Frosty

Where do you get Ferric chloride in quantity? Last time I looked the hazmat requirements made it hard to find more than a few ounces at Radioshack. Frosty The Lucky.

Burning is oxidizing but fast, rusting is the same process including producing heat. Burning is just faster and a lot hotter. Yes, both iron and carbon burn. When you see a spark shower that's generally mostly iron but the decarburizing the bladesmith guys are always talking about is the carbon burning out of the surface of the steel. No, things can't burn in an inert atmosphere. I probably should've let one of the blade guys answer but I'm feeling impulsive. <wink> Frosty The Lucky.

Mark: Rereading I realized I hadn't answered your question about etchant. I'm not sure, I have hydrochloric acid on hand and that's my probably choice right now. I'd like to try ferric chloride but buying it is pretty pricy. However I may try making up a batch, I'll be asking a chemist friend for the details and safety precautions. I suppose I could use vinegar but it's pretty slow, so it's on the list but down a ways. What are you using? Frosty The Lucky.

The flux is Patterson #1. The label says it's for brazing, silver soldering, welding: cast iron, brass, bronze, etc. I looked up the MSDS online; it won't tell you the formula, the intent is to tell people what's in a product so proper precautions can be taken and proper 1st. aid and medical attention can be rendered. The MSDS does tell a person what's in it and this one said the #1 is anhydrous borax and boric acid. I don't recall if it was the #1 or #2 that also had iron powder. Whatever's in it it worked with deliberately really poor prep. I'll be bringing my can to the meeting at Jim's so folk can try it out. Frosty The Lucky.

It's how I ended up president you know. If you don't make the next meeting we'll have to decide just how exalted your new status is without you. Frosty The Lucky.

Let's see Saturday was a pretty good day. Sean came over to work on a candle holder and I drilled out the broken bolts in the top die dovetail for my Little Giant. I'd missed the sound of the bolts loosening and they broke. So I broke an easy out in one just to give myself the challenge of getting it out. I finally put it in the forge, brought it to critical and left it over night, hoping to anneal the broken easy out. Well, Saturday I found out it worked. Now the top die dovetail has 7/16"-20 bolt holes and I'll be able to use it again going with grade 8s this time too. The next Saturday project was to see how some flux I picked up at the local Aire Liquide worked in the forge. I asked a few months ago if anyone here had used Patterson #1 flux, the responses said nobody had so I bought a can. 16oz for $24.34 in Wasilla Ak. good price and the online MSDS said it's anhydrous borax and boric acid. Sean gave me a nice stack of 1.25" wide metal cutting band saw blades and a similar pile of 1.25" banding. Sounded like a good flux test to me so I broke some saw blade in 5" lengths and because I like wider layers stacked them doubled. Then just wound the banding around two times, placed another double layer of saw blade and wrapped banding again. Tacked it with the mig and put it in the forge. Oh yeah, prep, I didn't, I stacked it dirt, rust and all. It was a test so why baby the flux eh? I brought it to a low orange, fluxed it, lightly hammered the layers tight, refluxed it and returned it to the forge. Yeah, me too I asked myself why I fluxed it twice for the one heat just as soon as I put it back in the forge,. Oh well. When it came up to low yellow and soaked about as well as the not so tight layers were going to soak. I pulled it and started setting the weld with the pein on the turning hammer one pass down the center, then used the face to set the rest. Refluxed, returned to the fire and when I pulled it at mid yellow heat it was nearly evenly hot all the way through. Neat the welds started taking on the first go. I reset the welds, refluxed and returned to the fire and brought it to yellow again. This time it was even yellow throughout the billet so I laid in on the anvil for a few seconds and sure enough it maintained an even color gradation, no dark lines. I refluxed it reheated it and beat the stuffings out of it,on the face and on edge. Till I get the die back on the LG I won't know if it's really welded but it didn't delaminate when I folded it and welded it again so I think it's well and properly stuck. So, I'm happy to report the Patterson #1 flux appears to be a reliable forge welding flux and is a lot more reasonably priced than most commercial fluxes. This Saturday was a good day in the shop for Frosty and Sean. His project came out quite nice I'll bug him to post some pics. And that's the what I did report from Meadow Lakes AK. Frosty The Lucky.

Awe heck Jerry I started on it Saturday night and didn't finish till around midnight Sunday. I had to do a lot of memory sorting and editing to get it even that coherent. And. . . Oh yeah, I can be a bit talkative. <grin> Thank you Thingmaker, equidimensional works. The [art of the term I remember has polygon in it and quidimensional polygon will work a treat. thank you. Be well all, I just filled the stove and am off to bed. Frosty The Lucky.

Don't worry, this gang won't confuse dreamer with lazy or none of us would get out off the couch. Frosty The Lucky.

Good eye Josh, the holes are a little close. Vaughn: The rule for minimum spacing of holes in a structural situation is the radius of the holes between each. EG. 1" holes 1/2" space. I like the swage, lots of vertical adjustment is good in my book and it looks stout enough to get away without angle iron, though stronger and more rigid is good in an impact tool. I've been giving it some thought but I'm still making and repairing tooling for my Little Giant. I DO so love power tools. <grin> Frosty The Lucky.

Bryan: I remember you saying something about getting buried by the tent collapse but didn't realize you meant LITERALLY BURIED! I'm sure glad you weren't alone. Steel roofs RULE! We have a 4 1/2-12 on the house the one on the barn isn't quite a 4-12 and the one on the shop is about 2 1/2-12. They shed snow without problem even though it will stick sometimes up to a foot deep. Much more and it can't sick and slides off slowly it can takes days at a glacial pace. Looks pretty neat I'll have to see if I have a pic somewhere. Frosty The Lucky.

A longer tube in the 8-9" range and the 0.045" mig tip will make it run better. The one thing I did see in the video when you were shooting from the side. The dragon's breath showed yellow flames just before it chuffed out and the cause looked to be a breeze blowing the exhaust gasses back over the forge to the burner intake choking it out of oxygen. Something to break the breeze or turn the forge so it can't blow the exhaust into the intake. A longer tube and bigger jet will let you run low psi with better stability. The flame will be tighter and a little more robust without the bell reducer. Try a thread protector or spend the extra and buy a coupler. The induction will be stronger so the flame will be a little leaner and cleaner. The dragon's breath won't be quite so orange and the forge should get hotter. Dodge: You chased a mig tip to 0.040" or so and you're having to choke the intakes. Try a 0.045" mig tip, it'll put more gas into the stream and you won't need to choke it. That will put more gas and air in the fire at the same time and that means more BTUs per second. Hotter is better, you can always turn it down if it's too hot you know. <wink> Frosty The Lucky.

Sheet rock is pretty darned fire resistant but hanging cement board on 1/2" or better standoffs between it and the forge will make even a fire inspector happier. LOTS. There are a number of good posts about getting coal smoke out of the shop and getting make up air in. You MUST have make up air no matter what kind of fire you use. combustion WILL produce CO2 and CO, the CO is the killer so buy and install CO alarms. Ventilate well, there are good posts about that here too, several written by guys who make a living designing ventilation so read em all. A detached garage is the best kind for a smithy, a fire won't take the whole house. Frosty The Lucky.

I can't help you with the anvil . . . directly. However I can suggest something that's held me in good stead over the years. I'm a serious fan of the yellow pages folk are a whole lot more likely to help with questions if a real voice is asking. If the first call doesn't know the answer they probably know someone who does. What I'd do is a fast Google search for Foundry Vancouver Wa. and see what I found, list a few contact numbers and let my fingers do the walking. This would be my first call, they were established in 1916 and if they didn't make the anvil probably know who did. http://www.varicast.com/index.html I don't know how many times I've started a phone conversation with, "Hello, my name is Jerry, I don't want to waste your time but hope you have some for an off the wall question. You'd be surprised at how many folk trapped behind a desk doing paperwork just LOVE something different in their day. Asking questions like, did you make this? In an E-mail IF you can find a contact E-dress isn't usually too satisfying though any contact is better than none. Good hunting Bro, let us know how it goes please. Frosty The Lucky.

Okay, now I wonder if that guy will ever get back. The general rules of thumb go like this. Burner construction is based on these basic ratios. Everything is based on the throat diameter, usually where the burner tube screws into whatever is used for the air intake/jet mount. In the case of the "T" it's where the pipe screws into the "T". Using a 3/4" tube as the parent dimension, the tube needs to be 8-9x the throat dia. or 6-7" for this example. A 1" tube wants 8-9" tube length. The next important ratio is jet placement, commercial burners never put the jet closer than 1/2x the throat diameter and are usually back much farther. The last one is air intake area. I find 1.25 or 1.5 x the bore dia. works nicely. I use a pipe thread protector instead of a "flare" on the output end of the burner tube and include it's length in the tube length calcs. It expands the sq in cross section of the tube and so increases both induction and slows the air/fuel mix stabilizing the flame. The rough interior of the threads protector cause turbulence but it's far enough down the tube it doesn't inhibit induction but does help as a little final mixing. It's all in those ratios, you can make it as big or small as you like or need. The only jet sizes I have off the top of my head are: 1/2" burner likes 0.025" mig tip, 3/4" likes a 0.035" mig tip and a 1" likes a .45" mig tip. When we were brainstorming home made burners Ron liked drilling holes in a cross pipe for his jet and I started using mig tips so I could adjust jet diameters a lot easier. I'm lazy that way. When Mike Porter got involved he determined the length of the mig tip made the propane flow in a laminar manner and really improved the shape of the gas jet and induction. He once credited me with being brilliant for coming up with that and I had to tell him it was serendipity, I just wanted it to be as easy to make and adjust as I could. It worked out well on both counts. Getting into how many burners you'll need has everything to do with furnace volume in the burn chamber. One well tuned burnerwill bring about 600-700 cu/in to welding temp for per 1" tube diameter. A 3/4" dia burner being about 1/2 the area will bring about 1/2 the volume to welding heat. Then comes the other important factor, chamber shape. Using a freon tank as the shell the chamber will be what I call fairly cubical or spherical, not that it's either one but I mean it's about the same length as diameter or length width and depth if we're talking rectangular furnace. I hope that's not as confusing as it sounds and REALLY hope someone will tell me what the correct term is. Being even you can get away with one burner of the right size. However if the chamber is odd shaped, even long and narrow you're better off using more smaller sized burners. For example I made my too big variable geometry forge with the idea I'd be working on pieces of wide size and shape range. What the forge is is a refractory table 18"sq. with a matching refractory lid on a jack. There are 4 3/4" burners aimed down through the lid in each quarter. I divide it into sections with fire brick walls that can be moved to make different shaped and sized chambers. In reality, after years of use I've never made an odd shape. Primarily I use two quadrants about 4.5" x 4.5" x 18" for about 360 cu/in. Being this long and narrow means I have one HOT spot under the burner while the rest grades from welding yellow to bright orange when up to temp. The spot under the burner tends to melt the fire brick if left running long enough so the burner's good and hot. To be up front though, the melty spot in the hard fire brick floor is much gooier than when it first started melting because I've been getting more flux on it lately. Still the burner melted the fresh brick without help from flux but not a lot, just s soft vitrified spot about 2" dia. How much volume is a gun (blown) burner good for? I don't mess with gun's much but from taking a tape measure to a few when I was first trying to figure this out I'd say pretty much the same. I have a Johnson Gas appliance #122a I've never used and it has 4 burner nozzles in the chamber and they equal to about 1 sq/in cross section per 850 cu/in chamber volume. A 1" dia. round nozzle is 0.7854 sq/in per 750 cu/in chamber volume. I don't remember the makes of the couple others I measured but they ran pretty close. One thing about a gun is you can crank the blower and gas up to get more fuel and air in the chamber at once so it should get hotter. However fuel air in must be matched by exhaust out so I don't know if the furnace would get hotter or just blow more heat through. I've never done more than think and wonder about that one. I hope I haven't just made this more confusing, I got interrupted and ended up finishing this in a couple sessions over most of the day. Sorry if it's a disjointed ramble. Let me know and I'll try doing better. Frosty The Lucky.

Good to see you introducing yourself Andrew, welcome to the addiction. Thomas Powers has or had a pretty good system for controlling the heat in his shop if I'm not mistaken. If I AM thinking of someone else here's the basics. Whatever you build for the shop put a second roof on it on standoffs, at least 4-6". Put in large ridge vents and extend the eves past the inner roof. This shades the roof and the hotter shade screen roof draws quite a bit of air from the eves to the ridge vents. Wait, I'm thinking maybe Thomas used stacked 55gl. drums for walls for good insulation in the heat. Of course I may be misremembering the whos of it. <sigh> Anywho, get hooked up with the CBA, even if you can't make conferences and meetings they will know about any guys within visiting distance. I gotta say I don't remember much in the way of finding blacksmithing gear in the San Bernadino area but California is nothing if not full of surprises. Frosty The Lucky.

The one at the last meeting. Oh that's right, you weren't there were you. Frosty The Lucky.

My pleasure. It'll work, I've worked with teeth just like these many times, part of my job as a driller. Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks it was a pretty good day even if it was on the cold side. Sean and I didn't light the forge for a few hours and we weren't working next to the barrel stove. Lunch was good though, we stoked the stove up some, roasted brauts on the fire and drank hot tea. Warmest we were all day. Nothing like the interior but we're not that tough. You know Mark, you're living proof of the old adage. If you love your job you'll never have to work a day in your life. Get the air cylinder fixed for your second hammer? I love my power hammer, I'm WAY too old to work harder than necessary and dearly miss it. Frosty The Lucky.

I usually recommend against using a bell reducer for the flare but your 3/4" has a nice flame. No sense fixing it if it ain't broke. The 1" needs a 0.045" mig tip for the jet and the tube length should be 8-9 x the diameter. Everything else sounds within tuning range. Frosty The Lucky.

I may be thinking of someone else but didn't you ask me this question in a PM? Did you ever reply with the diensions of the forge and what you intend to use it for? If I am thinking of someone else I need to know what the forge's shape ad size is and what you need it to do. I'll be more than happy to help you buy or build something that will do what you need. Frosty The Lucky.

You have my heartfelt condolences, the passing of family is always a trial. Nice looking vise use it in joy and peace. Frosty The Lucky.

Bummer about the collapse. Bigger and better is around the corner. Do NOT buy one of those tentlike car shelter things, snow and winds just LOVE those. They must be popular though, I see them every time I go to the dump. Frosty The Lucky.

Single or three phase? I sure hope whoever you got it from has a sense of humor and put a joy buzzer in it. <grin> Frosty The Lucky.

No, just melt the braze you don't want it to burn. Figure low orange heat will do it, give it a tap on the anvil once it hits orange every once in a while as you let it get hotter. When it reaches brazing temp the button will fall out and you can brush any residual brazing rod out with a wire brush. When I say tap it on the anvil don't use a hammer, just tap the tooth on the anvil with your tongs then put it back if the button doesn't fall out. Just take your time and it's safe enough, slow and steady wins the race. Frosty The Lucky.

My 125lb. Sorceress #5 Soderfors. That surprise anyone? Painfully loud ring on a wood block but the steel stand makes it only loud, not damaging loud. I love my 206lb. Trenton but the Soderfors is my #1 any day. Frosty The Lucky.