Frosty

Takes up less floor space but does it put you closer to the pivot point and reduce leverage? The effective leverage length is the distance from the puller to the axis of rotation. I haven't pulled a Hossfeld since high school and wasn't so good with it then. I do recall making it work well was a whole different skill set than casting, machining, welding, fab, etc. Frosty The Lucky.

At least I wasn't the one who brought up black holes, I just filled in the blanks. Sooooo many blanks in a black hole. . . . Nope, NOT AGAIN! I liked this handle before you angled it like the Hossfeld original. Frosty The Lucky.

The suggestion is to put your location in the header, telling us once in a post won't stick in our memories once we open another one. It is not a rule but it really helps. Much maybe most questions and good suggestions can be very location specific. The trashcan might work UNLESS IT IS GALVANIZED! Galvanizing is zinc plating and burning zinc emits zinc oxide smoke which is toxic and does serious lung damage as your body tries to dissolve and expel it. One of our automatic warnings is, NEVER PUT GALVY IN A FIRE!! A good saying to that point is, "In Rust We Trust." I believe there is even a T shirt available in the Iforge store though I doubt in your language. If there is no pipe flange on the can don't worry about it, if it came with a lid that slides over the top it will do nicely. So, if you can safely burn in the trash can you found you'll use the "Semi Direct" method. Cut and pack your bamboo in the can, in one direction, vertically provides the best passages for escaping water, alcohols, etc. during pyrolization. (Converting to charcoal) Don't stuff it in TIGHT but don't leave it leaning on one side or spread out. I'd be really tempted to leaving one or two pieces of bamboo in tact with the membranes punched out so it makes hollow tubes. Set one end on the bottom of the can then lift it a LITTLE bit, 20mm would be more than enough. With a couple (2-3, 10-15mm.) small holes in the side of the can at the bottom it will get plenty of air. Sooo, once full drop some burning coals down the bamboo tube and place the lid on the can with one side just off so smoke can escape. When it stops visibly smoking put the lid on tight and cover the air holes at the bottom with sand or dirt and leave it till it's cooled. You can leave the lid off completely until it stops smoking and then cover it but you will lose more fuel (bamboo) and your recovery (charcoal at the end of the process) will be lower. For an indirect retort like I described first you'll be doing well to get IIRC around 40% by volume recovery. (Someone who KNOWS the recovery ratios please jump in now!) It will weigh hardly anything compared to the wood you start with but all that is left is relatively pure carbon. Frosty The Lucky. Frosty The Lucky.

That really helped, I can track what I'm looking at now. I even remember how badly I sidetracked things with the how Mother taught me to read thing. Frosty The Lucky.

Works for me too, lots of my stuff is VERY stable. Frosty The Lucky.

Mr. Mamba. Please put your general location in the header, it makes a huge difference in what is available and what members of Iforge can help you. You get the wood burning until it's visibly largely coals then turn it upside down on soft dirt to smother the flames. The direct method is less efficient than the indirect "retort" method I described above but it works. Heck you can shovel coals out of a campfire and extinguish them in water. Once dried out and it's good fuel. But you'll be lucky to get 20% return on production. Frosty The Lucky.

The more I learn the less I know. Remember boys, "Don't pet the cheese, that isn't fur." Frosty The Lucky.

No pictures of what you cast? We won't believe it if you don't show us pictures you know, it's an IFI tradition. Below are a couple videos of making flasks. I like the idea of putting dados on the inside so you won't have a mold drop out. It doesn't happen very often but it can happen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvRCUUGwKOo The second video is a little too cutesy for my liking but he makes a decent flask. I like the idea of putting the alignment registers offset on the other side so you can't put the flask together reversed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-VZldOK6-Q The flasks we used in school were cast aluminum and the alignment registers were large tabs with holes in drag and pins in the cope. I don't remember what the inside surfaces looked like, smooth I think. I just watched a bunch of flask making videos and everybody made them with smooth inside surfaces so the dado might be unnecessary. Looked like a good idea but it's been more than 50 years since I did any casting to speak of. The main thing to remember is to get the flask halves as perfectly matched as possible and make the register pins, pegs, etc. so there is NO WIGGLE when the flask is assembled though it is nice if they're chamfered so they go together easily. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. Do you have access to steel drums, even a steel bucket will work though on a really small scale. If you can get a 55gl drum with a clamp on lid it's pretty straight forward. cut the bamboo into short lengths and split it. You don't have to split it in two pieces, just make sure none of the segments is sealed so cracking the length will work to let steam pressure escape safely. Pack the drum tightly and clamp the lid on. Screw a pipe elbow into the bung in the lid with a nipple that extends past the end of the drum. Lay it on it's side with the elbow on the bottom. It will need either a trench that passes full length under the drum or rocks, bricks, something to get the drum off the ground. Pack more bamboo under the drum and light it on fire and keep feeding it until the smoke coming out of the vent pipe in the end catches fire. The jet of burning gasses coming from the bamboo (or wood) will be hot enough to keep the process working. When the flame jet stops plug the pipe with fiberglass insulation or lower it into sand to block oxygen from getting in but do NOT seal it air tight or the drum will collapse as it cools. Let the drum cool until you can lay your hand on it and not feel heat, not even very warm. If you open it and there are any coals still burning it will light it all on fire quickly and you'll lose the charcoal. There are other ways to make charcoal in a steel drum but the one above is one I've helped with myself. Frosty The Lucky.

Pretty slick John, I wish it were easier to see but it blends in with the shop. How steady is it, can you really pull on it? Frosty The Lucky.

Not ALL of them Jim, just two, or do you have really wimpy doors? Frosty The Lucky.

Thank you, I'll pass the word about signing up to the club as well. Frosty The Lucky.

Yes, some of the advertisements show interesting stacks magnetically held together for welding. Frosty The Lucky.

Hmmm, sounds like something to remember. How enclosed, how large an area, etc.? Was it too much work scrubbing the bugs off the inside of the enclosed area? Details please? Frosty The Lucky.

BOY, run an errand and something happens! Quoting Twain fits right in with this crowd, some of the kids might not understand but that's okay. Can't talk about time realistically and be "sensitive." Nothing is as insensitive to our feelings or heck anything as the passage of time. Here's to everybody passing a whole bunch more time. Not that it's a contest but I was aching in the morning when I was in my late 20s and it hasn't gotten any better! And NO, staying in bed longer didn't help either. Frosty The Lucky.

What a BUMMER of a problem, your welds stick too well. I get it but couldn't resist tossing a little at you. There are a number of welding resists you could use, it would take some special effort to clean the joint up to weld the bit but it might balance out in favor. The cleanest I can think of at the moment is "Whiteout." Or a physical barrier to welding like a little stainless steel, without special flux it isn't nearly as easy welding as steels. Just a couple skyball thoughts. Frosty The Lucky.

I didn't mean to bring the accident up again but I find myself frustrated at not being very articulate since and it sometimes comes out as a long whine. Sorry about that everybody. I don't think there is an alternative, King Tut and Lucy get older every day. Frosty The Lucky.

A backing plate and 2 link doorknockers. Frosty The Lucky.

Do you know of a solo version of "Amazing Grace" by Judy Collins? Frosty The Lucky

I think it would be nice to have affordable power tools that will run on whatever power is available, 240vac or 120vac, etc. But I don't know enough about how it would be done to have a useful opinion or want to experiment. Maybe I've just fallen for enough "too good to be true" things in my life I like to wait till it's a proven . . . thing. I just don't have the same drive to try these things as you. It's not like tinkering something together out of stuff in the junk drawer and shelf 3&5 of the local plumbing supply. Heck, my shop isn't even wired, let alone for 240vac, the tree shut me down on a lot of things. Frosty The Lucky.

Okay, here's a hack Deb heard about recently. To crack hardboiled eggs, rather than crack it on something like a counter etc. put it in a large coffee mug, cover with your hand and shake it for a bit. The shell will be pretty shattered and all but slide off at once held together by the membrane underneath. Frosty The Lucky.

Yeah, I'm not fond of the X braces as you made them, too many acute corners. I think I'd make a zig zag to make maybe 3 right triangles instead of Xs. Heck, maybe just two. All they are are stiffeners to prevent your ways from wracking and it doesn't take something complicated to do that. Maybe just a couple obtuse diagonals. That prevents the sharp inside corners to make it easier to pull the form. Or maybe just make the long sides of the box thicker. Aluminum doesn't like flexing anyway so making the box a little thicker will stiffen it up quite a bit. Just another 1/4" would make a significant difference. Being thicker will retain heat to help the aluminum stay liquid as it fills. I'm no fan of your X bracing, it'd be hard to ram up and harder to pull the form. Hmmmm, to fill the Xs I just thought of maybe cutting the open edges of the long sides of the box into runners and sprue it at one end, riser at the other. You could just leave the long runners as stiffeners and reduce the X bracing to one or two diagonals. No draft to worry about, just cut them when you pull the form. Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks for the list George. Some I've listened to often but this is the first for many and I really like a couple of the groups. I've been sifting through Noble Jacks, "The Blacksmith Stomp" didn't seem to have much to do with blacksmiths but it was sure a fun piece to listen to, it'd be a blast in concert. Clamavi De Profundus has a lot of songs I like too. Working down your list is a good way to start my day. Frosty The Lucky.

How much water will one hold, George? My Uncle Fred said they made soup and stew in them. Frosty The Lucky.

If you have questions, give me a shout. I wrote that from memory and I got to drifting off course a couple times. I had a good how to but that's dead with an old computer. <sigh> Frosty The Lucky.