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What did you do in the shop today?


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I never use the same tool for both metal and wood.   When I say tool, I mean electrically powered.  

There for sure is a problem with the combination and unless you have ample room and your shop is fire resistant it is a bad combo. 

Years back I was being lazy with forging and handling a new hoof knife and cut out the blank on the Doall 3613..   Few weeks later I was friction sawing some Stainless steel and the next thing you know I have fire not only in the chip catch bucket but also on the 3rd wheel housing.. 

These older machines are oil leakers too, so it was a good thing I worked long enough to catch it..  LOL..  Catch it.. Chuckle, chuckle.. 

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Been working on this. This is my future place for smithing equipment, not gonna call it a smithy, since it will house a lot of various things and I will just drag the smithing stuff outside, or just inside by the door, forge will be outside though. Next up is brick laying with leca blocks, then the woodworking beings. Gotta get the drainage fixed too and properly leveled.

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Also had to patch my concrete mixer, worn a hole in the bowl, it's pretty old, but sturdy.

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On 8/7/2020 at 2:00 PM, BillyBones said:

Started doing a little grinding, noticed a strange smell. I shut the belt sander down to investigate. Did not take long to figure out what it was.   i got an excuse to get that 2x72 now. 

I was using my new 2x72- day or two back... heard a strange sound. Had a bearing smoking just like that picture! 

My buddy Jake helped me replace the bearing, and turned a thrust washer? to space it back out correctly. Got it all re-assembled, and was finish sanding some brass knife bolsters on the lower wheel- when the motor started spitting sparks and sounded like I was arc welding.

Got some hot grinding dust in it, and burned the windings- allowing them to arc out to the armature. Smh... now I get to get a new motor to replace my new motor. Sigh...

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1 hour ago, Welshj said:

Got some hot grinding dust in it,

I'm guessing it wasn't a sealed motor. Sorry to hear it. I don't have a 2x72 but I know they're not cheap. Save some money and just get a new motor perhaps?

I haven't done anything in quite a while. I just can't bounce back from the medical problem I had a while back.  I did sand some hammer handles and rubbed all of the hammers I use down with BLO. They're currently soaking head down in about a quarter inch of BLO.  I need to give all my hand tools anvil, vise, etc. a wipe down. They are rusting in my SUV because of the temperature difference at night. I'll get on that later. Have a good day fellow metalheads. 

Pnut

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Don't know if y'all remember the Ozark hoe, I copied from an original Ike Doss hoe. I gifted it to a friend back in Aug. 2017. He loved it and used it often until the bolts that hold the blade broke. Yesterday I repaired it for him. The first bolts were 5/16 in. threaded rod forged and the holes drilled. I made the new bolts from 1/2 in. threaded rod and hot punched the holes. Lets see if he can break these.:) Of course like most Cop's I know, they can break an anvil in a sandbox and if you give them two steel ball bearings, lock them in a sealed room within a half hour they would break one and lose the other.

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That should last longer, are you keeping track? The standing joke with the guys when I worked with Tuboscope on the North Slope was the test to earn permanent employee status was being locked in a padded room with two anvils, lose one and break the other. 

I know you went into details earlier but I have to stop and think to remember what I had for breakfast. Anyway, if that the way the blades were attached in the olden days? 

I'm wondering if drilling larger holes through the blade won't weaken it there?

I really like the Ozark Hoe, we have plenty of really hard digging around here, I like it almost enough to do a little.

Frosty The Lucky.

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I don't think the larger holes in the blade will weaken it because the leaf spring is wider and thicker than the original, which was a buggy spring (I think). I think Ike was the one who came up with that design, although other smith's probably used it, just like today.:)

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Yeah, the spring is probably more than strong enough, the first one broke at the greatest stress point, a thicker piece of all thread makes good sense.

I don't see the handle breaking in general use, it's a good design for protecting the handle. It was a good thought Slag and made me look up the proper term, all I could put my finger on was "beard" being wrong one. They're "langets". 

I had to spend an embarrassingly long time searching the web to find labeled images with the things in them. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky. 

 

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Actually this was yesterday and a little today. 

Started cleaning up the little top tool i got Sat. Found some markings, and i believe i know the answer but have to ask anyway, anyone know the maker? Looks like some of it was lost in the mushrooming.

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So got it all cleaned up, and handled. The handle is a piece of honey suckle i was making a sheleighleigh out of that split on me. Also welded a handle on to the little wrench i found in my barn for a turning wrench. Cleaned up and both got a nice coat of BLO.

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And got this today. A coal delivery finally, i was down to about 50# so this is right on time. That is a $20 laying on the one huge block there. 

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2200# of Kentucky's finest. 

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If your were the type of person to every once in a while make a halberd or two or even a pike...the sucker rod ends from the old wooden sucker rods used by water pumping windmills have excellent langets and a good section to make a weld to various pole weapon blades.  NOTE they may be heavily galvanized.  REMOVE BEFORE WELDING no matter which method of welding you use.

(I don't know why I have a couple of dozen of them on a shelf in my smithy and buy them whenever they show up at the scrapyard...)

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Forgot to mention my weekend projects: Hot and humid; went to the scrapyard Saturday, 47 pounds of steel out; nothing to brag about.  Shop was too hot to fire up the forge by the time I got back; so a few "Honey do's" and a lot of reading. 

Sunday made it out early and fired up the gasser, Wanted a project that would be useful but could be done in short bouts till we cool down a bit.  Decided to start making a set of twist examples to display in the shop. I had some 1/2" sq stock from an old railing---not galvanized!  It was a bit long so I decided to do two examples per stick. Did the simple twist and simple twist with the edges knocked down before twisting and did the incising for a a four side incised twist. Now I need to do the two side incised twist on the other end. Forging down one end and punching a hole to hang them from a rake head as well. 

Also used my cole drill to drill through an adjustable wrench handle so I could hang it.

Also drug out the 4 treadle grinders (2 of them patented Oct 20 1896) and 2 blowers and got pictures of them to put up on CL . Then put them away again.

When the heat got bad; back in the house to read and spend time with my wife.

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I quite like the looks of that Ozark hoe!  Personally I’d prefer to make the langets by using solid rod and making a u-shape, like a big staple.  I guess the downside would be that you couldn’t tighten it after the original installation.  If the ends were pointed and bent inward... you could hammer them into the handle and then use wire wrap to secure them!

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Got my forge re-lined over the weekend, nothing big, just fresh refractory wash. Cleaned up my burner mount, gonna put on some better fasteners, and extending the blower further from the forge body with some 2" pvc before going into the metal 2" pipe.

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Made another pair of box jaw tongs, this time a little smaller to fit the corkscrews better. Not my best pair, a little flimsy, but they work well enough.

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And from this weekend, I learned just how tough RR track is. I've been kicking this small piece of track around the shop for quite some time now. It's about 1.6" thick, clean cut on both sides so it was probably an end piece trimmed off a full length. I decapitated it and forged the head into a 1.125 x 1.125 x 5.125" block to make a small hammer and maybe a top fuller. It sparks like 0.6-0.7% carbon, but is tough as nails. 

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Does that make the spacer stock at least 1/8 inch out of matching the clamping stock ?  Or can you then shim the difference using the 1/16 inch thickness ?

Ask another way, how do you use the spacers to match 2-1/16 working stock?

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I’m thinking of replacing the 1/8” spacer with two 1/16” spacers, which would enable me to go from 1/16” to 2-7/16” in 1/16” increments. Currently, the maximum difference between the spacer and the stock would be 1/16”. 

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Nice work JHCC..  I will borrow this idea for sure.  I use spacers which are used for bending metal in the vise where I don't want to damage the metal with a sharp corner but they are only for the popular sizes I use.   Do you leave it hanging on the vise with the chain? 

IFCW, what are those hoes used for? 

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My spacers are T shaped with the size stamped in the top of the T.  Made by cutting into a short length of the stock then heating and forging the tabs out.  Much easier to lose than having an "all sizes in one" System; but easier to have multiple vises "spaced" at the same time.  And without an electric drill easier to make.

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