Dax Hewitt

You certainly do but years ago I learned there is a time and a place to be Mr 1 lesson in front. When I started Kayaking a few of us novices hooked up with an "instructor" who took us out to play most weekends. What we didn't know was he was basically 1 or 2 lessons in front of us. It was all great until it wasn't and things went wrong and he didn't know what to do. Fortunately I have had enough oh crap moment with different sports and work things that I was able to step in and take charge and rescue the people who were trapped on the river and keep everyone safe.

Thanks for the advice guys. You can't tell from the photo but it is a very round chisel and I will dull it a bit for the next lot, I have 20 blanks because I knew it would be a learning curve. Would you advise putting the veins in hot or cold? I did these cold with a sharp chisel.

Das your creativity with what is basically scrap items never ceases to amaze me. The jelly fish is excellent. I had a productive morning, first I made a chisel from an old 4x4 anti sway bar. Then I took 4 of my oak leaf blanks and added veins with said chisel a Added some texture Finally curled the stems, bent them a bit round the edges and added mounting holes. Next part is to get some wood tomorrow and mount them to it and get them to my mum in time for Christmas.

You have to take ID scrapping in the UK too and the money has to be transfered in to a bank account. Metal theft is a massive problem so the idea is this approach will cut down on it. There are definitely places that pay cash and falcify the records though going on the amount of the traveling community who come scrounging and the amount of stainless steel and copper cable that vanishes over night in things like the waste water industry.

What are the environmental standards like in the USA? In the UK at work we need to get waste transfer notes for everything. If we replace a customers machine and take their old one away we give them a transfer note and when it ultimately lands at the scrap yard they give us a transfer note, oil filter, air filter and waste oil from a service, waste transfer note, back at our shop the oil goes in the waste oil tank, the oil filter in to the filter bin after being crushed, the air filter in the general bin. Each bin emptied gets a transfer note. It's a royal pain in the bum. It seems accountability and liability are the main things in Buisines these days.

I think the problem is people see a knife or an axe made in 3 hours on forged in fire and think that looks easy, I can do that. I get people asking me if they can have a go to make a sword, for some reason everyone wants to make a sword. I explain I'm very much a beginner and even if I was inclined to make one I'm years away from a sword but they can make a key ring. 6mm round bar tapered to a point at both ends, coiled up with the last coil reversed making a small loop. They quickly realise how difficult it is to get the metal to move where you want when you start out.

There is no date on it but I bought it in 89 and it was old then. It has big old bakerlite knobs for adjusting the current so my guess is 1960s.

I'm going to throw in a slight twist. About 25 years ago I went to a auction pre sale. The first thing I saw was a Boxford oil filled ark welder with a price tag of £50 on it. I went directly to the office and paid for it. As I was paying a fabricator that was on the same industrial estate as my workshop came in to the office to buy it. He was gutted. He had seen it earlier on but decided to go round the whole sale before going to pay. I still have the welder, when our shop got broke in to every power tool was stolen except the welder. I suspect 200kg was too heavy for the thieves

So very sorry to read that.

I used to own a wheelabrator rotating drum shot last, got it at auction for £500 with 50 hours on the clock. I contacted wheelabrator to get a manual for it and they knew the machine, it was only a couple of weeks old and they offered 5k to buy it. Didn't sell it and we used it for years but the direction of our business changed and I ended up selling it for 1k (quite worn after the years of work) because we were moving to a smaller workshop. Also sold our 3 phase lathe and 3 phase buffing wheel. Things changed again though and we never moved and I don't half miss having the tools around.

Today I learned that a 3.6kw 3 phase air compressor that runs at 8 amp with a starting current of 62 amp needs 20 amp motor rated fuses and not the 16 amp that my customer fit.

Not been here for a while, life gets in the way from time to time. Just looked over the last 10 pages of this thread. Some very good looking projects that you all have been working on. Makes me feel like I'm slacking.

Some very nice stuff there. Love the pens.

Hail and welcome

That makes sense, I was assuming grease in the gearbox but oil makes much more sense. I think I was having a senior moment. Twisted Willow, nice looking saw you found there.

JHCC, if that's your first go with a gas axe you did an excellent job. Looks like a very consistent cut from the photo.

Thanks Das. Frazer, your on site slippy slope. Ever heard of Triffids.

Frosty I might fit a hood but I don't have any bother with fumes. I have a 400mm square panel fan on the back wall that I liberated from a dead air compressor, with that running and the container open it gets a realy good airflow. I can't move the forge outside, the 19 by 10 shipping container it's housed in sits on top of a 10 by 40 container and there is no room out front. Question though, I only have 5 foot of clearance from the top of the forge to the roof of the container. If I did fit a hood at some point would I get enough draw or would I need to extend the stack ? My other option is to use some 45 gallon drums to make some ducting from the wall fan to the fire.

Looks like a 1/8th or 1/4 valve. Old style brass one. Why would a hand crank blower have a valve though ? Only thing i can think of is to open it before pumping fresh grease in to allow the old grease to come out ?

I didn't get to light the fire but I finally got time to put my bench in the forge and put the tools back. Whilst I was at it I mounted my steel rack and put a 100mm high bit of sheet metal round the back and sides of my coke forge , the old edge was only 50mm high and it restricted how much coke I could have on there drying out. It's a nice little compact set up now.

Wow Billy, that's a beast.

That's because we learn by our mistakes. The older you get the more time you have had to make mistakes. I should be an expert at everything by now.

That's beautiful. Thomas that is excellent advice on anvil lifting.

If it works 10 euros is a fantastic deal, mine cost £100.

I put the new bench in the forge after work tonight, bunged the lads a few quid to stay back and help. Seeing as we had to move the anvil to get the bench in I decided to weigh it. My scale is designed to hand from a crane so we put a sling on the anvil then the scale then another sling over a lifting bar. We got the reading up to 170kg (375 LB) before we ran out of strength and it never moved. Ended up putting bars under it and 4 of us lifted it out of the way. Top tip, don't try lifting an anvil if you have a bad hip, I have never been in so much pain as I am right now. I'm going back down there on Saturday to put all my tools away and sort it all out and hopefully have enough time to light the fire.