ptree

The 300 series SS need to be a decent yellow to move easily, and quit when you hit red. Carpenters data book says about 50% more effort for the 300 series to forge. I have never had issues with crumbling. The 303 and 304 and plain 316 are subject to stress corrosion cracking in service that has exposure to "Sour Gas" that is natural gas containg H2S. If used steel from well head or refinery service the crumbling may be due to corosion cracking before it ever got in the forge.

There are many styles of chech valve. Ball, piston, diaphragm, reed and swing, Then you can have spring loaded, and you can have inline, "Tee" or "Y" style. Highest Cv will be an inline swing check, followed by a "Y" swing, followed by a "Y" piston followed by a "Tee" piston. The comes the spring loaded which always reduce Cv considerably. In Pnuematic checks, I would consider a soft seated swing check or Y type soft seated piston for highest Cv. Unless you have sticking issues or extremely low pressure differential you don't usually want/need a spring. Ptree who spent 21 years in the valve and fitting manufacturing industry, 17 of those in the R&D labs and who flow tested every vale we designed and most of the competetion.

The Southern Indiana Meteorite Mashers, a sattalite group of the Indiana Blacksmithing Association, would like to invite you to our April 27th meeting. It will be held at my shop in Floyd's Knobs Indiana, just a hop and a skip across the Ohio River from Louisville. Easy to Find my shop is 1.6 miles off exit 119 on I-64 west. The address is 2810 West Riley Rd floyds Knobs Indiana 47119. Iron in the hat, pitch in lunch, and open forge. We generally see folks begin to arrive at about 9-10, and all are welcome. If you need directions, PM me.

Machine tables are absoluty great for tooling tables. great as weld fixture tables, weld fit up etc. Metal planning tables are often available and are usually a very useful size as well.

Cylinder tie rods are normally a proprietary steel called "Stressproof" having a yeild strenght of about 140,000psi. They are usually roll threaded up from roll thread pitch diameter and are sized to not let the head or cap lift off the cylinder with normal pressures. The idea is that an O-ring can extrude thru any given gap if the pressure is high enough, and on a low pressure air cylinder these pressures will ley an O-ring seal even a 0.005" gap Ptree who in a previous century worked at a manufacturer of air cylinders

Rich Hale, you are welcome. As an Industrial safety guy I have a tough row to hoe. I have to teach them what to wear when and how, how to take care of it, when to replace it, and then remind them I was serious, yes they do have to wear... every single time they... for many a simple reminder works. Some it take a written reminder, some a final written reminder and several have placed themselves on the un employed list. I have a job to do and it requires that I follow the rules and ensure compliance. Since I do the job hazard assesment, and decide what PPE is required for the task, there is another reason I have to ensure compliance, I look myself in the mirror every morning. I would have a hard time doing that if I had to call a teenage mother to be and tell her her teenage husband died on the job, and it was because I did not enforce the rules. My Brother had to make one of those calls because the safety guy responsible was a slacker. Aged him years overnight. A couple of months later he got to do it again, and quit the next day since the owners were not going to change. So if you work in a factory, or doing something like a pour, and someone asks you to follow the rules, listen, and comply. Someone has gone to the effort to think through, research and define what is needed at MINIMUM to protect you. He needs to be able to look himself in the mirror everyday as well

As a safety guy, in a factory I hear folks complain that the PPE makes the job more dangerous, or is not needed etc. I see folks who wear welding hoods and face sheilds without glasses all the time, and have folks get grit and splatter in their eye because no glasses under the hood. Lets review, A FACE SHEILD protects the ... FACE. Safety glasses protect the ... EYES. AS several have pointed out above no PPE make you perfectly protected from harm, and indeed the best safety item in our tool box is between our ears. Face sheilds are available in anti-fog coating. They are also available with a bottom guard if items may come from below. Ptree's simple safety glasses test Close both eyes, tell me what you see? Nothing? Any questions? By the way, when wearing a face sheild or hood, or googles etc and grinding, when ready to remove, here is how to do so and not get the eyes full. Bend over at the waist, close your eyes and remove the PPE. With eyes closed, brush your hair and eybrows and forehead off. The lightly brush off the eyelids. Now safe to open eyes and stand.

I do not pilot drill when in a good rigid drill press. If you thin the web a bit then even a big dril like 1" or better will make a good hole. If you have chatter when pilot drill then bigger drill then something is NOT rigid. Either the quill is loose or the work is loose.

A Machineries manual has speeds and feeds for about every possible situation. I commend it to all.

To drill leaf spring, my friend who is the 3rd generation owner/operator of a Truck spring shop offers the following: All of the Triangle brand springs he buys are preheattreated, and are 5160. He uses a big old camelback drill press, that his Grandfather bought, and runs 90 rpm max, with industrial quality HSS drill bits, keeping the feed steady by using the feed on the machine. He does not predrill a pilot hole for a hole of say 5/16" just centerpops the location and drills, using black oil. I buy virgin spring stock for him and on the ones for my power hammer, I drill holes just as he does with no issues. I cut the spring stock as recieved from him in a 4x6 bandsaw using a bi-metal blade with no issues other than a little slow to cut.

I have some experience in aluminum extrusion. From memory the extrusion pressure was 135,000psi at 925F. This was for the extrudable grades like 50XX series and 60XX series. The dies had to be massively supported and keeping weld and galling down was much of the technology. Graphite rub blocks on the runout table and graphite lubes were the industry standard 25 years ago when I had experience. A puller is needed to prevent a birdsnest of the extruded materials. I do know that steel has been extruded, but have no personal experience. Good Luck

Since my shop is located on a slope, I just add lean-tos for more space.I am at 5 lean-tos so far :)

I belong to the Southern Indiana Meteorite Mashers, a sattalite group of the Indiana Blacksmithing Association. We got our name from Billy Merrit, our forge master. He has forged meteorite into knives and viking style swords, and has introduced all of our regular members into the elite club of those who have forged meteorite. Mine became a pendent for one daughter and earrings for the other. Both loved the subtle pattern, and knowing that they were both made from meteroite and that their Dad made them. Billy Merrit is know as The King of Junkyard Damasacus, and often does welding demo's where all are sure that the billet is far too cold to weld. He gets the welds every time, and often uses only a hammer handle to effect the weld. Handle only, no head! The material we have been using came from "the Campo de Cielo meteorite field in Argentina. Billy had us consolidate the billet and then forge to shape. Forges fair, eats saws:)

OSHA regulations for PPE are like many of the OSHA rules, performance based rather than specification based. This means that rather than a long specification list like "a face shield shall be worn when... and then specifing tasks. The OSHA requirement requires honest thought, and to do a Job Hazard Assesment. A JHA would be, what threats to the eyes exist in this task? Flying debris? Yes, then safety spec's flying debris a threat to the face? then a face shield. Falling items or roll over threat? then safety shoes. And so on. Many will wear a face shield to protect the eyes but truely for protection safety spec's for the eyes and a face shield over for the tender face are needed if the threat is there. Wire wheels on large Hp setups are really bad about grabbing parts, almsot as bad as large muslin buffs. Stuart, could a simple tumbler, or rumbler be substituted? while you would have to invest in some equipment, the savings in labor time should be a good return And folks, the ultimate goal under the OSHA spec's, and my personal drive, is to enineer out the threat. PPE is the LAST choice. Wearing armour to protect against the threat is never as good a protection as eleminating the threat. PTREE the industrial Safety guy.

What Steve said!

JNewman In the axle shop where the henkel product was sprayed as a mix in water at about 5% to water we sprayed between every single hit, and at 6 seconds between hits the water was needed o keep the die cool. At my home shop I run 50:50 and dip hot cuts, my touch mark and drifts. The goal is not what the mix looks like, but more that the water flashs off removing heat, and then leaves a tan light chocolate like coating that is dry. Properly used this stuff is like ball bearing for hot work tools. We did have an extreme reverse extrusion job, Mil-spec that used an exotic alloy.This we reverse extuded in a 4 post hydraulic press that was probably a little slow, and temp control was hard given the forge, so we only had about 1 in 60 stick and freeze in the tooling causing a loss of 50% of the tooling when salvaging. That one used graphite in a road tar emulsion, about like toothpaste. For upsetter dies the Henkel lube was magic. If you are getting galling try a heavier mix to get that solid film coating, may have to reapply every part.

Zinc fume fever also known as the zinc flu, the monday flu and by other names is often a quick flu like symptoms that disappear in a few days. In some shops where zinc is commonly welded the worker get the symptoms and by Wednesday are feeling better as their bodies adjust, and then over the weekend they adjust to no zinc and get "the Monday flu" Hard on the body Cadmium is often deadly even first dose. Lead bearing paint burning off would be a one time dose, and while the heavy metals accumulate in the body not as bad as Cadmium. Coal smoke itself is a witches brew of chemicals and NOT good to breath. No dust is good to breath. So use a stack, stand upwind, use known metals to forge and enjoy. Ptree the industrial Safety Guy.

At 4 years old a historic house museum at the end of our block in Louisville Ky built a blacksmiths shop. They did not have a fence and so I hung out in that shop my every waking moment I could until sadly school started for me and then I had only summers. I was the perfect size to be a bellows boy and so they had me pull the bellows and other stuff a blacksmiths son would have done at that age. We moved away when I was in the third grade. I was into making anything and since my Dad had a basement shop I used tools. When I went into the Army the craft shop at Redstone arsenal had a stone cutting shop so I learned to cut and polish stone as I trained in missile maint. Once assigned to Germany the craft shop had no stone cutting shop but did have a jewlers shop and there I piddled with making jewelery. Not many were interested and the German Master who was teaching for the ARMY adopted me and did a non-official apprenticeship for me. Learned precision investment casting, stone setting and fabrication. Came home to go to college and found no outlet for the jewels and so that dwindled except for making for family. I entered engineering school, and then moved to engineering technology school and as a co-op started at Westinghouse Air Brake Co (WABCO) where I worked in the R&D lab as a tester. A maint man, tired of arc welding things for me taught me to weld:) I was not good:) After Graduation I went to work for the Henry Vogt Machine Co in Louisville Ky, a 42 acre playgroud of shop for a techno-freak such as myself. I was again in the R&D labs, and again often needed stuff welded for test set-ups and to help troubleshoot production processes that needed welding so VOGT sent me to night school to welders classes and i learned to be a better welder:) Got lots of practice at work. In about 1990, at about 30 years old a neighbor bought a forge and anvil at a farm action and was trying hard to do something and I smelled the smoke. I walked over and noticed he had huge chuck coal about 8" chunks and it was stoker coal, I crushed some down built a usable fire from memory as a 9 year old and made an S hook. He was astounded and we played with his set-up for about a year. I found an anvil and built a forge about the time he moved away and have steadily progressed. At work VOGT had a city block sized steam drop hammer shop and I did spend lots of time there, and when VOGT was sold out I eneded up at an axle shop that used mechanical upset forging machines. So I have worked 25 years in factories that were industrial forge shops as well as machining and welding etc. For the last 7 years in a factory that considers 0.044" thick strip steel heavy. I miss the heavy forging but not the environment of dirty, dangerous blistering hot in the summer and frost your rear off in the winter. I miss the crews of people I worked with as well, but will miss the crew I work with now if I move yet again. After working in a world of everything measured with micrometers and the like, it is stress relieving to work to the accuracy of my hand and eye.

My Grandfather on my Fathers side was a master molder in a farm equipment factory. He started his apprenticeship at 13 as was common in that time. He was cycled through every department in the factory in turn and he made a masterpiece at each before moving to the next. In the pattern shop he made a rolling pin for his future wife. In the sheet metal shop a hip roofed tool box with tray. In the molding shop a Cast iron Dog door stop. And in the blacksmith shop, a roughly 4" post vise. I have inherited the tool box, and the post vise. My Mother still has and uses the rolling pin. The cast iron door stop was lost some time in the depression. Now for the rest of the story. In the great depression, the factory was about out of orders so they reduced the days the crew worked until at the worst, each man worked only one day a week. My grandfather remembered that door stop and asked if he could come in on his days off and make more of those to sell if he paid for the materials. The management agreed and he began to make the door stops and found a customer The Kosair Crippled Children Hospital foundation in Lousiville KY. They sold them as fund raisers. Soon the entire family was involved in making thousands upon thousands of the door stops. Grandfather Louie would cast them and haul them home and assemble the 2 halves. My Dad's older brother would spray them with the main color, Dad airbrushed on the spots etc and Grandmother hand brush painted in the details like eyes. These roughly18" long English setter, and standing Bull dogs sold for $0.50 each and a sitting bulldog puppy that was a little smaller for about $0.40. The also did a Man of War race horuse and latter Snow White and the drawfes. These went all over the world. Occasionally I see these in antique stores, and in original paint they sell for $300 and up. All assembled and ground and filed in that little post vise. When My Grandmother moved in with my folks at about 85 years old the vise came off the workbench and was in my Dad's shop. When my Dad passed my Mother gave it to me. She has her Dad's entire tool kit of carpentry tools he used to build a small town in Eastern Kentucky in about 1910-1920. All log homes. The tool box is a hand split and planned walnut simple 5 board box with lid and contains a lump of chalk, a rolled string, a hammer, a Diston saw, a whiskey half pint flask type bottle wih an internal paint line for a level, a hand made square, a mortise chisel, a simple hand made rule/test stick with 5 notches and a hand hatchet. He kept the broadaxe and adz in another box that went to one of her brothers. The whisky flask was his level. He half filled with water and resting on a known level surface he dropped a couple drops of paint onto the water and let stand until the paint finally set. The 5 notch stick was his square for surfaces too big for the little handmade sheet metal square. Both of my Grandfathers died before my birth. I have always felt that I would have truely liked and learned from them. I do feel that in a small way I do know them thruogh the tools, that I now have and will get from my Mom. I inherited all of my Dad's tool when he passed, and found he had many of his Dad's hand tools in that tool box. I also have the machinist's chest he bought and used as a trade schooler in about 1939. These tools remind me of these fine men every time I use them. And yes my kids know these histories as well.

Jnewman, if you can get a small sample of Henkel Forge183 P-3 and apply to a tool hot enough to flash off the water, you will find this an even better hot lube.

I built a Rusty type, and then have upgraded several times. I started at 32# then up to 45# now at 70#. I also changed to a spare tire type clutch and that MADE the machine. Like Jeff Seelye's flywheel my compact spare gives a smooth even control. I am a good scrounger and my original cost about $42 in 2002. Now with improvements I am at maybe $200. Last upgrade was a 70# ram running in the slide design from the Tire hammer. I now have a very controllable, hard hitting hammer with changable dies.

Yeah output at the coil. In your system any other water cooled components? I am used to big heaters that usually have water cooled Cap's and transformers. as well as water cooled power leads to the coils. If the copper coil with say brass fittings, the pump and the hosing are all that is wetted by the coolant then those are the materials I need. I think a Poly Gylcol is what will probably be reccomended.

If Daniel can provide some parameters like operatirng temps of the coolant, materials in the components etc, an old friend in the chemical biz has offered to formulate antifreeze coolant for these home sized induction heaters and offer in 5 gallon pails. Daniel C the best way to get this going if interested is to message me.

Guys I hate to report that the companies I bought induction heater antifreeze have gone out of Biz. Straight technical grade ethylene Gylcol can be had from a number of venders but can be pricey to ship as it has a flash point of 118F making it a "Flammable"

We use a great number of the Miller Cool Mates, a nice self contained cooler. I am still checking on the exact coolant.