Frosty

And that right there is one of the best reasons to pass the craft along. You don't really start learning a craft until you teach THINK about the whys of what they do and often come up with better. I preferred to have a couple youngsters at a time, I'd show them a technique and thing to practice it on and let them work together. It's amazing to see what two beginners problem solving together can achieve. More than 3 tends to slow down, too cluttered maybe. Don't forget to show the student a thing and ask how s/he'd make it. You get some good ideas and some DON'T DO THATs! It's what I really like about having young kids at demos, they ask the BEST questions. Their thinking is unpolluted by knowledge or preconceptions. Frosty The Lucky.

Pretty snazzy for a coal rake. It feels good to make something for you doesn't it? Playing with fire and hitting things is guy kind of fun. Frosty The Lucky.

I've rethought my last response Nat and have to agree. What the owner of another shop thinks is unimportant unless it actually damages your business. There are courts for that sort of thing. Over here anyway. There are sayings about this sort of thing. IIRC one goes, "A clean desk is a sign of an idle mind." A person could turn it around and say, "I'm too busy to polish the concrete." Better, just make a point of not hearing them. If a customer brings up hearing it from a competitor. A mildly snarky reply might be called for like. He says that about everybody, or similar. Mostly though ignoring it is better. Frosty The Lucky.

For or against? I recently got a bit of itchy toes and applied my old standby, "Dessenex" and put my socks on. 2 days of that and I had white lacy fungi instead. Been fighting that one for a good 3 months now. It started a couple years ago when I went to a dermatologist to have a bit of "brown skin" frozen off my elbow. Asked what caused it and he said maybe a fungus and a little later said "you're covered in fungus." Soooooo I went on a campaign to de-fungufy myself. A couple months later I mentioned it to my NP at my yearly checkup and she said, to paraphrase "You're SUPPOSED to be covered in fungus, it processes dead skin cells and protects you from more aggressive and dangerous fungi and infections." Now that it's almost cleared up completely I'm hoping MY fungi will reinhabit my feet but not sure how that works. Washing down my hide I hope. All the "ists" do that, archeology, botany, biology, paleontology, geology, whatever. Academia is a "Publish or Die" profession so everybody HAS to have their name on something new or different. You aught to check out the Burgess Shale type Cambrian fossil nomenclature. In 1909 Walcott HAD to make names up, so many of the fossils had no relation to more modern life and now that folk know what to look for there are literally thousands of sites around the world producing this REALLY EARLY life. So Bull my friend I gift you with this, one of my favorite rabbit holes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgess_Shale Don't hesitate to follow the links. <snicker> Frosty The Lucky.

Seems the first of the year 2026 is marketing spam season. Teach me to reply to a message first thing in the morning. I wonder what a person could charge to 86 spam? Hmmmmm. Frosty The Lucky.

Okay, that wasn't fun. When I searched it out I found myself looking at a scholastic one upmanship of naming. Seems the attempt to simplify the order, family, genus, species, mess has turned into a wild west game of coming up with new designations. It's an unnavigable mess of names. Even the old nomenclature was beyond me, I was more a walk in the woods and ID the safe vs. dangerous stuff. I would've lumped Scrophulariacea in with the "Warts" on my inedible list. Perhaps if I'd looked it up, with an asterisk indicating a possible medicinal. I'm WAY more cautions with fungi though cut Death Angels in a dish of milk, made excellent fly exterminators in a barn. Call it pest control, couldn't keep the mice and shrews away, though they never drank milk a second time. Frosty The Lucky.

Ever actually DO any of the things you're giving advice about or did you just compile opinions off a blog somewhere? Other than making sure a helium tank is empty before penetrating with drill or saw most of the rest is pretty useless. Helium is chemically inert and can NOT react. It will extinguish fires though it's way too expensive to use as a fire extinguisher. Purging is a requirement for propane or methane tanks. Your "works best" build method hasn't been better by the consensus of people who actually build and use propane forges. The number of disadvantages are legend. Look, it doesn't start my day well to point out all the nonsense in someone's first post here. I'd much rather welcome you aboard and suggest you do some reading other than in the blogosphere. There are probably thousands of posts on Iforge written by people who actually know what they are talking about. People who have been making and using propane forges for 30-40 years. So, how about introducing yourself and talk to the gang BEFORE offering advice. Frosty The Lucky.

Building a tolerance isn't something to be done casually or quickly. And thank you VERY MUCH for the "pyrrolizidine" Sunday morning rabbit hole, Bull. Now I'm afraid to eat darned near anything flower! Then again I LOVE onion and garlic. Nothing like building a lifetime's tolerance for otherwise toxic plants eh? It makes you wonder about humans doesn't it? Frosty The Lucky.

I can't tell, did you try it out? Does it turn smoothly, does the spindle advance and retract smoothly? What are you going to do with a post drill? I have two complete post drills and have never mounted one let alone used one here. I have an electric drill press that works just fine if I want to make holes. IF everything worked on that one and I actually had a use for it, I'd start the bargaining with a $35 offer and see where it went from there, looking to take it for $40, maybe as high as $50 if it was really nice. If it's a firm price I'd walk, $99 is way high. Antique stores are always way high. IF you are going to dicker on prices get used to walking away. Especially if it's something you REALLY need/want. An old horse trader like me will TAKE YOU TO THE CLEANERS if you let on you really want something. Learn to pretend indifference to the most desirable! Learn the buzz words. Vintage Antique is pasted on anything dirty and or rusty whether it's old or not. My standard response to those hook lines has always been, "I don't pay extra for rust and dirt." Frosty The Lucky.

Antique stores are NOT the place to find blacksmith tools for a reasonable price. Their job is to sell for as much as possible BECAUSE antiques are rare and precious. Look at farm and ranch sales before checking out auctions. Frosty The Lucky.

All a top tool needs is something strong enough to hold it while you hit it. I haven't made a top tool in a few years but I still have the grease barrel of hokey sticks I got to make handles. I picked up a trashcan full of them from the local high school gym after a game. I could have a lifetime supply if I asked the coach or janitor to save them for me. I hade the drift from a rail clip. One of the old ones not a pandarol. Frosty The Lucky.

Cool a planting tool. The tool would be a dibble. Dibbling might be a verb for planting, the person using it could be a dibbler. Lots of possibilities but I think it's one of those terms that would be better to differentiate between the tool name and job. It's a tool for planting so using it is planting. The Forestry service uses a little spade-like tool to plant tree seedlings after a burn. People in 3rd world countries use sharpened sticks to plant. If the idea is to make custom dibbles maybe make an adjustable step and long handle so a person could make the hole the perfect depth for what they're planting without having to wear out their arm pushing it in? Useful tool. Frosty The Lucky.

You're a good guy Nat, of course you want to help people. You certainly don't deserve to be insulted publicly. This could just be another example of Denning Kruger effect, the less a person knows the more expert they think they are. He might turn out to be a good guy and and good student. If on the other hand you think he's just a butt hole, put him to the test and tell him you'd love to help but your shop is too messy. If he wants to learn the craft his first job is learning where everything goes by cleaning and putting everything where it goes then sweeping and taking the trash to where you dump it. We have dumpsters companies either empty or exchange regularly or when called. If he goes to work he's probably sincere about learning and worth taking on. If he snivels, whines or complains about it, show him the door. Anybody who enjoys humiliating others has problems you don't need around. Frosty The Lucky.

What's a dibbler? Frosty The Lucky.

I've had my anvils on steel tripod stands for about 30 years, steel to iron and they're quiet if you don't hit the horn or heel with the hammer of course. That'd be loud underwater. Frosty The Lucky.

Top tools are almost all intended to be used on HOT stock so there is no point in using even medium carbon steel. Hammers are a different tool and benefit from higher carbon steel. A struck tool should be softer than the hammer that strikes it, something WILL give and it's easier to repair a top tool. Cold cuts and Hardies are an exception, they do need to be harder than hot tools. Frosty The Lucky.

Knowledge is like a garage, it's common to start doing something without remembering you have the tool you need in the other corner behind the Popiel pocket baler. Ayup, 3D printer nozzles are perfect, I wish Mikey would speak up, he does a lot with small and smaller burners but he doesn't spend much time online anymore. Heck he might even have found something better than 3D printer nozzles. Frosty The Lucky.

I don't know why anybody uses Roman numerals anymore though one math teacher I had in college spent a ridiculous amount of time teaching a college algebra class how to do math in Roman numerals. I just deleted my rant about S. Cal edu. system. It gets federal money based on completed classes, NOT grades or subject value, just student throughput. I even got a letter some years ago saying my records were incomplete and without filling out the questionnaire they couldn't award my degree. It actually asked how many courses I completed and what degree I'd earned. It was VERY important I fill it out because their funding depended on it and they'd mail my degree as soon as they received the completed form and corrected their records. It still steams me. I LOVE to know things, read constantly but it doesn't count officially. . . Frosty The Lucky.

Neil is right, you can't tune it to run IN a forge, outside a forge. It's a back pressure thing but yours is running so rich it's not close enough to matter anyway. A 0.023" mig tip is suitable for a 1/2" burner, certainly NOT a 3/8" burner. Did you calculate the ratio between mixing tube and jet diameters? A .035" mig tip is approx. 0.04666 the diameter of a 0.75" mixing tube. A 0.023" mig tip is approx .046 x the diameter of a 1/2" mixing tube. See a pattern there? Do NOT bother measuring either plumbing pipe or mig contact tips, the sold as ID is NOT the actual ID. A T burner has enough built in slack a couple thousandths here or there is easy to tune out. I'm not good at math at all but I love ratios and have been able to do an awful lot with nothing more than simple multiplication, division and fractions. Heck, I've had a TI scientific calculator for 30 years and never used more than the basic arithmetic functions and clear button. I've never even been able to figure out how to use the memory. Thomas Powers and I had a good laugh over that one after he used his example of buying a dump truck to go grocery shopping. We exchanged a bunch of PMs citing the times we'd both done the same sort of thing. I REALLY miss Thomas. Absent companions. Frosty The Lucky.

MMXVI looks like 2016 to me George. Duck Duck Go says 2026 is MMXXVI in roman numerals. Of course I looked it up, don't be silly. Frosty The Lucky.

Shouldn't have removed the threads. They lower the friction as air passes over them just like the air passing over the top of a wing. Expanding the diameter causes too large a diameter increase the step causes bad turbulence. How did you drill the T for the fitting? The jet is off center, you can see it's aimed towards the lower side in the last picture. Why did you trim the mig tip already? And what's it's diameter? The flame is rich. Did you pick up more mig tips? Try a longer one, adjusting the air fuel ratio is most easily done by changing the distance from the tip of the jet to or away from the beginning of the mixing tube. The easiest method is start with too long and slowly trim it back till it's right. Start with a full length mig tip from the package screw it in and light it. If the flame is off center then it is the hole in the T that's off center. You might be able to correct it by GENTLY prying the mig tip into alignment. Remove the propane hoses and hold the burner at arms length sighting down the mixing tube from the outlet end towards a light. The bright spot of light shining through the mig tip should be centered in the mixing tube. Don't do this like looking into a telescope do it at arms length. You aren't looking for a clear view, just the relation of the light spot in the mixing tube. Done right a T burner doesn't need a choke. That's a sign of someone who doesn't know what they're doing. A properly built and tuned T burner having a slow flame has a very flat induction curve over it's full stable propane pressure range. from so Low it burns back into the mixing tube to so high it blows off the nozzle. If there is a real plumbing supply near you see if you can get them to give or sell you "Thread Protectors" for 3/8" pipe. Before it changed management the local plumbing shop about 2 miles up Vine road from me gave me a good 35+, 3/4" thread protectors and a bucket because they weren't worth the hassle of scrapping. I doubt that's true anymore but couplers like you used are WAY too expensive, especially if you make a mistake like cleaning the threads out of the nozzle end. So if you can get thread protectors grab as many as you can. They WILL wear out, heat from the flame WILL eventually burn them up so having extras on hand is a good thing. Mike Porter uses a different method. He makes a step nozzle that telescopes on the end of the mixing tube and is held in pace with a set screw. The step in diameter from the ID of the mixing tube to the ID of the step flare makes a perfect "flare". Flame holder isn't actually appropriate but lots of folk call them that. Anyway, you can tune the flame's fuel air ratio by moving the step nozzle in or out lengthening or shortening the effective length of the mixing tube. How it works is, as the high velocity flame from the mixing tube enters the larger ID of the nozzle it has to expand to fill the space. This does two good things, first it reduces the velocity of the flame. Same amount of flame in a larger volume means it MUST go slower. Yes? Well, as it expands to fill the larger volume of the nozzle the pressure drops in the mixing tube as well which enhances combustion air induction. The method and machinery is different but we both tune a burner the same way. We both did some head slapping when we stopped arguing about it. By argue I do not mean fight, we'd make a statement present our reasons (Arguments) then the other would poke holes in it and present our arguments. We made a lot of progress darned fast. Remember someone saying, "No you're wrong." is not an insult. Being wrong is in no way being stupid. Einstein was wrong more often than he was right. Edison failed at least 10,000 times before his first successful light bulb. Sorry, I can get carried away. I'm not as good at explaining things since the TBI. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Frosty, glad to have you. Kind of weird though it may be. If you put your general location in the header you'll have a much better chance of meeting up with members living within visiting distance. When I was approaching my first day in school my parents told me I should get used to being called Jack. Soooo, I told the kids my name is Jack. The teacher told the story of Jack Frost because she had one in her class. Makes sense no? Well, until then I thought it was just a name until I discovered that first day Jack Frost is the trickster He's not nice, not a good guy at all! I was good with Frosty The Snowman and I ran into people in College who still thought my name is Jack. Took years and a few bloody noses to start losing Jack as a nickname. Mother told me to NOT respond to Jack. ESPECIALLY if a teacher called me that. Sorry, I'm off on a sidetrack again. Oddly enough Frost is one of the most common English surnames. We're everywhere. I have close relatives all over the PAC. NW. and back to Ohio, south to Northern Mexico named Frost. There've been times when someone yelled out FROSTY! and I wasn't the only one to turn and look or wave. Those made for some fun conversations. So, tell us what you want to make, Frosty. Frosty The Lucky.

That looks better though you might want to move the burner port farther up, less junk will fall into the burner. What are the dimensions of the T on your burner? I know the perspective really changes on smaller burners but the air intake (run at the plumbing supply) looks huge. I'll be looking forward to seeing it burning. Frosty The Lucky.

Justin Wilson the Cajun gourmet talked about how chitlins have been prepared safely since the 1920s by using twine to hold it over the end of a hose or faucet and flushing them for a minimum half hour. IIRC the time it's been a long time since I saw the episode. I expect you can find it on Youtube. I'm a fan of pork rinds or cracklins and you can't beat wilted spinach salad. I usually fry up a rasher of bacon and add the bacon bits to the salad though pinion nuts are more traditional. De-stemming the spinach leaves is a good idea, the stems don't become tender. Of course a quick steaming first helps but de-stemming is quick easy and doesn't dirty another pot. Calf fries anyone? Frosty The Lucky.

Not bad though some things have changed. Part of the problem from out perspective is the burner in your photo is a bit more than 2x the diameter of the one you wish to use so it looks like worse orientation. IIRC you plan on using Kastolite 30-li which is a high alumina refractory and much more robust remaining concrete strong at propane forge temps. The kiln wash you describe above containing a respectable % of zirconia flour further armors the liner from the propane flame. Kastolite being what it is can be troweled in much thinner, no need for a thicker floor. Lots of guys are using 1/4" and less even with good results. My issue with applying Kastolite is the crushed aggregate in the mix. Being crushed it keys together which is a major factor in how tough it is. Unfortunately the downside is keyed aggregate means it doesn't move easily for a visual example think of a bag of jacks versus the same bag of marbles. You can easily move the marbles in the bag by squeezing the outside but the jacks are all locked in position and only want to poke holes in your hand. They "Key" together. It's an old term I used working in the state highways soils lab pertaining to how well a road bed resists moving under moving loads. Anyway the technique that worked best for me was to roughly spread the refractory on the rigidized ceramic blanket and using a piece of round steel rod tamp it flat. Not tamp it end on but lay the rod flat on the "JUST moist enough to move at all" Kastolite and sort of slap it till it's smooth. Don't slap it hard enough to compress the ceramic blanket, the movement will cause liquefaction of the kastolite, just like wet ground in an earthquake. You also need to be careful not to shake it of overhanging surfaces in your forge. Mix up smaller batches and let one side set before mixing up the next batch and applying it. Kastolite is REALLY sticky stuff so you don't need to do anything special to get good stickchion between sides, walls, etc. Kastolite has a limited working time and can not be revived by adding water or more stirring. It'll set in just a minute or two after you stop mixing or working it. It only has a few minutes working time so do NOT dilly dally, plan what you're going to do and have the tools laid out BEFORE mixing it with water Properly built and tuned, T burner's real charm is having a low velocity flame which means it requires less distance in the forge chamber to complete combustion. Secondly the flame remains inside the chamber longer allowing it to transfer more energy to the flame contact face to be re-radiated as IR to your work. Dragon's Breath is the orange flame blowing out forge openings, the less the better. Mike is much better reading dragon's breath than I am. Do NOT be surprised, the first time or two you light your forge the freshly laid Kastolite WILL make significant Dragon's Breath. Don't worry it is just the calcite binders in the Kastolite "calcining" and is part of the program, it will resolve after a little while, 2-3 firings to welding temp usually does it. Calcium, oxidizing burns with a vivid orange flame. Check out videos of oxygen lances burning through concrete for an example. OR you can just trust me on this one. One last. Kastolite 30 does NOT NEED to be cured by fire. It DOES need to cure in 100% humidity for a day or two, just like Portland cement concrete. They both have the same set and cure requirements even though they are as different as day and night. The easy way is to close the whole forge up in a plastic garbage bag with a couple WET rags in the forge and leave it set for a couple days. Kastolite is darned forgiving though so don't sweat getting it perfect. Make or model a couple 3/8" T burners and then play with orientation in the forge. We'll help you tweak orienting them. Frosty The Lucky.