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What did you do in the shop today?


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On 12/11/2018 at 7:44 PM, Daswulf said:

DuckCreek, what size is it? Haven't run into any buggy axle steel yet. 

Daswolf, this is what I call “buggy axle”. It tapers from wider and thinner in the middle to square near the hub ends. Different varying overall dimensions according to weight of the buggy.

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I made a handled hot cut and a drift out of spring steel.

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It was my birthday and I was on call to cover the factory all day---so I fired up the forge about 10' from my laptop and worked on finishing off a stake anvil. It had been placed aside while I was waiting for power tool assist but I decided to work on it by hand anyway. Wouldn't be the first anvil I've draw filed the face on. The first shot is with the stake in one of the two 1" adjunct hardy holes in a 50# piece of plate I found at the scrap yard

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22 hours ago, Daswulf said:

Ted, for the smaller stuff like this I use a Lincoln 135 mig with argon/co2 mix gas and .023 wire. It has served me well for Many years.  

Do you find that gas gives you a cleaner weld? Flux core isn't working for me and I was thinking about getting a gas bottle. I also have a Lincoln 175.

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Both gasless and gas shielded weld have their place. Flux cored may produce a bit of spatter but the weld is hotter and penetrates more and you can weld outside in windy conditions. Gas shield appears to be easier but it is not if you need the weld to be structural in any way. 

Welding requires practice and a good instructor and then more practice, a bit like shooting. You don't weld for a month and your next weld stinks. 

 I discovered dual shield welding recently and can't get enough. You never stop learning :)

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10 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

The old Borax wagons had 7' diameter rear wheels and the tires were 1" THICK.  Wide range of wagon sizes based on use cases.

Yup,  some of the old heavy carts had wheels as big.. I had seen one with 8-10" wide rim easily 7Ft tall.. 

Buggies on the other hand,  I've seen some really light ones with 1/8" thick by 3/4" wide rims..  Of course once rubbered tires came on the scene the rims became very light as the rubber took up nearly all the abuse of the cobble stone and stones..  

few realize as the rims were beaten on the stones they would peen the rim.. Cobble stone streets were tough on tires.. 

 

7 hours ago, Ted Ewert said:

Do you find that gas gives you a cleaner weld? Flux core isn't working for me and I was thinking about getting a gas bottle. I also have a Lincoln 175.

Yes, gas is much cleaner as there is no added solids for flux which then has to be removed..  

Dual shield is a great wire for needing really clean welds on sketchy materials and is in a lot of places the standard go to..  I carry ESAB dual shield and it's a great wire in 0.045.. It might come in smaller sizes but 10 years ago 0.045 was the smallest you could get as it was an industrial wire.. 

The way you weld with mig will play in a lot with the results you get..       While flux core is called hotter.. It's usually ran at a different polarity than solid wire..  Also the gas one uses.. Argon, CO2 or a mix of argon and CO2 plays into how the weld puddles out as well as penetration and such.. 

One of the other factors with clean up is which method of wire transfer you use.. Short circuit,  globular transfer, or spray..  Spray is amazing.. 

MIG for structural welding or critical welding like on pipe and such won't suffer a fool..     But with practice MIG welding is just like any other skill set.. 

Practice makes perfect..   I have used MIG for welding up  Exhaust headers for turbo charged cars back int the day and they stayed together for 150K easily where tig welded units fail.

The main thing with a MIG welding is the setup.. Once you learn how to setup the MIG for the weld type, wire size etc, etc  it will pretty much run itself..  Setting up the machine is where the skill really comes in..    I've had guys show up for a mig lesson and they are running really nice beads 4 hrs later.. 

It's not rocket science but getting everything dialed in will pay off in spades..        If you have a dial machine, some will tolerate turning the dials while you weld.. Start out running sample beads and adjust voltage then fine tune wire feed (which is where you change amperage) It's a matching game..  If your MIG has inductance control you can fine tune with this even more.. 

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If you get porosity, stop! You cannot weld the pinholes away. They need to be ground out. Welding over the top seems to drive the porosity deeper into the parent metals. In my experience, porosity is usually a gas issue. Check your cone, and difuser, if they are plugged you don't get proper gas coverage. For MIG, I usually run gas at around 25-35 CFH. I was instructed in tech school that it is possible to over apply gas, and create a Venturi type area around the weld pool that contaminates the weld by drawing in atmospheric air. Maintain proper distance from the cone to weld pool to get adequate gas cover.

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My neighbor stopped by with a 5' section of railroad track today.  After he helped move it onto my property, he asked for a knife in exchange... couldn't really refuse, so I made a this quick spike knife.  It has a piece of an old file forge-welded on for the cutting edge.  Etched to show the transition from spike to file. 

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Rocketman, that is cool.. Nice job on the twist.. It's pretty hard to keep it even over a taper.. Nice.. 

Bobasaurus.. Nice RR spike knife.. Love the fact you added the HC steel.. Well done..  did you weld it on the flat before drawing it out to shape or after the fact? 

 

23 hours ago, Ted Ewert said:

Thanks for the welding advice. I'm looking for clean over structural. Avoiding pin holes to be exact. 

I get it.. But all welds should be structural in nature..    A good weld is, well a good weld on anything..   And for all intensive purposes a bad weld is just that..  

The combination of gettijng a good looking weld with a good structural integrity is of course the best weld.... With that said I have seen terrific looking welds which failed in use and have seen chicken scratch looking welds that have held way past the point of what they should have..  

Metal prep is one of the keys to a good weld and one of the main contributors to problem welds.. Oils or scale under the surface (Dual sheild will weld this last problem)   Most think it's the welding itself that takes a long time..  Nope, nah, natta... It's the surface prep...   Surface prep is "The" holy grail of good welds...    

As for gases you can mix your own with regulators that flow at the same gas pressure. (PSI)..  Then you can vary the rate of flow to create what ever gas you want to use..   CO2, argon, O2.. Yup O2 is sometimes added to Mig gases. (MAG)..    Also     MIG and MAG..      Metal inert gas   vs   Metal active gas.. 

Anyhow,  have a good one.. 

 

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You're right JPL, and I do prep my welds with bare steel and bevels where required. I'm working on a way to connect the stem to the leaf (a piece of sheet metal) which is not only strong, but also clean. I'm almost there, I just need to play around a little more with heat and feed rate settings on my MIG welder.

The next door neighbor showed up at my garage in her bathrobe Saturday morning and gave me an ear-full about the noise I was making. Apparently I was ruining her life. In spite of all her drama and gross exaggeration, she did have a point. People do have the right to a little peace and quiet in their homes.

I have been leaving the garage door open to exhaust the heat and fumes from my forge, and that had to change. So I ordered a dumpster (delivered within an hour!) and cleaned out the back corner of the garage. I installed a fan through the wall and moved my equipment into the new space. Now I can keep the garage door shut and run the forge without roasting or getting asphyxiated. 

I have always longed to live out in the country with a large detached shop and no close neighbors.

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Ted,  Even out in the country unless you own enough land to keep the neighbors far enough away or they all owe you favors it's the same deal.. 

Congrats on the new organization of the shop and fan...   

Lots of the time.. Finish work with grinding and or filing is needed to get the correct joint finish..  It is the difference between a novice and a pro..   Small wire 0.023, shielding gas and then clean up.. or move to TIG..  

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Well, if ya don't mind the bad roads, bad services and high crime, then Detroit is great! I have run an angle grinder at 2 am here and no one says a thing. 

Course, I also have to ignore the shouting, banging and gunfire from my neighbors. It's a trade off!

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On 12/15/2018 at 6:45 AM, Marc1 said:

Is that your template?

Good day everyone!

Yes!

On 12/15/2018 at 6:45 AM, Marc1 said:

Did you steam bend the handrail yourself?

 

Besides the forge I have a carpentry workshop. I make a lot of stairs, today I finished another one.

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Maybe this will help your confidence JLP... LOL. My first, or rather second actually, split Frederick's Cross. (The first attempt succumbed to a crack when I tried to flatten at too low of temperature.) 1/2" square A36 steel, brass brush finish, coated with SC Johnson paste was, faux suede cord.

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On 12/15/2018 at 3:18 PM, duckcreekforge said:

I made a handled hot cut and a drift out of spring steel.

Shorten the blade section length and it wil become a much more effective tool..  Nice work by the way on both.. 

Are you going to rubber mount the handle?   

When I first started blacksmithing 40+ years ago, most tooling made by the older companys Athas. etc, etc were pretty beefy so in the beginning i made big tools..  as I progressed along the journey  I started to experiment on my own with my own ideas that I started to build lighter tools with better ergonomics.. 

The tools I make now handled are much smaller but still designed for sledge use..  The blade length allows for many resharpenings but is pretty much used up just as the eye is used up.. 

While it might seem strange to setup the tool this way.. Longevity can be years and for the savings in materials and the trade off in smaller, lighter tooling it pays off in spades..  

Anyhow, I'm guessing at the eye size but since you mentioned it was made from leaf spring..  Nice work.. 

Glen II...  Nice work.. Looks great..  I've never made a split cross or a bottle opener.. LOL..   Maybe when I get older and get some of these other forging techniques mastered.. :) 

Oh, I forgot to mention.. The main rod is 1/2" and the handle is 7/16"

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