BIGGUNDOCTOR

Orgtwister, I have a mill very similar to your's. It came off of Mare Island Naval Shipyard, through one of the DRMO auctions.It had just gone through an overhaul, and is still in the cosmoline. The main difference I see is the base unit. Mine is square with the variable speed controls on the front. The only drawback is that it uses #9 Brown and Sharp arbors. Still available, but pricer than say R8 stuff. I may ream it out to a Morse taper, or may even make some arbors. Not even real sure where I may use it, since it has been sitting since Dad bought it back in the 80's. Too many projects runs in the family:P

I worked for a couple of small shops before starting my own machine and fab shop. That lasted 6 years before we closed up, and I went to work for one of my customers who had a small foundry that made dental alloys. I picked up induction melting, investment, and continuous casting experience there. Then it was off to an automotive lift company where I added hydraulics, electrical, plumbing, concrete, compressors, and various pumps. Then it was off to the Jelly Belly Candy Company as an all around plant maintenance mechanic where I added steam systems, conveyors, control systems, robotics, pneumatics, kitchen equipment,and more. Then it was off to work for a machine gun dealer, and finally ended up back making chips as a tool maker after a 14 year hiatus doing the other jobs. Just because I was a machinist, that didn't mean that was the only thing I could do. With each new job I added valuable new skills. If my job ended tomorrow, I wouldn't be that distressed, because I believe in the skills that I have. I am at a crossroads at this stage of my life. The only time I was truly happy was when I was self employed. I have 42 ideas for products that I have come up with. You get to do a lot of thinking when your commute is 100 miles each way every day I really want to start another company, but I need to figure out which hair brained invention I want to start with first. Once I get that figured out I can start putting the wheels into motion. One thing that I learned from my failed machine and fab shop was how paying cash as we went saved our butts when we had to close up. All of the machine tools, all of the materials, everything was paid for in full. No loans, no leases, no borrowed money at all. We started small,and added on when we could afford it. When the building was sold, and the new owners were booting us out, all we had to do was take our tools home. No loans, or leases = no repossessions. I would also want to own the next shop building. I think the biggest thing that my business partner, and I took away from that experience is that we are not asking "what if?" today, we know. Adapt, and overcome.

Since it is for a school I take it that they will all look similar, or can you do some different designs? Can you put an outboard wheel to help support the end? Can you adjust the design for the longer gate using more triangulation? How much weight are you talking about?

Here is a down and dirty way to do this. Take a cutting torch, and blow a slot in the bar at roughly the correct angle. Take a tube with the appropriate inside dimension and weld it at the correct angle in the bar. Take an angle grinder and grind it all flush. Either that or just clean up the hole if ya got a steady enough hand. Look for the center drill (combination drill), that will do what you want, even with a wobbly Grizzly. MSC is a good company to deal with. Some others that I have used when I had my shop were Enco, and J&L. Hey John B, don't worry about the expansive explanation, it's all good info. As to the 4 flute endmills bottoming out. Some are made that way, and others have a center cutting tooth geometry. Kind of like a 2 flute endmill with 2 extra teeth added on. I use center drills for a lot more than lathe work due to their rigidity. The size he will need will have about a .125" pilot, so I think it should hold up fine for this application. Machine tools do not need to be expensive. I have bought most of mine for $0.10 on the dollar. I know a used machinery dealer who has picked up several Bridgeport, and it's style, mills for as little as $500. Lots of shops closing which means lots of surplus machinery on the market. The Bay Area of California has been losing shops for quite some time now. I once walked past 6 machine shops to get to the one that was being auctioned off. I just saw an ad on the local CL for a lathe, and a surface grinder - $500 each. They are out there, just like anvils, you just have to look for them.

I see a new TV show in the works here "Guerrilla Blacksmithing" Watch smiths do their dirty work despite code restrictions, unneighborly neighbors, and the dreaded housing Nazis AKA HOA's!!! See how they disguise their Smithies with BBQ forges, planter box anvils, "fireplace" tongs, yard art hardies, and much more!! Can these Smiths get their projects done in spite of narrow minded bureaucrats, and boring uncreative folks who surround them?!?! Tune in and find out!!!!! B)

How do the teeth effect strength? I have been told that when using files one should remove all of the teeth, otherwise the blade will have stress risers all over it. Cool look non the less.

Frosty, my Mom who was a leather worker taught me to use alcohol to when breaking in boots, or forming some leather. It dampens it enough to make it pliable, but dries much faster than water does.

Get a center drill (combined drill, and countersink in some catalogs),a #5 or #6 has a 1/2" shank. These drills are short, and stiff, keeping them from walking on you. I use these all the time at work for angled holes. The center drill will get you a pilot hole made which you can follow up with a regular twist drill. Endmills in a drill press. Depends on how little runout you have in your spindle, and if your chuck can hold onto it with out it slipping. Too much runout, and it will be a bear to make a clean hole. As Grant mentioned earlier, the endmill will have to be a center cutting model. A 4 flute is usually smoother when plunging. To center on a center punch mark, just put a pointer, or drill in the chuck first, and use that to establish center. It doesn't matter what you use, the main thing is a rigid setup. None of this will do any good if the whole shebang is wiggling all over the place. Keep distances to a minimum, and clamp everything tight.

I didn't forget about work hardening, just didn't think that it applied here. Didn't want to throw to much info out all at once. Part of my job duties where I work is attending to the zone annealer that we have. Personally I cannot remember having to anneal any mild steel items. Copper and brass yes, but not mild steel.

Annealing is basically getting the steel red hot then cooling it very slowly. I use dry wood ashes to anneal my parts. Free, and they work great. Mild steel isn't readily hardenable,as it doesn't have enough carbon content, so it shouldn't need an annealing first. Twisting is usually done with the metal hot, so it is a moot point for the most part. You can add your location to your profile which will allow smiths closer to you to possibly help you out personally.

That is why they invented laser, and electron beam welders :D

I know what smaller (12'-16') saguaros cost around here. One that size with that many arms would be pretty expensive. Probably at least a couple of hundred years old. Kinda sad to see it drop like that. The third largest redwood toppled a few years ago, and on it's side it was still 17' tall.Lots of history over that many years. I read a story about a guy who shot a saguaro with a shotgun. It ended up falling on him, which killed him. They are mostly water when alive, and at 8# per gallon that adds up really fast. Do you get any fruit on yours? I know the native Americans harvest the fruit to make a syrup with.

I would like a clarification on how big the saguaro was. You posted 52' is that correct? or was it 25'? Never saw one that was that tall.

A few years back I was able to get some adjustment info I needed on my Linde UCC-305 TIG. The info is out there, but you have to hunt for it. Fortunately they don't have a lot that goes wrong with them as long as you keep them maintained. The JC I attended had these in the classroom. They had to repair a couple of rheostats that accidentally got adjusted while someone was welding, which arcs the contacts. That happened because the welders were stacked, and the guy thought he was adjusting his.

Can you drill from the oposite direction, and punch it out? To drill out HSS taps I use a solid carbide spade drill. This is not done by hand, but in a machine. First thing is to clear any chips that may be stuck in the hole, they are not helping your efforts. If you have a Dremel you can grind it out. Try to work just the center, and remove in pieces. Diamond bits will do a better job at that size. Good luck, and take your time.

I have a number of welders, and I haven't paid over $900 for any of them. I have a Lincoln SP-100 110v MIG that I have done up to 3/8" using multiple passes. I picked up a Miller 250, and a Lincoln 250 MIG for $400 each. My Miller MP-65E was $900, and it came with about that much or more in wire. My Linde TIG was $250, added a foot control,and new torch for around $300. The only one that was purchased new was the SP-100, all of the others were auction purchases. I used to see the Lincoln tombstone welders for $50-$100 at garage sales fairly often. Look around, there are lots of welders coming on the market due to the economy.

We need to start putting these post titles in a separate area, and at the end of the year see who typed the best one. So far we have ; 1)Wife and I banged in the new year. 2)What do you guys think of this unit? Where ,oh where, is this forum headed? Oh yeah, get a good name brand that has a track record. Plenty of welding forums to help make a decision. I have 2 Lincoln MIGs, 2 Miller MIGS, and a Linde TIG welder. No problem getting parts, except maybe for the Linde, don't really know because it hasn't needed anything yet. I would also say to stick with dedicated machines instead of the all in ones. I used a Miller combo (MIG/TIG/Arc), and it was a PITA switching the leads around all of the time.

I have steamed out dents in gun stocks before, but that was raising compressed wood cells. Never thought of it being used for something like this.

BIGGEST collection seen in the BIGGEST forum pictures I have only seen one mandrel, it was in an old welding shop that was closing. I believe the next tenant made off with it I take it that the slots/grooves in some of those had a purpose, but what? Holding a part with tongs?

OK , I gotcha now. Kind of like a clicker press ribbon die. What I do find confusing is how it is locked in place. I can see the wood swelling with water, but wouldn't heat just shrink the wood, opening up the slots again? I was thinking that it may be glued in place.

Why do you want a glass smooth surface? Personally I would want a little grip to them. To keep a glass smooth surface I think that you would need to apply a hard coating like a polyurethane finish, or use stabilized wood. Wood grain will move with the humidity changes, so it won't stay glass smooth forever. High end gunstocks use dense wood to begin with, then use various products to seal the open grain that remains. You might want to try Tru Oil from Brownell's. Apply a few coats with 0000 steel wool scuffing in between, and you will get a smooth finish. As to the sandpaper, no I have never had that happen. Is it a good brand of paper, or cheap import stuff. Duh, just looked at what forum this was posted in, I thought you were talking about hammer handles, not knife handles/scales. :rolleyes:

I think the point here is that there is more than one way to make a knife. Can it be shaped by forging alone? Yes, to a point. Can it be shaped by cutting, and grinding? Yes. My 1920 Stanford University blacksmithing text book shows trimming, so it was a common practice then. Yes basic techniques are used, and a blade can be a way to develop them. He could be making gumtree leaves for the Aussie project, which look a lot like a knife blade, so I wouldn't say that a blade shape isn't a good starter project. I made some knives when I first got started back in High School. Some made it, some didn't, but I learned from each one. I think the point that I want to make is that as long as one can learn from their mistakes it's all good. Learning from our mistakes makes us the smart monkeys. Otherwise it is pointless to continue.

Some cacti will reroot after falling over, prickly pear for one. They will send roots out from all over, not just the base. Too bad you had to cut it up, I have seen saguaro "skeletons" for sale. You may want to look into this, but you might be able to get one of the cut sections to sprout. Depending on how long you let the cut pieces set, they may sprout on their own. Cacti are pretty persistent. Well the sun is finally out, which means I have some work to do draining water, and checking for damage.

As a customer I hate the phone menus. I also hate to hear hype, and buzzwords IE; 6061-T6 "aircraft grade" aluminum, might as well just say most common grade aluminum. Sales staff that won't acknowledge you, or shadow you relentlessly. When I had my shop, I would spend enough time with my customers so that they got what they wanted.I would explain things like heat treating, etc so that they knew exactly what was involved, or why I wanted to do something a certain way, so that they wouldn't think I was just doing it to charge more. They always had the last say in how it was done. In some cases I was able to recommend a simpler, less expensive option. In other cases it was to prevent a returned item. We had a pump brought in where the customer (George)wanted a close fit on the impeller bushing. We gave it around a .002" running fit. When he came in he said that what he meant by close was .015". That is why I always asked "How close is close?" after that happened. George turned out to be the best advertising we had, he let everyone he worked with know about us. We worked on some of our days off, 24hrs+, and did what we needed to in order to get jobs done on time, or help a customer who was in a bind. Sometimes we had to eat some time , and cost, but we adjusted for the next job.

How do you get the inlay to stay in place? With firearms you cut a dovetailed slot that you tap the inlay into, but I figure that would split the wood.