WELCOME to the anvilfire! Virtual Hammer-In! This page is open to ALL for the purpose of advancing blacksmithing. May 2007 Archive

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J. Dempsey  <webmaster> Rev. 7/98, 3/99, 5/2k, 6/2k, Friday, 04/06/01 16:43:25 GMT

Champion 400 blower grease caps: Hello Josh, I am also working on a Champion 400 blower. It is missing the crank gear grease cap. I found I could fit a piece of 1 1/2" brass sink drain pipe (tailpiece) into the hole and thread it in, after a fashion. Works, but ugly. I think the male part of actual two-piece grease caps may fit the threads. Haven't tried it yet, don't quite feel like spending $10 plus shipping for something that may not work. Hoping one falls out of the sky - David Hughes - Monday, 04/30/07 15:30:49 EDT Champion 400 blower grease caps: Thanks David, I'll give the brass pipe a shot. - Josh Crone - Tuesday, 05/01/07 08:55:02 EDT Post Vise...: Just to keep the post vise discussion going... I have a post vise with what looks like "Herrell" stamped in it. There's more to the mark, but it's too tough to read... I was just curious if anyone might know where it came from... Josh Crone - Tuesday, 05/01/07 08:58:39 EDT Vices and Vises: Josh, Not familiar. I've seen a lot of things like this missread. 99% of imported leg vices in the US were imported from England and made by a few companies over there. The interesting thing about American and English blacksmiths vises is there was very little innovation or change among the two. With very minor exceptions they were almost exactly the same for hundreds of years. I compare their perfection in design to the the design of the Violin. Once it was perfected in between 1550 and 1650 almost no one has dared make significant changes. The necks were made a LITTLE heavier to take heavier strings so that they could take heavier strings and stand up in modern orchestras but that is it. Interestingly the beautiful design of the leg vice was perfected about the same time. The big differences in leg vices are that the British brought them to a fine art form. They had lathe turned boxes (nuts) with fine turned details done by hand. They had those heavy chamfers on the upper legs that became a diagonal square with flats on some makes. The spring was a beautiful sweeping reverse curve and bench brackets were a classic of the decorative art of forging. And THIS was in production vices made in the millions. Supposedly the American version were much plainer but I think some of the late English vices were also quite plain. Drop forged or cast bench brackets replaced those with beautiful rams head scrolls and the chamfers disappeared from the legs. However, the shape and little decorative touches on the jaws remained the same. In fact, this was considered so perfect of design by many that modern bench vises kept those perfect lines on the jaws while the rest was strictly industrial design. Those that have not have no art in them nor any appreciation of the past in my opinion. Since I have a better camera and have gotten more feedback on details I think I need to revist the vices I have and start looking more closely at others. The usual problem though is that those at tailgate events are piled in with a bunch of junk in the back of a pick up truck and often grossly painted. - guru - Tuesday, 05/01/07 10:10:51 EDT It seem strange that the blacksmith's vise has so little respect. When an old smith shuts down he often keeps his anvil and hammer but much more rarely his post vise. Yet for many projects I spend more time at the vise than I do at the anvil! Figuring a good way to mount a vise for demo's is a lot more important than figuring a way to mount the anvil. You can improvise a decent anvil fairly easily but there is *no* substitute for a good postvise! Thomas who's liking for vises is a vice Thomas P - Tuesday, 05/01/07 11:02:46 EDT Me too. I'd buy everyone I see if I had the money. Even junkers. - guru - Tuesday, 05/01/07 13:48:12 EDT More Ad-Vise: Frank Turley--Thanx for your note on the Columbian vise. I also have a Columbian I forgot about, will check to see if there is a date stamped on the movable jaw. When I got it, the threads were frozen. It took a pair of 3' pipe wrenches to get it moving, but after I got it apart, the threads looked great. Go figure David Hughes - David Hughes - Tuesday, 05/01/07 15:13:53 EDT I drew the line at having 10 postvises on hand---then went to 11 anyway. I gave away a couple when I had to move and then bought 2 large ones soon after I arrived in NM---at half again what I had been paying in OH. I have 3 mounted on benches in my current shop, one set up as a travel vise, one that goes on my welding table and a couple of large ones waiting for the coal forge addition to get built. Probably try to put Sq receivers in the floor and mount them on heave sq wall tubing to have some re-arrangement potential. Thomas Thomas P - Tuesday, 05/01/07 15:20:52 EDT I have looked at literally hundreds of vises last few weeks, not that I need another one of any sort, just curious as to what's out there. Ebay, tool vendors, catalogues, all present a dismal picture-- decent oldies are sky high and for good reason: the new ones mostly seem to be from China or India or Czechoslovakia, including those with the fine old name of Wilton. My nominee for most baroque vise: Bridge City Tool's VB 1, currently viewable in the box as Ebay item 290110210212. To see this oddity set up go to Bridge City's website, click on Tool Showcase or whatever, go to Sneak Preview for 2001 and click on Number 58. It's not in stock at the moment. Miles Undercut - Tuesday, 05/01/07 17:20:50 EDT Interesting fixture. I would not call it a vise. . . The fixable drill chuck base is interesting as a pin vise. In the first half of the 20th century there was great pride in manufacturing of bench vises. While they were not works of art they were rock solid and cast of the finest ductile iron and steel with forged steel parts. The big machinists vices and chipping vises were designed to last forever under heavy use (like machine tools of the 1950's). I was never a fan of Wilton vises but they made a great flat open center drill press vise. I bought one used that a fellow had spent a lot of time trying to repair by weld build up and surface grinding. He failed to realize that there was other machining required after thinning the rails. I did the machine work on my 6" lathe and have had a great tool ever since. Wilton is now part of a group of old names that are being made in Asia by the same outfit. The materials are not what they were and neither are the fits. The handles have pieced ends not upset and are light duty parts on vices that were once heavy duty tools. Even the lower quality old vises that did not have the fit and finish of the good ones are still better than the new junk. It just goes to show how little hand work is being done today compared to 50 years ago. - guru - Tuesday, 05/01/07 17:56:17 EDT I have a vise that saw a major machining crash of some sort and was rebuilt extensively, got it for $5 and it works great for when I need a 50# drill press vise. I found a nice large shaper vise that a friend of mine went and picked up for free---I lusted after it but do I really need a vise that is best moved around with a forklift? Same friend I sold a heavy duty brake to for $5; what it cost me and *he* had to go pick it up. I became very cautious about accepting food from his wife as I enabled his packrat tendencies... Thomas Thomas P - Tuesday, 05/01/07 18:33:15 EDT Vises: I have to agree that the current crop of bench vises are pretty much light duty junk. I grew up at the valve shop where we had hundreds of Columbian chipping vises. Most were huge things that had 10 to 12" jaws. Most were badly worn. We also had about 50 pnuematic vises in the assembly dept for chucking valve bodies when assembling with impact guns. The Mfg went bust, and the vises that came to market under the same name about 6 months later were so brittle that the main body casting broke in a weeks use. I designed hydraulic vises to replace them. I had a Wilton 8" machinists vise, that I think was absolutly the best. I bolted it to a table designed by one of my co-ops, who had done two semesters at the local barge yard as a draftsman. The table was bolted to the floor. We often torgued items to 3400ftlbs in that vise! Three of the biggest men on a 13' cheater on a 60" Rigid pipe wrench.! We did make serrated tool steel jaws for it. We also had some unique vises for assembling very large valves. We took old two jaw chucks off very large turret lathes, and mounted them vertically on a heavy stand. Slow to clamp, but would hold those 1500# forged steel flanged valves while you built them up. ptree - Tuesday, 05/01/07 19:05:21 EDT Shaper and Milling Vises: I have several shaper vises off scraped shapers. Both were part of the table and are not stand-alone. They are wonderful heavy duty things for their original purpose but are so specialized that they are not good for much else. The shaper tables that were also scraped with them are MUCH more useful as big welding table setup blocks. I also picked up two Bridgport size milling vises as part of some other stuff. Both had broken feet on the base. . . reparable but expensive to do so. They had also seen a lot of tool crashes and errant milling. Pretty much junk. I MAY repair them some day if I have a specific need for them on some kind of specialized machine like maybe a bar twister. The reason I like my old 1916 South Bend lathe is that it will chase threads down to 2 TPI. GREAT for making vise screws! Combine that with a nice little power hammer that you can forge the ball end screw blanks with and you are in business making HD vises! Now. . . the question IS. Were old leg vise jaws forged from two pieces to make the split screw hole OR were they solid then slit and drifted? Could go either way. - guru - Tuesday, 05/01/07 20:25:05 EDT David Hughes: Not too many Columbian leg vises have a date stamped on the jaw. But the Columbians are easy to identify because of the stubby box projection, some open and some closed. They also have vestigial ducktail lugs at the base of the jaws. They seem to have been an afterthought, like who needs 'em? Some Columbians have chamfered legs and some don't. Was Indian Chief made by Columbian? They surely look like it. Iron City from Pittsburgh made some healthy leg vises. They are stamped with the six pointed star on the side of the movable jaw leg. Sez "IRON CITY" inside the star. Frank Turley - Tuesday, 05/01/07 20:34:22 EDT Milling Machine Vises: For any of You who have or sometime might get a milling machine, there is only one vise design worth bothering with, the Kurt Anglock. The real KURT brand is the best, but even a decent made [forign] copy is better than any other milling vise ever made anywhere. - Dave Boyer - Tuesday, 05/01/07 22:35:39 EDT Portable mount for post vises: Interesting discussion on post vices. I built a heavy duty picnic style table to mount mine to for doing demos at renessaince and pirate faires. Besides giving me a solid place to work and lay tools it also gives me a nice front of my booth that keeps people at a safe distance. I usually tie a rope to each corner and take them out to form the front line of my area. My table with vice mounted FredlyFX - Wednesday, 05/02/07 02:42:00 EDT Vise vices: Hmmm... My main 4.5" may well be a Columbian, then. It has a short box with open end, vestigial ducktails, chamfered legs, and the wraparound bench mount held by wedges with sort of ramshorns for the bolt-to-bench section. It looks more like someone split a horseshoe at the toe and welded the halves onto the mount so they spread in opposite directions, but it's a single forging. It'd be nice if were a Columbian, then it could go with my little Columbian anvil! Alan-L - Wednesday, 05/02/07 09:46:41 EDT Alan L: Yah, you may have a Columbian. They were extremely popular for their time. The manufactured mounting plate was a radius-cornered triangular shape, sometimes with a letter "C" in the center. - Frank Turley - Wednesday, 05/02/07 10:05:57 EDT Columbian mounting plates used the U bolt method on the ones I have seen. Guru; I have seen vises with welds for the screw hole; but most don't look like it, more split, though the "new" ones sometimes look drop forged. My travel vise for heavy duty long demos is bolted onto a 55 gallon drum full of water. Stable and makes the site owners feel you are cautious about fire. Takes up a lot of room in the truck though I fill the empty barrel with demo metal and does not look very medieval... So my "new" light duty travel vise has a couple of 1/2" steel Sq Stock legs that bolt into the mounting bracket arms and angle out and down terminating with an offset step with a 4" spike to hold them in place. Since there is airspace around the mounting bracket I also forged a tong/hammer rack that bolts to the bracket and bows out with a loop in it for a hammer. Taking the forge on the road for a 5 day campout towards the end of this month. Thomas Thomas P - Wednesday, 05/02/07 11:13:09 EDT post vises: I have the post vise I am told was made by my grandfather as a apprentice project in about 1905. He ended up as a master molder and sometimes patternmaker in a large farm implement makers factory in Louisville. I also have a sexy shaped small post vise that I need to clean up and look for marks. All this talk has renewed my interest. ptree - Wednesday, 05/02/07 18:32:52 EDT Post vises: I have a 5-1/2" post vise of unknow provenance, but it works fine. It's got the diamond-shaped mounting plate and chanfered legs, but only has a ducktail on the moveable jaw. The rear jaw doesn't look like it ever had a ducktail, though I don't know why not. The box has one turned line detail. It was in pretty poor condition when I got it, but I polished it up and blued it and now it looks pretty nice...except for the missing ducktail which bothers my eye. I have a beat up old 3-1/2" vise that has been broken and repaired at the screw eye on themoveable leg. That one looks like the eye was built up, rather than split, but that may be an artifact of the bad repair plate job. When I get around to buildign my coal forge (now that I have a ton of coal), I'll probably try to remove the repair plate and re-forge the eye with a forge-welded buildup repair. That may or may not work, as the wrought doesn't look like anything better than single-refined. I need to make a hemispherical washer for it, too. That vise a very nicely turned box with detail lines. SOmeone replaced the pivot bolt with a hex bolt, and that will have to go as it is an ugly anachronism. The vise isn't really worth all the work it wil take to restore it, but it would make an interesting project. While wandering around the farm here one day, I found the moveable leg from a little bitty post vise. The jaw is only 2-5/8" wide, the smallest I've ever seen. The leg is about 11" long. I've never found the rest of it, though I'd like to. SOmeday I hope to find a 3" or so post vise in good condition and really flossit up. Full polish and then do some engraving, maybe chase the pivot plates. Or make the wole thing from scratch. I've got a couple of old wagon axles about 3" square that look like triple-refined wrought which would be dandy stock to start with. vicopper - Thursday, 05/03/07 00:20:34 EDT Wrought Iron vises: I've had trouble with a couple old vices that had very good wrought iron handles. . They bend TOO easily. One is so soft that I plan on replacing it with mild steel. On my oldest best mounted vice and relatively small vice I've not had this problem. The problem is on a later mid size probably American made vice. You just look at it and the handle is bent. It is possibly annealed in a fire but whatever, it is way too soft. - guru - Thursday, 05/03/07 14:59:04 EDT vises and vices of vises: I have two Columbians, 5 inch jaws. One with the U-bolt mount and one with the wedge mount (which IMHO is the better of the two). Unfortunately, at some point, someone had welded a piece of angle iron to the movable jaw so that it would cover the exposed screw when the jaws were opened somewhat wide. Good idea, but i find it gets in the way often (not to mention the HORRENDOUS looking arc weld between the steel angle and the wrought leg). I also have a smaller 4 or 4.5 inch Iron City that is destined to be a demo vise, as soon as I get the reproduction mount forged for it (a scale drawing of which was GRACIOUSLY provided, some time ago, by Mr. Turley). It's on the list....it just keeps getting jostled around and hasn't reached the top yet:) -Aaron @ the SCF thesandycreekforge - Friday, 05/04/07 13:37:48 EDT I have fashioned a corkscrew finial-- old shock aborber spring heated and stetched out a bit, sharpened) to the leg of one of my post vises, and find it works well in all but the hardest-surfaced parking lots. I simply drive it in a few inches with smart blows of a medium-weight sledge hammer, and then clamp a digging bar into the jaws, and turn clockwise a few spins, stopping when jaws are oriented in perfect alignment with the earth's axis, and Bob's your uncle. - Miles Undercut - Friday, 05/04/07 15:06:40 EDT For my light demo vise I found a piece of 3/8" plate that had a central round hole and 3 slotted holes torched in it. I heated it up and beveled all the edges including the central one and use a couple of stakes to hold it in place on dirt/grass/gravel. For pavement the 55gal drum full of water and the dirt tamper head works OK. Thomas Thomas P - Friday, 05/04/07 15:33:07 EDT Thomas-- pishtosh, lad, once you try the Undercut corkscrew you'll accept no substitutes. No more lugging around 55 gal. drums and endless buckets of water, no more driving multiple stakes. EZ-in & EZ-out. Miles Undercut - Friday, 05/04/07 18:19:59 EDT Miles, My travel vise, while not currently a post vise, is even easier than yours or ThomasP's to mount. When I back up the fold-a-forge and unhook, the vise is there ready to go. Permanently mounted on the trailer. No fiddleing, no filling, no srewing about, nothing. Just raise the fold-a-forge hood, place the stack, start the fire and bingo. And my uncles name is Robert, thank you very much :) - ptree - Friday, 05/04/07 20:09:57 EDT Portable vise: I have one mounted on a truck wheel and another on a car wheel. Frank Turley - Friday, 05/04/07 20:26:01 EDT ptree-- Used to be a farrier hereabouts had a rig such as you describe, yet even more compact-- anchored to the receiver hitch, it folded up into the bed, one unit comprising anvil and vise. I think it had a stabilizer leg that dropped down. Dunno where the fire was. Miles Undercut - Saturday, 05/05/07 00:44:02 EDT Miles, Have a peek at the site across the street, I have photos of the demo rig, under my assumed name of Jeff Reinhardt. My travel rig has a fixed forge, with a fold down wind screen that also keeps the rain out when stored. Very recycled as it started life as a Datsun pick-up. There may be photos on this site when the guru gets to putting the CSI demo in the news. ptree - Saturday, 05/05/07 08:33:49 EDT ptree-- Looks great! R&D is even now working on an optional slide-in solar fruit-drier-charcoal hibachi and BBQ cum steamer, no? Miles Undercut - Saturday, 05/05/07 09:37:57 EDT Miles; I thought of going to the giant corkscrew method but how do you keep all the smiths with large wine bottles from "un"screwing up your set up to use it...? Every time I think of coming up to vist y'all up there they raise the price of gas---it's getting spooky! Thomas Thomas P - Saturday, 05/05/07 17:57:49 EDT Miles, all I have to do is paint the topper black for the solar fruit dryer. I am rigging a small gasser to run off a 20# bottle. I have the spare parts from a old gas grill, and will probably build up a tiny grill and coffee warmer for the rig as I often end up camping on demos. R & D works on. ptree - Saturday, 05/05/07 18:05:11 EDT Thomas-- Tell me about it! It just cost me $11.22 to get 3.608 gallons in Los Alamos today. ($3.109/gal.) Maybe the time has come at last to nationalize these bloodsucking bastards. ptree-- I was thinking precisely along those lines, cogitating re: your brainchild as I drove back from the Los Alamos "crafts fair" (translation: Doodads-R-Us). The possibilities are unlimited: popcorn popper, water heater cum shower, fish steamer, cabin heater.... Snowing like mad here right now at 7,000 feet in the foothills of the Rockies, a day which has seen rain, too-- but along with it the first hummingbird of 2007! I bet he or she wishes he or she'd laid over in El Paso on the way north. Miles Undercut - Saturday, 05/05/07 19:55:50 EDT How to bend square bar on the edge without messing up the edge: How do you bend a 1" square bar on edge into a circle without messing up the edge? - wtr - Saturday, 05/05/07 22:00:18 EDT wtr - bending Sq. bar on edge: Put "V" grooves in Your bending jig for the corner to lay into, spreading the load over more surface area. - Dave Boyer - Saturday, 05/05/07 22:12:38 EDT wtr: I built a vee-jig for such bending, and it is pictured in Schwarzkopf, "Plain and Ornamental Forging", Astragal Press. I made mine out of a car axle, and it has a crank in the body of the tool. If you want to make a circular form for maybe a door knocker, the cranked shape allows you to do so, because the vise doesn't get in the way of your work. I'm hitting the work with a wooden or rawhide mallet. Frank Turley - Sunday, 05/06/07 00:07:05 EDT Dave and Frank, Thanks for your help. wtr wtr - Sunday, 05/06/07 06:31:18 EDT Holsten Mt. Hammer-In : I'm Just back from From Larry Harley's Bladesmiths gathering. Second year I've attended. Both years steel was made in the traditional method in a small furnace from high grade ore. This year Ric Furrer of Sturgeon Bay, WI was in charge of the furnace. Ric had 3 helpers (will get there names) who did much of the laborious work of sing the charcoal and feeding and patching the furnace. The furnace was fired for a day and then torn apart to remove the iron. The yield was a little disappointing this year. However the furnace had not been fired long and was a different size/shape than in the past. But a good fist size lump was welded up of the results. The second day's furnace firing was a little better. These things are a learning process. The following day Steve Swartzer welded up the results of the furnace on a hydraulic press and processed it into usable steel. That afternoon Don Fogg forged the steel into a blade blank. Wally Hostetter but on a fascinating demo of making a storage sheath and grip for an antique Japanese Sword. He used traditional tools and explained every detail step by step. This is a class of work that is MUCH to picky for me but I am glad others enjoy the art. Wally had some beautiful examples of furniture that were the highest art of iron carving with microscopic detail. This Sunday morning was the first clear day so the cutting exhibition was put on then. Wally Hostetter was the cutting master and had brought tatami mats and a stand for the cutting. Many took part and it was amazing to see the swords slice through the rolled wet mats when done right. Wally managed to make a cut and then cut the piece again as it fell. While this was a small gathering there was just enough going on that you had to pick what you wanted to watch. It is also a gathering of some of the great names of bladesmithng. If knifemaking is your thing this is an event you do not want to miss. Look for it on our Calendar page next spring. Photos to follow in the NEWS. - guru - Sunday, 05/06/07 19:35:24 EDT Doug Hendrickson passes on: Sorry to report of Doug's passing, the morning of May 5. Doug, a successful, professional smith, operated Peola Valley Forge near Lesterville, Missouri, for quite a few years. Information is available at www.peolavalley.com/map.html Frank Turley - Sunday, 05/06/07 20:24:10 EDT I knew Doug H. was ill, but I am still sorry to hear of his passing. I met him at John C. Campbell the week Francis Whitaker died. Jock, the other two guys besides Ric who did most of the work on the smelter were Chris Price (shorter guy in leather cap) and Stephan Fowler (taller guy in straw hat with charcoal all over his face) The third guy, older fellow with beard and son in tow, is Randy Skidmore. He's done a couple of smelts on his own after watching last years' demo, with very good results. For pictures, take a look at the photo section on Don Fogg's forum. There's 5 or 6 threads of pictures from Harley's. forums.dfoggknives.com/index.php?showforum=12 Alan-L - Thursday, 05/10/07 10:33:19 EDT P.S.: Randy, if you're reading this I meant older as in "older than Chris and Stephan!" Alan-L - Thursday, 05/10/07 10:34:35 EDT Miles: an idea from over at iforgeiron "My striking partner has a good idea. He makes psuedo-traditional gates, but incorporates junk bicycles welded into them. Oddly enough, these gates are a hit." Thomas Thomas P - Thursday, 05/10/07 12:38:18 EDT Making Steel in a Stack Furnace: Stephen has also done some smelts on his own. Tough going it alone. You REALLY need friends as crazy as you are. Last year Stephan did most or all of the charcoal breaking up. This year he did all the clay and mortar mixing. A hard working enthusiastic guy. I think Randy did most of the fire brick crumbling and hammering into grog to be mixed with the fireclay. Another hard job. Making steel this way is contagious. After watching it you want to come home and try it. I would try it with a LOT of volunteers but I know better than to try to do it alone. . . - guru - Thursday, 05/10/07 12:43:03 EDT smelting, again: Yeah, Stephen has done one smelt solo back in December. Dr. Hernandez, the polite, soft-spoken Spanish guy who was there, has done two or three with his friend Walter Sorrels using red iron oxide pigment as ore. They have gotten surprisingly large blooms from that, although their first one was a little lower in carbon (around .5%) than the target of 1 - 1.2%. Last year Harley and I did a crucible smelt of some of that magnetite ore I brought with less than stellar results, as we did not realize it's got just the right impurities to make it vigorously self-fluxing. We added some lime, which resulted in a huge crucible of boiling greeny-brown glass with a silver-dollar-sized chunk of ~1% carbon steel in the very bottom. This was a 2 quart crucible with one quart of ore/lime mix. This year he made me make a list of the plumbing fittings Ric used, so I have a feeling there will be another smelt at Lonesome Pine Forge before long... Alan-L - Thursday, 05/10/07 13:44:35 EDT We built our short stack scandanavian bloomeries using cobb, [ 3 shovelfulls of sandy silty dirt, 2 head sized bunches of chopped straw and 1 shovelfull of powdered clay---you can get it from a feed store! with just enough water added to make mixing just barely possible] In general we don't spend much time chopping charcoal though we do "pole the furnace" to keep bridges from forming. Never understood why people go so crazy for eastern stuff when the western stuff works so well... Thomas Thomas P - Thursday, 05/10/07 14:50:15 EDT Me too. I am one of those who has not fallen prey to the "mysteries of the East," which sometimes makes me the odd man out amongst knife and sword guys. That's why when Harley does do his stack smelt, it will be more of a western-style furnace. I have an old (1850) book on smelting that shows a lovely stack furnace from Styria which was used to produce "German" steel. It's the same thing used in that area for around 2000 years to go from ore to steel without an intervening step. Why mess with a good thing, eh? Alan-L - Thursday, 05/10/07 15:33:34 EDT Auction: Hey east coasties i was wondering if any of yall planned on attending this auction...Its gonna be big like the Sorber auction...I doubt ill be able to afford anything cause the sharks are gonna be out. If anyone plans on attending from anvilfire forum i think you should put your forum name on your shirt! ha Help Pete retire he is a good shit http://www.cabinfeverauctions.com/Thumbnail%20Pages/Renzetti1/Renzetti1.html - coolhand - Thursday, 05/10/07 16:15:24 EDT Alan I am always amused at how surprised a bunch of folk are to find out that the Europeans were pattern welding composite sword blades *before* the japanese were---and gave it up when better steel came along about the year 1000 CE... It's been real en-heartening to see the rise in Historical European Martial Arts as a number of groups are now training using the manuals published in the renaissance; turns out we have a lot more info written down from the time period on how they fought than the katanaphiles do. I'm starting to plan a smelt at my new place this summer; I moved 80-100# of magnetite not knowing that there is a goethite depost locally. OTOH Manganese was very prevelant out here (the worlds largest Mn mine was here once so perhaps it's best to use "unsullied ore" for some runs... Thomas Thomas P - Thursday, 05/10/07 16:48:42 EDT Pete's Auction: Bad timing for a lot of folks. Half the smiths in the South East and a lot from the East in general will be headed toward Madison, GA for the SouthEastern Regional blacksmiths conference. - guru - Thursday, 05/10/07 17:39:23 EDT Thomas-- Having rescued these lovely old bikes from the electric furnace, I am now supposed to glue the beauties up as gates with my arc welder? Fie, sir! I say, Fie! I am deeply shocked. Miles Undercut - Thursday, 05/10/07 20:06:50 EDT old Bikes: Miles, I have collected maybe 50 bikes from the roadsides on trash days over the run of my childrens needs for parts and bikes. All canabalized for parts except the old English racer with the 3 speed hub, that reminds me of my somewhat lost youth. I have found the left overs good for various thing. I have not made gates yet. My wife wore out her first aluminum frame bike (3000 miles in a year on a cheapie) and now has a nice Scott. I have not found a use for that one yet. I don't weld aluminum, so its safe from the gate thing too. However, I now have a reason to pick up trash day bikes again:) - ptree - Thursday, 05/10/07 20:58:12 EDT Ptree, There are such things as screws. . . and aluminum melts down easily to turn into something else. . . ;) - guru - Thursday, 05/10/07 21:52:56 EDT guru, I finely welded bike frame of aluminum, with wornout hardware is too good a - ptree - Friday, 05/11/07 07:38:59 EDT Boy that post blew up! I wanted to sat that a finely welded aluminum frame is too good of a "future oppurtunity" to melt. I am thinking of using it as the basis for a homebuilt forge blower drivetrain. And GURU, what are these "screw" things you speak of? :) ptree - Friday, 05/11/07 07:41:23 EDT Miles if you are deeply schocked I would check that the ground clamp on your welder is making good contact and that the leads' insulation is not cracked. If not a gate---how about a sundial? With the bike being the gnomen or the handlbars being a read out arc... Thomas Thomas P - Friday, 05/11/07 12:22:55 EDT ThysenKrupp & the Union: I see ThysenKrupp is building a multi-billion dollar new steel mill in Alabama. The following quote is from the Associated Press: "This project will only eat up U.S. tax dollars and add unneeded domestic capacity," said United Steelworkers International vice president Tom Conway in Pittsburgh. "The last thing our industry needs is another mechanism to depress steel prices." I was not aware that there was an overcapacity problem in the domestic steel industry, if anything I've had the impression there was a shortage. John Lowther - Friday, 05/11/07 15:49:04 EDT Thomas-- Hmpf. Balderdash. Sheer flapdoodle. Codswallop. These are perfectly good bikes, needing only a bit of TLC, a brake pad here, a new tire there, a cable perhaps. Just because they've been waiting for it a while doesn't mean they've lost a bit of their value as bikes in the interim. Only because we live in this incredibly wasteful time and place would anyone possibly imagine turning them into (ewwwww!) gates or (ugh!) sundials. Nobody knows how to read a sundial, anyway, any more, one of my cowperson friends informs me. Miles Undercut - Friday, 05/11/07 20:37:57 EDT U S Steel Industry: What We have here is perspective applied to good old supply and demand. From the viewpoint of the suppliers the material isn't scarce enough to gouge Us more, so they should make less of it. - Dave Boyer - Friday, 05/11/07 21:16:46 EDT U.S. Steal: It looks to me like what we have here is a prime exaample of the union gimme (or, let me take)mentality at work. Not what is good for the country or the industry, but what is good for one union. Shame on them, I say. vicopper - Friday, 05/11/07 22:09:31 EDT Currently steel supply and prices are being dictated by China. What we need is more steel mills and MORE manufacturers using steel in this country. It is a strategic necessity. Anyone writing otherwise is not a friend of the U.S. Unions are both good and bad. When they see jobs moving to freedom to work states they get upset because THEY are losing power. If they has been doing their job WHEN they had power so many jobs would not be going to China. They were too busy demanding too much and not keeping their eye on the real prize. - guru - Friday, 05/11/07 22:42:17 EDT Anybody interested in steel ought to be sure to read Sparrows Point (entitled after the giant Bethlehem shipyard and steel mill near where I grew up in Dundalk, Md. and where my father and the fathers and uncles and brothers of most of my friends worked) by Mark Reutter. In it Reutter quotes a Bethlehem official: "We are not in the business of making steel, or making ships, or building buildings. We are in the business of making money." Yowsuh! Is this a great country or what? Makes a man feel mighty humble and a little proud. Miles Undercut - Friday, 05/11/07 23:08:08 EDT THAT quote was from a man in a business that had been largely funded by cheap government loans and garanteed sales during the WWII build up. At that time we did not have enough steel capacity to build the needed ships and had to build steel plants from the ground up in order to meet the need. The result made some people very very rich. But it also set the stage for the prosperity that we still enjoy in the US. A prosperity we are going to lose if we keep exporting our manufacturing. Consider this. The steel used in the World Trade Center was all made in the U.S. and fabricated in dozens of plants (no one - guru - Saturday, 05/12/07 10:00:17 EDT Odd-ish question for TGN: As the most work-hardened piercer/piercee I know of, I thought this would be right down your alley. A female acquaintance who is heavily inked and full of holes wants a piercing that runs under her collarbone, top to bottom. Her boyfriend, a tattoo artist and piercer, won't do it, nor will anyone else around here. She wants to know why, and if thre's anyone reputable anywhere else who may do such things. I explained the whole subclavian artery/brachial nerve thing and the possibility of paralysis of the arm if not bleeding to death, not to mention osteomyelitis if the bone gets nicked, but she still seems to think I'm just making this stuff up. I have no problem with folks poking holes in themselves, but I think this particular one may be too much. Any words of wisdom from a master of piercing? thanks in advance. Alan-L - Saturday, 05/12/07 09:52:18 EDT Canedy-Otto Royal Western Chief : I have an old Canedy-Otto Royal Western Chief crank blower and forge, and wondering what its value would be. The forge stands around 3-3.5' tall, with a circular fire pit that is probably a couple of feet in diameter. The blower fits into a tube and bolts into place (it doesn't have a stand of its own), and hand cranks. Sorry for the lack of a better description, I don't know much about smithy equipment. - Brandon Owen - Saturday, 05/12/07 10:19:08 EDT Big steel moguls are a bunch of bloodsucking pirates who'd sell their grandmothers in a flash if it pushed their stock up a few points. Of course, I speak as one who caught polio at age 8 swimming in a Chesapeake Bay polluted by the sewage they were using as a coolant in their mills, so I may be biased. - Miles Undercut - Saturday, 05/12/07 10:30:22 EDT Southern Regional Blacksmith Conference: I am sad to say that I will NOT be attending even though I had planned to. My primary PC which had a hard drive failure a few months ago and cost me several weeks to rebuild (software instalationsa and file backups) has stopped operating and will not boot. So it is time to purchase a NEW PC. . . Someone please take lots of photos for me! Normally PC's are not a major expense for me. However, this one was just bought off a widow friend for about half what a new one would cost. I did not plan on replacing it for a few years. My big expense for anvilfire is travel. Although I have not published the photos yet I have been to the Boone's Hammer-In, the Big BLU Hammer-In, our CSI Hammer-In and the Holsten Mt. Bladsmithing Hammer-In all since the first of the year. Total cost. . about $5,000 in motel, meals, and fuel bills. I did not used to worry about fuel but when it costs $55 to fill up a mini-van it starts to hurt. - guru - Saturday, 05/12/07 15:34:47 EDT Canady-Otto: Brandon, The blower was one of the best made and if kept well oiled and still runs smooth and quiet is worth $150 to $250. The forge may or may not be a good one. Sheet metal rivet forges with a flat bottom and flush grate are only worth about $50-$75. Cast iron ones more. The good forges have a heavy sunken fire pot with ash dump. These are usualy 3 to 5" deeper than the forge floor and made of 1/2" to 3/4" cast iron. Value $150 to $300 more or less. Location makes as much as a 50% difference in price. In the North Eastern rust belt this stuff is common. In the far West it is much rarer and commands twice the price as back East. - guru - Saturday, 05/12/07 15:43:42 EDT I HOPE the new mill in Alabama depresses prices! I can hardly afford new syeel fo any of my projects anymore. - John Odom - Saturday, 05/12/07 15:56:34 EDT Business: Every buisiness SHOULD be in the business of making money, otherwise it is a failure or a hobby. Bethlehem Steel was a big business well before WW2. Their decisions to buy/start businesses that USED steel made good economic sense at the time. - Dave Boyer - Saturday, 05/12/07 21:43:16 EDT The moguls' decisions to invest in foreign steelmaking while ignoring the need to modernize their plants at home might be seen as good business as well as selling their employees and the country short. Miles Undercut - Saturday, 05/12/07 23:56:10 EDT My first real job after the ARMY and school was in a dying breed, a family owned business. Run for the long term by the first three generations, they built a small local machine shop into an internationally know Boiler, valve and fitting, and ice makeing equipment compnany. Employed 1700 when I started. The not in my backyard syndrome that has prevented any new refineries or chemical plants to be built in the US, as well as the demise of the Nuke industry starte the slide. The third generation owner knew every piece of equipment and it capabilities, and every square foot of that 42 acre plot. The company motto was " There is a lot of family pride in what we do" Many extended families worked there, my bosses was in the newsletter wih over 250 years of service. When times got slow, belts were tightened, machinery was not bought. Since every purchase came from available cash, not loans, hard times were survivable. One of the reasons there were so many really great millwrights was that we kept machines till the had NO further value. We rebuilt, overhauled, revised etc. Fourth generation went to business school instead of engineering school. ptree - Sunday, 05/13/07 07:04:13 EDT The problem with having less and less manufacturing is that it effects a whole range of the economy. Its not just the shortage of heavy steel plate and many sections that used to be common it is the lack of pieces and parts like bearings, seals, motors, actuators. These are the things much custom machinery is made from that go into making machines to manufacture other things as well as machinery to support the maintenance of power plants, refinerys and rail roads. You have all seen the lessening variety of certain types of tools and the replacement of durable small goods with throw aways. This is endemic throughout all of industry. It used to be you picked up a bearing catalog and every size in it was available. Starting in the 1980's with the "empty warehouses are good" economic philosophy those catalogs became wish lists of products that COULD be made if you ordered enough of them. Today there are companies using the fine art of CAD and computer graphics to produce catalogs of hundreds of items that have never existed, EVER. A surprising amount of machinery is low production almost custom built equipment that require sources of parts and pieces that are rapidly disappearing. Farm equipment, mining equipment, food processing and packaging equipment, all types of conveyor systems and automated plant systems rely on sources of standard parts that are in INVENTORY. This segment of every large economy is greater than the so called "key" manufacturing industries like automobiles and consumer goods. THIS part of the economy is what makes the rest possible. The "empty warehouses are good" economic philosophy comes from business majors that know nothing about what makes the physical world work. All they care about is the short term bottom line. Full warehouses are to them a static resouce that is not earning money. To them it is better to have the money in the bank earing interest. AND our tax system supports this theory by penalizing the manufacturer that has inventory on hand. The problem is, we NEED manufacturing. If every manufacturer sold off all their assets and invested them in the money market or OTHER businesses such as in other countries they MIGHT make just as much money and it is a LOT easier. But what about jobs? What about food and shelter for the people that need those jobs? Suppose every American farmer decided it was made better business sense to sell off their land to rich foreign investors and live off the interest? Just LET everyone buy imported food. . . Suppose that every realestate investor thought it was better NOT to build houses but to invest in money markets. . . Then we have no jobs, no food, no housing, no manufacturing. . . If you listen to the economists THAT is what everyone that had assets would do. Why work when you just sit backk and live off your investments. . . But what would there be to invest in? Right now almost everything is against manufacturers in the U.S. More rules, more taxes, greater costs. There is no incentive for many manufacturers to make things here. So they go elsewhere or cash in. When you hear of CEO's leaving behind a devastated company that is what has happened. They made money, the board made money and MAYBE a few stock holders made money. Then the end comes unannounced. Our system of economics makes its better for those who can to make a quick profit rather than staying in business for the long run. Something has to change. Otherwise the no jobs, no food, no houses scenario will happen. It already has for many. Remember the the election campaign when "Its the economy, stupid." was what made the difference? Nothing has changed. Its STILL the economy STUPID (congress and the president). - guru - Sunday, 05/13/07 11:28:59 EDT One thing that needs to change as well is the liability issue. When every product you ship is a bet against the company few will want to risk their wealth against sales of a product. One thing is to put in place a statuate of limitations that says that when a product has served without problem, for a given time it is no longer a sue the company that made it possibility. Aircraft made 60 years ago, that have served well are involved in accidents and the manufacturer of everything in the aircraft gets sued. Thats the engine makers the radios makers etc as well as the airframe maker. This is true of nearly every durable product. Example, in both small aircraft engines and consumer ladders, hover half the cost is liabability costs. ptree - Sunday, 05/13/07 12:49:59 EDT Liability: I recently read a book called "The Cutter Incident," after Cutter Labs, which produced batches of the original Salk Polio vaccine that contained live (and dangerous) virus. Cutter probably deserved what it got. According to the author, though, the liability issue has kept companies from developing a number of life-saving vaccines. Mike BR - Sunday, 05/13/07 15:31:01 EDT Southern confrence: I just bought a rather expencive digital vidieo camra. my plan is to interview a large number of random blacksmiths, & tape the demos. If I can figure out how to put the stuff on the computer...who knows? - packrat - Monday, 05/14/07 08:43:31 EDT Packrat, The trick is editing and converting to a suitable format. On the web, video is much reduced in size and that is done with your editing tools along with the rest of the edits. One hint. Do not film short. That is, do not wait to start until the last second and do not stop at the last word. Otherwise it is very difficult to edit. - guru - Monday, 05/14/07 15:08:46 EDT Slow Progress: I ordered parts to get my desktop PC going today. Cost more than going to Madison for four days and driving 1,000 miles. However, IF it all goes together right I will have a much spiffier machine. I would have preferred to just replace the mother board with a nearly identical one but it is impossible to do 4-5 years after the originals wer made. It would have cost less than $100 using the old processor and memory. . neither of which work in any available boards I could find. I also found a dead fan on the graphics card (too many little cheap fans) and had to replace the card. No, the fans are not a replacement part. . . A day to wait for the parts and a day to put it all back together. . (hopefully all the parts work together). I hate change and hate updated machines. I was perfectly happy with my old 350MHz win98 machine. . . Anyway, I should be back in business by the weekend. - guru - Monday, 05/14/07 23:49:00 EDT New PC: Jock, With all your harddrive troubles, I hope you ordered a motherboard with RAID capability. With that and four drives,you get great speed and redundancy, too. vicopper - Tuesday, 05/15/07 00:14:08 EDT RAID & backups: The small PC raid system is what failed on the previous hard drive and lost most of the data. There is no redundancy in these systems. I asked the guy at the repair shop who had originally built that PC. He said they were a huge mistake and caused a lot of problems. They are still sold as a speed enhancement but are NOT the same thing as the expensive SCSI server raid systems. The new board has the RAID capability but I am not going to use it. It is just another thing to go wrong. If you need redundancy you put in two hard drives and back one up to the other. . . and hope the backup doesn't fail. I just need to burn more CD's. I used to download my camera to the laptop. Then transfer by disk. That way I had a BU on the laptop, I had the disk and I had the working files on my primary desktop. Everything not in progress is on the web server and backed up on the laptop. . . At one time I could put anvilfire on a 100mb ZIP disk. Now it takes a DVD-ROM. Source files are about 10x that. . . The big problem with backups is changing formats. Hopefully CD-ROM's stay the same for a while. I have hundreds of old backups on 5.25" floppies. . hundreds more on 3.5" floppies and a box full of early format DAT tapes. I also have a collection of 100Mb ZIP disks. The DAT tapes only worked in my old 386/66 but THAT is the machine that anvilfire was started on (ten years old at the time). I think there is at least one DAT tape with the early anvilfire on it. That machine is dead from a lost CMOS. It had a very complicated setup that would be difficult to restore. All these formats are quickly going by the way. . . I currently do not have a PC the reads 5.25" disks but have thought about installing one. 3.5" disks are still used but my new laptop does not have any kind of floppy drive. Even for small transfers you have to burn a CD or transfer over a network. . . THEN we have stacks of CD's. Guess what? The life expectancy on the common RW media is only about 20 years. . . This sounds like a long time but anvilfire is almost 10 years old now. I just recently had to search for text and CAD drawings from a project I did 15 years ago. . found (most of) them on 3.5" floppies. I've uploaded them to my backup PC and then wrote a CD-ROM so they are on new media. OF course the problem is going to be finding installable software that can read the files. . I'm using 3.5" floppies that are over 20 years old now. So I hope the life of the CD's is better than predicted. The funny thing is that the bag of two dozen 3.5" diskettes did not make a dent (less than 10%) of a CD-ROM. One full chip from my digital camera FILLs a CD-ROM. Time to switch to permanent crystal memory units a'la Star Trek. Of course, since we are already very near the 24th century of Star Trek in that regard they are going to need to come up with and even more unbelievable (and different to read) format. . - guru - Tuesday, 05/15/07 11:04:58 EDT Raids: Guru, There are some motherboards available that have a SATA Raid 0,1,5 controls built in with 4 ports. The raid 5 should give you the redundancy you need (assuming it is a true raid 5 as advertised). I have added a link to one example of a raid 5 motherboard. Sata Raid 5 Mobo Juterbock - Tuesday, 05/15/07 11:43:21 EDT That is what is on both the machines we have. Top of the line MSI mother boards. Both systems failed and neither had backups that could be restored. Now they may not have been properly setup but that is beyond my knowledge. I tried to figure out the documentation but it made no sense. Then when the local PC guru (who has a popular PC fixit radio program) tells you its a big mistake you tend to believe them. All this stuff that is theoretically better is FINE until you find you need it and it doesn't work. It didn't work for us TWICE. The other problem is Windirt it self. While original data is what is important to back up, the thing that takes forever is installing the dozens of programs that are used in this business. Windirt does not allow a backup of software to be restored and function. Every program must be installed from the install disks and often they require on-line connections and long serial numbers. Many products only allow a certain number of installs. Some only ONE, like the Machinery's Handbook CD. The result is that it can take weeks to get back where you were after a hard disk crash. And often you never get back to 100%. There are numerous programs I cannot find all the pieces of or reinstall. Many had on-line updates and registration. Some the companies no longer exist.... Some the software has been abandoned. I had over $1000 invested in MS professional BASIC, a GREAT development tool that MS just dropped like a hot potato. I do not mind that they do not support it any longer, I DO MIND that it cannot be installed under Win95/98 much less the later versions. .. Imagine if every couple years the government (the only standards setting organization as big as microsoft) changed the size and shape of bolt heads and every mechanic or anyone else that used tools had to replace all their wrenches?? Imagine if there was ONE global television network with a monopoly like microsoft and they changed standards every 5 years so that everyone would have to buy a new television from THEM. We all know that a 50 year old television will still pickup and display modern TV signals. We all know and EXPECT the VHS tapes we bought in 1978 to still work in new VCR's. In fact that supposedly "dead" format is still being sold by the millions. But if Microsnot had control of the industry we would be on our 10th new non-backward compatible format. . . It is not PC's I hate so much as it is Microsoft. Followed by our government for not breaking their monopoly. Enough rant. MSI Neo-F - guru - Tuesday, 05/15/07 12:46:27 EDT Backup Options for entire hard disk: Guru, I wasn't sure what you had, and that type of mobo was what I was considering building my next system around. I'm glad I didn't build it yet. Have you ever used "Ghost" now by Norton to backup a computer. When in former life as a sysadmin I would rollout custom imaged computers this way under nt4 and it may have been XP as well. I would setup 1 computer and image the entire harddisk, OS and all installed software up to the network disk then bring down the image to each new computer only having to provide unique system name for each machine as it was installed. This was 6 years ago so the memory may be a bit foggy. Best of luck with the reinstall, something I despise on my home or work computer and can not imagine on your systems. I am anti-Microsoft as well and I've reloaded more systems for myself, friends, family and work than I care to think about. Juterbock - Tuesday, 05/15/07 13:40:03 EDT Ghost may work but since Norton left Norton the products have been buggy and intrusive as well as impossible to uninstall. So I avoid all their products. I'm sure mirroring of a whole system can be done because manufacturers do it but many programs now look for motherboard ID's and other component ID's and will not operate on a rebuilt machine even if you own a legal copy. I do not have any of this high end fingerprinted software EXCEPT WinXP on this laptop. I have win98 on my old BU machine that I do bookeeping from and Win2000 pro is what came on the others. I will be avoiding WinXP and the other much too intrusize spy on the user versions of Windirt for as long as possible. Vista will probably be old and dead by the time I move up again. In fact it may be time to revert to DOS for normal tasks and Linux for the web. If I were not in the web business I would have reverted to DOS a long time ago. I have good DOS CAD and word processing software. The trick is to partition a hard drive small enough to install and use DOS. . . I think 3.3 was the last stable version. Remember when your whole OS would fit on ONE 1.4Mb diskette? The only limitations were simple memory and disk space addressing issues. The PC based RAID systems are the hot thing among game players that access huge chunks of graphic data and overclock their systems to get the maximum speed. You know, the guys that water cool their processors and have strobe lights in their tower cases to LOOK cool. . . - guru - Tuesday, 05/15/07 14:32:26 EDT I remember my father having a copy of DOS 1.0 on a 160k disk I think it was, when I was old enough to know what a computer was and all of the software I was using DOS in the low 3.XX. win9x has always been garbage, and I've come to accept XP as somewhat stable (atleast compared to running 95/98 and reloading it every 6 months because of the blue screen of death). I was looking at the raid5 mobo because I wanted to have redundancy for all of my audio and photography along with a numerous important files I would hate to lose. I may look at a independant raid controller with it's own processor. I used to be very into buying electronics, now I much prefer tools. I still haven't setup a blacksmithing area, I've moved twice since I first found this site and I may finally have an area to work with fire and metal behind the new storage shed I'm building right now. I still have to convince my wife that a lean-to type roof on the back that faces the neighbors fence will not be an eyesore :) Juterbock - Tuesday, 05/15/07 14:45:32 EDT RAID: Guru, The most common type of RAID on desktop PCs is RAID 0, which is just plain playing with fire. Raid 0 increases the chance of data loss in proportion to the number of drives involved: Doubled for two, tripled for three, etc. It does dramatically speed up data access, however. Lots of motherboards now support RAID 1 as well, which requires disk drives in multiples of two and delivers half the data capacity, 'cause everything is written to both drives. If reliability is the overarching concern, this is the way to go. This is also known as mirroring. Our big multi-terabyte storage system at work is set up that way. Some higher end motherboards support RAID 5: this is an attempt to be the best of both worlds, providing faster access speed and still providing redundancy. A minimum of three drives is required and you get 2/3 the total capacity. The data is distributed across two drives and the other drive contains computed data which allows the data to be re-constructed in case one of the data drives fails. Likewise the check drive can be rebuilt from the data drives, so any one drive can fail without data loss. I'm not entirely certain I'd trust a motherboard to do RAID 5 yet, but it's coming. BTW: While I'm sure you'll have to keep a Windows box around, you might give Ubuntu Linux a try. I've been using it exclusively at home for a few months and haven't been inspired to boot up Windows since. The GUI controls are not yet as comprehensive as for Windows, so sometimes you still have to open a terminal window and type, but much of the time the user experience is almost Mac-like. John Lowther - Tuesday, 05/15/07 16:17:37 EDT johnson gas 900 console crucible: I have a used johnson gas 900's console unit. I dont have the crucible part. It is still made in cedar rapids. New they cost $2800. I'm looking for fair offer? email pnaylor121@socket.net. call 573-881-4047 park - Tuesday, 05/15/07 23:08:30 EDT Query-- anybody out there found a GOOD respirator for grinding, cutting and welding? By good I mean one that actually works, replaceable filters, screens out fumes and gradue, AND fits under welding helmet. I am currently using a Willson or some such, from MSC, large size because I am 6'6" and have an accordingly large mug. This mask is so-so, better than the 3-M Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer jobs mit der red platic noses. But not much. If so, please post details, brand name, model number, price, vendor.Thanks. Miles Undercut - Wednesday, 05/16/07 00:10:13 EDT RAID: I'll echo what someone said: never use a RAID 0 setup if you value your data. RAID 1 (mirroring) is for redundant safety and it works. Sure, it slows tings down a tiny fraction. If you can tell that it's slower, you're doing some realy high end number crunching, though. Up to a bunch of megaflops, who can tell the difference? The difference you CAN tell, si thatwhen your HD crashes, you just yank it out and drop a new one in and let it copy itself while you sleep. Want to move a couple of gigs easily and cheaply? I use a 2GB thumb drive that cost a whopping $39. why mess with CDs? My life is boring enough that I really don't care if Microsoft reads my whole damn computer every night. I'm perfectly happy with XP Pro and will continue to use it until something comes along that I like better. I'm far more concerned about the new ever-more-intrusive federal government than I am about private industry. vicopper - Wednesday, 05/16/07 01:49:22 EDT Thum Drives AKA Memory sticks: I forgot about them. . just been using them a few months. Works great on my Laptop and (currently dead) desktop but my slow non-networked backup machine will not read them. I installed the proprietary factory drivers but still a no-go. Wrong flavor USB. The RAID on the machine was supposed to be a dual disk backup system. It had the two identical disks and were setup to mirror each other. However, it did not work. So how do you KNOW something like this is going to work when you need it? You don't. So in my mind it is a worthless backup. Like my DAT tapes that cannot be read by any existing equipment and all those 5.25" floppies that I currently do not have a machine to read, and PC that I cannot just replace the mother board and keep trucking. . . It is all unpredictable. I tried to find a motherboard that would use the standard Pentium 4 1.x Gb processor and DDR memory. . . No go. The new boards, even those that would accept a dozen different processors were all clocked too fast for the 4 year old Pentium chip. And they all required DDR"2" memory. SO. . I needed a new processor. I got the cheapest Cor-Duo Intel chip available. Its still faster than what I had. . . all the bits and pieces add up. My "repair" is going to cost about 2/3 of a new box. However, it will save me the two weeks it took to install all the software. . . IF the hardware ever gets here. - guru - Wednesday, 05/16/07 12:31:06 EDT respirators: Miles, there are a number of "pancake" style HEPA rated filter elements that fit half face respirators. A standard HEPA filter is rated for Fume, and radionuclides, and is also the standard filter for dust like asbestos. You do need to note that there are special filters for use when there is oil mist present as well. There are also disposable half face masks in both the HEPA rated as well as N95 and N100. The N95/N100 are for no oil as in Non permissible and there is also a P95/P100 rating as in Permissible for oil mist. The P rating basically doubles the price or more. The choice is mostly personal. I prefer a good half face with replacable filters and I also like the system used by A.O. Safety in the respirator model known as the "Quicklatch" This is adjusted and when you step out of the dirty area to answer the phone, sip coffee etc, you lift a latch at the chin and the respirator drops just below the chin and rests. To reseat ,push the respirator onto the face and throw the latch down. I can do this one handed very easy. I believe the cheaper rubber mask is about $20 and a box of the filters is about $10 for 5 pair. This style fits well under my welding hood, and is comfortable enough to wear when welding, grinding and wire wheel de-rusting. I get mine at Hagemeyer, and if you call 502-961-5930, Mike Morrison can set you up with the right part numbers. Tell him you want the same quicklatch Jeff the blacksmith likes. A side note or two. No respirator works well with facial hair. All respirator of the unpowered filter type put additional strain on the heart and pulmonary system. All reusable respirators need frequent cleaning, and a clean storage system. A tupperware container is just the thing. Another great item from A.O. Safety is the low profile hearing protector muffs with the behind the neck band. Comfortable(the only ones I can stand to wear) and they fit under most weld hoods and dont interfere with face shields etc. ptree - Wednesday, 05/16/07 20:08:13 EDT ptree-- Many thanks! I will check it out. The Willson has a lot going for it, I just don't think it works totally. Some crud still getting into the schnozzola. Should do better than that for what it costs. A friend with a motorized ($700) rig-- he looks like a beekeeper with a scuba hose-- who uses it for woodworking says only such equipment as that can really be effective. Unsee any way that could possibly fit under a welding helmet. Miles Undercut - Wednesday, 05/16/07 21:18:32 EDT PP Welding helmets: Jackson and others make positive pressure (also called supplied-air) welding helmets, Miles. They're in the $900 range, but boy, are they ever nice and cool when the weather is ot and you're welding all day long! The only drawback is either dragging around the air line or wearing the battery/blower pack on you belt. For some jobs though, there is really no substitute. vicopper - Wednesday, 05/16/07 22:00:33 EDT Miles - Respirator Helmet: Check out Jackson's "Respirator Helmet". Looks like there is enough room for a football in front of Your mouth. It is supposed to fit over dual cartrige respirators. - Dave Boyer - Wednesday, 05/16/07 22:00:39 EDT vicopper & Dave Boyer-- Thanks! (Nine berries is a bit more than I have budgeted for this. I know, I know, lungs go for even more.) The Jackson sounds promising. I saw a welding rig up at Johnson Controls in Los Alamos back in 1991-- a flex hose running to a big vacuum fan system. Welder positions hose inlet as needed. I built one for my shop but never remember to use it. Royal PIA, anyway, unless you are doing multiple same-position welds. Miles Undercut - Wednesday, 05/16/07 23:59:14 EDT Miles- welding respirators: Miles, I did not go into the welding helmets with respirators, or much more than mention the powered respirators as most people find them expensive and cumbersome. The battery pack units hang a heavy battery on your belt at the small of your back and snake a hose to the face piece. Great for a production welder sitting at a welding table and making hundreds of the same widget. If doing fabrication and crawling around they get hung up pretty easy. The airline units have a smaller hose, no battery pack, but usually have a regulator at the hip on your belt. They tether you to a hose. PLEASE NOTE EVERYONE WHO READS THIS, an air line supplied respirator MUST be supplied with air from a special oiless compressor, or through a special filtrations system that removes the carbon monoxide that results in air from an oiled compressor. To do otherwise is to bet your life your compressor is perfect and will not combust some oil partly, and make CO! Don't do it After reading the above caution, you can see why I did not suggest a supplied air unit. In industry one choses the least restrictive respirator that will provide adaquate protection. You see a respirator is not perfect, the fit is never perfect etc. A half face is rated to protect in a less contaminated atmosphere than a full face. A powered unit is better than the filter units. The supplied air units are better than... with SCBA best of all. All things considered, and note that from years in industry I have worn every type mentioned so far, in asbestos removel. I picked a half face, filtering type cause it is the least restrictive, and the most comfortable and therefore I will wear it on a regular basis. By switching filters I can protect against VOC's in paint. I also run a constant flow of air through my shop when welding etc as well. ptree - Thursday, 05/17/07 20:49:12 EDT Fresh air: For welding and gas forge ventilation: Years ago I designed a jib crane supported exhaust hood. It had a rotating fitting at the jib pivots of which there were two. This gave you a range of anywhere inside the major arc or coverage. The hood was a fixed height but could have been adjustable. A setup like this would be easy to position anywhere within a given area. There would be no hoses or cords to move or be in the way. Its not perfect but it would be very convenient. We have discussed supplied air hoods in the past. One advantage they have over filter respirators is they do not stress your breathing. They also help keep you cool. Respirators put stress on your respiratory system AND add to heat load. The combination can be deadly. You should consult a doctor if you are going to wear a filter mask a lot. Supplied air systems using a fan and filter can be user built and quite safe. Filters can be large automotive type and located in a fresh air zone. The hose "tether" IS an inconvenience but it beats short lived battery operated systems with small filters that must be changed as regularly as the batteries. Both systems are something to think about fro long term use in a relatively confined (small shop) space. - guru - Thursday, 05/17/07 22:28:27 EDT Supplied air - DIY: I'm planning to make a DIY supplied air hood, myself. I figure one of the HEPA filters for a vacuum cleaner would be cheap enough and readily available, and do the job if working in fairly clean air, like from outside the shop. Sealed booster blowers are fairly cheap, too. I saw some hose at the hardware the other day that would be ideal, and it was about $3/foot, which is doable. I shold be able to put the rig together for under a couple hundred bucks and have a much cooler time welding, particularly doing extended TIG jobs on aluminum or copper. Years ago, I used a supplied air helmet when doing TIG work inside vacuum chambers, and it was literally a lifesaver. The heat alone would have done me in, to say nothing of the fumes and purge gas. I did do one welding job on galvanized a couple of years ago where I wore my SCUBA regulator in my helmet. That was a really tight, uncomfortable fit, and the tank on my back did nothing for my posture, but I never got a whiff of zinc fumes. Breathing all that dry tank air for a few hours sure wreaked havoc with the throat, though. Had I thought about it in advance, I'd have borrowed a buddy's humidifier mouothpiece. Poor folks do what they have to in order to get by. vicopper - Thursday, 05/17/07 23:27:45 EDT ptree, Guru, vicopper-- Again, many thanks. Much info to ponder. Portable air supply is overkill for what I do. I checked the MSC catalog for price on the Quick Latch, and called Hagemeyer for cross-check, had to leave a message on their voice mail. Stay tuned. Miles Undercut - Thursday, 05/17/07 23:51:12 EDT If you provide drop down attachment points in several places in your shop you would not have an excess of hose and half the hose weight is supported from above. I am not sure if the quick connects would seal under pressure (very low) but a central vacuum system manifold and parts could work slick. Its all PVC and fairly inexpensive. At the least yopu could use the end connects. One thing that is very well done in the Big BLU shop is that Dean Curfman insists that there be no cords or hoses lying on the floor to trip over. All Extension cords and air hoses are on on overhead mounted reels. The primary shop welder hangs from a jib crane and benches (even away from the wall) have outlets on them. It is not a cheap way to go but I suspect it pays for itself in work efficiency, safety, convenience and fewer cut cords. - guru - Friday, 05/18/07 07:45:34 EDT Most of the knifemakers I know that use a supplied air system do NOT use a compressor but rather a blower located outside the shop with filtering to prevent wasp/bee/hornet intake, the distribution hose is run from overhead and is usually located near the grinder... Thomas P - Friday, 05/18/07 13:44:30 EDT No progress in PC land. . . not the right number of ports on the mother board. . had to order a more expensive one. . . :( Anyone want a good deal on a MSI P965 Neo-F Mother board? Its not even a good upgrade for my old PC as it primarily supports SATA drives. . . - guru - Friday, 05/18/07 15:27:07 EDT In a related safety area, a smith I know who wishes to remain nameless yesterday fitted a 20K rpm max mini-wirebrush into what he assumed was a 20K rpm die grinder but was actually a 35K rpm and proceeded to deslag some 10 or 12 feet of stainless beads, wearing jeans, a much-laundered denim shirt, ear muffs, gloves, safety glasses and full-face plastic face shield. No leathers. Some hours later he noticed a stubby splinter c. 1/8-inch long sticking out of his forearm and had spouse remove same with pliers. Out came a 1 (one)-inch piece of wire. Damned thing had speared through shirt and into muscle of forearm. No pain. After getting tetanus shot, anonymous smith now wonders how many more of the little darlings pierced their way into his bod, has resolved NEVER to use motorized wirebrush without full leathers-- and NEVER to exceed max rpms. Miles Undercut - Friday, 05/18/07 17:45:00 EDT Miles, good thing you had on the face shield! All of the bad accidents with grinders have involved overspeed, or the part getting caught up. ThomasP, In industry, supplied air is in every case I know of a factory built, NIOSH approved rig and uses compressed air thru a small diameter hose, from a compressed air source. We are not allowed to innovate and home build with blowers,carbarator filters etc. A NIOSH approval is required and the brands have to match or be aproved to mix. In industry we have to hit a little higher level. For reference a vacumn HEPA filter is usually not HEPA. Unless it has a NIOSH approval, I would not believe the rating, and I do know that a real HEPA filter for a shop vacumn runs about $250 wholesale. Building a fume exhauster is pretty easy, but please don't use plastic piping or hose unless fire rated. I saw a number of smoke eaters burn up when the wrong replacement hose was used. I believe we had 6 in the die shop and I believe 6 self immolated in a 6 week period. And that was from grinding sprarks mostly, not welder berries:) ptree - Friday, 05/18/07 18:15:15 EDT Grinder Speeds: Note that air motor speeds are relative to pressure and a grinder rated at 30,000 PRM @ 100 PSI may run much faster at higher pressures. Even electric die grinders may run faster than the rating. Many of these use serial wound motors which have no theoretical top speed other than that reduced by friction. The rating is an average before the device gets well broken in. So for many applications your wheels should be over rated to some degree ESPECIALLY on air equipment. Wire brushes are a special case. Even when used exactly as directed they shed wires. On high speed grinders they are very dangerous and full leathers ARE recommended. Those I use on the bench I run at 1800 RPM (never on a 3600 RPM grinder) and use wheels rated at 3600 or better. They still shed wires and you will find them sticking in the darndest places. - guru - Friday, 05/18/07 20:12:46 EDT Ahhh, consider the poor welder who is working at a nice sized weld table, and then has to wire wheel the slag on a fairly flat part. Usually standing! That is one of the reasons I like bibs, all that extra heavy material in just the right location is handy even under leathers:) ptree - Friday, 05/18/07 21:06:45 EDT Wire wheels: That porcupine effect is the reason I use a lower rpm polisher motor to run wire wheels, instead of a grinder. I just dial it down to where I can manage to control it easily if it snags, and it doesn't shed many wires at all. I still catch onein the gut every now and then, but they don't go as deep, either. On the bench wheel, I use only the very best wire wheels that I can find, regardless of cost. And the minute they begin to shed appreciably, I junk them. Those wires will find their way up under a face shield, past an apron and through the teeth in your zipper, even. Vicious little things, with malice aforethought. vicopper - Friday, 05/18/07 22:00:18 EDT All true, but, alas, no RPMs to speak of, no bite to speak of. Answer: full body armor for anonymous smith from then until the end of the movie. Miles Undercut - Friday, 05/18/07 23:03:20 EDT Vice and Vise: I was looking at vise prices (side links) and was surprised that a cast Wilton vise is selling for considerably more than a forged Rigid (Peddinghaus). And the forged vise has a very good warrantee. Odd world. . . Every old round arm vice I have seen (like the Wilton) has had serious issues or was broken beyond repair. - guru - Saturday, 05/19/07 11:37:50 EDT New pictures posted: Dear Friends, I'm writing to you from Managua, Nicaragua. Some of you may be familiar with the blacksmiting school that I have set up here. I'd like to share some of my latest pictures with you of a recent blacksmith team from Ontario Canada that visited and taught my students for an entire week. You can see the pictures at www.christianblacksmiths.com I hope you enjoy the pictures. Let me know what you think. Blessings, Mike www.christianblacksmiths.com - Mike Deibert - Saturday, 05/19/07 16:17:48 EDT Vises-- I just finished a few weeks of studying vise prices on Ebay, looking at them in hardware stores and industrial supply shops and catalogs. The new ones are almost ALL from China, one Wilton, I believe, is from Czechoslovakia the rest of the Wiltons are from China. Miles Undercut - Saturday, 05/19/07 16:44:36 EDT New Building for Oakley Forge; "Plan E": The house at Grey Havens is taking more time and costing more money than expected. (Now, there’s a big surprise! ;-) Therefore, the date for Camp Fenby this summer (or autumn) must be put into suspense. Meanwhile the bids for the new forge building have been non-existent or much too elaborate and expensive. Several of our folks from the Longship Company and Camp Fenby have suggested that with a lot of help from my friends we could build the new forge building on "my side of the farm" ourselves at a fraction of the cost. Of course, it would depend on the “lot of help from my friends", who have a varying set of skills and experience, so I thought I’d run the preliminary plans by y’all to see if you think them feasible, workable, or if I’ve made any structural assumption that would not hold up in real life. The structure will use several salvaged components both to save money and on general principle. The basic forge will be approximately 24’ X 26’ (624 sq. ft.), with double doors (6’) towards the lane on the south end of the west side, a single door (3’) on the north end of the east side, and small windows on the east, north and west walls. The east and west ends are the gable ends. I’ve done a layout, and this is big enough to fit everything in with some circulation space, an area for the Renaissance Power Hammer, and some viable working room so I don’t have to move three things to use on thing. The present forge is 11’ X 17’ (187 sq. ft.) and is too small to house the lathe and the large drill press presently in the "new west barn" which I have to vacate anyway. The foundation will be creosoted pilings from my father’s pier, sunk about 3’ down with about 1’ exposed. One of the neighbors has a really nice post hole drill attached to his tractor that’s just right for sinking pilings. On top of these I plan to spike or lag in 4” X 6” pressure treated timbers, slightly overlapping the pilings so that, when I install an inside edging, the pilings will not be exposed inside the building (being toxic and somewhat inflammable). The hard floor will be concrete pavers over a vapor barrier, gravel and sand. In the hot work area, it will be a “sand box” bound in by the edging and the pavers. (I can then rake Zen designs in the sand at the end of the session. :-) The wall frames will be nailed together from standard 2” X 4” X 8’ lumber in 8’ sections that can be tilted up and bolted together, then lagged or spiked to the sills. Openings for windows and doors can be framed in while the tilt-up sections are being assembled. Side and end plates will be 2” X 6” pressure treated due to exposure to condensation. The tricky part is the rafters. I have claim on about 12 sets of barn trusses salvaged from one of my great great grandfather’s barns next door at Burlington. These are about 26’ wide and 13’ high and built out of hardwood. (Sample of wood from the barn range from poplar to black walnut to chestnut to who-knows-what. All are hand adzed.) Usually rafters are set every 2’, but these are heavy barn trusses, and were set at 4’ intervals so that you could lay hundreds of pound of curing tobacco on sticks between the collar beams. Since most of them are missing the bottom collars we will have to install one and fit the truss to the structure, but that’s to be expected. Laying them on the plates, tilting them up and securing them will take a lot of manpower and coordination. The purlins connecting the rafters are 1” X 6” on 1’ centers and pressure treated due to possible leakage and condensation. Roofing will be corrugated galvanized steel. 2 ½ ‘ X 12 ‘ for the upper course over a lower course of 2 ½’ X 8’. Chimneys for the coal forge and wood stove and roof vents will be framed in with plenty of clearance. Additional vents will be on the gable ends. Exterior sheathing would be 5/8” exterior plywood. Materials would run about $6,000 (using the salvaged pilings and trusses). None of this is written in stone, more like firm mud; so if there is anything I’m missing or a hole in my planning, an underdesign or overdesign, please feel free to comment. I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this, trying to strike a balance between practical and affordable, using easily obtainable materials and taking into accounts my own skills and talents as well as the capabilities of my friends. Your thoughts and suggestions will be appreciated. Please excuse any mistakes in nomenclature; as a carpenter I’m a pretty good blacksmith. Bruce Blackistone (Atli) - Saturday, 05/19/07 22:50:27 EDT Bruce-- I built my shop, about the same size and in much the same way in about 1986, and wish I'd made it bigger. Things tend to accumulate and it is nowe basically just a big tool crib and I forge and weld outside. Biggest problem with the design that I have found is that mice and pinon rats think it is ideal living quarters. They have not tunneled under the concrete footings atop which I put the same wall sections you describe, but they have on the north end, where I used RR ties as temporary sills, planning on future expanion, maybe. Try to anticipate what critters in your area might do. They are a dreadful nuisance and can also be a dangerous one. Miles Undercut - Saturday, 05/19/07 23:25:30 EDT Bruce-- p.s. I'd vote for a slab if at all possible-- much easier to roll heavy stuff around on. Miles Undercut - Saturday, 05/19/07 23:29:14 EDT Bruce-- p.p.s-- Forgot to mention OSB (oriented strand board) is what contractors are using around here in Santa Fe instead of plywood as sheathing. When I started helping to build houses in Balmer County, Merlin in 1952 sheathing was 1x pine. Then came plywood and more recently I have used that, 3/8" exterior grade, under corrugated tin on six of the seven roofs we have put on buildings here at Entropy Research, most recent one a gable 16 x 20 feet. Now, however, a contractor who is doing a new roof convinced us that OSB is just as good and a LOT cheaper. I know, I know-- it looks like particle board and I cannot believe it will not dematerialize in short order. We shall see. Miles Undercut - Saturday, 05/19/07 23:47:07 EDT Bruce: I've built a number of buildings, both frame and masonry. Both have their good and bad points. The common thread is always the roof. Any structure is only as good as the foundation and roof, for the same reason; water. Water damages buildings more than anything else except fire. In my area, we worry about hurricanes. Thus, we would never use 1" lumber for purlins. 2x4s set 16" on centers make fine purlins for Galvalume roofing, and allow the use of heavy enough screws to ensure retention under severe wind loads. I sincerely recommend that you sheathe the roof before you apply the purlins and Galvalume. Without sheathing, you roof will be depending entirely on the metal for rack strength. With no interior walls, your envelope will not provide rack strength for the roof. The cost of twenty sheets of 3/4" OSB or even plywood is cheap insurance against loss due to hurricane. When designing your wall to floor/foundation connections, take into account uplift from high wind as well as possible seismic events. You want steel strapping from the rim joists running at least 16" up the studs at corners and doorways. Check out the Simpson Strong-Tie catalogue for appropriate hardware. Do NOT scrimp on fasteners! Spend the money for a pneumatic nail gun that will shoot from 2" t 3-1/2" nails. You'll thank me for that, believe me. I like Porter Cable nail guns, but others are good, too. Use LOTS of fasteners, and use them in appropriate ways for their design. Don;t use screws iin shear, and don't use nails in withdrawal if you can avoid it. Usually you can't, but try anyway. If using screws, use only ceramic coated ones. Forget the galvanized ones; most of the galv is stripped off in the driving operationand they are weaker by far. In most cases, nails are really better and you just use more of them. especially when you drive them as fast as you can pull the trigger. For applying sheathing to roof or walls, use liberal beads of PL-500 or equivalent construction adhesive, then nail it off like you didn't use the glue. More cheap insurance. I've built three frame houses that withstood category 4 hurricanes that way. I'd pour a slab and build on that, rather than go with the pilings, sleepers and rim joists. Flat concrete is pretty cheap to do, and easier to build on. ALso easier to move equipment on. Also stronger to anchor a building to. Bettere all around, in fact. A building the size you're talking about would only take about 8 yards of mud at 4" thick slab or 12 yards at 6". Poured on compacted soil, you can get away with using 6-6-10 remesh everywhere except at the perimeter where you need anchor bolts for bottom plates. There's ou'll want to use some #5 rebar to increase the cone of expansion on the anchors. If you absolutely must, you can still dump a truckload of sand on top of the concrete to simulate a beach. (grin) Personally, I'd use 2x6s for the framing, rather than 2x4s. Your choice, as either wil work. 2x6 allows more room for insulation, shelves between studs, etc. If you're going to frame sections on the ground and then tilt up, go ahead and sheathe them on the ground, too. Sheathe right over any openings and then open them up afterward with a chainsaw or sawzall. Faster that way and less waste due to miscalculations. That's what comes to mind right off. If I think ofmore, I'll post it. You're gonna be sorry you ever asked, I'll bet. vicopper - Sunday, 05/20/07 01:25:47 EDT New Shop: Those are STEEP trusses (26 x 13). That makes them old classic 12/12 pitch or 45 degrees. Great height, great ventilation, great fun (HA HA) to work on. It sounds to me and probably from the age of them that you may lose the barn not to far in the future. I would try to plan on as much new space as possible. STRETCH everything as large as you can go. The 8 foot side walls are too short to add nice high sheds to the sides. If you start at 10 foot then the outer edges of a shed roof can be 8 feet. IF you go higher you can have windows above the shed roof to let in light. Plan for expansion. Those big roof trusses sound like they would support a lot more than just a roof. I would attach steel plates that could then be attached to a piece of steel beam for a monorail. It REALLY helps to have some way to unload heavy things. In Paw-Paw's shop the structure just barely supports itself. A hoist cannot safely be attached. So I am looking at expensive (to buy O