What did you do in the shop today?

[671jungle]

Been awhile since I’ve been in here. Hope everyone is well.

native style bush knife I made for a friend. They wanted the raw look.

[SHC]

Hey that thing looked mean!

[ThomasPowers]

Nice, very appropriate, save for the abrupt bevel. I'd stretch it out a bit more.  I have a book on Indian Knives, I could dig out the title to if you are interested in seeing some other originals.

[M.J.Lampert]

On 1/17/2022 at 12:30 PM, ThomasPowers said:

MJL, may have been one of the new Boron alloys that don't break like HC steel; but they also can't be quench hardened for blades. 

 Thomas that may well be as they slowly chip away when hit with rocks  and spin at high rpm

i found this one one site that makes a similar tooth

Quote

We offer hot saw disc teeth for forestry feller bunchers, forestry brush mulchers, and forestry mowers. Designed to fit existing saw disc heads and made from a high quality special grade of steel to support longer wear life. Our teeth are designed to handle an array of applications, reduce operating costs, and maximize up-time.

and contacted a rep for the company that makes these and received this reply on material

Quote

_They are all steel. Depending on the tooth, some have a carbide overlay.

i am wondering what type of steel is it a borron alloy or a standard carbon steel

-We have a heat treated tooth and a carbide version.

I know these have no carbide on them so I may mess around some more

 also the snow destroyed the chimney i am thinking of taking a 10-12in taking the inner pipe out and lining it with cast-o-lite and see if it works better than my current forge

also is it normal for cast-o-lite to  fracture in colder climates? -35c and then when-20 fired up to forging temp then cooled to -30 that night and other times at -10 to-15C

 

M.J.Lampert

 

[bluerooster]

Last week I asked a welder on the job if he could come up with a piece of steel plate to replace the top on my forge table.  Today he handed me a piece of 2'x3'x5/16".  No charge.  I got home with it, and had enough for the table, and a new fire pot. :D  The old fire pot is just fine, but only 3/16" thick, and the sides don't slope as much as I would like. 

[hheneg]

On 1/18/2022 at 11:44 PM, hheneg said:

New project

 

 

 

today

Edited January 20, 2022 by Mod30
Excessive quoting

[George N. M.]

OK, I'll bite.  What is it?  I see a metal lined hole in the ground and some things sticking out the side of a building.  What will it be when completed?

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Also why do you keep quoting your post from 2 days ago without any new information? I saw one quote that has been removed.

15 hours ago, hheneg said:

today

 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

My guess is there’s gonna be a chimney there? super sucker setup?  
hole in the ground for a foundation? 

not doing much in the shop today except hiding out by the shop stove Lol, 

just got done busting ice an filling the water troughs, and feeding the animals,

tonight it’s supposed to get even colder, I just heard on the radio a little bit ago that it’s expected to get down to 6 degrees F 

gotta remember to set the sinks to drip before bed

 

[ThomasPowers]

Today was the coldest we've had lately; so there was a Fire Alarm at work and we all got to stand outside for some time.  Luckily nothing major; just a machine letting out the magic smoke.  I'm going to insulate the hose bibs tonight---the small Styrofoam  ice chests they ship my insulin in make a nice cover for the hose bibs.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

I got a heater running in my well house and that combined with setting the sinks to drip saves me a lot of headache in the morning lol, 

I switched my hose over to a rural water hydrant inside the well house,

so I’ll be able to get water to the critters Tomorrow,

the outside hydrant runs off the well and it doesn't matter what i do that one always freeze’s, 

 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I have the well house so insulated, with 4 inch Styrofoam sheets, that a 100 watt incandescent light bulb will keep it at 50° F when the outside temperature is -5° F. When I plumbed the house all outside hose bibs are freeze proof, just have to disconnect the hoses and drain them and no piping runs in the outer walls so no problem with them freezing.

[Geding]

Hello everybody! I don't remember when I visited the forum!) But there is some result of the time spent in creating the horn and related instruments. I made an air duct to the fan, painted the forge, put the anvil and vise in order. It remains to make a base for an anvil, I will spend time on it with pleasure!)

[bluerooster]

Got the firepot welded up and installed. Now I gotta get it out to the smithy, and fire it.

I ran the air inlet at a slight downward angle because I'd had trouble in the past with hot coke falling through the grate, and getting in the mouth of the inlet. It caused the tyure to glow red with air. I figure the only thing allowed to get red in my forge is the fire, and the steel I'm working.

[Jobtiel1]

I started working on a bearded axe, and was forge welding the beard, a piece of leaf spring, in. It's a wrapped eye axe. However, the beard crumbled while forge welding. I've been looking around on the forum, and found that leaf spring should be welded at a bright orange, not at yellow. Which leaves me a question. Should the mild steel be at yellow and the leaf spring at Orange during forge welding, or will it also work when the mild steel is at the same temperature as the leaf spring?

~Jobtiel

[SHC]

Y’all talking about winterizing pipes and such. I ain’t done much in my shop the past few days because my day job is water treatment and distribution. I have a LOT of plumbing to winterize. 
Twistedwillow, there’s a gadget available at many hardware stores, I call it heat tape. I’ll take a picture when I can. It looks like an extension cord without a plug, you coil it around whatever you’re trying to keep thawed and plug it in, you can use an extension cord. It has a built in thermostat so it’s not on all the time but turns on when it drops to a certain temperature. Used in conjunction with styrofoam insulation you should have no trouble at all. I have some water wells wrapped in this stuff, then covered with R-11 fiberglass insulation. Topped off with plastic drop cloth, garbage bags, or visqueen, whatever plastic sheeting I can get my hands on with plenty of duct tape to keep it dry. 
 

This may also work with your water troughs, but I’ve never tried it on anything that size, it’s meant for plumbing. It could be safe to drop the end into the water as the device itself is weather resistant, except for the plug. But please don’t risk your animals based on a “maybe” from me. 
 

Finding a frozen water well running wide open is nerve wracking. If you’re  lucky you just burst a pipe. If not, running the pump dead headed will burn it up. Only have a short time to get everything fixed before the whole community loses water. Prevention is obviously much better. 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

They make heaters specifically that go into water troughs to keep them from freezing up, and they work awesome!

but….. my goats won’t leave the cords on the tank heaters alone 

well house doesn’t freeze because it’s heated,

I’m not worried about running the whole community dry… the closest person using a well to me is over half a mile away… an that particular well runs dry pretty quick at about 200 gallons… just sayin… 

the only thing that freezes out there is the outside faucet because its not a frost free and they didn’t drill the hole big enough through the concrete to insulate the pipe the passes through the block wall, 

I have a rural water line inside the well house that I use to water the animals during cold weather, hoses stay in there as well to keep them from freezing up, so it all works,

The house usually doesn’t have any issues as long as it’s above 20 degrees, lower then that I just open the cabinets so heat gets in there and set a sink to a drip for the night, 

I could use a heat tape like you suggested, I’d have to run power over there first, an I might get around to that one of these days, 

for now everything works out just fine,

the only leaks I’ve had in all the years I’ve owned this place were from a rusted out underground pipe and a compression coupling connecting a cpvc line to another rusty steel line, I’ve never actually had a pipe fail from freezing here though, 

 

 

[BillyBones]

Submersion heaters are what those are called that go into a water trough or a solvent tank. The solvent does not freeze but you ever wash transmission parts in 20* F solvent you would know why we warmed it with one. 

Living in Ohio and having to get into a crawl space to insulate pipes or wrap with one of those heater cords, having to prop open the crawl space and aim a torpedo heater under the house ( making the whole house smell like diesel exhaust), laying on  my back with a cold drip of water fixing a broken pipe in said crawl space. I swore many years ago any house i own will have a basement. 

[Frosty]

36 minutes ago, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

but….. my goats won’t leave the cords on the tank heaters alone 

Goats LOVE to chew, buy tank heaters with braided SS cords. We used dense RUBBER water buckets with SS cords and spread them around and away from salt licks so the goats had to  walk between water and mineral licks. Rubber buckets so they could chew them without damaging them. Galvy metal troughs froze regardless what kind of heaters we put in them

I carried jug of warm, too hot for a bath, water with apple cider vinegar to prevent urinary calculi twice a day and dumped and refilled the buckets twice or more per day. 

Keeping goats drinking during winter is really important.

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Lol, yea those fat free loaders are pretty destructive to anything they can reach,

I’ve got the heavy duty rubber maid troughs and they hey make a heater that plugs into the drain holes on those but I haven’t tried one of those yet, 

If I do I’ll put the trough on the fence with the cord to the backside so they can’t get to it, lol,

I busted and removed ice this morning, had about 2” on the top,  the suns out now so it’s all melting off now, 

 

[JHCC]

18 minutes ago, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

fat free loaders

Is that "fat freeloaders" or "fat-free loaders"?

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Lol, the hammer of grammar strikes again!

well they definitely ain’t “fat free” so their definitely fat freeloaders lol, 

[ThomasPowers]

My wife says it's 69 degF in the Kitchen and much warmer in the great room that has the solar gain windows in it.  Thermonuclear heating working well today. (34 degF outside.)  She does want to buy another load of wood, "just in case".  It's OK with me; it will get burnt sometime.

[Purple Bullet]

Pushing 40 deg F here in LaPlace. Once it got so cold here that I took my family for a stroll on Lake Pontchartrain. We took pictures but I can't find them right now. What was scary was that I thought the area we were walking was only about knee deep. Later I found it about 5 ft! 

Going below freezing is an event down here. One thing for sure, we don't know how to handle ice on the roads. I gather its a lot like driving on a wet, hard clay road. You kind of do it sideways.

[ThomasPowers]

I was taught that driving on icy roads was covered by *DON'T*

DON'T drive unless absolutely necessary!

DON'T speed up

DON'T slow down

DON'T make turns

We stocked up in December so we wouldn't need to make a trip to the city till spring if the weather turned bad.  Now it's supposed to be 60 degF here next week.