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I Forge Iron

Frosty

2021 Donor
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Everything posted by Frosty

  1. Rusty: The burn looks pretty good, just a tad on the rich side but close enough. Two 1" burners in 770 cu/in is about 2x as much burner as it needs, lean those puppies up just a little and it'll be melting the fibrefax liner, probably do it now. A 1" burner puts out 2x the BTUs as a 3/4" burner. Your spacing is good but you really need to use 3/4" burners or you'll be burning up forges, even keeping them turned way down they're just too much club for the hole. And yes, any borax based flux will go through Fibrefax like hot water through cotton candy. Washing the interior with a kiln wash like ITC-100 will really help but it'll still erode the liner, fire brick included. Frosty The Lucky.
  2. Nice score Rich, solid brand. don't sweat it holding at the top, so long as it doesn't just feed on down. You can adjust it at the holdback cylinder, you might have to pull a pin at the pivot point to turn the screw but it's no big thing. The coolant pump isn't an "oil" pump, oil makes a poor flushant as it tends to make the cuttings stick in the kerf so the blade jams and breaks. Most flushants are clean water, water soluble oil, or antifreeze, use Propylene glycol as it's FAR less toxic than Ethylene glycol. What the flush does is lubricates and clears cuttings out of the kerf preventing friction, galling, jamming and with that excess heat and blade wear. Oil isn't used for a couple reasons: #1 it makes the band slip on the wheels by lubing it. #2 it makes cuttings stick to everything but worst, in the kerf where it jams the blade. Of course oil usually has the blade so lubed it can't grip the drive wheel well enough to break the blade but it sounds BAD. Frosty The Lucky.
  3. I'm thinking putting the tire at the bottom and driving the rest with a pulley is adding unnecessary mass for the motor to accelerate and unnecessary friction of the added bearings. It's not like having a flywheel that lends it's inertia to getting the ram moving. On a tire hammer the only thing that even approaches a fly wheel is the drive wheel on the motor shaft, everything else must be accelerated into motion by the motor. Making the motor work harder is my main and only real dislike of a tire hammer. Frosty The Lucky.
  4. That looks much better than the original hanger. I'm thinking it'd be marketable if you decide to go that route. Well done. Frosty The Lucky.
  5. Last I looked some of the products were still available but I couldn't find the company. I haven't looked since before the accident and may have just screwed up the search. The product I was looking for was "Pyramid super, air set" and now I think about it, it may be Pyramid that's out of business. Dang I miss my brain. <sigh> Frosty The Lucky. I think that depends on the doors Dave. If they're hinged I'd say yes definitely put a frame around them but if you're going to stack them like bricks to block the openings. No reason for frames. Frosty The Lucky.
  6. Got it in one Adam, apprentice = indentured servant who's eventual pay off is the opportunity to learn a trade. I wasn't trying to say anything about you with my examples of guys wanting the easy way into the craft. I was just presenting one reason it's harder to get time with a blacksmith without learning enough of the jargon to communicate. When you run into enough guys wanting the easy way it can make you a little short with folk. That's not a good thing but it happens. Part of what I'm saying is don't give up on the local smith. Pick up a little of the craft, be polite but be persistent. Maybe show up early with a box of donuts and coffee or maybe at closing with a six pack. Before showing up with a six pack I try to find out if there's an alcohol problem to avoid. the locals at the coffee shop are usually a good source of such and usually a good IN with the locals. drink coffee, shoot the bull, get to be a known character and your odds go up. Frosty The Lucky.
  7. ITC 100 is zirconium flour and kaolin clay, high alumina. the more silica in the mix the more susceptible it is to caustic action from fluxes. Zirconium flour can be had for pretty darned reasonable from Zircopax, sorry gonna have to search that term, I don't remember the company selling it. Zircopax is zirconium silicate but the silicate % is quite low and seems to have no effect where flux is concerned. Another place to look is "kiln wash" but you have to keep in mind the lower the silica the more flux resistant it is. You can buy brick molds at the local concrete plant, heck all kinds of cool concrete molds from bricks, pavers, flags, etc. Anyway, the plastic brick molds are standard size and easy release so all you need to do is ram or pour in the mix, let it dry and fire. With a little shopping around and talking to the guys at the local furnace repair company you can find yourself making reasonably priced 4,000f + bricks and forge liners. My really OLD pipe forge has a rammed AP Green super air set, high phosphate refractory rated to be concrete hard at 4,500f and proof against a 4,000f ammonia atmosphere. AP Green is long gone and I haven't looked for a replacement of that quality, shipping would kill me. Yeah, another long winded ramble but I've made a couple of the things. Frosty The Lucky.
  8. Yeah, I'm back. You aren't going to get far asking about an apprenticeship, they're very rare in this side of the pond and from what I'm reading not so common the other side anymore. I just took on a youngster who's main education has been online and it took a while to convince him I don't take on apprentices. I'm NOT going to give him a room, feed him nor work him mercilessly for a couple years to teach him to a journeyman's level. Heck, it's not really even legal in the US. You'll get farther to just ask if you can watch while keeping out of the way. Offer to sweep floors, fetch and carry, whatever but most importantly keep out of the way and not pester the smith with too many questions. An important thing to learn is jargon isn't necessarily exclusionary slang except when it's being abused. Jargon is a specialized language so practitioners of a trade or craft know what another practitioner means when he uses a term. For instance "hardy" is commonly used to mean any tool that is used in a hardy hole, while in fact a "Hardy" refers to only ONE tool a "Hardy is an anvil mounted "bottom tool" used to cut stock, hot or cold. That's it, all other tools that have shanks to fit the hardy hole are "Bottom Tools". I'm not being critical, we all go through this learning the craft and a lot of "old timers" use regional terms or names and it takes a bit to winnow the meaning at times. Wading through the jargon is just another bit on the learning curve. However, some folk are sensitive about it. For instance, from my own experience, the number of young men who want to become apprentices who don't want to do the work, think I'm being selfish for not showing them the SECRETS. Etc. etc. It can be pretty hard for me to avoid sharp responses, on occasion I run into someone who deserves no better. Some, the worst are the adults who have been around long enough they should know there's no magic. Well, there are a couple SECRETS and here they are. Please feel free to take notes. Knowledge and practice. Virtually any craft boils down to knowing what to do and doing it often enough to develop the hand skills necessary. Sure some folk have a knack, call it a natural feeling and hand skills but they still need the knowledge to apply it. That's it, knowledge and practice. Neither of these things calls for special tools, any object heavy enough to back the blows, a smooth faced hammer to deliver the blows, something to beat into submission and a fire to heat and soften it. Heck, it doesn't even take a blown fire for general basic smithing, I did it for years in camp fires in the Alaskan bush after work. Never made anything very fancy, branding irons, fire pokers, toasting forks, occasional stakes, stake pullers, etc. it was mostly a way to amuse myself instead of knocking off a half rack of beer every night. Frosty The Lucky.
  9. CC: What the flames? Is there something wrong with people pointing out possible mistakes before you make them? I don't know about you but I much prefer to learn from other's mistakes rather than have to make and analyze my own. We're blacksmiths, we live for tinkering with things, we're always figuring out how to make things you could just hit the hardware store for. Preferring diy isn't any big deal here. Most of us toss out ideas to brainstorm with the gang HOPING someone will point out mistakes or a better way to do it. Frosty The Lucky.
  10. Getting slapped by a broken belt is nature's way to teach you to stay our of the plane of rotation. It's a Darwinian thing. Frosty The Lucky.
  11. You're looking for a beginner anvil? Sorry but my mind is full of anvils with training horns, not so hardies and such. don't sweat it, find one in good shape you can afford and you're golden. Until you do find a good anvil, just find a heavy steel something you can use as one. It isn't the anvil that does the work it's the smith and once you've developed the skills sets you'll find it isn't all that important to have an "ANVIL". Frosty The Lucky.
  12. Beautiful, I love it. I agree with Chinobi though, it has plenty of pointy parts and should go in a place where people aren't going to run into it. Be that as it may, it tells it's own story, really piques the imagination. Frosty The Lucky.
  13. Nogrodoth: Lose the sheet stand thingy. Worse than not helping it's a trip hazard you could not only stub a toe and fall but just stepping on the outward sloping face could put you on the floor. Legs with stretchers and a lower shelf are not only safer but a lot more handy. they can be wood, steel, bolted, riveted or welded. The stretchers are horizontals connecting the legs to make them rigid so laying a shelf across them is a natural and you can put stuff on it. You can make an angle iron frame that makes the table rim with nothing but a hack saw and fire. Cut V slots in the flange and bend to close and make a 90* corner. for the final corner leave an inch or two tab to fold over and bolt or rivet to the beginning section. this gives you a rectangular table frame the table top will rest on the inside. If you use 4x4 lumber for legs you can two drill holes in the flange at each corner and simply lag screw the it to the legs. The stretchers and shelf will keep the legs rigid while you dismantle it for movement. If you want to use angle iron legs, just mount them to the outside of the table frame, drill and bolt together, stretchers and shelf stay and keep it all solid during moves. Of course the "V" notched and bent table frame is pretty advanced, this kind of cutting and bending is kind of tricky, not something I'm particularly good at unless I've been practicing. So, simply cut angle legs so they lap the frame and drill and bolt it all together, no precision cutting or notching necessary. Nice drawing by the way, it's an excellent way to brainstorm things and color coding is excellent, one of my favorite tricks for keeping elements straight. Nice score one the chute, hopper, whatever it was. However you've fallen into a typical beginner's trap. Trying to use everything isn't necessary, just because you have it doesn't mean you must use it. There're a lot of really handy precut pieces of sheet steel there and you only need a couple to build your forge. Using one to extend the forge table is good, larger forge tables are generally handy but forget the hinges, use them for something else. Another piece of that sheet will make a dandy little steel faced table to hold tools, stock and hot pieces of work and you won't have to worry about it. Same as the forge table though, legs, stretchers and the every handy shelf. My large forge table, not that I burn coal often enough to have a coal forge, is 14 ga. sheet with a couple 1" angle stiffeners if I want to heat something that weighs a couple hundred lbs. Frosty The Lucky.
  14. Truth is most folk have to develop good skills before they CAN forge something besides a curve on the face. My Soderfors has a beautiful concentric (or almost) horn and I use it for drawing more than anything else. If I had a $150, 100lb. Swedish anvil only two hours away, I'd be on my horse instead of typing right now. Even if it turned out to be in too poor shape to buy, it'd be worth the time and gas money. Yeah, so I'm a huge Soderfors fan, best anvil I've ever used and I've used a couple. Frosty The Lucky.
  15. Making a vortex in the forge is just a matter of aiming the burner tube to be more tangential to an inside wall be it square or round. I mentioned it not because it's necessarily superior but because it might relieve back pressure on the burner. My burners are aimed perpendicular to the floor because I LIKE more localized heat and propane forges are NOT known for localized heat under any circumstances. When you start adjusting the choke do it one step at a time and by measured increments. Taking notes is a really good idea so you know what you did two or three adjustments ago and what the effect was. After a while you'll get to know propane burners and be able to adjust them by eye and ear, just like the old school mechanics tuning a car. Frosty The Lucky.
  16. Thanks for posting these guys. It's easy to not think about compressor tanks and just expect them to work properly. By the looks of the roof top compressor carcass I'd have to say giving it it's own room might NOT be good enough. Frosty The Lucky.
  17. If you run the intake through a baffle or muffler you can quiet it down to hardly noticeable. It needs to allow the air to flow well so a little fiberglass packed loosely in a piece of PVC is all you need. Heck, maybe a 3lb. coffee can and some fiberglass would do it. I really like your compressor room and I'd keep the lumber/sheet rock door you built, maybe even come up with a cool secret latch of some sort. You know, a little book shelf with one book that tips out or turns. Frosty The Lucky.
  18. He travels, put the bug in CBA's ear. He came to Alaska and we're farther west than you are. I was still too messed up from the accident to be able to spend much quality time at the anvil but just watching showed me things I'd never thought of. Just his method of drawing a taper is a pure gold labor saver, start to finish. Frosty The Lucky.
  19. There's a big difference in asking price and getting price. A thing is NOT worth what a person asks, it's worth what someone will pay for it. I'm with NJ, I'd take 8 $100 bills and the intent to say good day. You can't effectively bargain if you let the seller know you REALLY want a thing, you have to have your mind made up that it just isn't really all THAT important to have. Frosty The Lucky.
  20. Seems like I'm brainstorming exhaust stacks today, okay. My suggestion of a positive pressure fan is to increase the pressure in your shop and so increasing the volume of air and exhaust gasses moving through the stack. I'm thinking 8" is too small for a natural draw great enough for a gas forge. The air curtain is a good feature, I've been thinking about putting one on my forge. Perhaps if the air dam source was from outside the shop it'd allow the stack to draw better? I don't know if I'd like doing that myself, it'd mean some kind of duct work on the floor. It would in my shop anyway, my forge is center floor so any ducting would be a trip hazard. I've been planning on ducting exhaust to the gozintas and may have to bite the bullet and just do it this winter. That might require refabbing the forge entirely and I don't know if I want the hassle. Frosty The Lucky.
  21. If you get a chance to take a clinic from Brian I highly recommend you do. Just using his method of isolating areas to work will save time than you'll believe. Frosty The Lucky.
  22. The biggest problem I see trying to get a stack to draw smoke generated UNDER a large piece of plate is channelizing the draw. Left to it's own devices the smoke is goig to escape all round the plate and a stack is only going to draw from one location but the draw will be 360* around it. Yeah, that' barely makes sense to me and I know what I wanted to say. Sorry. Lets say we can see the air being drawn into a stack, whatever kind it is, The stack produces a low pressure zone so air is drawn to it. Without channelizing the draw is 360* in 3D, a sphere. Typically a side draft works better because the opening is smaller so the velocity of the draft is higher. A hooded stack is drawing from a much larger area so the overall velocity is much lower, except where the hood joins the stack. Get smoke evacuated from under a plate means you either have to make a strong enough draft to draw equally from the entire perimeter and this includes the volume UNDER the plate. I can think of a couple possible method: #1, build a screen that wraps around the entire plate from the floor up and has one small gap where the stack can be connected. There will have to be gaps so make up air can enter the screen deflector so the stack will draw. Call that Channelization plan (1) #2 doesn't sound so good to me but. . . Perhaps branching the stack so several side draft inlets can be placed around the edges? Yeah, I odn't think much of it either. <sigh> That's about all I have right now, in the back when one of my jobs in a welding shop was torching plate. We'd lay one of the sacrificial sheets of thin stock on the floor, lay 4x4s on it and lay the plate on the 4x4s. Then mark the plate and I got to spend time on my knees torching. Well, smoke would sometimes billow out from under the plate and the only way to control it was to lay the exhaust hose at one end and set up a window fan at the other. the 4x4s made a relatively confined channel and the forced draft from the fan blew the smoke to the exhaust hose. It still smoked but that made it tolerable. Sorry Charles, not much of a brainstorming session, you can put your helmet away. . . For now. <grin> Frosty The Lucky.
  23. Good score! Love a Wilton, great vises. Frosty The Lucky.
  24. Very nice, I like it. It gives me ideas like a combination hummer feeder wind chime. I'm thinking maybe one balanced delicately enough that the hummers would make it turn and ring as they fed. Yeah yeah, that's probably kind of out there even for me. Frosty The Lucky.
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