Dax Hewitt

So very sorry to read that Iron dragon and jhcc. I had to ask the vet not to wake one of our cats up on Friday after they found bigger broblems than they thought during an operation. Both Spud the dog and our other cat spent all weekend mooching round the house looking for her. Animals bring so much to our lives even if it's only briefly.

Like most of the previous posters I use WD40 or GT85. Unfortunately the rules behind taking substances on site these days and needing full COSH assessments for everything don't allow home mixed concoctions. Way back when though on compressors with 2 foot diameter I would put a couple of inches of paraffin and diesel on the top of the cylinder and light it with a rag, it heated the cylinder and the oil mix got very hot and thin and worked it way right through.

My Welder came from a machinery auction at a closed down factory. Cost £50, weighs about 200kg and is oil filled and 3 phase. Its very rare it gets used these days but its powerful enough to weld 1 inch steel plate all day if you wanted to. Also have a cheap mig set that is the go to for simple sticking bits of metal together rather than dragging the beast out of the tool store.

With stick welding I find it's all in the rods, I am not a professional Welder but have done plenty over the years and have used lots of different brand rods. I always revert back to Orlicon Super core rods. I don't know if they are available in the USA. Also keep your rods dry, the flux coating is a bugger for getting damp.

Thanks guys. Got to pretext the little dude. They are not doggles though, they are Rex spex. We find them much better than doggles.

Meet Spud. He loves traveling by bike and throws a wobbler if I go out on the bike without him but is fine if I go out in my van and leave him with the Mrs.

That guitar is top notch. I love the use of spanners. Full marks that man.

Didn't exactly follow me home, it was delivered whilst I was on site. The previous owner of my workshop put up the shonkiest lifting beam you have ever seen. It's 5 inch wide I beam tack welded to the roof trusses and it gets in the way of my forklift loading the racking so I decided its removal is a good excuse to buy a small plasma cutter.

Hooks look good to me Snuffy. Das if you have the ability it would be a crime not to make a playable one.

About 5 inch yes. 200 lbs is a guess based on I used to be able to lift it but only just off the floor. Once my elbow is working correctly again I'm going to clean it up with a wire brush and oil it. I would weigh it but my forge is in a storage container that sits on top of a storage container so it would be a lot of work to get it down and on to a scale. Not recent finds by the way, it would be between 25 and 30 years ago. I will tell the full story when I post them cleaned up in the show your anvil thread.

This topic makes me feel very blessed to randomly happen across a perfectly good London pattern anvil that I estimate would be about 200 lbs or so that cost me nothing at all. Found an 18"/18"/4" swage block buried in the mud at an abandoned quarry too. Sorry Chris, take heart that they are out there though. Ps the model is my mate Jack and not me.

I have to say I love this forum. I can't Smith at the moment because I injured my elbow at work a couple of months ago but I still come here to read pretty much every day. The wealth of knowlage and willingness to share it is brilliant. No massive egos either.

Aus they are seriously cool. Love the eyebrows

You have access here to the best information there is to have and its given freely. Hammer some steel and if it doesn't move how you think it should and you can't work out why I guarantee if you put pictures on here someone or more likely multiple people will come along and advise on where you are going wrong.

Das that looks excelent, ypu sir are a real artist.

There is only one thing to say about Okinowa, wax on wax off. It's making light of things but it sounds like a great opportunity for them.

It certainly can. I look after about 50 or so roots blowers for this customer and don't have any problems, this is one that their own maintenance guys installed and 9 hours later the fire brigade was on site. My guess would be that rather than fit and tension the belts then re tension after a hours running they fit and left them. Chain drive and toothed belts are not recommended for roots blowers, it was okay on the older ones that were built to last but on newer ones the instant transfer of close to 100% of the energy has a habit of snapping the drive shaft. It's okay with a frequency converter or soft start but not for star delta or dol start. A energy consultant was called in a few years ago and convinced them to replace the v belts with cogged ones to save x amount of energy lost through slippage. He saved them a fortune in energy when the shafts snapped and the motor was left running with no load, unfortunately this was put in to the shadows by the repair costs.

It's a wee bit big for a forge blower at 7.5hp. It's shot, the fire melted the motor windings so by the time I got a new motor and new gears because who knows how the hardness has been affected by the heat I might as well scrap it. I have shelves full of them ranging from 1/4 hp up to 200hp It is indeed a roots type blower made by Hick Hargreaves in this case. It didn't sieze up until after it set on fire. There are no drag marks or contact points internally, the rust is from the fire hose and being left outside on site for 3 weeks before my customer let me at it. Basically I overhauled it but unfortunately my customer installed it. They didn't tension the belts properly so after 9 hours running the belts set on fire because they were slipping. Zero friction marks inside the blower and the motor was protected by a correctly set overload and thermistors in the motor too, if the blower has started to sieze the extra current would have tripped it out. One of the senior engineers from the customer came to my shop today to do an internal investigation and he agrees with my findings that it was bad belt fitting. The fire was bigger than it should have been because it was in a sound proof box that had 20 years of rubber belt dust in it and 20 years build up of oil vapour from the gearbox breather. It's not worth overhauling, with the heat it's been under the gears will be shot and the body is a bit warped too. Time for the scrap bin after I have harvested a few bits for forging with. Mr Grumpy that eye looks nasty. Hope it clear up soon.

Not blacksmith related but could be interesting to you guys. I overhauled this Air blower, the customer installed it and it set on fire after 9 hours running. Cause of the fire was the drive belts slipping (fit by the customer) until they set on fire. Was the slippage an instalation problem or did I set the clearances wrong so it started to get tight when heated up. I stripped it today with the customers principal engineer and though there is slight scuffing on the end plate its not damaged enough to cause it to sieze so I'm off the hook. It's mostly cast iron but the shafts and sheet metal from the guard will be going in my to be forged pile.

Mounting the other way was my first thought but having seen the photos it wouldn't be easy to do and probably get in the way. Single phase motors are a real sod, every manufacturer uses different colour coding and often wires them a different way. Single cap, dual cap, centrifugal switches. It's voodoo I tell you. I just checked my wiring diagrams but don't have anything for that manufacturer.

Pnut is exactly right. I have a sweet London pattern anvil and I'm bloody useless.

This is where having a throwaway email address is handy. You have a real one that you use for business and family etc and a spare Gmail for general Internet use. My real address is 15 years old and gets very little spam etc but my Gmail is swamped with crap and no one is going to track me down through it unless they are very determined.

Not a problem good sir. I always have stuff like that kicking about so if you ever want one let me know, forge, bbq, log burner etc.

Sid if its any use to you I normally have the odd horizontal compressor Air receiver kicking about. I'm pretty certain that we wrote off a 90 ltr tank last week, it's about 2.5 foot long, about 1 foot diameter. Cut in half and lined with clay it could make a cracking forge. FOC if you can collect from Leeds.

That explains a lot, I have tied a knot in 6mm bar mild steel before and it was easy once I sused out how but the stainless was a right sod. I shall take up the challenge and try some copper, away on holiday at the weekend though so it will have to wait but watch this space.