Frosty

Nope not that one. Frosty The Lucky.

Nothing's a step up in manliness mounting handles that Gorilla Glue if you hold it in your hand while the excess flows out. Hold it in your lap and you'll WISH it was wax. Frosty The Lucky.

My only suggestions are: Get a better, preferably non flammable table to set the fire pot in. Then hit the truck parts store and buy an exhaust flap cap that'll slip over the bottom part of the tuyere. Trying to dump the ash by unscrewing the cap is more PITA than it's worth. Frosty The Lucky.

You're a strange guy Ian but here's mine. Frosty The Lucky's Cell.

Actually hardening with sugar is an illusion, your pants are just getting tighter your legs aren't getting harder. I don't know why you couldn't case harden with sugar though don't know why you'd want to. Sugar has a lot of extra junk in it that wouldn't be so good in steel. It might not even be a true case, it could be a layer of contaminated steel say the sulfur. Why not just buy a commercial product? Yes you can get HRC files and they're more accurate than punches without special equipment. Oh I just noticed this in the knife section, I don't think case hardening is useful for knives or what's going to happen when you sharpen it? Heck, the edge would just roll anyway. Frosty The Lucky.

Geeze sidetracked again. Beautiful bottle opener Froggy! I believe you needs you a moniker to reflect bottle opener mastery. How about "Captain Church Key?" Frosty The Lucky.

Looks good. Glad you made the decision it was Good ENOUGH before messing up beyond recovery trying to get it perfect. Lots of projects have been FUBARed by trying to get them just right or perfect. Been there have the scrap pile to prove it. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance. So what didn't work stick welding the billet together? You couldn't get a handle bar stuck to it either? How much arc welding experience do you have? Seriously, arc welding a billet together for the forge is, for the most part a non issue, it doesn't even have to be a decent weld let alone good. Frosty The Lucky.

You didn't think I won the Birch tree death match with charm did you? Up till not long after that pic was taken I used to get accosted by giggling young ladies pretty often and occasionally young boys wanting lessons, autographs, etc. It was fun to go ahead and sign an autograph for the looks on their faces when they saw my name on the . . . whatever. It hasn't happened since I started buzzing my hair, first for a friend with brain cancer and now because I'm too lazy to comb it. I actually met Mr. Norris and Bruce Lee once but I was like 18 and there wasn't any resemblance except hair color. They came by the Dojo and were introduced all round. Turned out they were looking for extras for a movie that didn't float. Frosty The Lucky.

You got THAT for $500!!! Holy Moly what a DEAL! I wouldn't do a thing but put that fine old lady to work, there's nothing but cosmetic dings, nothing that'll effect your work. Now if you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance. You WOULD like to get together with experienced smiths and flatten the old learning curve wouldn't you? A day with an experienced smith is worth weeks maybe months of trying to figure it out yourself. I'll bet there are guys not far away who'd be happy to show you what you can do on that fine old lady. Frosty The Lucky.

The burn looks off center because the opener didn't land straight down, it hit and slid a little before laying flat. It wasn't the result of you jerking your arm or the pattern would be a little different, more smudged and the tendency is to jerk straight away from HOT. Keep aloe vera jell in the shop or for serious burns Silvadine ointment. You really don't have to ask me how I know these things do you? Carnuba just makes the work look wet and a little shiny it's famous for not yellowing or darkening with age. Frosty The Lucky.

Charcoal likes a side blast better than a bottom blast. Check out some of Charles posts on the subject he has it down pretty pat. A lot of the TMI about all the different forge designs, especially adapting brake parts, drums, rotors, etc. are by guys trying to figure them out. They find something that can be MADE to work or they THINK will work so they post it. Winnowing the wheat from the chaff is probably one of the hardest things to learn using a forum for research. Seriously, you can make a perfectly usable forge with a blow drier a short length of pipe and a wood fire. You don't really need the blow drier or piece of pipe but they really make it easy. The pic below is me straightening a log tong I bent. The yellow thing in the left back is a Coleman Inflate all, 12v blower for inflating rafts mattresses, providing air to a smith in the forest, etc. There's a piece of pipe to a wood fire. There isn't miuch smoke because it's mostly coals. And Yes, I'm using a log for the anvil but I brought my real kit out shortly afterwards. Frosty The Lucky.

I got 12 tpi hack saw blades at the local hardware store, Sandvics as I recall. the rule of thumb is 3 teeth on the cut at all times and it's really HARD to find blades coarse enough to be efficient. The 3 tooth rule is of limited use for a hand saw we're just not physically strong enough to push say a 3tpi blade through 1" steel. The problem is folk think finer is better but it's just not true.Too fine is worse than too coarse, the cuttings can't be carried out of the cut and roll up between the teeth, bind gall and you're done. If it happens in your band saw or power hack saw you may not be able to get the blade out at all. If the blade is too coarse just turn the feed rate down to a crawl, you can hear when it's cutting right or hogging too hard. You gotta listen to what your tools tell you. The best I've found for my horizontal vertical band saw are 12-14 tpi variable blades. I still have the pack of 12 tpi hack saw blades I bought I don't know how long ago. I have a band saw so don't use my hand saw as much as I used to. Frosty The Lucky.

The Y1K forge is a small camp fire a shovel and your forge. As you run low on charcoal in your forge use the shovel to scoop some out of the camp fire. Keep the camp fire fed and something between you for a heat shield is a good thing. You can use wood in your forge and work in the coals in the bed but the heat of the flames is very unpleasant. Done that, threw the burnt T shirt away and the hair grew back so just take my word for it. Frosty The Lucky.

Trying to wing it where molten iron/steel is concerned is like playing Russian roulette to learn gun safety. Even casting lead is REALLY dangerous and NO I don't mean breathing the fumes, I mean the concentrated energy in molten metal just waiting a LITTLE moisture to convert to kinetic energy and spray a bunch of still molten metal all over the place. IIRC, 10lbs. of molten iron (think lg. coffee mug full) has the rough equivalent energy of one CASE of 40% dynamite and is a whole LOT easier to get to explode. Keep looking and dreaming though, there is more cool stuff you can do with metals than a boy could wish. Frosty The Lucky.

Just because you have a thing doesn't mean you HAVE to use it. Unless you buried it I'd be worried about tripping over it. Frosty The Lucky.

Put it in the forge if you have to dig a pit, bring it to high red or low orange heat and with the jaws just shy of touching use a sledge hammer to drive the high one level. THEN tighten them together till they match. Let it cool in still air. Frosty The Lucky.

All the energy in the hammer blow is converted to heat by friction when the stock stops it. You have to move fast and holding the stock slightly off the anvil really helps. Hard, fast and in the same spot will get it red hot surprisingly quickly. No, I didn't say easily. Frosty The Lucky.

You're welcome. Glad to be of help. Frosty The Lucky.

You bet I get red if I'm yelling but I can't find anything to yell about here. Try harder will ya Dave! The tube L = 8D is a rule of thumb. 7" will work just fine, now if you wanted to push it to 12" you'd need to engineer in a taper or skin friction would lower induction and you'd need to use a smaller jet to keep up flow. Boring out the weld bead is a good thing though being a longitudinal obstruction the turbulence it generates doesn't hurt induction significantly and helps mixing. If you're going to bore the tube do NOT use a finishing bit, leave some cutting marks or the flow will be TOO laminar. Propane doesn't mix easily with air, it ACTS like a mist of particles rather than a gas. The good oxy propane torches and air propane burners are designed to induce turbulence in the flow to mix the gasses. A T using a bushing or bell reducer from 1" > 3/4" makes BAD turbulence and reduces the induction. It can be MADE to work but almost anything can be MADE to work. If you REALLY want to make a high efficiency T burner use Scd 80 or heavy wall pipe and turn a 12% taper internally and you'll have a commercially efficient burner. Turn a venturi where the weld T meets the tube and start the taper from there and you'll have a proper "Ejector" type inducer. Early in the current homemade burner phase when Ron Reil Ralph Sproul and a bunch of us old Artmetal List guys were brainstorming these things a coffee shop buddy of mine gave me a stack of literature on the things. Cruze my coffee shop buddy was looking for application patents based on existing devices and I was part of his brain storm group. Anyway, most of my knowledge of how the things actually work including the 12% max taper rule comes from those papers. While the old Artmetal gang was brainstorming I told them the tube needs to be tapered. Well, Ron installs a taper on the end. I start to do the red faced thing but before I sent the email telling him it won't work I realized the picture of the flame was beautiful so congratulated him instead. The Side Arm burner came from a similar misunderstanding between me and Robert Groman a caster. I forgot my pad of graph paper and we were on a sight seeing trip down the Arm and stopped for lunch. We were talking about burners and I described my (then) idea for the T burner. A week after he returned home he sent me a picture on his burner. Face went red again and I started telling him he'd put the T on the tube wrong, that won't work but once again fortunately paid attention to the beautiful flame in the picture and congratulated him. Now I've submitted you to my old memories I'll get on with it. There's nothing wrong with taking your T burner to an Aerospace machine shop if you have one available Dave. If Dad were still around and had his shop That's where I'd build the things. Heck, I ought to get my lathes moved and finish the shop. Stupid TREE! I want to Spin a burner. The problem with telling folk online how I'd build one to +- 0.001" (Slop for the space program by the way) just puts it out of most folk's ways and means. What I'm trying to make available is something a guy with a hand drill and a few tools can put together and make work. Believe it or not I don't know that many guys with a drill press, even a bench model. A rubber O-ring anywhere in the system is a BAD idea unless it's propane rated. I don't use pipe dope either, completely unnecessary if you use tapered pipe and flare or compression fittings and don't over tighten things. If you're not sure check with a little soapy water, I've never had a fitting leak in some 20+ years using these things. Threading 3/8" OD for the jet mount is how I made my first burner but I just turned 1/2" HR round down and bored it 1/4" to tap for the jet. The reason I don't even mention this here usually is Most folk don't have a lathe so it's again beyond the ways and means of most folk. In fact I just gave up trying to make this work with hand tools and a 1/8" pipe nipple. I can thread it 7/16" and tap the T to match but a guy would have to make a jam nut so I called it. Too clunky and sloppy is why I don't talk about using the lamp rod jet mount. It can be MADe to work but was just too much PITA to be worth it. The real advantage to using a Screw thread jet mount is the precision tunability it offers. You'll need to trim the mig tip jet much shorter to take advantage and be aware too much large threaded rod in the air intake will induce ungood turbulence. If I were playing with this jet mount I'd use a Cross rather than a T. The machinist's son in me is just dieing to mount up a boring bar and clean up the inside of the Cross where it screws onto the tube. Of course if I were using a weld T or Cross I could turn it before welding it up. There is a world of ways to make these things work and work well. The T is just easy for a shop with minimal tools and beginner shop skills. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Trey, glad to have you. Oh yeah there are blacksmiths in SC and probably pretty close. They'll be speaking up shortly, I just happen to be reading right now. A little bit about Iforge though, we Love pics, shop, work, tools, equipment, family, pets, etc. Also, there are thousands of posts on virtually any smithing subject you can think of archived by category available off the IFI front page. Doing some reading will give you some grounding in the craft, if nothing but the jargon. It really helps to know what things are called so you can ask good questions and understand the answers. Frosty The Lucky.

This is a quick Yahoo search result NOT an add or suggestion for a specific product or company. The reg on the far right or one very like it are available on the Shelf at the local Wasilla Petrolane front office/show room. If they're too far to drive and ask, give them a call. You're looking for an "Adjustable high pressure regulator with a range of 0-30 psi." The ones on the shelf here are $26.000 + tax. Shipping included. Propane rated hose is a MUST and is the single most expensive part of the whole build believe it or not http://www.propane101.com/highpressureregulators.htm#AdjustableRegulator Frosty The Lucky.

How are you going to line a spherical forge? It's going to be a BIG beast but fun just to see running. Frosty The Lucky.

He's holding it turned slightly so you're not looking straight through the air ports. If the jet weren't aligned straight down the tube it wouldn't burn so nicely. Frosty The Lucky.

Hack saw. It's not Hard, it's heat treated to be tough. A 12tpi blade will go through it in under 5 minutes with good technique. Frosty The Lucky.