BIGGUNDOCTOR

Some lapidary supply house have void fillers for stones, basically what you have there.

Do you have a Geiger counter? Some of the Brazilian granites are more radioactive than normal. A bunch of counter tops got pulled out of installs recently due to this. The granite will be a bit harder to work than the marble due to the quartz content. Marble also stains, so you may want to seal it. Turquoise is very soft compared to granite. A lot of the turquoise that is coming in from China is low grade and has been stabilized to keep it together. A good grade of turquoise isn't cheap. Look into a local gem and mineral society. My group has a nice lapidary shop, and I have thought about stone handles, or inlays myself. We have quite a few Leaverites, and Indian Love Stones here.

It would be nice if it was cooler, but after awhile you learn how to deal with the heat. With the low humidity it is actually not that bad in the 90's. During the summer a lot of things are done when the sun goes down, that simple thing makes a huge difference. I got tired of the rain, and having moldy smelling cars, everything rusting instantly, etc.. Here I can do more for longer due to the average of 350 days of sun. We average 4"- 4.5" of rain a year, with 3/4 of that during the summer monsoon season. Rarely does it rain all day, let alone for days on end. It snowed last year in Las Vegas, something like 6" in some areas. Lasted about 3 days-just how I like it. All in all I do like it down here. The only things I miss about CA are the trees, and fresh produce. I also haven't seen any skeeters where I live I just have to watch out for scorpions now. A big plus for me is that it is a gun friendly state unlike CA. So as not to hijack this thread, here is my .02 I would think about a small wood stove to keep the shop warm. Plenty of free wood around, even here in the desert.

I have purchased scrap from a Vegas yard. We needed some thick plate to perforate with some .50 APIT rounds out of an M2HB for a demo. 15 cents a pound wasn't too bad. They let us wander around the big yard, and told us to just stay clear of the equipment. When we found what we wanted all we had to do was hail a magnet driver who would retrieve the material for us. I dropped some stuff off at a smaller yard that had some neat airplane parts. I didn't have a chance to ask about buying. Unfortunately I got to see a large Simplex jack being dropped into a container-----gone forever Where I work now there is a large steel fabrication company down the road. Drove by there and saw what was in their dumpster. BIG I-beams, and channel. Some appeared to be around 12" or better. May have to go back when they are open to see what else they have. Scrap here pays $70 a ton.

Almost 10PM and still 87, what's humidity? Our humidity is usually in the single digits. Still hitting 100+, and will still be in the 80's up to Thanksgiving. Doesn't really start to cool off until Halloween. The lowest I have seen it here is 20.

looks like the same forge I have. Dad found it at a local antiques dealer back home. I remember going to get it, and having to get it uprighted out of the dirt yard. It is a handy size. Why not just attach the wheels to the legs that are on it. Just make a clamp arrangement for the axle. Easy enough to do with u-bolts.

More than likely that was the ORIGINAL bolt, so a new one should outlast you. If you are worried about rust use stainless.

The thinner edges and points do not get harder, but they can burn. In other words your knife will be ruined, and look like a 4th of July sparkler. Polish the blade after hardening to remove scale, and make it look nice. Tempering will not be at a high enough temperature to cause scale to form, just the colored oxides. Since the entire part is brought up to temp slowly, and evenly in the oven, thickness isn't a factor. Personally I might just harden the blade, and the top inch of the tang, and leave the remainder soft. The only place that design would bend at is right at the junction of the handle to the blade.

Cast steel- weldable, malleable, and very sturdy for an anvil. Cast Iron- brittle, and not so good for an anvil. Forged-weldable, very strong. Steel is iron that has had the carbon removed (which makes it brittle) and then had it added back in, in specific amounts, in order to achieve the desired results. Forging is when you take a hot billet of steel and form it to the desired shape by using a large press, or power hammer, and dies. The grain structure of the steel is conformed to the shape of the part giving it more strength than if it was just cut out of a large chunk (billet). I started on a 260# Fisher cast anvil. It is quiet compared to a forged anvil, and it is an excellent anvil in my opinion. I wouldn't worry either way, as long as it is a quality anvil, and not a cheap ASO.

Fisher is a good brand. I have one that is 260# - made in 1907. Look for the thread True Prices of Anvils here on the forum. I generally have paid around $1 a pound for the anvils I have. As to size. Small knives small anvil, big swords big anvil. I would get the biggest you can afford. My anvils are 125#, 150#, 170#, 260#, 306# It has to be able to take the hammer blows, and not bounce around. You don't NEED an anvil, just a good hunk of steel with the right shape, and hardness. A lot of the guys here have anvils that they have made, scrounged, etc.

Here are a few things that I do when filing a part. I have cleaned up some badly pitted pistols, and rifles this way. Draw filing is done with a single cut file-only one set of teeth. The angle that you hold it is somewhat dependent on the material being cut, but you can feel the difference in how it cuts in relation to the angle of the teeth to the part. The file only cuts in one direction forwards, so don't keep the pressure on when retracting the file. It is ok to to slide the file back some as this will help to keep it clean by pulling the chips out. Keep the file constantly clean. It only takes one packed chip to add a lot more work to your project when it causes a deeper scratch. I have not had a problem with dished files, and most that I have are very flat-no rocking when put on a flat surface. When you grasp the file look at the angle it is at and maintain that angle as you push/pull across the part. Find something to spot the edge of the file with like something on the bench, so when you make the next cut you can return to the same angle. When you make the cut look at the pattern left on the part to see if it is correct, or if you need to adjust your angle. Go slow, this isn't a race. A lot of filing has to do with feel. Once you get the feel right it is easier to get the results that you want. If possible make the longest stroke with the file that you can do correctly, This will help eliminate an uneven look. As for sanding, I used a lot of various size, and shaped blocks to sand receivers, and barrels in order to keep a sharp line. A lot of shops buff the receivers which rounds edges. On a receiver like a Winchester Model 12, I always hand sanded them in order to maintain the original lines. Do not proceed with the next finer grit until all of the coarser scratches have been sanded out with the current grit. One way to check for scratches is to sand at a different angle to what you have been. By doing this the light is reflected differently, and will show discrepancies in the finish easier.

May I make a suggestion? Make the tube a little longer and fill it half way with lead shotgun shot, then cap it. By doing this you will have a dead blow that shouldn't bounce when striking something, and it will transfer all of the energy into the part.

I did some work for a guy who used what I believe was an aluminized paint that he dipped his parts into. It was really thin and went everywhere. When parts came out of the dip they was bright silver. Powder coating works really well too, especially on sandblasted surfaces. When I had my shop a guy came by selling paint. All that I remember was that it was a water based paint that ran about $85 a gallon. He handed me a test sample that consisted of a 2x4 piece of sheetmetal, and challenged me to get it to crack, flake, or chip. We bent it in half, and beat on it with a ball peen hammer on the anvil, and it held up. If you can figure out what it was it should do what you want it to do.

How big of a book do you think it would be? I was thinking something on the lines of a spiral wound type reference that could be done at a Kinko's or similar facility. Kind of like some of the reloading books out there where each page would have a different striker. Actually, using the page puncher, and spline installer is fairly easy. With the splines, updates could be added later. It could also be done as just the pages that the customer could put into a 3 ring binder. I think that there would be a bigger market than the couple of dozen that you think with all of the Ren faires, Celtic games, Scottish games, mountain man rendezvous, Civil War reenactments, etc. As for your sketching ability, I can draw them up for you, or a digital photo could be taken of the ones you have made. C,mon Mikey think big:D

Instead of a sledge we had an old axle that we used. The wheel studs really helped to bust the coal up. The crushed coal dropped through a grate that was installed in the bottom of a large diameter pipe, and had a cleanout on one side where we shoveled the crushed coal out.

A lot of times the makings are faint to begin with. Check the lower left front (under the horn) foot for a serial number. Be careful removing the paint, you don't want to remove any markings.

Another way to find out tool names is to look at a suppliers catalog. Centaur Forge sells blacksmithing tools, and has a website. You can also peruse the websites that are found on the headers here.

Are you talking about the Steyr M95 straight pull? I have never had a problem with the bolt myself. Could be that the latest batch of these are a bit worn out. Mine, which I got quite a few years ago, is in like new condition.

That sounds like a good plan. Although with that small of a blade you could harden the end and grind the entire blade afterwards, then temper it. Watch your heat while hardening, as the thinner edges, and point will heat faster than the other parts.

What I wanted to say about nonmagnetic items was how they move around in the field, not the heating. Haven't had a lot of sleep lately. There were some copper parts that we had to contain as they went through through the coil to keep them from jumping out of the feed wheel. As for the scaling, on our parts it was not any greater than heating them with a torch. The only problem I would see with a shielding gas is when the part is pulled out and exposed to the atmosphere it would oxidize. Really depends on how long it is at heat, and exposed.

I guess the question now is when is Mike going to write a book an the development, and styles of flint strikers around the world.

The frequency is the power supply itself. Your unit is probably in the KHz range, that is the number of times per second that the polarity of the Positive/Negative reverse positions. The Pos. Neg. = North South poles in the magnetic field. What you are doing is taking the North South poles in the material itself and moving them at such a rate that it forms internal friction creating the heat in the part. It seemed odd to me that the copper we were annealing would heat because it is normally nonmagnetic, but it does. Was the spacing of the coils the same on the 7, 4 turn units you made? They may have been canceling each other out to some degree. With the units we had if a part touched the coil it would trip ,and shut the unit down. Any insulation that will take the radiant heat will work. Fiberglass, solid ceramic, Kaowool, etc.. We were annealing copper electrical connector ends that get crimped, as they were brittle after machining. The coils we had were different than yours since we could not pas the entire part through the coil, and it was automated. Think of a carousel with the parts on the outer edge. The coil was a U shape that straddled the parts. After heating they fell into a water bath. Some parts we were doing 2 a second continuously all day.

The magnet is easy to do since all that is required is a large magnet(s), and placing it under the heel which out of the way. I used old speaker magnets--free. If you have ever watched a shop turn brake drums / rotors they will wrap a rubber strap around them to deaden the vibration from cutting that can cause chatter. Same thing here.

Paint the face white and the base with black, and white stripes---oh wait , that is for Mime-ing an anvil not muting A large speaker magnet under the heel works nice, a pair of vise grips clamped onto the heel, buy a Fisher brand anvil, JPH hangs a heavy weight off of the horn with a strap to deaden the ring.

If you click on the picture it will enlarge, and you can enlarge it again. It appears to me it is made of 2 tin cans full of concrete.