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I Forge Iron

Little Melting pot


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I picked this up in the scrap, put on a new cord, new vermiculite and it now works like a charm. I switched it on to test it and using an ir gun it got to 350C in a few minutes. I would like to know what its 'intended use' was . And a bit more than 'heating things up' as I got in the shop:D would be ideal ?

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What is the low tick-over temperature?

Presumably there were no traces of stuff stuck to it anywhere to give a clue.

Old woodworkers' hide glue pits were insulated/ double skinned like that. But the temperature does seem to make lead a favourite.

Melting Sulfur for fixings would also be a possibility but that only needs just over 115˚ C.

Alan

Edited by Alan Evans
just remembered Sulfur
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I war wunce a skuleboy an they didrn tell me nuffin like dat!  But that was a Calvinistic school, so none of that lucivanarian stuff was in the curriculum!:D

That said, I'm a great believer in lead fixings and tamping. Never even a hint of sulfur? Please indulge this naïve ignorant youngster and educate me PLEASE.

For the Osha junkies I have heard all the concerns regarding lead yet I don't lick the epoxy, snort the epoxy nor would I stick my epoxy covered gloved hand in my mouth? Am I missing out?(Fomo?)

For the sake of surveying! How many of you other blacksmith folk have affixed a balustrade using sulfur? Or am I the only ignoramus?

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I have not used either lead or sulfur. I discovered Rockite X, an hydraulic cement grout, early on and have used that almost exclusively. Hilti Hit and the Fischer resin being the other 25%.

Do you use the cold system of lead wool and tamp it in, or pour the lead hot and and then caulk it in with a lead wool top?

I have seen various demonstrations of the hot lead pour system using plasticine to form a cup when fixing something to a wall and forming a levee around a vertical hole into a horizontal surface. The big safety trick was to put a couple of drops of oil into the hole which somehow prevents any dampness from becoming steam and spitting the lead back out at you.

Alan

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Lead is 'old hat' been there and done that, even got the 'T' shirt. I use hot lead but I have poured molten lead into water to make shot, then mixed cement with coarse sand added it to the shot and tamped that in. Never seen lead wool.

But now I'm sooooo disappointed here I was thinking I was about to learn something 'MORE' from 'THE MASTER' ! Now I'm going to have to live with my own methodically researched information(google :D)

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Well it's not documented too far back; but Theophilus wrote about how to fix a broken knife tang using sulfur in "Divers Arts" written around 1120 A.D.

Must be past its "use by" date by now then… :)

I think I first read about sulfur in the flier for Rockite/Kwikset which was essentially saying our product is much better…I think Rockite expands very slightly as it goes off whereas virtually everything else shrinks…as per lead which requires caulking. One of the advantages of modern resin systems.

Mind you the down side of the slight expansion is that I revisited some of my projects which were set near the edge of York Stone pavers and they had subsequently cracked. So ever since I have only brought the Rockite up to just below the pavior and then made a weaker mix by adding sand and / or drilling dust from the stone to top off.

Alan

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Simpson-Strongtie "Set" and "Set XP" work really well and if I'm not mistaken are approved for earthquake anchoring and ledger bolts in Los Angeles county.  I believe Hilti "Hit" and Rockite are in the same boat, but I have an easier time getting Set (they sell it at Home Repo).

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We used a product called CylCap to cap concrete test cylinders for the breaker to test. CylCap is a mix of sulphur and clay specifically to exceed the strength of any concrete mix for test purposes. It's also used to test anchor bolts and such, we'd drill a hole in the target stone set the bar, bolt, anchor, etc. to be tested and anchor it with melted CylCap.  Then I'd clamp it in the cylinder breaker and try to pull the bolt out of the stone.

That cylinder breaker would pull up to 2,000tons I have NO idea why our lab had a brute like that but. We'd note the tonnage and which sample broke, sometimes the #6 rebar would snap first, sometimes the granite block but never, not once did the CylCap fail, not once. We varied the annulus as well, the gap between the bar and hole and even with a huge fill area the CylCap never failed.

We used CylCap because straight sulphur was a little inconsistent but generally considered excessively strong.

Anchor it with sulphur, you ain't going to pull it out. Removing the anchor is as easy as heating the bolt or whatever with a Bernzomatic torch.

Frosty The Lucky.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Reminds me of a 'tinning' pot used for dip tinning of electronics wiring.

A quantity of solder (63/37 lead/tin alloy usually) was melted in the pot. The insulation of circuit connection wires for solder cup connectors. Ends were pre-stripped to the correct amount of exposed conductor (either bare or tinned copper) needed, the end was dipped in liquid rosin flux followed by dipping in the liquid solder. Then the wiring harness was built up. It's an older style of labour intensive assembly technique that's pretty much phased out.

Was shown and taught the technique in trade school 30 plus years ago and I've never used since.

Don

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I've seen similar used for hot waxing at salons...(don't ask why I was at the salons...) Nowadays they use small crockpots.

I have GOT to try the sulfur thing. I hadn't heard about it on tangs, but didn't they used to set them in handles with pitch or resin in Persia and India? Definitely a step up on the manliness scale from Gorilla glue two part epoxy.

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I have GOT to try the sulfur thing. I hadn't heard about it on tangs, but didn't they used to set them in handles with pitch or resin in Persia and India? Definitely a step up on the manliness scale from Gorilla glue two part epoxy.

Nothing's a step up in manliness mounting handles that Gorilla Glue if you hold it in your hand while the excess flows out. Hold it in your lap and you'll WISH it was wax.

Frosty The Lucky.

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