What did you do in the shop today?

[JHCC]

I got a box at the ReStore and used them as the individual stems in the flower I made for Glenn. 

By clipping off the top head, I got a stem with a built-in rivet and shoulder for attaching the copper pieces. 

[M3F]

Looks great!

[jlpservicesinc]

Beautiful work John.

[JHCC]

Thanks!

[George N. M.]

Another use for duplex/double headed nails is to flatten them to make mini swords for kids at demos or to have on your sale table for a nominal price.  If you give them a little bend and they are sabers.  You can drill a hole in the "grip" and make them into a pendant on a cord.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[JHCC]

[GhostTownForge]

that is awesome!! xD

[bluerooster]

Brakes on the Volvo, done.

 Start the overhaul of the forge blower by getting it apart and finding out what it needs, started.

Found that I need a big flathead screwdriver to remove the gear box from the blower housing.  First thought was; "I can run out to the forge and make a tool to do that with right quick." Then it dawned on me, that I've got no blower at the moment.  So, I've got to run to town and get a large screwdriver. That can wait until tomorrow. I've got the whole thing soaking in diesel right now.

  As to the gears I need to remove the shafts in order to get the gears out. The gear on the input shaft looks to be held to the shaft with a set screw, and the shaft looks to be held in the gearbox by a pin.  I may need to drill the pin out.  The cluster gear doesn't seem to have any thing that secures it to the shaft, and can't tell how it's held in.  The gear that the fan attaches to, I can't tell anything about until I get the others out.

[Jim86]

Beautiful copper flower..very intricate, good idea with the nails.

I made a small armoury out of nails once, most are 3in nails, not really for kids, as some are shaving sharp.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Wow that’s pretty cool man!!!

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

1 hour ago, bluerooster said:

As to the gears I need to remove the shafts in order to get the gears out.

I have found that it is really not necessary to remove the gears, in fact it is near impossible to get them back as they were because over the decades of use, they take a set. A good cleaning is all that I do when restoring those blowers unless the bearings/bushings are in desperate need of repair/replacement. Which can be a chore to find those parts.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

[Rojo Pedro]

I love the flowers John. Nice to see something other than roses. Very nice

[Frosty]

Ditto Randy, taking a blower apart is almost always the kiss of death for getting it working again. 

I've "saved" a couple locked solid, ruined blowers by taking them to the car wash and blasting them out with the pressure washer, prying jammed sticks, rocks, etc. out with a screw driver if necessary. Usually though gently rock the crank back and forth with the blower upside down and the junk drops out.

Squirt some 30wt. oil on everything and let it soak in and all but a couple have spun like new. I've had to do a couple soaks with ATF and Acetone to cut ancient grease and oil that had turned into something like frozen tar or coal.

The best rust buster I know of is 50/50 ATF and acetone.

What usually happens to hand crank blowers is generations of kids crank them and feed in rocks sticks and such to hear them crunch, after a while and they don't move so the kids lose interest. They're also excellent nest sites for all sorts of little critters, usually rodents but I've heard of people surprising snakes and wasps. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

48 minutes ago, Rojo Pedro said:

Nice to see something other than roses.

Glenn lived in West Virginia, so I made a rhododendron, the WV state flower. 

[White Fox Forge]

I'm machining pulleys for my belt grinder to slow it down. I cut the aluminum on my table saw and then turned it on the lathe. I couldnt figure out how to turn it without chucking it up. I sat there for over an hour trying to figure out a solution. I then remembered i have a wirewheel/buffing tool that ended up fitting the aluminum perfectly. I was super pumped about it.  You can probably see the chatter from the bit because my motor is undersized and dying plus my tool wasn't set right (don't judge). Also, needless to say, it is not complete yet. 

 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by Mod30
Remove duplicate's

[swedefiddle]

Good Morning,

You can always use another motor with a step pulley, as an idler. small pulley to a large pulley with a small pulley to a large pulley. double reduction. Just an Eye-Deah.

Neil

[Paul TIKI]

I need to go get some duplex nails.  those are some fatastic little things for slightly larger kids into DnD!

[bluerooster]

14 hours ago, Irondragon Forge ClayWorks said:

I have found that it is really not necessary to remove the gears, in fact it is near impossible to get them back as they were because over the decades of use, they take a set. A good cleaning is all that I do when restoring those blowers unless the bearings/bushings are in desperate need of repair/replacement. Which can be a chore to find those parts.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

It had been working fine for the past few years. But the bushings are quite worn.  All the shafts have a bit of lateral movement. And I'm afraid it will cause undue wear on the gears.

[jlpservicesinc]

Ive taken 10 of these apart and put back together and they work great sometimes working better depending on how bad the internal gears and bearings are rusted..  On certain models they have a very wide pinion gear but only use 1/2 of it.. So this can be moved around to get better teeth. 

Once you understand how the gears are aligned and the thought behind making them that way. They can be adjusted just fine but they can be fiddly. 

It seems the later ones had less adjustments and were set up at the factory and that is that. 

If they have offset bushing you can paint mark the location or if you are replacing the worn bushings and there is no adjustment which is often the case then it might come back into spec with the new bushings or not.. 

Either way you are adding life back to the blower..  It just becomes the noise level. 

I own a metal lathe so can make the bushings offset if need be.   One can do this in the drill press as well..  

Often times people just want a usable product so won't go the extra steps.. And that's ok too. 

[M3F]

Bluerooster if you have any questions feel free to msg me. Like Frosty said the 50/50 ATF/Acetone mix is king and I wouldn't remove the gears. 

 

 

[BillyBones]

As someone who has been using tools my whole life, when buying screwdrivers, especially larger ones, look for either square shank or the ones that have a hex under the handle. Many times a worn screw can be removed by holding down the top of the handle and turning the screwdriver with a wrench while just turning by the handle will cuase the screwdriver to slip out of the slot/slots. 

For really worn, rusted, or damaged screws an impact driver is your best freind. 

Jim, very cool. 

White fox, that is not chatter, those are spots to let the wheel grip the belt better. 

[LarryFahnoe]

Gotta love the last seconds of the blower's video...as though it was saying "thanks" for your efforts to put it to rights!

--Larry

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

8 hours ago, bluerooster said:

All the shafts have a bit of lateral movement.

What blower are you working on? All the one's I have are Champion's.

Maybe start a new thread in the Blowers sub forum.

If I remember right TwistedWillow solved that lateral movement by putting C-clamp washers on the shaft. I'll try and find the thread. The shaft that the fan is mounted to has a lateral adjustment screw & lock nut.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

[bluerooster]

It's a Champion. 140 (I think). By my term "Lateral" movement, is lateral (sideways) in relation to the shaft. Bushings are worn allowing the shafts to move sideways. The longitudinal adjustment screw on the output shaft did nothing to help the problem I was having, as the shaft had enough movement to allow the blades to contact the blower housing.  Being a helical (for want of a better term) ground gear, it would thrust outward, or inward d3pending of direction of movement, and the blades would contact the housing.   Once I had it apart, I found that I could set the fan deeper on the shaft, and gain the needed clearance, then adjust the screw to remove the end play. 

Got it all cleaned up, and back together. I'll replace all the bushings next summer while it's too hot to do much forging.   I just don't want to ruin the gears in the between time.

The blower in question:

 

 

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by Mod30
Excessive quoting

[Jason L]

Wednesday I went out and bought some coal about an hour from my house. It was a rough ride and before it was over I was suffering. I won't be making many more of those runs. I rested and recovered for a couple days and today I went out and decided to light the forge and see how well I could manage. I tried to make a pair of tongs out of a piece of 3/4" rebar that somehow appeared in my scrap bucket. I have no memory of ever having seen it before and I have no idea where it came from, but I figured I'd give it a go and see if I could make a serviceable pair of tongs from it. I could not. I fought with it for awhile Thursday but couldn't manage to move the metal very well. This morning, I was feeling better so I cut off a piece of 3/4" coil spring and to my surprise, it moved fairly well. I probably didn't fare well Thursday due to lack of sleep and a fair amount of pain from working the night before and the ride to get the coal. 

I figured the one thing I've never had problems banging out was a knife and although I was loathe to do it, I decided that would be the focus of todays efforts. I found the metal moved relatively easily but my hammer control suffered due to physical limitations. I slowed down and tried really hard to concentrate on where and how my hammer was making contact and I think I made a little progress. Not my best work, but I'm happy that I didn't make another piece of scrap for the bucket. It's my first time trying to make a dagger style knife. Still have lots of work to do on it, mostly filing and sanding I think but I'm ok with what I've done so far. I left it in the forge and covered it with coal to let it cool down slowly and after a few hours, it was cool enough to touch the tang (blade is still uncomfortably warm). Hopefully it's soft enough to do the file work but I don't know. This is more a test to see what I can do and not how good I can do it. If I do finish it, I hope to do more projects that I would really like to do that aren't knives. For some reason, I find the idea of making knives repellant and I don't want to do it.