May 23, 20224 yr Yes it turns smooth and free, ive only ever had to tear down one canadey Otto and it was a different model, but it had all metal gears in it, I might pull one of my other western chiefs apart sometime an take a look to see what your running into, which gear is it that came apart?
May 25, 20224 yr Regular Wednesday Scrapyard run, takes a slight bit longer to get their from my shop than Free Bird takes to play. Ludell 8# sledge, carpenter's hammer, 1/2" monkey tool---was a socket, welder's chipping hammer, 2 coils of clock? spring, 2 old HC stone chisels from the mines, about 3' of 1" sq stock for hardy stems, couple of RR spikes and a couple of lifting eyes, 1975 NM license plate, chainsaw chain for billets, short section of RR rail top with just enough of the web to hold it in a postvise---will be a jewelry making anvil when cleaned and polished. 2 Galvanized pails and a galvanized funnel. Couple of conduit fittings and a die spring to make another swing arm fuller with, misc hand tools for restoration and grandkid use. 47 pounds total. Best of all: owner said it was his birthday and they were FREE!
May 25, 20224 yr Finally picked up something I’d reserved at the industrial surplus place before I got COVID: a whole lot of ejector pins. Most are about 1/2” x 9”, and all of them are hardened H13 steel. (I will probably take a bunch of these for my tailgating table at Quad-State.)
May 26, 20224 yr TW. I've got a bit, 25+ tyres, 1.25" rod, 1/2" rod and a pile of misc stuff; + some antiques. I don't find much heavy stock and it's fairly random; though WI seems to be tapering down as it gets scrapped and so less in the local "environment".
May 28, 20224 yr An unexpected find at the flea market: (Not the hammers. I was expecting to find those.)
May 28, 20224 yr Curiosity is killing me. How much did you give for the Samuel Yellin photograph, if you don't mind? I thought the flea markets here were good....
May 28, 20224 yr Good find. I thought it was interesting, the Metalworker title as opposed to Blacksmith. Is the print dated?
May 28, 20224 yr That’s the title he used himself. The photo was taken in 1987 for a Yellin exhibition at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College. The gate shown is installed within that building, a 1917 collaboration between Yellin and architect Cass Gilbert.
May 30, 20224 yr got some nice redwing boots on sale loving composite toe after a using steel toes the last 7 or 8 years
June 1, 20224 yr My take was only 48# at the scrapyard today, nice 6" C clamp, harrow tooth, some weathered strap, some 5/16" and 1/2" sq stock... On the other hand my wife decided that she wanted these old troughs for her raised bed garden---they fact that they don't hold water anymore is a *feature* in a garden. Of course you can guess whose vehicle they went in and who got to load/unload/move them...anyway here they are pre move to final positions. (Guess who gets to dig enough soil from the arroyo to mix with horse manure to fill them?)
June 1, 20224 yr Picked up a truck load of free steel from friends of ours. They have stopped doing metal art/sculpting due to health issues and wanting to concentrate on jewelry and painting. Both are extraordinary artists but never got into blacksmithing. Sonny had to stop welding due to having a pacemaker put in and we bought his MIG welder in 2020. They decided to reduce the size of their resource pile. The haul included a 70 pound bucket of RR spikes, a bucket full of hi carbon steel & some horse shoes, steel plate 18 ga up to 3/8 in., a lot of angle iron, round bar, square bar, a large wrought iron wagon tire, a roll of cable, a basket full of short pieces all thread and large spikes, a bundle of rebar, a lot of wrought iron pieces, some implement rods, different sizes of square tubing and a lot of misc items for making bases out of. About all we could fit in our pick-up for a first trip. They have a lot more and want us to get more at another time. Of course we didn't have a place to put it all in our resource pile's so we off loaded it into our old beater truck, so when I set up a place we can drive up to it and not just dump it on the ground.
June 2, 20224 yr John, one interesting thing about super quench is that the sound is different than oil or water when you put hot metal into it. It is high pitched and more of a squeal that the hiss of water or oil. I attribute it to smaller bubbles forming on the surface of the hot metal. GNM
June 2, 20224 yr I’ve been “processing” my folk truck tine into useable pieces. The first tools to be side sets for the power hammer, but I didn’t have the material supported properly on the first cut. So, now I have a wonk wedge to test harden and ground the second cut to a “proper” 1-2-3 trial cross section. (6” wide, so one left hand and one right hand with welded handles.) While doing the heavy grinding I noticed the sparks had basically no bursts, pretty similar to mild steel. I was thinking this would be 1040 to 4140 material, but it doesn’t look like it is. The person that gifted the tine to me said it’s probably 4130. Anyone have any experience with this 4130 spark test? Maybe super quench for this? Sounds like I’ll be doing some hardness testing with the wonky wedge… (Side set doesn’t really need to be hard anyway, but was hoping to harden and temper it back a bunch for toughness.) David
June 2, 20224 yr 13 hours ago, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said: They have stopped doing metal art/sculpting due to health issues and wanting to concentrate on jewelry and painting. Both are extraordinary artists but never got into blacksmithing. Sonny had to stop welding due to having a pacemaker put in I bet they are glad it's going to a good home and will get put to good use. I suppose it is a good thing to have other interests to pursue. Kind of reminds me of all the material I donated, gave away or ultimately scrapped back home. That can be re-accumulated, health cannot. Thomas, you should maybe rent an earth mover...
June 2, 20224 yr Picked this up from a flea market, I thought it was a fuller but I am not sure at all. It's from the Wisconsin Central Railroad. Also got the straight pean that I liked.
June 2, 20224 yr I made a narrow fuller set from a FAIR rail anchor a few years back, and they are still performing well. I think this might be good option for you, as they're about the same width as your top fuller here.
June 2, 20224 yr Yup, that'll do nicely. I have a few of them in the rail road scrap bucket. Thanks for the pics
June 3, 20224 yr The flea market was a washout this morning. Sending $5 has never been so much fun.... The old battle axe may have saved the whole trip though.
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