What did you do in the shop today?

[Goods]

Thanks, I understand. Now I just need to make it work. Practice, practice, and more practice. Just need to find more hrs in the day...

(yes, coal forge.)

[Frosty]

22 hours ago, Dax Hewitt said:

The fire was bigger than it should have been because it was in a sound proof box that had 20 years of rubber belt dust in it and 20 years build up of oil vapour from the gearbox breather. 

Poor maintenance can kill anything. Belts will loosen with wear and a Roots type blower can pull a lot of force through the belts. I've always preferred a chain drive where high forces are involved. 

This burn is almost like the grain mill saying 100 yrs of accumulated grain dust exploding when a 100 yr old motor over heated was an unforeseen accident. I was thinking those guys needed someone to tell them not to BBQ at the gas station. 

I love how a Roots looks, I've briefly considered making a wall clock in the shape but I got distracted. Thinking about it again though. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Chris C]

I finally finished stripping the bark off my anvil's stump base.  Used a spoke shave to clean it down to good wood.  I'll post a picture when I get the straps installed.  I do have a question though.   I already know how I'm going to work up the strap so it's able to be tightened.  But I'm not familiar enough with the flexibility of steel strapping to know what width and gauge  I'll need to go around this 20" diameter log.  Just for appearances, I think it would look good to have a 2" wide strap.  Would 13 gauge be good?

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I always make bands out of old wine barrel bands. I think they are about 12 or 13 gauge. I think 13 would work fine.

[Chris C]

Thanks, IFC.  Now to find a source.

[ThomasPowers]

How much tension you need to apply factors in the size too.  Remember smiths tend to over engineer everything---cause we can!  (Ever ask a machinist how they would put a 90 degree bend in a piece of steel a couple of inches from each end...)

[alexandr]

Stone chips and epoxy .

 Made a tabletop for a wrought iron console.

[Chris C]

That's really nice looking Alexandr.

Thanks for bringing that up, Thomas.  I don't rightly know how to explain how I'm going to make the band and connectors, but I'll try.

My thought was to cut a band about 68" long and brad a piece of 2 x 2 x 1/4 angle iron about 8" back from the edge, leaving the 8 inches extending beyond the angle.  The other end of the strap will have the 2 x 2 x 1/4 angle bradded to the end of the strap.  When the two ends come together, the part that extends beyond the angle will go underneath the other end of the strap, keeping both pieces of angle iron from wanting to pivot.  A bolt will pull the two ends together.  If that makes any sense.

[Dax Hewitt]

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

Poor maintenance can kill anything. Belts will loosen with wear and a Roots type blower can pull a lot of force through the belts. I've always preferred a chain drive where high forces are involved. 

It certainly can. I look after about 50 or so roots blowers for this customer and don't have any problems, this is one that their own maintenance guys installed and 9 hours later the fire brigade was on site. My guess would be that rather than fit and tension the belts then re tension after a hours running they fit and left them. 

Chain drive and toothed belts are not recommended for roots blowers, it was okay on the older ones that were built to last but on newer ones the instant transfer of close to 100% of the energy has a habit of snapping the drive shaft. It's okay with a frequency converter or soft start but not for star delta or dol start.  A energy consultant was called in a few years ago and convinced them to replace the v belts with cogged ones to save x amount of energy lost through slippage. He saved them a fortune in energy when the shafts snapped and the motor was left running with no load, unfortunately this was put in to the shadows by the repair costs. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

The way I make my bands is to measure the circumference, then just bend each end about a 90 degree bend so I have about a three inch gap between the ends with the holes drilled or punched. A nut & bolt to tighten them up and they are good to go after cutting the sharp corners off or bent over. Sorta like this. (an artist I'm not) I made one once a long time ago out of a piece of chain and a turnbuckle, which worked ok too.

[Chris C]

1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

Remember smiths tend to over engineer everything

Like Thomas said.............I'm guilty of the same thought process.

[Frosty]

2 hours ago, Dax Hewitt said:

It certainly can. I look after about 50 or so roots blowers for this customer and don't have any problems, this is one that their own maintenance guys installed and 9 hours later the fire brigade was on site. My guess would be that rather than fit and tension the belts then re tension after a hours running they fit and left them. 

You have a lot more time with them that I do, even when I had a couple to keep working. We had a couple guys on the drill crew who did everything by half measures and I spent more time straightening out their work than just doing it myself. Just slapping a belt on and leaving sounds too familiar.

Can't argue about chain drives, they are a hard connection, most of the ones I was involved with were driven my hydraulic motors so they didn't have a hard start. If for some reason I'll remember if I end up working with a Roots blower again. 

Its good talking with someone with a common interest Dax.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Les L]

I've been working with some 3/16 & 1/4 flat stock and didn't have a pair of tongs that worked well with the material, but I was able to take care of that problem this weekend.

[pnut]

16 hours ago, Irondragon Forge & Clay said:

I made one once a long time ago out of a piece of chain and a turnbuckle, which worked ok too.

That is ingenious. I will definitely commandeer this idea in the near future. Thanks for posting that I wouldn't have thought of that in a million years.

Pnut

[ThomasPowers]

If you really want to play up the blacksmithing; forge your strap out from round or square stock so it's all hand hammered.

[arkie]

Or...just hand hammer the flat strap 

[ThomasPowers]

Actually hammering the strap to make it look hammered usually gives a different look than hammering stock into strap  With the stock you get a more subtle look---if you are trying to hammer it smooth and even---good practice! While trying to make a strap look hammered tends to overdo it. I attended a talk from a fellow who had working in the Yellin shop and he said they would take out of size stock and hammer it down to the required size for everything to make sure it was ALL hammered.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Irondragon Forge and Clay, that is a pretty fancy burl you drew for an anvil stump.

Dad and I never banded the stump under the Fisher. It was a wind twisted Eucalyptus stump , and it lasted for around 30 years before simply rotting out the center.

 

[Chris C]

2 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

If you really want to play up the blacksmithing; forge your strap out from round or square stock so it's all hand hammered.

You know, Thomas, that's really a pretty snazzy idea..............but I don't have a forge or access to one,.........yet.

I'm not having any luck finding 13 gauge strapping, so I may just go ahead with 1/8" and struggle with the bending into a circle.

[jlpservicesinc]

Chris you can do a lot of this kind of thing cold.. Yup, cold.  Texturing with a hammer can be cold.  With the 1/8" there is no reason to struggle.  all you need is a stump, dirt, sand, car bumper for bending it or a vise with the jaws opened up some.  nearly anything can be used as a form. 

[Chris C]

As could, I assume,  the horn of my anvil.

[jlpservicesinc]

I would use the face and us the face or peen of the hammer or a ball peen or rounding hammer. 

the very heel or horn should not be beat on persay without hot metal on them and ideally, you want to watch just how hard you are working on them.  

The face in the center mass should not be affected by a little cold hammer work with texturing the bar or band. 1/8" is very malleable.  Not sure if you have seen the video on "Metal responses that don't really make much sense". 

I posted it to raise the questions as to why metal does what it does and the flat section is 1/8" X 1". 

[ThomasPowers]

1/8" hot rolled you should be able to bend by hand around the stump then start with an over long bolt or all thread and snug it down, then clamp the ends with a c-clamp---be wary of it springing off!--- and replace with the final bolt.

Do you have the ski jump tool?  Mine is a hardy hole tool that looks like a cross section of a mountain or ski jump with one side steeper and the other shallower. You use it by placing the metal  so it bridges from the top of the tool to the anvil face and then strike the un supported area to bend the workpiece. Then slide it along and strike the new area, continue to do so and you can get a very nice curve---you may need to flip the tool round once the shallow part doesn't provide a good gap to strike over anymore.   Sure a lot simpler to demonstrate than to describe!  It's sort of a bottom swage with lots of variation possible for the curves it makes.

1/8" x1" hot rolled you don't need the truck trailer hitch and the Semi load strap and a tree to bend it round...

[jlpservicesinc]

if you mean bending the bar over the horn.  Not really a good use of time or energy.  Using a hollow shape will reward you so much faster. 1/8" you can basically wrap around the stump. 

 

Thomas, you beat me to it.. chuckle, chuckle. 

[Chris C]

Okay, thanks to you both for the suggestions..  Just got back from picking up the 1/8" strap.  I'll get it on this weekend.