Ted Ewert

If I have a striker and can't find a piece of flint, is it OK to use a grinder? I've been successful using this method to ignight my shirt on several occasions.

Thanks! Jobtiel1, nice work on both the striker and the bag! Spring steel is not the easiest thing to move. What are you foraging for? The only foraging I do these days is in dumpsters. DHarris, Stranger things have come out of my shop. They were supposed to be roots, but they look a lot like worms. The only welding I did on it was underneath the wrap, to hold the pieces together. Otherwise it started life as three lengths of 3/4" x 3/8" bar stock. Daswolf, love the gator.

I made this candle holder on a whim. Getting the helix close to even was difficult. This was one of those projects where two hands weren't enough.

Pat, you're not bad at anything, just under practiced. Welding takes a while to get the hang of. Even then a weld will go south from time to time. You can always use the old "fill and grind" technique: fill in the holes and grind off the excess. Your tools may not be pretty at first, but if they work they're good enough. Just don't get discouraged when your first tries don't turn out like the video you saw on YouTube. Most of those guys don't show you their own scrap bin.

My father was a mechanical engineer and owned a gear manufacturing company. He explained to me at an early age the difference between casting and forging. I've read a lot about forging and casting since then and haven't seen anything that contradicts the theory that forging realigns the grain structure in steel to make it tougher and stronger than it's casted counterpart. If you have some new information I'm all ears.

Milwaukee Forge begs to differ: Forging is stronger than casting. One of the main reason we choose to provide forging services is that it provides a stronger end product for our partners. According to a study performed by the Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering Department at the University of Toledo: Forged parts had a 26% higher tensile strength than the same cast parts. Forged parts had a 37% higher fatigue strength resulting in a much longer lifespan than cast parts. Cast iron only had 66% of the yield strength of forged steel, a measurement that indicates t

If it isn't a very old saddle I would guess that you're looking at cast steel. Casting produces a different grain structure in steel than forging does, which makes it brittle. I would experiment with the broken one to figure out how to bend it, if possible, without breaking it. Probably lots of heat.

I put a small chamfer on the inside edge of the boss hole so the tongs don't act like a shear on the rivet. If you punch the hole and have a small radius it's not needed. If you drill the hole it's not a bad idea.

This must have turned out as everyone expected. Thomas was correct about the laws of physics. Most humans can put out about an eighth of a horsepower. That's why Tesla invented the AC motor. At least you have a frame (I assume). Just buy one piece at a time, scrounge what you can, and before long you'll have a nice press.

Funny... I have a gas forge and I have been using the tongs with shorter reins. I have a small opening at the bottom between thick doors that my work sticks out from. That's one of the advantages of having a circular flow in the forge.

Caution noted. Yes, the tubes are fully sealed at the manifold. While in operation the tubes barely get warm. I have found that the fewer tubes, or holes, used corresponds to greater fuel efficiency. I'm sure that 4 tubes would have been sufficient in my case. Once the forge gets up to temperature I turn the gas way down. I can accurately judge the mixture by watching to see if any flame is coming out through the door opening. I crank it down until the flame just dissappears. That's just right for most forging. There's a balance between the number of tubes, size and air veloc

The tubes were designed for high temperature applications like this and are quite strong. Nevertheless, the manifold is bolted to the outer case and no physical load is placed on the tubes. I did discover that the tubes need to be recessed somewhat into the liner. If the tube is fully exposed in the combustion chamber it will heat up and cause premature ignition of the gas. This did not cause blowback into the manifold, but I didn't like the idea of gas burning in the tube. Pulling them back solved that.

My old forge was starting to fall apart so it gave me the opportunity to build a new one with an idea I'd been thinking about. Nothing particularly different in concept here except the "ribbon burner" part. Instead of a cast burner I used 5 ceramic tubes. They are 3/8" ID, and 1/2" OD. Good up to 3k degrees F. These are more than sufficient to provide as much heat as I need. I used a small propane tank for the outer shell. The combustion area is 1" thick Kast-o-lite which is 5.25" in diameter by 9" long. This size is ideal for the type of work I do. I cast some doors for the front a

Holding up just fine.

I made a few more modifications, namely to make it easier to switch between one shot mode and repetitive mode. All the control is now attached to the treadle. One shot - repeat.mp4