What did you do in the shop today?

[Nobody Special]

Doing a little night casting. 

 

[GhostTownForge]

13 hours ago, George N. M. said:

For the next iteration I suggest drawing out the ends of the X and turning them up 90 degrees to avoid the possibility of a pot sliding off the edge.

I agree. There are definitely things I can improve

[JHCC]

That's the great thing about iteration: when you push yourself to make each new version better than the one before, not only is that new version an improvement on the previous one, but your skills and perceptions are getting better as well. This in turn prepares you to make the next version better, and the one after that, and the one after that. Eventually, you'll find that those incremental improvements have resulted not only in better finished objects, but greater ability on your part.

[Frosty]

21 hours ago, JHCC said:

We only have dogs.

I feel for  you.

I don't recall who said it, maybe Hal Clemens or Wiley Post or? To paraphrase, "Every man should own a dog so he knows what it's like to be a god. He should also own a cat to know he isn't." 

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

On 4/13/2024 at 1:54 PM, Frosty said:

Maybe buy stronger steel or send it to a professional heat treater? 

On 4/13/2024 at 2:37 PM, JHCC said:

I can always root around in the pile of shafts and axles to see if there’s anything there that’s the right size.

Found a nice chunk of 1” diameter shaft lurking at the bottom of the pile, so it looks like I’ll be going this route. 

[Davor]

I'm going to make a table for the yard, steel base (probably). But I want to be able to move it around. So I made some wheels. Not the most common thing to start with when making a table.

[Frosty]

Starting with slices of pipe is so MUCH better than turning the wheel rims manually. Is the cart only for rolling in a straight line or do you have plans for a way to let it turn?

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mike BR]

Wheels first doesn't seem that unusual.  Just don't put it before the horse.

[Nobody Special]

It took three times ramming the mold up and 4 hours of time, but after all that, but finally got another good mold and made an attempt at casting a lathe bed.

And for all that sweat and tears, I have all this to show for it. Oooh...ah....and then you wait for two hours to open it and see if it came out right. Should know in another 15 minutes-ish. Isn't casting exciting? Now I remember why I switched to forging...

I like the wheels, btw.

[Davor]

10 hours ago, Frosty said:

Starting with slices of pipe is so MUCH better than turning the wheel rims manually. Is the cart only for rolling in a straight line or do you have plans for a way to let it turn?

Frosty The Lucky.

I'm either making castors or I'm leaning to some sort of like a wagon stile with basically two axles where one can rotate.

[Frosty]

When you say one set of axles "can rotate," do you mean turn as in left or right so you can steer the cart? 

Like this? You can see the pivot the front wheel assembly turns on in the picture. By turn I mean the front wheel assembly itself, not the individual wheels. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Davor]

Something like that, with the handle for steering. But maybe an axle where just the wheels pivot. I think the table will be wobbly if the whole axle pivots even if that would be the easier to make. I'm still thinking about it.

[Rojo Pedro]

Nobody- How did the casting come out?

[Frosty]

Yeah, making the front wheels turn like an automobile is more stable but holy COW is it more complicated. We used to build go karts in high school shop class and getting them to steer properly was always a challenge. I never built one of my own but I helped on a few.

A way to make the entire axle stable turning is to put bearing plates at the pivot point. One connected to the top (cart) and the other attached to the axle. A zirk fitting to give the space between a shot of grease every once in a while makes it pretty functional. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

I would try the bearing on the seat of an old office chair. 

Have an old guy at work that has discovered youtube, specifically videos about gold panning. He has bought pans and a sluice and all that, i am expecting soon he will buy a mule, a floppy hat, and bibs. But anyway he asked if i could make him a small pick. So anyway yesterday i made this little guy. Needs a bit if grinder work, not real happy with the eye, the bottom one end is a bit thin, and heat treated. Made if a mystery metal that hardened in oil. 

[Ridgeway Forge Studio]

Billy that’s some nice work. Just keep an eye on him if he starts buying bulk pork and beans and tnt

[George N. M.]

Billy, nice work.  What kind of steel did you use?

Tell him that this is from an old Wyoming geolgist who has used a gold pan fairly often over the years.  A gold pan is only an exploration tool.  Once you find a place that is promising you set up a sliuce, rocker, long tom, or something else,  Trying to do production work with a pan is very hard work, particularly for someone whose knees aren't what they once were.  You spend a lot of time in the squatting position working in cold water.  Not a lot of fun.

I have always liked metal pans better than plastic.  They hold up better and you can use them for cooking if necessary.  Putting gun blue on a steel pan helps with the color contrast.

I'm afraid that there aren't many placer gold locations very close to Ohio.  North Carolina is about the closest and that is mostly private land.  There are some beach deposits around Lake Superior but, again, there is the land ownership issue.

I used a gold pan more for sampling heavy mineral suites to trace hard rock deposits upstream than to try to extract gold although I have panned out some colors.  There is a place here, near Laramie, where you have a decent chance of finding placer platinum.

GNM

[George N. M.]

PS  Gold panning can be a fun hobby, like blacksmithing or metal detecting, where it MAY pay for itself but if you think you are going to get rich you probably have a better chance if you buy lottery tickets.  BUT, there is always a chance.  Frosty probably has some insights into the realities of gold panning.

[BillyBones]

I know there used to be a couple gold mines here in Ohio. But no, Ohio is not known as a gold producing area. 

I watched a couple of the videos he suggested and one a guy who says he is a geologist said the same thing about panning. Find the gold and then triangulate where the gold is coming from and that is where you mine at. But the pan is just used for the detective work. As far as getting rich, nah, i watched another video where a couple guys spent a day crushing rock and actually smelting gold. 1/2 ton of rock and 6 hours later they got 1 1/3 grams. Seemed like a waste of time to me unless it is just for fun. Fun to watch as well and i learned a bit about smelting. More interesting to me than the gold. 

Me and my grandpa went panning a couple times but never found anything. More of something to do with the grandson most likely and yeah it was fun. I could see it being a fun hobby, getting out in nature and the like though.

I wouldnt know placer gold from a nugget or what ever it is all called. 

What kind of steel? Well the kind made from iron. Seriously though i am not sure. I cut a small piece off and it hardened in oil though. I am guessing that since i got it from work it is in the 1045 or so range since that is about the highest carbon steel we work with. 

Thanks for the compliments. 

[George N. M.]

One trick is to pan where there is natural turbulance like the bottom of a waterfall or rapids where the river naturally separates out the light fraction and concentrates the heavy minerals.  I was once teaching some folk how to pan and there was a nearby irrigation ditch which came through a culvert under a road with about a 4' drop out of the culvert.  It turned out that the little sand bar/beach at the bottom of the plunge pool was about 40% garnets (sand sized but garnets are heavy).  Having a dark red tail in the pan was kind of cool.  No real use for garnet sand but a good illustration of how Ma Nature does gravity separation.

G

[BillyBones]

I gathered all that from watching a few videos, like cracks and crevices, where the water slow, etc. That one guy i mentioned, the geologist made a model river to show how hydraulic something or others worked in how heavy material gathers in certain spots. I thought it was pretty cool as a way of seeing physics at work in nature. 

I watched that show Deadwood and deducted this from gold mining. If i were to want to make money i would be either the blacksmith making and repairing the miners tools, the general store owner, or the saloon/house of ill repute owner.   

[George N. M.]

There is always more money to be made by mining the miners than mining the earth.

Also, mining the investors can be rewarding.  The mining millionaires usually sold out at the right time, reinvested and sold out again, wash, rinse, repeat.  Very few miners or prospectors ended up wealthy.

G

[Nobody Special]

On 4/19/2024 at 6:08 AM, Rojo Pedro said:

Nobody- How did the casting come out?

It was a beautiful failure about 1 lb and a hair shy of having enough metal, but I'm not unhappy about it. The mold rammed up beautifully, lines were lovely, less porosity, no cracks, some shrinkage on the top from it running out of metal. I'd added risers and made the runners and gates bigger, which worked great, but also took up more metal and I didn't allow for enough. It's over nine lbs of aluminum total and need closer to ten in the crucible to be sure.

On the other hand I learned a lot more and a lot went right. Got a much better feel for a good temper, my ramming is getting better, venting went well and I've been playing with crossbars and gaggers to hold up the sand in the long stretches. And since I cast at night, I could tell the pouring temperature by the incandescence. I'm worn out now from moving dirt for my wife, but I'll put a pic in the gingery lathe post later.

[alexandr]

Started a new job.  Fencing on the stairs.  Installed oak posts and the first lattice.  There are 2 more such projects in the works.

[JHCC]

A quick(ish) utensil holder for the kitchen.