It followed me home

[JHCC]

A $1 library book sale find:

[yt12]

well.........i did it again--------auction listed as "     1" hex steel...5 ft"---------which i actually had a use for the 1"-------pick up was------1 3/8 hex  C1018-----7 ft..........Ill turn to the gurus-------whats a good application for 1018-------would make a bunch o hammers if a good fit ????.........tia

gotta add--------8 bucks !

[George N. M.]

Well, 1018 is just about mild steel.  So, you can use it for about anything that doesn't require hardening.  You may be able to get a little hardness out of it with super quench but you'll never get it hard enough to skate a file.  It may work for hot tools which can't stay hard because of their exposure to the hot metal they are working.  I think a hammer made of 1018 would mushroom over pretty quickly.  It would work fine but you'd have to redress it more often than something made of a tougher steel

It is still a good score for $8.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Mike BR]

I had a friend who made mild steel hammers for driving punches and chisels. Kept the struck tools from mushrooming, though the hammer became a consumable. 

[Goods]

If you are wanting to make hammers from this stock, it is not very difficult to forge weld high carbon steel to the face… I’ve got some 2” round stock that I’ve been considering do that with.

Keep it fun,

David

[JHCC]

Another  Interlibrary Loan:

[JHCC]

Another raiding expedition into the dumpster behind the college theater yielded a light duty tool balancer that extends about 30”.

I think I’ll mount it to the outside of my portable power tool storage cabinet, to keep the angle grinder wrench handy. 

[Frosty]

Tool . . . Balancer?

Dang, now I can't think of what we called them, something like recoil lanyard, call or come back?

I vote we rename your Theater dumpster John's treasure trove #1. How many dumpsters are a regular host? I mount most of my top tools on old hockey sticks, I picked up 8-9 from a high school trash can next to the gym door. 

I used to have free reign at the heavy duty shop dumpster till a guy at a different camp got greedy and started throwing brand new tires in the light duty dumpster and picking them after work. Someone noticed his rigs had brand new tires, took a look and that was that. Private citizens can NOT buy new Cop tires.

That was it, dumpster diving became a firing offense for any state employee so I no longer got to bring home scrap steel. 

Fuel truck delivered day before yesterday and left some deep ruts down hear the shop. Mud season begins. It's the good bad of spring, warms up ground turns to mush. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

Actually, looking into it a bit more, I find that I’ve inadvertently been guilty of a bit of terminological inexactitude. According to a commercial website that I will not link to here:

”Tool balancers and tool retractors are both specialized pieces of equipment designed to maximize workspace efficiency. Tool balancers utilize load capacity as well as spring tension along a cable to suspend tools in predetermined locations.

“Conversely, tool retractors draw back tools to a predetermined position once they're done being used, often away from the workspace. The instrument is usually connected to a cable that's wound in on a spring-loaded coil for maximum retraction power.”

So, tool retractor. I lounge about corrected. 

[Frosty]

And now I know what a "tool balancer" is, I can think of a number of things one would be handy for.

Thanks John, Lounge well my friend. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

HGR often has balancers on their site. 

[Frosty]

HGR site doesn't like me, it stopped letting me sign in and since then says I already have an account and won't let me open another. I get no response trying to them contact either.

Frosty The Lucky.

[yt12]

too many projects too little time........1  1/2 x  3 1/2 x 18'  ( now 2 9 footers )  aluminum screed  ( you concrete guys know)  PLUS a freebie 8 footer   (appears a forklift tire found it at the 6 foot mark )----chinazon wants 350 for the big one ----150 for the small-----home for 20.

[Paul TIKI]

Trying to decide what to do with the inlaw's old back deck.  Last year we yanked it down and built a new, much sturdier deck for them, hauled off the wood from the old.  There's still some good stuff there, so I don't want to consign it all to the burn barrel. I'm thinking of maybe building some wall like stuff to sheild two sides to the area I use to forge.  Or maybe as flooring for that area.  I don't really know

 

[JHCC]

A neighbor was giving away a bunch of stuff, and I nabbed an old slide rule. Always wanted to give one a try. 

[George N. M.]

Nice score.  There are probably internet tutorials on how to use the other scales rather than just the C and D scales (multiplication).  The trick is keeping the decimal point straight.

G

[NoGoodWithUsernames]

Got about 300-350lbs of anthracite Friday AM. Free of charge except the cost of gas to drive up and pick it up. Maybe not the best forging coal ever but should be a step up from charcoal. Now just to finish remodeling our house so I can get back to smithing!

[JHCC]

If you haven't read the Recommendations for Working with Anthracite post, do.

 

[Goods]

I’m not sure that anthracite coal is a step up from charcoal. Before I had access to good smithing bituminous coal, I would only use anthracite if I didn’t have any lump charcoal. It might  burn fast, but it burns clean and the anthracite I had seemed to be 50% clincker. (My previous forge was setup better for charcoal also…)

Keep it fun,

David 

[Frosty]

Depends on the anthracite and you're ability to manage the fire. Charcoal is much cleaner in general and bituminous cokes more easily but isn't necessarily clean or lower clinker. The ONLY way you can tell if you have a load of anthracite you can use is to build a fire and learn how to manage THAT load. 

Coal that is half clinker weighs significantly more density wise because of the carbon goodness that was replaced with mineral dirt badness.

The anthracite we were collecting at the old Jonesville mines burned more cleanly than the store bought "smithing" coal available at the time and.

Frosty The Lucky.

[NoGoodWithUsernames]

I had read of anthracite being cleaner coal but I think perhaps that was specifically the smoke. I will use it up and at some point make the hour and a bit drive to Loomis and get some good coal from John McLellan. But this was free and it will burn!

[Goods]

I’m with you, even low quality coal (if it is) at zero cost beats hard to get smithing coal…

[George N. M.]

Clinker is an independent variable from other characteristics of coals because it is a function of how much outside sediment was deposited in the coal swamp along with the plant debris.  You can have a very low BTU value brown coal (one step above peat) or lignite which has little clinker and you can have a very dirty (clinkery) anthracite.  Agglomeration (coking) is a different variable which depends on the geologic history of the coal after it was deposited.

Coals often get mined because of one particular quality being desirable for a particular usage.  For example, the western sub-bituminous coals which are mined in large quantities in Wyoming and Montana, mostly for use in power plants, is known as EPA (Environmental Protection Act) coal because it is low sulphur coal.  It is lower in BTU contenet than the bituminous coals of the mid-continent or Appalachia but the low sulphur content means that it can be burned without using expensive scrubbers to remove the S02 from the exhaust gases.  This needs to be done to minimize acid rain down wind from the power plant.  So, millions of tons of coal is mined in the Western US and shipped to power plants in places like Texas or Iowa even though there are closer coal deposits because it makes compliance with the EPA cheaper.

So, there is no "true coal."  Everything is a trade off of different variables.  There are good coals for blacksmithing (harder to find these days) which have a good balance of heat value, coking ability, low impurities (clinker), and, of course, reasonable price.  Most of us have to settle for what we can find in our area and can afford.

There are occurences of natural coke.  There is a place in Western Colorado where a coal bed is cross cut by a later igneous dike.  Of course, close to the hot igneous magma the coal is burnt up but there is a zone further out where the heat baked the coal and formed natural coke.  I don't think it is mined any longer but was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

And, yes, you can see my old geologist background showing through.  I once almost worked for Peabody Coal.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Scott NC]

  The flee market is a cheap form of entertainment.  I got 2 gold pans, calipers/dividers, a folding skeleton key and a nice curve-o-mark contour marker.  Less than the cost in gas for getting there.  

[Scott NC]

  Also a Bausch & Lomb clip on eyeglass Loupe.  You never know....