Frosty

Did you know that grinding wheels embed bits of broken abrasive in what you're grinding? That little bit of grit will dull files hundreds of times faster than clean steel. Accidently taking too much off on a grinder of any kind is how you learn control and touch when you're grinding. It's how I learned, by stocking my scrap can. Frosty The Lucky.

That's a good one Scott. You should get a larger screen to view things on, the lad on the right is roasting the mouse on a fork. Frosty The Lucky.

Thank you Wicon. A closed die forging sure can form characters proud of the surface, JUST like that. Frosty The Lucky.

That would be B A D! I'd probably be tempted to turn on an ignition source and go have coffee till the sirens started passing the cafe. Happily the only skunks up here are scent glandless pets. I did smell a skunk once as it passed the picnic ground on a car. Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks for the article Scott cool helmet. Bling is obviously ancient Latin for, "OOH Shiny!" Frosty The Lucky.

I have a TV in the bedroom and Deb has a coffee pot and keeps her muffins stocked on her side. Frosty The Lucky.

Dad's older Brother, my Uncle Frank was a welder before WWII broke out and he talked about the crew having the "blue flu" or "the Monday morning blues" every Monday till Wednesday. It was called Blue because zinc oxide smoke is a pale blueish white. For some reason everybody felt better till the next Monday. Uncle Frank said the zinc would get flushed out of your system over the weekend and it'd give you the blue headache again Monday and Tuesday till your zinc levels built back up. Was it true? I don't know but I've experienced the blue flu till I smartened up and made the state buy proper filter mask. It isn't "heavy metal" poisoning by a long shot but it really isn't good for you stay out of it. Frosty The Lucky.

Being as this is a blacksmithing forum I'll toss out the obvious suggestion first and get it out of the way. Why not forge a latch, there are several suitable ones demoed here. If all you want it a pull cord run a piece of light cable through a hole drilled at an upwards angle in the door frame, clamp or whip a loop to the latch and a lightly weighted pull on the inside. Having the pull above the latch and pulling upwards reduces friction and potential for snags jamming the cable. You don't need anything fancy and chain will require a suitable pully or some friction reducing mechanism or it will be a bear to pull and it'll require a spring or heavy weight to pull it back to the latched position. Perhaps if you drilled the hole large enough to insert a piece of copper or plastic tubing a pull chain would work smoothly enough. Every level of complexity you add to a device increases the probability something will go wrong and those odds raise exponentially. Frosty The Lucky.

Cast. The PFP in a rectangular border is proud of the surface, (sticks up instead of stamped into it) is a strong indicator of being cast. I have no idea of who made or sold it. Have you done a rebound test on it to determine the face's hardness? 34kg is pretty light though it would be okay for a travel anvil and light to moderate forging. Frosty The Lucky.

The burn can you found sounds like a good choice, it should last longer than a 55gl. drum. You might have to modify it for charcoal production though. Not to minimize the IDR nor ignore the difference in cost of living but I had to look at the exchange rate and at todays exchange a kilo of charcoal would cost approx $0.31 usd. Which is significantly less than my cost. The cheapest I could find locally is $1.02usd/kilo. The charcoaling method Billy describes above is how it's been made for thousands of years but instead of wet earth I believe sod was the common cover for the mound. Coaling rings are common archeological artefacts and some were dedicated masonry structures like the bee hive coaling kilns I described above. Coaling mounds like Billy described were usually around 10m in dia and up to 10+ tall. If covered in sod they didn't need a smoke hole. Tending the fire in one this size occasionally killed the collier as the mound and pyrolizing wood needs to be "settled" in the mound to work properly. The collier would jump up and down on top of the mound to settle the contents and every now and then one broke through and fell into the mound of burning wood. The now larger opening would fan the flames and many couldn't escape. This type and scale of coaling was a profession in the day and still is in parts of the world today. Frosty The Lucky.

Pretty nice. How stable it is? It looks kind of tall and narrow, what if someone puts a pot halfway on one cross member? Frosty The Lucky.

The one in high school shop class had a Hossfeld cheater that about doubled the standard handle length. Even then it was pretty common to see more than one person pull/pushing it. The one project I remember using it for was two pair of hay hooks. It took Dad maybe half a second to point out none of the 4 hooks matched very well. I should've used it more and maybe gotten good bending. Frosty The Lucky.

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.