And this is one of my favorite songs by them. Turn it up and enjoy.

What do you mean a motorized wall fan? If you mean like an exhaust fan for garages and shops, then have the the smoke blown into the fan out of the stack? If that is your thinking, it will work... for about a day. The heat alone coming out of your stack will melt the fan, trust me i know this from experience. Then if you are burning coal the soot will clog up the air intakes on the motor and it will burn up. Regardless of what you want to do, you need to check the local building codes and see what you can do.

Ah, ok thanks.

Today at work someone asked if i knew what the AISI designation meant for steel. So i started explaining that each number had a meaning and was showing him what they were. I used a coupe examples then got to carbon content. I noticed that 15N20 steel was listed as having .75% carbon. From what i have been taught is the last 2 numbers is carbon content like 1095 has .95%, why is it not 15N75?

That was a weather report i hears at work last night around midnight. I posted that about 4AM this morning. The weather report has now changed again, 2PM my time. Wont be in the 40's till next week, Tuesday. That is how stupid crazy the weather is here. It is the God's honest truth for where i live, "Dont like the weather, wait 10 minutes it will change". one good thing though is that like i said 5" of snow is a lot for us. And our road crews are pretty good at getting the roads cleared. So by Monday it will be usually be cleared up and the drive is not to bad. The worst part around here is driving while the snow is falling. We have a majority of people who can not seem to figure out how to drive in the snow. I have seen people stop and wait for oncoming traffic with just a little dusting, while on the other spectrum 4x4 drivers who think that 4WD lets them drive like a bright summer day in 3 feet of snow. Very few have figured out slow and steady is the safest way to drive.

George, i have seen other countries call them pliers before. I do not think it is a translation error it is just their word for pliers and tongs is the same word.

Shainaru, i could not tell one kind of wood from another either when splitting. I just split what was in the pile and i was told to do. We are supposed to get between 1-5 inches of snow between now and Friday (yeah, i know to many of ya that is a dusting) then Saturday it is supposed to get into the 40's and rain. We have some stupid crazy weather here.