BIGGUNDOCTOR

Well I just emailed Clark, Yale, Hyster, Komatsu, and Toyota. Hopefully they won't blow me off. I will let you know what they come back with.

The smith who demoed at the Ren Faire last year wore a kilt with steel scales on the front to protect the family jewels. I have seen a few guys wearing kilts down here. Probably pretty cool during the summer.

Beautiful work as always Jim. What are your plans for a scabbard? I would love to swing by your place one weekend to just watch you do your forge welding. That is one area that I need to work on.

The million dollars may have been his way of telling you it is not for sale at any price. As it is now it is with a collector, since he doesn't use them. I would have left my information with the family, and said, if in the future you decide to sell anything please contact me.

All of my sinker molds are aluminum. I have molds up to 2#. Lead can also be cast into silicone molds. There are various companies that sell silicone molds for lead soldiers. Learn something new every day. I didn't know hat they were called cames. Another method of leading glass is to wrap the edge with thin copper foil then soldering together.

How is your Ren Faire down there? The one in Las Vegas is more of a mis mash of costumed folks; Renaissance, fairies, ninjas, mad max, Celts, pirates, etc. The Ren Faire I went to in N.CA was an actual village built into the Black Point forest,and it was like walking into the middle ages. Something hard to replicate here in the desert. Something I would suggest is making correct items for the various groups/guilds/clans. I saw a lot of hanging firepots made from washing machine drums With Christmas coming up I would think smaller items that could be given as gifts would do well. We just had our local pomegranate festival, and a lot of folks were doing their Christmas shopping. Handmade soaps were selling well. Maybe you should look into some jewelery like bracelets, necklace pendants, etc. A lot of women are into the costuming , so don't forget items that they may like.

In regards to loans. Dave Ramsey suggests a 15 yr fixed rate with payments no more that 1/4 of your income. He has a national radio program, and website for financial advice. Check it out. The average for his listeners is being debt free in 7 years. Be very careful with foreclosures, as there can be tons of hidden costs IE; liens, delinquent taxes, etc. Personally, if the place is in an HOA I would walk away. I would never want to live that way. I am looking into refinancing since I am at 6.375% now. The house is the only debt I have, and it eats at me every time I send the mortgage check off. I literally hate owing money. Do some research on how sound travels. If you have air gaps between panels as opposed to having them touching it will work better. Sound can be deflected, that is why sound rooms have all of those cones on the walls and ceiling. I have seen folks who have lined their walls with the square egg flats. See if you have any local acoustic companies around that may be able to help you out. Sound cannot travel in a vacuum. Wasn't that the tag line for Aliens? In space no one can hear you scream. Did you know that you can set a microphone up to take the noise in, and play it back 180 out of phase, and the sound waves will cancel each other out? This is being looked at for industrial uses, and even cars now.

Look on the West Coast. CA has tons of manufacturing as does the Phoenix area of AZ. I believe there is a publication called the Machinery Supermarket that I used to get when I had my shop. It was put out by all of the big used machinery dealers in the West. I remember one being in Utah. Check craigslist, some pretty cool stuff shows up from time to time.

Avadon, do a search of interest rates here in the USA. They were, I believe, 10% back in the 80's. These are historic low rates that we have available now. It is truly a buyer's market. As for noise deadening. High pitches travel less well as low notes. If it were me I would get with my neighbors, and ask them how much noise they hear from your place, and does it bother them. They may not even realize that you are working over there. Most sound deadening materials are very dense like rubbers to stop the vibrations. Wood is an excellent conductor of sound, and the reason it is used for many musical instruments. Sound travels in waves, so barriers to these waves will also help. Sound walls like on the side of a freeway for example.

You can make some money picking a nickel off the floor with a forklift tine. B)

My Dad's workshop was mostly machining with some welding done. We left the walls open, no sheetrock. Depending on the size, and layout of the workshop, you may find that no matter how you insulate it you will still be cold, or hot while working out there. For heating look at a small woodstove if the forge won't do it. A woodstove can be operated a lot less expensively(free) than an electric heater. If you go with an AC unit get one that is 220V not 110V. It will pull half as many amps as the 110 unit will. More efficient. How much juice does one use? Have someone turn on the AC unit while you watch the meter. See how fast the meter starts spinning? Look into a swamp cooler. I grew up with one in Fairfield CA, and I loved it. I have one here where we hit 100 everyday for 3 months straight, with peaks up to 115. You learn to adapt your work schedule to cooler nights. If you want a soundproof, weatherproof, temp stable building look into rammed Earth, or Earth berm.

The overarm will be easy to make. The arbors should be available through MSC, J&L, Enco, or any other large machine shop supplier. Also look around, as there are tons of used tooling on the market. Without a 90 head you can use an angle plate, and mount the part to that. In all the years of machining I have only used an arbor once, and that was for cutting a gear in class. Endmills are a lot cheaper than slab, face, etc. milling cutters. Although a lot of these are on the secondary market as well. Since you have a mill, you can make the arbor support. A mill can reproduce itself with the proper tooling.

The hard tires won't navigate my gravel driveway, too loose, and it just sinks in. On a hot day I sank my TowMotor up to the weight in an asphalt parking lot. The TowMotor weighs 10K. A lot of weight on fairly narrow tires. When I moved my lathe to the new shop, we borrowed another lift. I had the lathe (5,200#) on the forks, and I could feel the lift sinking into the parking lot. We ended up just backing the trailer under the lathe to keep from destroying the asphalt. My TowMotor has a nasty problem with freezing the carb, so I stuck a piece of big Tygon tubing in the exhaust pipe, and routed it to blow on the carb. That finally kept it warm enough to keep running. Before, we would thaw it out with warm water to get it restarted, then quickly back into the shop. I have found out that having a forklift is one of those things that you don't realize that you need one till you get one. Then you wonder why you didn't get one earlier.

Look in the attic space of a lot of homes and you will see Romex run all over the place, and stapled to the rafters. My Dad's old shop had 125A a subpanel in it. The only thing that I had that could possibly trip it is my 350A Linde TIG welder 99A on 220V-max draw. Welders only pull max when set on maximum settings. Compressors draw the most on start up then drop way off. You would have to be doing some serious work to trip that main.

For a forklift look on Craigslist. Here in the Las Vegas area I saw an LP 5K Yale go for Free-lasted 20 minutes. It ran but was missing a tooth off the flywheel , so you needed to rotate a little by hand every once in awhile. I picked up a 5K Toyota low mast diesel for $800. Max lift is 79", and will easily fit in a standard house garage. I also bought an 8K Champ rough terrain lift with a 25'-30' reach for $3,500. There are multiple lifts that I have seen in the $2,000, or less range. I would stay away from electric, and look at LP, or gas. Between the chargers, the cost of batteries, and required maintenance I wouldn't get one. I like diesel due the fuel not going bad no matter how long it sits. I have never had a problem with water, but others may depending on where you live. Here in the desert fuel can go bad very quickly. The Toyota I bought had sat outside for 2 years-fired right up with the fuel that was in the tank. The Champ has a Ford 300 6, so I just put enough gas in it to do what I need to do, and try not to leave too much in the tank when I am done. Propane/LP-clean, and can be used indoors. Cons, dealing with tanks, can freeze up the carb in cold climates, and if you run out in the middle of the night, you may not be able to get the tank filled till morning. My 7K TowMotor is a Continental flathead 4 converted to LP. Tires- hard tires = pavement/concrete. Watch asphalt when it is really hot, as they will sink in. cushion=pavement, hard packed dirt/gravel. If it doesn't have a valve stem it is a cushion tire. I see a lot of them misidentified on the listings as pneumatic. Pneumatic=all terrain

The IR gun we had at the foundry needed to be calibrated for the emissivity of the metal that you were dealing with. We used it to check temps for casting. It was made by Raytek.

I never sifted them, just dumped them into a cutdown 55 gallon drum. If there was any waxes, etc they have burned off, don't worry about what was burned. The main thing is that they are the gray ashes, no charcoal. This will make a great annealing medium. Before use, take a stick and stir them up all nice and fluffy, as they tend to settle down. Cover well to keep dry.

Check here too for info www.leatherworker.net basically IFI with leather stuff. Lots of holster, and sheath guys on there.

I don't see any mention there of copper, just brass/bronze. Brass drills totally different than copper does. All of our twist drills are left razor sharp, and we machine literally tons of copper a month. The main thing with copper is oil, and clearing the chips.

I'd like to buy a vowel.

Welcome to IFI. Most of your questions can probably be answered by searching the forums, as lots of newbies have had the same questions.

For the floor in my smithy I used railroad tie plates flipped upside down. Just raked the big rocks out, and laid them down. Tossed some sand over them, and swept it in with a broom.

I was flipping through the various monthly tool catalogs at work, and thought some of you may be interested in this. Enco tool supply has W1, and 01 tool steel rounds in their current specials, as well as 660 bronze, acme threaded rods, and nuts. www.use-enco.com These specials run till Nov.30th

Nope. It will just splatter all over the place. Best to find another use, or just use them as a pattern to make new ones out of steel.

Figure out how much you spend in wheels for the chop saw, and compare it to the price of a good used bandsaw. I have seen some nice units on Craigslist at reasonable prices. I would even use a Porta-Band over a chop saw any day. I have seen used ones for as low as $50, and an average range of $125-$150 lately.