Dasher

I'd reckon the major reason would be the cost involved, in a country of a couple of hundred million, plus change, the price would be astronomical to convert all the machinery and electronics calibrations, I grew up using the Imperial system, and it was beginning to be phased out at the end of my school days, so I started work using both, now, I am happily, totally metrified. At the end of the day, especially nowadays when the bulk of the population carry a converter/ calculator in their pocket, it isn't such a big deal, drill bits and threads seem to be the most troublesome, but threads have always had many variants anyway . The metric system is so much more intuitive and simple, but for every metric number there is an Imperial equivelent, even if they are a little harder to use mathemattically.

Without knowing the rating and specs of your bolts and nuts, I'll just offer some minor advice, where I am, [Australia,], metric bolts and nuts from commercial grade, [4.6], are not interchangeable with h.s, [ 8.8] grade bolts and nuts, the 8.8's being ever so margionally looser on 4.6 threads, many times while trying to fit column base plates on holding down bolt threads,[ 4.6] that had been damaged and the nuts would not start, all it took was to run a 8.8 nut on, and either leave it on, or take it off and replace it with a 4.6 now that the thread was a bit better, a bit like a poor mans die nut. This was much more obvious on galvanised bolts.

Imperial or metric is probably irrelevant, but I'd just be looking for the highest grade 9/16" unf or 14 x 1.5 mm pitch bolts, the 1.5 might be hard to find in your area, so I'd look for the 9/16 mm bolts, obviously I've missed the reason why the existing bolts are unsuitable, so I might be leading you astray.

JHCC, once again, I'm butting in, sorry, but if you have posted the diameter of the existing bolts, I've missed it, and for some reason, this site will not load previous pages of threads, so , if I go to bed for a few hours and try to look at a previous thread, unless it is in new activity, or still on an unfilled page, I miss it, [ most likely I am doing something wrong, lol], anyway, for your rods, bolts, I would be inclined to just get the highest grade available, bottoming out at 8..8, or whatever is equitable in your area, also, at the risk of creating a bit of an arguement, High Strength allthread is available in grades 8.8 and above, and is possibly suitable for your purpose, the issue with allthread is very much the fact that is not readily identifiable, and looks just like commercial grade thread, I have done many, many projects that have been subject to heavy loadings, often with just chemical epoxy anchor in concrete, as someone mentioned on Friday, myself, I would look for marked bolts in preference, but H.S allthread is not a killer.

For 1/32" over the length of that channel web, I wouldn't bother, just a tiny bit more gap for penetration on your weld.

Thinking about it a bit more JHCC, I don't think I'D bother trimming them 1/32" over that distance, just do a normal weld prep, and may be a little less on the on the web and outside flanges as it gets higher, and just run your fillet weld , major loading is going to be on the inside flanges anyway, and a sound weld there will make all the rest insurance anyway

Better to trim your verticals to suit, rather than trying to level 2 small areas for them, the working distortion between the risers is minimal, and will have near nil effect on your pressings I feel, keep it simple I'd suggest and not overthink it. [ it's nice to say that 'cos I overthink stuff all the time] lol.

Sorry for dropping in JHCC, just offering my 2c worth.Without going to the rigaramol of straightening your table top, that would be a good option for mine, fully assemble the upper works, nice and square, then seat, and trim as necessary for a good , full pen weld on the verticals, the table top probably has an induced curve from it's previous life, and would be a beast to get dead straight again, depending on your expected loadings, you could reinforce the underside with 2 pfc's back to back, but unlikely needed for your intent, once the upper works are fully completed and landed, they will in turn reinforce that small span with sound welds.

For what it's worth the piece I'm using came off the far end, around a metre long, slightly thinner wall tapering to knife edge from erosion from working, you can just make out the reducing step down on the far end.

Pic attached, the collar has 1 o ring external, with 2 o rings internal at the end we are looking at. The material softened enough for machinability I think, I drilled a couple of 3/16" holes easily enough, but you could feel the bit working when drilling dry, but a file makes little impression, my annealing attempts so far have been solely heating to non mag, and either in vermiculite cooling, or in forge cooling with opening blocked with fire bricks, no other tempering etc, appreciate your input Frosty. I got this stuff a while back to make some wood lathe tooling, before I'd made a forge or manufactured an anvil/ hitting block. I initially split the tube with a grinder, then using oxy/ acet, tried to flatten it, even with a large heating tip, I couldn't get a large enough area hot enough to hammer it flat,, [ask my shoulder], so it went on the back burner till I got my forge up and running, then it flattened easily enough.

I followed the advice given and chased up some info, got some good help, but the guy from the actual supplier never rang back, but , what I have seems to be a hammer adapter inner tube, and generally they seem to be made of 1040, so my annealling methods should of worked if I got my temps right, I might use this stock for something else as what I planned to do needed a knife like edge, and it seems 1040 is not the best edge keeper.

Will do, Arkie, still dark here ATM,if I get any good info, I'll post it.

Well I went back and tried again, basically repeating what I,d already tried, but playing closer attention to [estimated] temperatures, almost identical results, the heat then forge cooling is marginally softer than the cooled in vermiculite method, and can be drilled ok with care,[ only small diameter so far, 3/16:], but it is still very hard to file and do other similar things. All the info I've read seems to indicate I need better temp monitoring and control, and there is not a lot of detailed info on annealing 4130 in a simple home forge set up.If I've missed something and someone can point it out, I'd appreciate it. The job is doable as is, but a LOT harder and more power tools.

Thanks Arkie and Frosty, I think you nailed it between you, the tube is used for drilling the type of jobs Frosty mentioned, and the collar is a double ring push fit by the look of it, and very hard, the finish is almost chrome like, except for the heavily eroded ends, I'll check out 4130 treatment and see if I can do a workaround that way, thanks.

arkie, I suspect you are right, most probably drill tube, about 3" o.d., about 4mm wall thickness, probably thicker before wear, as the tube got very thin towards the end where most erosion had happened, so probably started as 1/4" or 6.5 mm thick, for that thickness it was a bit tough to cut, and I initially tried to flatten it with oxy/ acet, and that was tough going trying to break it's back, but not so bad in the forge where I could get a better spread of heat.

Thanks Irondragon, that is helpfull, but it doesn't quite identify my stuff, those charts seem to be for actual rod, whereas my stuff is actually drill pipe, which is called drill rod here, and the indentifiers don't apply, but it has narrowed down my search a bit.

To be honest IF&C I really don't know.

Hi all, hoping for a bit of help. I've been trying to anneal a piece of drill rod, already cut and flattened, so it had been heated once already by me, I then heated it to critical, and let it sit in the forge , closed up to cool. After this it was still quite hard to file etc, so after reading Steve Sells article on the subject, I reheated it to critical, let it air cool, then reheated it to sub critical and let it cool in vermiculite. After this, a file just skated across, as if fully hardened, any advice would be appreciated. Note: temperatures were not precise, I just used magnetic/ non magnetic to achieve critical, and sub critical was an estimate based on colour, but was approaching critical.

It does look a lot like a "skutch" hammer for masonary work, but I reckon it is a bit light, perhaps for carving stone, statues etc maybe, a good quality skutch would be more than useful on steel except for the length of the outboard on both sides.

Sorry to see this Steve, I have no valuable advice to give whatsoever, but just want to say I agree with your take, doubt there is anything accidental/ coincidental in all of this, to me, it is simply theft, taken 1 step further, as not only is your rep being used, it is also, potentially being destroyed, having said that, the guy , just might be an excellent craftsman, but indicators suggest that is unlikely

Growing up in Melbourne, I used to swim in the Yarra year round, mainly in the Fairfield area, in winter , with flooding it was not unusual to share the water with 2 or 3, woken, angry tigers, needless to say, we used to unshare the water pretty quickly.

got any 8x10 full colour glossy photographs of that bench?

Thanks Rockstar, I had read that before somewhere, and it was 1 of the reasons I wanted to keep it smaller, like all of us, I'm trying to work with what I have on hand, and unlikely to be needed for any projects, to keep the top die weight down I'm going to reduce the vertical opening to just enough to remove the bottom dies without much drama, it should still give me near a 40 plus mm opening, and I see no need for any larger stock in my near future, but, who knows

good advice, thanks guys, I've been overthinking the guillotine, trying to re invent the wheel, I'm going for simple and easy now, dies will be a bit clunky, but I've got a fair bit of 50x 25mm bar, I'm going with that, should be simple to jig guides for it.

That sounds pretty simple, thanks pnut.