It followed me home

[SLAG]

Mr. C.,

Yes it would be a good price here, in the central U.S.A.

I suspect that is also a good price in Israel. (especially with delivery included).

There is one proviso,  that is that it burns hot and well.

SLAG.

[JHCC]

Mail call — from China!

A nice little machinist’s square. 

[bertie_bassett]

picked up a few bits on my travels recently, the wood and large bolts are reclaimed from set of groynes off the Norfolk coast. I assume the bolts are something other than mild steel as they haven't corroded all that much.  Might see if there is a mantle piece hiding in the wood but chances are it is too badly split.

The big lump of steel  is 8" wide by about 1.5" thick looks to have been cut with a torch so it steel rather then cast iron. suspect its tractor related as found it on an old farm. may try machining it into a swage block but open to suggestions.

and as for the "tongs" they were in a valve house next to very large 1930's water tower, think they were repurposed from elsewhere and used to turn a square valve stem.

[George N. M.]

Bertie:  If you make a swage block you will find some 60 degree triangles helpful besides the 90 degree ones.  The 60 degree ones will form and equilateral triangle.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[bertie_bassett]

Yes thats what i was thinking too, the triangles sketched on the right side are 60 ish degrees. 

Looking again i need to rethink the sizes, 2" is far bigger than anything i'm likely to need. Dont want to lift it more then once so need to decide  and commit to something

[rustyanchor]

Found a pretty nice breast drill at the junk shop, missing the aux handle and the 3 jaw chuck springs are worn, but it is in nice usable condition.

Fleetway Clipper made in England. No other markings I can see.  Trying to get a ball park date on it- 3/8-16 thread aux handle with a 3 jaw chuck. If it was real old it would probably have a 2 jaw chuck I would think, and newer would have metric threads on the aux handle socket.

I have been trying to dig up info on Fleetway Clipper, and so far there doesn't seem to be much out there, anyone have anything?

Found a UK tool site that has the same drill and mentions Suffolk Iron Foundry as a connected/parent company, but I'm still digging.

[rustyanchor]

Bertie and wiki clued me in on the UK metric conversion, sounds like what we sort of tried in the 70's but the UK managed to go metric, we stayed sorta imperial with an annoying dose of metric thrown in for fun.  Good excuse to buy more tools-is torx a universal standard size?

Random questions from a bored mind....

[Kexel Werkstatt]

Traded a guy a bottle of Irish Whiskey for this great condition Rock Island 543B.  It weighs 125 pounds.

We traded "vises"/"vices".  Badump-psh.

[arkie]

"Slightly" off topic, but your trade reminded me of one I made once.  Way back when I was in the USAF, I was stationed near a large air force medical/dental center.  My wife had to have her wisdom teeth removed.  Dependents at that time weren't eligible for dental coverage.  My NCOIC, who was a medic, told me to get him a bottle of Johnny Walker Red and he would be back in touch.  Next day, he called and said my wife had an appointment at the dental clinic for her oral surgery at no charge.  I asked how that happened so quick and simple?  His reply was that he and the doc were old friends and the doc liked scotch......

[bertie_bassett]

Its always amazing how valuable a good drink is. I do a fair few of odd jobs for friends and neighbors, never like to charge money but always happy to receive a beer or scotch.

[BillyBones]

Torx is a trademarked name, the drive is actually called a "hexalobular internal", abbreviated "6 lobe". Sort of the way we call them Allen drive is actually called a socket cap, Allen is a trade marked name. But in answer to your question yes, they are universal. They are makred with a "T" followed by a number "T-40" as an example. There are however internal and external Torx. Most of the major tool companies now, Snap-on, Mac, Matco, etc, have made multi drive sockets. They are designed to be used on standard 6-point, external Torx, even triple square, basically one socket used on all drives. 

Now a note about whiskey. The word whiskey comes from Irish Gaelic "uisca beatha" pronounced "Ish-ka Baha". Translated it means "Water of life." The original mountain dew.

[ThomasPowers]

When I lived in Columbus Ohio, in the old part of the city---we had a brick street in front of our 100 year old street---there was a small 3-4 man welding shop down the alleyway and out on the next street over.  I found that bringing a sixpack of "brown pop" around 4pm on a hot Friday in the summer could get me an AMAZING amount of welding done for "free".  Never enough to cause problems for the workers getting home.

[JHCC]

1 hour ago, BillyBones said:

the drive is actually called a "hexalobular internal"

Great. Now my mind is stuck on thinking about how the Great Hyperlobic Omnicognate Neutron Wrangler could talk all four legs of an Arcturan mega-donkey. 

[rustyanchor]

Billy,

You Sir, are a fountain of knowledge!!!

[BillyBones]

A coworker i used to have, me and him used to try and find the most obscure words for things we could. Just a way of throwing each other for a loop everyday. 

I hear tale that the Arcturan megadonkey is quite a delicacy, Granddad told me that when i was knee high to an Arcturan mega grasshopper.  

[rustyanchor]

A bunch of Navy Chiefs at intel briefings would come up with some obscure or silly word or something that had no place in the conversation, and try to get the briefer to answer a question about said nonsense. I got a 'blue elephant' question answered.

The Intel Officer never seemed to catch on, that every brief there was some odd question...The Chief Staff did get wise, but I think he found it amusing as well.

It made the very dry and boring brief a little less painful

[Chad J.]

On 2/8/2021 at 1:46 PM, rustyanchor said:

A bunch of Navy Chiefs...

Thanks for your service Rusty, my little sister just got pinned on the 31st.  She was complaining about the whole process prior to completion but after she got her anchors she he been thrilled and says the process was almost worth it.  Now I can't get her to spill her coffee at all.

[rustyanchor]

BZ to your sister the Baby Chief. Ask her if she learned who Barnacle Bill the Sailor is. Initiation sucked, but there were lessons in the initiation process... Pinned on the 31st of Jan, is she in the reserves?

I picked up Chief in '98 and retired as a W4 in '11, it was a good ride, I would do it over again if I could. I was on surface ships for most of my time, so I did a lot of port visiting-good times!

[Chimaera]

Got this pry bar... anyone know what steel it could be? Looking to possibly do a spear head, so hardened but still supple.

[Frazer]

Chimera, like most mystery steel it's tough to make much more than an educated guess. I could be something akin to spring steel or it could be medium carbon steel, etc.. Standard unknown material testing procedures apply:, spark test, quench/file/break test with test coupon(s), etc. This was discussed recently in the thread below and less recently in the one below that.

https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/67571-does-cheap-steel-make-for-cheap-knife/

https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/13472-knife-from-prybar/

Note: If you're making a spear head I don't think it would need to get quite as hard as you would want a knife to be. However, I don't know that for sure though as I've never made one.

[Chimaera]

Yeah, I wouldn’t use this for knives.  I’ll see if it hardens in water. One tine is broken off, do I’ll take a look at that grain. It’s not hardened and it’s been broken a while though, so I doubt it will tell me much. Very very rough, but that could be from it not being hardened and it can be from the whole think being rusty. Idk. As long as it gets a little bit hard, it should be fine for a spear head.

[JHCC]

Or use it as-is for a backscratcher. 

[Frosty]

As a basic observation that crow bar tine snapped without bending so you KNOW it will get brittle and from here that looks like pretty large grain to me. 

In general you can get away treating crow/pry/etc. bars like 1050+/- but they may be a high alloy. If you're using it for something that might cause issues if it fails test it for sure. Some things I wouldn't worry about, say garden tools, plant hangers, etc.

Frazer's test advice will tell you a LOT more about it's working properties not alloy but properties. If it's a using spear, test it, wall hanger, who cares.

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

Mail call — all the way from Oz!

[ThomasPowers]

I had to hurry to the scrapyard before the storm blows in; they were closed. So I went next door and dumped the trash at the trash transfer station and when I went back by; the scrapyard was open "for a little while".  Jumped in and they told me there was a piece of 3"x4" by 2' steel. It was part of the mast for a HEAVY duty forklift and so probably medium carbon steel---just what I've been hunting for to have some power hammer dies made from!  Now I can have a set of flats and a set of drawing dies made for my hammer---after I check on hardening the material, I'll test the torch cut ends when they get sawn off, one with water and the other with warm oil.

I also found the movable jaw from a good sized pipe wrench to make a hardy hole hold down---spring from the bottom to the stump and a T handle welded to the top.

And a 5" pound chunk that may end up as a special die for my hammer.  

Next weekend I may go back for the 5"x2.5" x 2'  chunk... 20 cents a pound...