How do you keep swarf from following the magnet up the sides of the box?

Yes I do, an inspirational site for sure.

It's the same basic idea I use for collecting black sand. I put a zip lock baggie over a horse shoe fishing magnet and work it in the sand, stream, etc. and when it's well coated I turn the baggie right side out, pull it off and dump it. Baggies aren't very durable though.

Frosty The Lucky.

9 hours ago, Mike BR said:

How do you keep swarf from following the magnet up the sides of the box?

The easy answer is “Don’t have a lathe!”

The practical answer is that it’s not really a problem, almost entirely because of an unintended consequence of a design decision. Because the box is made of wood, its sides create a stand-off that weakens the magnetic field. In fact, the only places on the side where the field is strong enough to grab anything are where the steel nails hold the brass base in place:

If this ever gets to be a real problem, I’ll replace the nails with brass screws. In the mean time, lowering the pick-up straight down and lifting it straight up  (rather than moving it sideways across the floor) helps minimize the issue. 

Uh . . . don't you drill holes? I believe this was a topic of discussion years ago and Thomas finally agreed that any metal cuttings counted as swarf including grinder dust. We also agreed not to call grinder dust swarf to avoid confusion and further long discussions.

In Father's shop we called any metal cuttings, Shavings but swarf seems to be more universal. 

Don't need a lathe to make metal cuttings/swarf. 

Frosty The Lucky.

True enough, but with fewer comedic possibilities. 

Besides, you know quite well about my drill-press-related adventures!

I'm lucky I remember you having a drill press, thanks to my Great White . . . birch attack issues. Got the dent and scars to remind me. Most of all I have Grant Sarver to thank for the Great White "flame" thread and all the jokes and fun poked at me and the healing it did for me.

I'll never forget the gift, thank you Grant, I'll see you on the other side. Absent companions!

Frosty The Lucky.

Spent a couple of hours out to the forge.   Cut off a chunk of coil spring, straightened it out, drew it down to about 5/16" thick, and about an inch wide, for a future project. Then worked on a wheat twist for a handle.  Got one end welded with the help of my spring swage, Got it started on the taper for a curl, then set about the weld on the other end.  For some reason the weld won't take.  It acts like it set nicely, then when I go about finishing it , it blows apart.   Now it's been squished down to a point where I've got to upset it before I can try again. Or just add it to the "wall of shame". 

Modern spring steel has chrome in it which makes a stone bear to weld to itself you need a flux that can dissolve chromium oxide. Jim Hiroslus (Please forgive me if I misspelled your name Jim) posted a recipe for his flux for welding chrome steel including stainless, etc. I'm sure it's here in the Iforge archives somewhere, hopefully somebody out there is better at finding stuff than I am.

Anyway, you need the right flux to weld spring steel and be aware it is TOXIC stuff wear PPE!

Frosty The Lucky.

There is an easier cheat to welding 5160 - use a bit of mild steel or some other steel in-between so it's not welded directly to itself.

Love the shield JHCC. I'm not great with sword work, better with polearms and blunt objects, but one of the things that stuck was that anyone who was only using a shield defensively was an idiot. A little bit of heavy is good for that.

36 minutes ago, Frosty said:

a flux that can dissolve chromium oxide. Jim Hiroslus (Please forgive me if I misspelled your name Jim) posted a recipe for his flux for welding chrome steel including stainless, etc. I'm sure it's here in the Iforge archives somewhere

I wonder if this is the thread you're thinking of? Has a recipe by Jim Hrisoulas (username is JPH though). The toxicity is discussed further down the thread.

--Larry

Thanks Larry! His "steel glue" flux recipe is there alright. 

Blue, be sure to take the warnings about flourspar and flourine gas seriously, it is deadly nasty stuff.

BOY did I spell Jim's name wrong! 

Frosty The Lucky.

I clear chips/swarf off my little Harbor Freight lathe with a magnet tool. It’s a piece of 3/4” copper tube with a cap at one end (actually a copper disc soldered into the end — why pay for a cap if you don’t need one). Inside is a stack of 3 or 4 button-type rare earth magnets stuck to a little flat coil forged on the end of a piece of 1/4” round. I cut a collar from a bleach bottle to slip over the tube and stop chips from sliding up the outside when I withdraw the magnet. 
 

I sometimes turn some non-ferrous, but generally I end up making enough steel chips that the magnet will pick up the mixture. 

Spent all day in the shop with my sons and nephew yesterday. Didn’t get a much done with helping them out, but it was a good time. I did get the last two coil springs straightened and put up on the material rack. I also forged a gift out for a gathering in weeks:

Forged out of aluminum bronze with a wire wheel finish. It took a lot longer than it should have. Had a couple restarts and creative recoveries. The was a lot of distractions and the bronze wanted my full attention while heating in the forge. At least I didn’t braze my ash dump shut… Overall a great day in the forge!

Keep it fun,

David

Sounds like a good day to me. Nice brooch David, I like it.

Frosty The Lucky.

Spent a LOT of time today cleaning up the shop. The magnetic pick-up came in very handy. 

David, that’s an excellent piece. I especially enjoy the lines on the pin portion: very elegant.

I have not been in the shop in a quick minute. Usually I teach a student on Tuesdays but it is 50mph winds out of the west today, so the “feels like” temperature is 6f. My shop opens to the west, with an open front. This means that all that wind hits me, and the forge doesn’t do anything to keep me warm. I’m hoping the student can reschedule…

Got my new kitchen knife ground and started to put the handle on. Got my scales cut, drilled for pins, and somewhat shaped. Mixed my epoxy, glued it up and set the pins. Clamped it up and went about other things. About an hour later i checked it and my epoxy was still wet. So my pro tip for the day is, mixing epoxy resin with epoxy resin does not make for a very strong bond, you have to use the hardener. The wife snickered at me...

Last week i made a latch for a bedroom door to keep the cats out. The wife said we need one for the attic door. So i made this little guy. Not happy with the rivet so i will redo that and there is a sharp corner next to the rivet i need to knock down. And yes i forgot to chamfer the sides of the keeper and latch. The keeper is held on by a tab style tenon with a slot in the back plate. A few years back i made a slot punch that is 1/8" x 3/8" just for this purpose. I surprisingly got it centered with out a huge amount of effort.  

The bit of surface rust on my anvil is from Sunday it being 70° and rainy. The humidity had everything covered in dew, all day long. Yesterday it got up to a balmy 20° with 30mph winds. 

The resin would've set and cured it would just take a while. Maybe a couple years though probably not that long. Still a little hardener is quicker. Did she roll her eyes too or just snicker? I get the eye roll and for the doozies I get the lowered slow head shake and sigh.

The bale should be a staple with two peined tenons. It's easier and a lot more solid. If the latch has a slight outwards curve from the tip to the angle it is easy to start and tightens the door a bit. 

All in all it's a nice practical door latch, utilitarian and not fancy. Exactly what a blacksmith would make to use him'er/self.

Frosty The Lucky.

1 hour ago, BillyBones said:

So my pro tip for the day is, mixing epoxy resin with epoxy resin does not make for a very strong bond, you have to use the hardener.

Didn’t someone make that mistake on an early episode of “Forged In Fire”?

1 hour ago, BillyBones said:

The bit of surface rust on my anvil is from Sunday it being 70° and rainy. The humidity had everything covered in dew, all day long.

Same up here. Like trying to work in a rainforest. 

We have had a nice swing every other week from sub freezing to nice and balmy. Christmas was 55. My anvils just keep growing rust.

I keep my stuff from rusting down here in the Florida humidity using this lanolin anti-corrosion spray.  Humidity is worse in the winter. Walk outside in the morning and it looks like it's been raining all night.  Nope.  Just reached the dew point.

Somebody made the epoxy+epoxy mistake on FIF every once in a while, maybe every other month. 

John has a recipe for ATF + acetone that is an effective rust preventative. I don't trust my memory to offer the %. 

I won't poke fun at anybody who thinks SUB FREEZING  is particularly harsh. 80f feels like a broiler to me, heck I start sweating around 55f.

Humidity is the killer, HOT or COLD, humidity makes it cut to the bone.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Lanolin sounds appropriate for the husband of a yarn shop owner. I’ll have to check that out. 

Does the shop carry raw wool, John?

Frosty The Lucky.

Subfreezing doesn't bother me.  The fudge keeps me warm and I usually have multiple projects in the forge.   

Tonight I modified 2 ball pean hammers into axes.  One camp ax and the other... not a camp ax.