BIGGUNDOCTOR

If I was to do this "on the cheap" I would do it this way. Get a piece of good steel the correct thickness to be even on top after I had milled the bad area flat. Then I would drill and tap a series of 1/2-20 holes and attach the new face with flathead screws. Torque the xxxx out of them, and then weld the heads over. All edges would be prepped before installation in order to weld them to the remaining face, and sides.

I look at it the same way as with a house, if you can buy you are better off than renting. I would guess that you could find a building for sale in your area. Here in the Southwest I see buildings all the time now with the for lease signs down, and the for sale signs up. I bought a house on 2AC so I could have room for a shop later, and not have to rent. Get with a real estate agent, and do some investigating. As for the other landlord, he can probably wait, because if that area is like most places he isn't getting inundated with offers to rent. The building my current employer vacated is still vacant a year later.It is a buyers market at this time.

Make an offer, all they can say is no.

Hmmm, turns out this happened just down the road from where I am working. Werkin in LaVerkin as I say. That could also explain why the rescue crews are standing where they are. The term I have heard used is Utards.

For scrap prices I would buy them. Are they carbide tipped, or just sharpened? Why were they scrapped? Can they be resold, and make a profit? I have seen A LOT of good equipment sent to the scrap yards. I was just given 2 working refrigerated air driers ($1,000+) that were headed to the dumpster because they were "surplus". Lots of folks painting them, so there is one market if they are no good for knives. I think it would be cool to make a bowl out of one. Hmmm, could probably get a lot of ideas for saw blade projects. Uh, did I mention that I would buy them for scrap prices? :P

I have done the same as Mr Zappa with the between centers turning. The dog is driven by the chuck jaw, same as a slot in a faceplate would. The dog does not "drive past" the chuck jaw.

I like the scale measurements on the side. For the top repair, have you ever used 7018? The reason I ask is that my 7018 welds almost deslag themselves. Usually just have to drag the slag hammer across them to finish removing what is left.

Is there any way you can buy a chunk of dirt, and put up your own building? My shop closed because the building we were in was sold. Guy came in and told us "I just bought the building. I am moving in on the first-you have 30 to vacate." We were not able to find another suitable location that was in out budget, so we closed up. Buildings, and land, are pretty affordable at this current time. Check around, you may be surprised.

With any combo machine compromises had to be made. The quality of these also vary. I have friends who have used them with mixed results. Make sure blade clearances are correct to eliminate burrs, and just folding thin material. On most , the blade doesn't have any angle to it, so you are shearing everything at once which can take some force to do. Attach it to a sturdy bench/stand. Other complaints were loose fits, and sloppy adjustment points. These units are inexpensive, so modify it as needed to make it work for you. Some time spent dialing in all of the clearances may be worth doing.

Sometimes less is more, there is grace in simplicity. Try not to get too hung up on having ribs,grooves,etc. Form follows function. Make a goblet that feels good in the hand, and on the lips. A lot of times I will close my eyes and let my hands tell me what I need to do when working on something. I have used various forks, spoons, glasses that made me wonder "What was this designer thinking?" as I am dribbling my drink/food down my chin.

At the Jelly Belly Candy Co we used beeswax and alcohol to put the final polish on the beans.

On looks I would say 1st and last. Both of these appear to be better to hold onto,wider at the top-skinnier at the base, and that is my other point. To make a final determination I would have to hold them. It doesn't matter how it looks if it doesn't feel right in the hands. How is the balance from top to bottom? Someday I will have to try this. I have a small bench top spinning lathe that my Dad got out of a high school that was closing the shop class.

One of Weygers books shows how to heat treat a RR track anvil. If you absolutely want to clean up the top, run it over to a machine shop, or community college, and have them mill it flat.

The drills I use are made in house. We use a lot of round carbide where I work, mostly for form drills. I have used a couple of different versions. One is ground to a taper kind of like a pointed cold chisel, and the other has a couple of short flutes. The short fluted one is a little better when getting to the end as it is bearing on more area which makes it less likely to catch. It does spoil you when you have primo material, and primo equipment to work with. The carbide really makes short work of a tap, and the Ewag grinders that we have make beautiful tools out of it. As for using an end mill. I would be somewhat hesitant to do so. I may try it next time since we have quite a few carbide endmills too, but most of ours are center cutting 4 flute. I will let you know what I find out. I am expecting it would chatter some, but I could be wrong.

I haven't had much luck with those extractors, and I sometimes use spiral flute taps which these will not work on. You also need a set of those to fit the various sizes. Most of the taps that I have broken recently have been while driving them with the mill, or lathe, so I just pop in a carbide drill and drill them out. A couple of different size drills will work on a wide variety of different size taps.

Nice work, but how did you get it into a bowl shape without ruining the chasing inside? I don't see any "soft" face hammers.

I use solid carbide spade drills to get mine out. Spot it with a large one than drill it with one that drills out just the web. Collapse the teeth, and it's done. This is the best way I have found when a mill, or lathe can be used. Amazing how well a carbide drill cuts through a quality HSS tap. On cast iron parts (exhaust manifolds) I have blown them out with an O/A cutting torch. Someday I would like to pick up a tap disintegrator. The portable units have a lot of uses besides tap removal.

My friend's neighbor was a custom bladesmith, I believe his name was Bob Howell. He made one regular knife, and it was a fillet knife which he sold to commercial fishermen. He use Ats 34 stainless for his blades. He took one that he had finished put the tip against the table top, then pushed the handle down until the blade was forming a 90 degree vee, Very flexible, and yet quite hard with good edge holding qualities. By planer blades I take it that you are talking about a large power planer, not block/hand planes. Most planer blades I have seen are made of High Speed Steel, and would not make a good fillet knife. It may be worth your while to find out what kind of planer that they fit, and sell them. Take that money, and buy some known alloy to make fillet knives;Ats34, 1095 spring steel, etc.

Springs are made from spring steel;1095/5160/etc, 4140 is not a spring steel. Tie rods, center links, and axles will be tough materials, not spring materials. Application will dictate material used. Before making a knife cut of a chunk and heat treat it. Did it get hard enough? If so, make a knife. If not, make something else out of it.

I have a little problem with flat rates in auto shops. I installed/serviced auto lifts, and all manner of other auto shop equipment. In doing so I talked with a lot of mechanics working for all of the different manufacturers. From their comments Toyota was the only one that was close with the flat rate times to do a job. What that meant was that "shortcuts" were made to get some jobs done in the alloted time. I am not sure if I would want a guy rushing to get my car fixed in a certain amount of time. This is one reason why I do the repair work on my cars. Another side of this was bidding repair work. At one dealership the service manager would have a repair ticket, for say a transmission job, and say " R&R transmission x hours" then the mechanics would bid lower hours until one of them got the job. The senior guys always got the gravy jobs this way, and stuck the new guys with the crappy paying ones. This is one reason why a lot of mechanics move around from dealership to dealership.

You could have it anodized any color that you wished, or just give it a good polish, or "brushed" finish. When I had my shop I found an auto body DA sander gave aluminum a nice satin finish. With smoking the heat isn't that great, so a good stove/bbq paint would also be ok on the outside. With old paint on the inside you could use an aluminum safe stripper, or just get a fire built in it to soften the paint enough to scrape it.

HA! I can see the posts now. I need to fully harden a a brass piece. What do you suggest? I would go with some early Metallica,or Rob Zombie set to about 8 with a 12" subwoofer, for the entire album. :lol:

I am planning some brass workings myself, as I have a steady supply of brass scrap from work that I can buy inexpensively. From what I have read on the IFI forums so far, the temp has to be watched, as a lot of brass has zinc in it, and it burns out if heated too high. A lot of brass is annealed, heat then quench to anneal, then worked cold. Annealing is done whenever the brass gets stiff under the hammer due to work hardening. Play around with it some, and figure out works best for you, and your setup.

I've heard about them Maine women. They provide warmth in da wintah, and shade in da summa. :D

Hey Dillon, I think the operative term here is when Southshore said "IF" he could make $400 an hr. Area can also have a big influence on pricing. I was at the Knob Creek machine gun shoot a couple of years ago, and the company I was with had an XM-175 full auto 40MM out of a helicopter for sale. Because it was one of like 4 that was fully transferable, the price was $350,000. One ol' boy looked at it, and remarked on the price. I said, yea that's a couple of homes. He replied, naw that's more like 10 of my homes. I had never heard of a $35,000 home on the West coast in the last 30 years. Some areas, and industries can sustain pricing that is totally in the stratosphere compared to other areas. Folks in San Fran can usually pay a lot more than say folks in Knob Creek KY. Not charging enough was one of the reasons I closed my shop. There were jobs that we charged what the job "should have cost" using our hourly rate. We never added in the perceived cost, and lost money. Later when I was working at the Jelly Belly Candy Co. I saw what business' were actually paying for some parts. I looked at one simple item that I would have charged maybe $60 to make that they had paid $300 for, and there was a box of 20 of them. Our purchasing agent said that it was still less than the OEM wanted. I often wonder if this type of pricing is a double edge sword in a way, where eventually it has caused a lot of companies to seek offshore parts. I am not against capitalism, but I have to wonder sometimes, if we are our own worst enemy.