BIGGUNDOCTOR

They are made by one of the big names in bucket teeth MTG out of Spain. Not sure if these model numbers are still made. I cannot find them anywhere other than Epay. I have dropped a couple of messages with nearby mines, and a supplier to see if they use this style / size, or if they are now obsolete. Also got some info on Utah coal from up north. Bituminous with 11,000+ BTU , 11% ash and low sulfur. The market price is $35 a ton, but not sure what retail would be, but I asked about it as well.

A guy I know lost 4 fingers on one hand at an angled cut. I told him that he can count fractions now. He had a good enough sense of humor to get a chuckle out of that. I have had a couple of close calls myself, and luckily they were only close calls. They serve as good reminders when doing similar work today. Offloaded some big bucket teeth I bought at an auction. The round nose are pushing 100# and the pointy one around 70# by guesstimate. I also have some smaller versions of the pointy one that are about half the size. I have 2 of the big round nose, 20-22 of the big pointy, and 5 of the small pointy, and all are brand new. Now if I can find someone who can use them .......... otherwise they are yard art. A dealer in AZ has them listed for $445 / $280 each on the large sizes.

What motorcycle are these being used on?

I live near Fabulous Las Vegas NV where we average 4" of rain a year, and humidity during the summer runs single digits to low teens outside of the monsoon season. I have seen 113F and 1% reported at the airport. As said earlier, the low humidity can catch you off guard, and a lot of tourists find out the hard way when they hit the concrete. You can spot the locals by the water bottles they carry, and I usually have at least a gallon in the car. I will drink upwards of a gallon or more of water a day at home, and the water fountains at work get visited quite often as well. A good rule of thumb is you should be peeing a few times a day, and it should be clear. If it is dark, you are not drinking enough, nor peeing enough. I drink tap water, and ours is so hard it should have plenty of minerals in it to replace what I sweat out. Alcohol (beer) may feel refreshing, but it dehydrates you, so not the best when trying to stay hydrated. Glad to hear you are on the mend.

Look at new made anvils too. Anvil Brand carries several makers. One of my anvils is a 125# JHM, and it is a nice anvil.

We used the wax rolls on snow campouts where everything was usually wet. They burned long enough to dry the twigs out.

I have used a variety of things to get the forge going. Usually just get some kindling going and bank the coal around it. I have used old cooking oil and bacon grease from the kitchen with newspaper or cardboard as well. In the Scouts we made fire starters with tightly rolled newspaper and wax. Roll the newspaper up until it is around 1" in diameter. Tie off with string about every 2", then cut between the strings. Then dip them in melted wax until completely soaked, and let solidify. They will burn for around 20 minutes once lit. Another is take a cardboard type egg carton and fill the pockets with sawdust. Pour wax into the sawdust until thoroughly mixed. Once solid, cut the pockets apart to separate.

Nature here in the desert is far different than back home in N.CA. Far less tall trees, and in general less green which means less hiding places. I have an affinity for trees, and hate to see wood wasted. It isn't like you just make more the next day, it takes years to develop. I have Mesquite and Palo Verde that I have planted in my yard. Cottonwoods,pine,and palms are more prevalent in the surrounding yards. All of them are transplants, the surrounding desert is devoid of trees with the majority of greenery being creosote bushes. I have around 200 Gambles quail that pass through daily while on their rounds. The little ones look like fuzz balls behind momma. When I toss seeds from work out they make quite the chatter as they eat. "My" quail are the only constant here. I do get roadrunners on occasion , and up close you can see the dinosaur within. Yodel dogs can be heard nearby as I also have cottontails in the area. The ones that surprised me were the banded gecko, gophers, and toads. Never would have thought of them as desert critters. The scorpions are an interesting critter when observed up close. We have the giant hairy here which is the largest in N.America reaching up to 6". The biggest I have had here is around 4". If found in the house I toss them back outside to eat the cockroaches. Other places welcome in spring with red breasted Robins, we know it is spring when we see our first cockroach...... The Sun Spiders don't look like spiders at all and they are very fast. They have to be as they do not spin webs, but run down their prey. The tarantulas stay down in the lower part of the valley, and we are starting their migration period. The males will be seen as they are in their yearly pursuit of love. The horn toads are neat, but I see very few of them. I had one as a pet for years back in CA. My brother brought me one home from Arizona when he was going to school there. The tortoises are a special sighting here, and I have helped a few get across the roads safely. The one I would love to get up close to is the Kit Foxes we have in the area. I see them at night when driving, and they are hard to miss with their huge ears and big bushy tails. I live near the Valley of Fire state park, and Lake Mead. With these nearby I have seen desert Bighorn sheep right next to the road. In Boulder City they come down into the park to munch on the green grass , so you can get really close to them. Yes, nature is different here in that it is much easier to see than back home. Plus not being in suburbia helps a lot. George N.M. I had to watch out for Antelope crossing the roads when driving to Burlington WY last year. It is funny how they will not jump over a barb wire fence, but will dive under them instead.

I'd try punching them first. Make a tapered square drift and drive it into the end of some round stock. Or maybe use a thicker wall tubing, drift the square, then forge the other end down and curl, twist, etc..

For those who need to lock hardware together on the cheap, use sugar. Mix with water to form a syrup and dab it on. Releases with hot water when needed. When I worked at the Jelly Belly Candy Co. I had to deal with sugared items. It was amazing how well it worked to glue things together, like cheater pipe good. Luckily most of the time all I had to do was grab a washdown hose (usually ran around 180F) to break it loose.

The air conditioner.......115F today I work outside, and no electrical nearby , so it is just me and my Fisher. Even with it being a Fisher I still wear 33NRR foam earplugs.

Tlmg, I keep seeing people using clamps, but has anyone used a weight? This would work more in a forge, or a kiln that you could run something through the top for the weight. Then run it through the heating cycle. When it hits temp the weight would push the layers together forming the bond. If someone was doing a lot of it a fixture could be made, and an indicator could even be used to know when it has squished. If I understand it correctly, the items are on the verge of liquid on the surface when joined.

Pat, you don't want a power hammer for breaking that tine down, you want a horizontal band saw. We had a DoAll 916 at my last job, and it would zip through a tine in less than a minute. Depending on the size you have a portaband may also do it.

I just bought an AMPCO ball peen. We made a lot of electrical connectors out of BeCu alloys at the last shop I was at. I did the heat treating of those items to harden them. I have quite a bit of it here in the form of scrap bar ends from the screw machines we ran. It doesn't forge hot, it just crumbles. Annealed it works cold. Polished it looks just like gold, and the color makes it easy to tell the difference from brass alloys.

OK, I have owned several Saturn cars, didn't know if they were adapting something from them.

Just outside of Las Vegas out by Nellis AFB there is an area used by locals to do some off-roading. There are several signs mentioning high arsenic levels in the soil, and to not breath the dust. Welding rods are being associated with Parkinson's type symptoms now. The main culprit is manganese, which is in most steels today. You may want to ask for them to specifically check for that. Copper alloys can contain lead, and nickel depending on the alloy. We used a lot of leaded nickel copper in the screw machines when making electrical connectors. C96 was one of our main alloys in use at the shop.

Fleur di lis , what do you mean by Saturn overdrive unit? Ahh, just saw that was from 2020...

Swing by a large fab shop if you have one around. Ask if they have a punch, and get their slugs. The shops that work with structural steel usually have ironworkers in the plant.

One thing with fluorescent lights is that they start dimming after a few months, so you are using the same amount of power, but not getting the same amount of light. The bulbs will last years, but the light output is not the same as when new. Same with the metal halide high bay lights. At Jelly Belly we would go through and replace every bulb in the plant , and the difference in brightness was amazing. The bakery I worked at replaced the 400W high bay bulbs with 150W UFO L.E.D. fixtures. and they noticed a difference in the electric bill as soon as they went in. The L.E.D. was noticeably brighter, and a much whiter light. I believe now they offer them in different color outputs to match different types of lighting. That is the usual complaint I hear, they are too white of a light after being used to to incandescent yellow, or the blue tint of fluorescent.

Looks like the company is still in business, drop them a line and ask what they use.

I need around 1,000 shoes for a project I want to do, but my local farrier wants $40 for a 5 gallon bucket full.......nope. I was at an estate sale in UT and a guy gave me half a bathtub full of shoes. That gave me a good start on my project, but I need a lot more.

I have seen small amounts melted while suspended in the coil's magnetic field. It is just this liquid ball spinning in air....until the power is killed , then it drops like a rock.

Someone modified a house jack as a screw replacement.

Is it a Steelhead?

There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots.