j.w.s.

Sure Allen, you're always welcome to come by the shop, once I get the wrinkles ironed out. :) I'll probably compile a dxf file of the parts so it could be taken to any cutting operation, but in the meantime I've got get it beyond the prototype stage. :) Of course that's really only helpful if someone wants a press with only a 3" ram extension like I do. I didn't find it restrictive for welding up or drawing out billets at all, and on the previous c frame version I started by making my dies 3" tall, so if I needed more clearance I could just change one or both of the dies down for a smaller one - technically I could start with an 8" piece of stock and by changing dies a few times draw it down to 1/8th. It may be next week until I get to work on it again, my stock on ebay is dwindling so I've gotta brave the cold and make a few knives over the next few days.. J

This is the general mock up of how I have things layed out in my head. The blue plates lock the cylinder in place as an added measure to the preexisting bolts in the base. J

Gussets were always in the plan, however the exact execution was a little up in the air until this afternoon when my supplier called me back. The don't have 3"x4"x0.25" in stock at the moment.. however after he dug around, he found some 2"x4" with a 0.375" wall. So, now the idea is to make 0.375" thick L shaped gussets affixed by welds (drill 0.5" holes and fill them, grind flush) and the existing bolts on both sides of the frame, just like is found in some bridge work. I may also make 4" wide L brackets for the outside corners to get bolted and welded into place for added support. The nice thing about having a cnc plasma cutter is not being limited for certain parts. If I can draw it, I can make it. Here's and updated png overlay showing the tubes in light green-grey, gussets in red and corner brackets in blue. -J

It's that time of year again, I seem to build and re-engineer one of these things each year. lol I've got my cylinder, all the little important parts and pump from my previous c-frame, the biggest problem with it was a little too much flex for my liking, so I'm back to the H style frame with a twist. I'm waiting on some 3x4"x0.25" tubing to come in, so until then the build is on hold. The principal idea is, I'm making my frame out of 3x4, welding it together at the joints and then sandwiching the frame with 0.375" plates one either side, securing them with bolts and maybe a few welds if she needs it (but I'd like to avoid that in order to access the internals of the press which will contain the guides and possible springs for the traveling top die plate). The whole press body is 28"x32". I want the whole unit to be able to sit on a table that my rather large hydraulic tank and pump will sit under, instead of being twice the size and requiring it to be wheeled around the shop. I've rough cut the front and back panels and the cylinder mount on the plasma table. I'm just sort of making this up as I go along so I'm sure I'll be making parts here and there, but I figure I'd show what's been done so far. J

Thanks. As I said before, this isnt a complete guide to heat treating and, as Ric F and I discussed earlier today theres some tweaking that could be done as far as some of the details go.. Anthony, we touched on a lot more than this in class, but the material will be familiar even if abbreviated - I saw your notes you took, I could write a book from that! Anyway, I'm in the process of writing up a more in-depth treatment to shoot at a later date ie whenever I get the free time/motivation. J

Heres a short video I did this week on the basics of heat treating and a simple explanation of the processes taking place. This is by no means a complete guide to heat treating, more a bit of information to help build an understanding foundation. -J

my border collie would want to see whats going on and point out what I'm doing wrong.. she's like a second wife sometimes. lol but she may lay on my legs if I bribed her with a huge meal first.. :) as for grinding that way? thats a really interesting and cool photo you found and a neat part of knife history. nice find! -J

I typically get stuff from Aldo in about 2 days and I've liked everything I've gotten from him. His W2 has become my defacto knife steel, I use his 15N20 and 1095 or 1084 for my Damascus and I'm really tempted to buy some Hitachi Blue before it's gone. -J

"New"? What foreign language is that? :) -J

I might make it over to Stans this year if that weekend is free. Perhaps I'll see some of you there! -J

that's too funny because its too true! -J

Lucky for me young children arent allowed in my shop just big dumb adult children! Its not like the key stays in the chuck when not in use, it just never fails that i get side tracked by something falling or the piece isnt sitting right in the press vise.. Fortunately I'm right handed and its never once made it full circle! Theres a nice block wall and shelving units for the darn thing to hit and get lost behind. (sheepish grin) -J

So this is not the biggest sword we've ever made (yeah, we've made longer more wieldable blades in the past) at six and a half feet made out of five eighths inch steel and a sledgehammerhead for the cross guard, this bad boy is modeled after a sword in a video game and weighs in at just over 52 pounds. The customer who ordered this was about 13 years old at the time requested we make it according to the specs he found, despite our protests he insisted, so we did! Now before you think that we have a habit of making swords for 13 year olds, his parents are really good friends of ours. It was the funniest thing to see this scrawny little kid dragging his sword behind him with a huge grin of glee on his face. lol Anyway to make a long story short, it made the journey back to us this summer because that young man is all grown up and headed off for yet another deployment, a long one this time, and he didn't quite know how to pack this to display in his barracks overseas so he asked if we'd like to sell it for him.. so far, no takers, but everyone picks it up and tries their hardest to stay steady long enough for a picture. J

Anthony! Great to have you on board! Welcome to the greatest resource available to blacksmiths everywhere! You've shared your pictures and progress with me already so I know you're off to a good start! One of these days I'll have to make the run down to your area and look at your setup.. I'm sure there's one or two "apartment blacksmiths" here that can give you pointers on how to do things small and portable. Lol.. We should try to find you a small farrier trailer setup to tow behind that little sports car of yours! In the meantime, enjoy browsing! Again, great to see you on ifi! J

leaving the chuck key in the drill press. I never try it, but about once a month something distracts me and I do it. it goes flying, makes a heck of a racket and then I'm on my hands and knees searching for the keyfor half an hour! -J

Thank you. Aside from cutting the grinding and belt work in half the only chunks that were scrapped were the heating portions, everything is as you see it in real time. I also didnt get the tempering but my helper had left for the day and I figured it might be a little boring.. but I did give it an honorable mention with some overlaying text. :) My main point was to make this for some students who had asked but I've got a few customers who wanted to see how it was done, so I figured I'd just share it with the world. -J

I shot a video yesterday afternoon of making a cable "Damascus" knife. This is one of the demonstrations I do in about 20 minutes at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. I'm sure the voice over could use a little work, but I was narrating it at about 1am so I had a little exhaustion working against me. Now before anyone says anything, I know that I'm not wearing safety glasses while hammering but shooting a video and doing production work are two different feats and so is lighting for shooting and sometimes they work against each other.. So, with that being said, always wear the appropriate safety gear when working! Anyway, enjoy! (that is if I can figure out how to embed it) -J

I like it but handles are all about feel for me.. now if that cut out was embedded into a clear resin but smoothed out it might grab my attention a little more. Right now it looks too delicate to use. J

Yes, very nicely executed.. J

lol.. It's never simple plug and play with electric.. the simplest form of plug and play in this operation would be a toaster oven, but unfortunately they aren't insulated on the inside and after some poking around with my laser thermometer and a few thermocouples, it's amazing how they can swing in temperature over such a short difference. In other words, you're just not going to get even or consistent heat from one. If the whole thing was insulated it wouldn't have the heat blead and it'd be great. This whole string of english that makes no sense is the theory mumbo-jumbo behind what is happeneing during my build. All I've really done is changed the chasis of a toaster oven, added some cool electronics like a PID and a thermocouple, some good insulation and reconfigured the way the elements fire. Simple plug and play for me, but while not as dangerous as taking apart a microwave, it could still be other than harmless for other people.. :)

Well, I should have premised this with the statement that I'm a former high voltage electrician and while this isn't the 120kV lines or 34.5 transformers I used to get paid to monkey around with I still treat it with respect. Even 120vac in the wrong situation can be extremely dangerous. So far, it has been an interesting project and while I won't be trying to get higher heats out of this particular oven, I'm quite impressed with the 1100F it's capable of as configured, and it has prompted me to think about designing a larger box using commercially produced elements available from my local mom and pop store. In the past I used elements from electric heat pumps, but they're extremely delicate and prone to failure. Something shielded in some sort magnesium/ceramic is much more attractive. The elements themselves are designed to be in contact with metal, there is no current running through the outer shield, only through the center wire which is encased in the insulating material. The fact that these are designed to not short out by accident (like touching an element with a blade) makes them even more attractive and much safer when proper care is taken when wiring them up. Truth to tell, I would much rather have someone use these to learn from rather than unshielded nichrome or the like. That being said, any home brew electrical project can be dangerous and if you don't understand what you're working with you shouldn't attempt it in the first place. J

Firstly I believe ironsmith had it correct but wrong at the same time. If we look at W, or wattage as is was put, as and expression of electrical power, the most common usage, we do indeed drop amperage draw when increasing voltage. However I think he's meaning Wt or Wth an expression of thermal power produced. Only the resistance of my elements will remain constant. So, if I'm drawing 120vac and my resistance is 15Ω I'm drawing about 8 amps and producing 960 Wt. If I increase my voltage to 240vac the resistance is still the same, but I'm now drawing about 16 amps and producing 3840 Wt. If I wanted to produced the same Wt with 120vac I'd need to lower the resistance to 3.75Ω and my amps drawn would be 32! Unfortunately the gauge incoloy I have at 3.75Ω which is about 12.5" worth would be decimated in a matter of seconds with that draw at 120vac. I dont know if that makes any sense, it's at the xxxxx crack of dawn here and I haven't had any coffee yet. J

Well I decided today to just run 3 elements in series since I burned the 4th one out and I'm not going for hardening temperatures. This configuration seems like a nice middle ground in overall heat output versus time to get to heat. I checked my wife's toaster oven today and it uses those quartz elements as well - tomorrow I'll check salvation army for a matched replacement for the 4th one but it runs great off of 3 for my classroom purposes. Also where I'm holding my knife making classes only has 120vac available. I'm thinking of trying a second 240vac build using broiler elements for our production shop though. While it would drop the amperage I'm not sure how capable these elements are with the wattage but it's worth the experimentation. Elements are cheap and durable, the pid, thermocouple and ssr were under $25 and the steel/kaowool were just left over scraps from other projects. I just used the toaster oven because it was laying around. If anyone cares to jump in with some technical input I'd be more than happy for it. :) -J

Alright, after changing the wiring around because running it in series (four elements in a row) gives too much resistance and wont give fast consistent heat, I rewired the unit so it was two separate series running in parallel and the resistance was a lot better at the sacrifice of the amps drawn. I managed to break 1100F run like that. So, it got me thinking, just how much heat can one of these elements take?! Well, I hooked 1 up by itself and set about to find the answer.. to the best of my ability to determine such things, I think it hit about 1900F before blowing the element.. it's ok, my wifes toaster oven is sacrificing itself today to repair it. I looked for a cheap one on the shelves last night at Walmart but they're all using these weird quartz elements now, not the incoloy elements we're used to. While i don't need to to get there, I think it might be possible to add resistance to the elements individually in order to limit the intensity at which it burns, thus providing suitable temperatures even for most common hardening (1450 to 1675F). I need to check this for resistance and then I can calculate the amp draw and potential heat production with the right resistor in line. :) It's not nichrome but I'm still really impressed what these things can do, particularly because we're talking 120vac and >10 amp draw for a decent tempering oven, and the fact that they are in some sort of ceramic insulator for protection makes it much more attractive than nichrome coils. J

I'm still battling with my back pain issue and I couldn't do much else around the shop today, but I've had this old toaster oven laying around for a while now that I used to temper in, It's just not deep enough for some of my blades so decided to rip it apart, upgrade a few things and rebuild it in a larger, insulated shell. For those of you that may have wondered, there is no insulation in a cheap toaster oven, it's a miracle anything can be cooked in them in the first place! My main motivation is to use it for a tempering oven during my bladesmithing classes which start next weekend. We'll be hardening in the forge, but the steels we're working with require more than just a little guesswork when it comes to tempering. I figured the elements from the toaster oven should lend themselves nicely to a low temperature oven build such as this, but I'm adding a thermocouple and pid which will be miles beyond the analogue components of the original. I've no idea how hot these elements can get, but I'm going to wire it up in the morning and give it a whirl. -J