|
Linux Assassin posted:I have just completed the forging/grinding of my first knife! It all depends on how far you want to go in terms of finishing this blade. First: if you want to smooth out the face of the blade more, I'd go at it with a file first. You can take out some of the high spots (which are brightly ground right now) if you want to get closer to the thickness at your low spots (which are the grey areas with some scale adhering). After, or alternatively, you'll want to hit it with some sandpaper to remove some of the scoring from your grinding. I'd start with 80 grit, then 120, and then a finer grit after that too if you like. If you get a flexible sanding block (I have one made of a hard rubber) you can sand into the pitted areas to remove the scale (if you want). When you're done with that, you're probably going to need to re-do your quenching. You said you brought the blade up to "red hot" which may or may not have been the eutectoid temperature. Here's the fancy explanation: in order to harden carbon steel, you need to heat it past the eutectoid temperature, which is the point where annealed (think "untreated") carbon steel is in a "perlite" phase. Above that temperature, two things happen: first, the (still solid) steel begins a phase transformation in which austinite can form. If you then allow the steel to cool slowly, the austinte will transition back to perlite and you have accomplished nothing (or possibly you've annealed the metal, if you were trying to get rid of stresses and work-hardening). If instead you quench the metal (without allowing it to cool below eutectoid temp first!), you force it to cool so fast that the austinite (and some other fancy structures) transforms into martensite. Yay! We want this to happen because martensitic plain carbon steel is very hard (but loses ductility and becomes very brittle). So... the other happy thing that happens at a temperature typically a little bit above the eutectoid temperature is that the metal becomes non-magnetic. That is, a magnet will no longer stick to it. This is very convenient because it means that when performing quench-hardening of carbon steel, we do not actually need to take an accurate temperature reading of the metal; instead, you put a magnet on the end of a long stick (or whatever) and touch it to your work piece as you heat it. When the magnet stops sticking at all, you know you've gotten above the eutectoid temperature! So long story short: if your "red hot" was not a non-magnetic (or temperature-read and table-looked-up) and therefore probably non-eutectoid temperature, than you have not actually hardened your steel. Which is fine if you're going to do more work on it. But even if you have hardened it, you can still do some filing and sanding work (it'll just take a lot more effort, which can be nice if you want to avoid accidentally removing too much material). When I took my knife classes, my master-knifemaker instructor had us do rough shaping and filing, then hardening and an initial temper, and then a lot more minor filing and sanding on the hardened and tempered piece. Then we do the final temper (the colors are easier to see and judge on a smooth surface) and then final sharpening of the edge, attaching handles and such, and last of all, polishing (such as with a buffer). So: you may, but do not have to of course, still do some shaping, filing, sanding, etc. work on your blade. You may need to re-do your initial hardening if it wasn't hot enough the first time. You definitely will need to temper the blade (if it actually got hardened). That means bringing up all or part of the blade to a temperature appropriate for the hardness you want in that part (see: Anvilfire's temper colors and hardness chart) which you can judge by the colors on the surface of your metal. You can use a hot oven for an initial all-over temper to get the blade down from glass-hard super-brittle state. Since the oven is temperature-controlled, it's safe to just stick it in there and crank the knob to (say) 450-500 degrees F and let it sit. No need to quench after, you can just let it cool. If you want a higher-temp temper (especially on the handle and spine), you'll need to apply direct heat (such as from a torch, or a gap in the surface of your forge), and have a quenching bucket handy because the colors running on the surface represent the surface temperature: as you apply heat it spreads away from the heat source, and so you probably want to have that nice purple-blue color spread along the handle and spine, but not spread into the thinner blade section, which it will start to do very quickly indeed once the spine is hot. So get that blue, watch closely as you do it, and as soon as you're happy with what you're seeing, straight into the quench with that blade to prevent further heating of the edge. Of course if you gently caress up and over-temper, you can always hit the "reset" button by heating above eutectoid temp and doing a new hardening quench from there. Anyway good luck! Seems like a decent first blade to me, you may want to keep working on it or you may feel it's good enough for your first try and start in on your next blade instead. I never finished the first couple blades I made, so I can definitely relate to that. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Apr 5, 2012 |
#
?
Apr 5, 2012 21:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 10:31 |
|
|
For reference, a knife isn't 'done' (I mean if a knife cuts satisfactorily it's DONE but I mean the grognard's 'done') until the face is completely smooth. I'd take that knife and sit down with it and some files for a good hour or five and file and file and file until there aren't any more dark patches (deep spots) left. THEN you can start with sandpaper/s or steel wool or buffing wheels or whatever you have for finishing and polishing. The main thing this will do, aside from make your knife nicer, is make you hate yourself for that one single off-kilter hammer strike that put that one goddamn ding halfway through the blade. This is a painful lesson but it is one that every blade-forger must learn.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2012 21:53
|
|
|
Ambrose Burnside posted:The main thing this will do, aside from make your knife nicer, is make you hate yourself for that one single off-kilter hammer strike that put that one goddamn ding halfway through the blade. This is a painful lesson but it is one that every blade-forger must learn. Or if you're doing demonstrations and talking to visitors and you leave the loving blade in the coke fire too long and it drat near burns a hole through the middle of the loving steel. I think I ruined about 3-4 rail spikes doing that last year.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2012 23:20
|
|
|
I totally forgot what settings and welding rod to use in what circumstances from my welding class. Got a cheap office chair a few years ago and the tiny weld holding the pneumatic cylinder to the tilt base cleanly snapped off (what little weld there was). Tube collar and base are abount 1/8" thick apparently mild steel (attracts a magnet at least). I want to use my DC stick welder to fix this but I'm trying to figure out what rod and settings to use. Based on what welding rod I can get at Home Depot, I'm thinking of Lincoln Electric 3/32 in. Fleetweld 180 E6011 Stick Electrode, which would put the current range at 40-80A (according to the Lincoln Electric website). Do I start at the middle (60A) and adjust from there? Of course I'll practice on a piece of scrap before I work on the chair just to get the hang of welding again.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2012 07:46
|
|
|
Fire Storm posted:I totally forgot what settings and welding rod to use in what circumstances from my welding class. you'll find about 70 amps the sweet spot for a flat fillet Weld with that Rod. but like you said practice a couple Rods first. I'm currently working on a terrible terrible overlay job. 8" heavy wall pipe going into a big pump. its about a 3 foot pipe in the vertical position and I have to crawl into the pump (with its 350f preheat) and weld 309 MoL in horizontal passes up the 3 foot pipe. took 40 hours of welding to get the fist layer in and they want 2  Will post pictures soon, must sleep now I hate night shift.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2012 14:03
|
|
|
Is there a good place to order welding supplies (filler rods, mainly) online? Also does anyone have some basic rules of thumb for the thickness of the rod I should be using?
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2012 06:38
|
|
|
Does anyone know of any decent repousse and chasing resources? It's a really neat, flexible technique, and it seems like a good place to start with practising toolmaking and tempering (insofar as you need to make and temper a bunch of fairly light easy-to-forge-and-shape punches with the only variance being in the face shape/size). Also it seems like the most 'expressive' artey metalworking and seems way, way less frustrating to learn than engraving (which I burned out on real quick after I couldn't get the basic non-tearout-causing graver position down pat).
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2012 19:00
|
|
|
I just got a drill press and lathe from my father in law, he has moved out of the country and couldn't take it with him along with a bunch of steel/aluminum/brass stock. They are both Harbor Freight and I don't know what if any mods he has done to them, he was using it to make engine parts for model air planes. Where should I look to learn how to use these tools and what should I know before setting them up. I was looking through the thread for things of the nature but seeing all the cool blacksmith stuff made me want to get a forge set up and no way I could do that right now. Any tips or sites with a good community for a beginner to learn from would be nice. pics of my work area:   
r00tn00b fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Apr 10, 2012 |
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2012 12:54
|
|
|
SmokeyXIII posted:you'll find about 70 amps the sweet spot for a flat fillet Weld with that Rod. but like you said practice a couple Rods first. That sounds nice and toasty. At least if you are laying on your back, the sweat beads don't land on the lens and block your vision.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2012 22:35
|
|
|
ductonius posted:If you're going to be forging stainless use L-series stainless (eg: 314L, 316L). It's more expensive but the carbon content is tightly controlled, so it won't form the chrome-carbides that make regular stainless lose it's stainless properties when heated. It was developed because *welding* stainless heats it up high enough to destroy the stainless properties if carbon is present. Thanks, I'll see if the local suppliers can get L-series in. I made a couple more, as on the last shore-gathering expedition both myself and my grandfather managed to lose our hooks. I got myself a new, much hotter propane torch and it made shifting the metal a lot easier. So much so that I had a go at putting a ring on the end of each this time, as it's nice to grip and also presents less of a danger if you fall over. The one with the uneven ring was my grandfather getting a little hammer-happy and knocking it round too far:  Two patterns are shown here, the twin-bevel/chisel point prototype of my own devising; and the more traditional single bevel round point style that my grandfather favours. The steel used in all my hooks so far is actually of WW2 German vintage as far as we know; There was a stack of old, bent furnace rakes hanging around my grandfather's vinery, with a wood fired boiler brought over by the Wehrmacht during the occupation of our island. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 14:00 on Apr 11, 2012 |
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2012 13:54
|
|
|
I can't find Babbitrite casting putty anywhere. All the people who used to carry it aren't. McMaster-Carr has some, and I'm trying to place an order now because I'm worried that they aren't producing it any more or something.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2012 16:35
|
|
|
Ambrose Burnside posted:I can't find Babbitrite casting putty anywhere. All the people who used to carry it aren't. McMaster-Carr has some, and I'm trying to place an order now because I'm worried that they aren't producing it any more or something. Have you tried contacting the company directly- they have a website, and US po boxes aren't that expensive for single ship even if they won't send it right to your door.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2012 21:09
|
|
|
Z3n posted:Is there a good place to order welding supplies (filler rods, mainly) online? For abrasives I use leigh valley. They have a great selection. I know that doesn't help you with filler rod, but check this site out anyway.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2012 00:57
|
|
|
duck hunt posted:For abrasives I use leigh valley. They have a great selection. I know that doesn't help you with filler rod, but check this site out anyway. Thanks! I set up a bandsaw today, HF cheapie for 200 bucks. The blade is crap but the bandsaw itself is fine.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2012 04:46
|
|
|
Whoa. I just tig welded for the first time. I used my big ac/dc machine as the power supply, and made my own power block to connect it to a torch... And voila! Tig! I'll get some photos later on. This certainly changes everything. jovial_cynic fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Apr 12, 2012 |
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2012 04:57
|
|
|
Ambrose Burnside posted:I can't find Babbitrite casting putty anywhere. All the people who used to carry it aren't. McMaster-Carr has some, and I'm trying to place an order now because I'm worried that they aren't producing it any more or something. There's always ebay
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2012 06:16
|
|
|
Fire Storm posted:There's always ebay I've got ~75 dollars in the world right now, I don't need 39 pounds of babbitrite  McMaster-Carr won't sell to new Canadian customers for some reason, so yeah, guess my only option now is to hit up the manufacturers themselves.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2012 16:16
|
|
|
Hilarious. This photo should be the default picture for everything sold on eBay: how_not_to_package_things.jpg
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2012 20:30
|
|
|
All my boxes of rivets look like that. I'm sure the poor fuckers in the post office are all "oh hurm, another regulation box" *lifts* *drops* "jesus christ it's full of steel ow ow ow".
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2012 21:00
|
|
|
Slung Blade posted:All my boxes of rivets look like that. I once had a large flatrate box full of lead ingots shipped from CA to PA... Edit: To be fair it wasn't FULL. The whole thing was lined with 3/8" plywood for structural stability... Sponge! fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Apr 13, 2012 |
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2012 00:01
|
|
|
I made a thing. It is a necklace and earring holder. Those bars are on magnets so that they can be put anywhere and at any angle one wants. I still have to clean it up good and clearcoat it before use. I am leaving some of the scale on there to provide texture and depth to it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2012 04:00
|
|
|
Gwamp posted:I made a thing. This is simply genius and I am filing it in the awesome gift ideas section of my brain.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2012 05:01
|
|
|
A year or so ago I was laid off. Being a welder/fabricator by trade I did a few side jobs and stuff, but this one takes the cake. After I was done with this job I was really good at sharpening drill bits, 10 sets of holes per post for cable. And I never want to see another orbital sander as long as I live.  Hung a few beams, that big one is a 12x96, 12 inch web 96 pounds per foot.  Put in a column, set another 12x96 on it, tied some other beams into it, then bent a piece of 1/8" plate to make a sweeping radius. I don't have pictures of it, but around the entire house is a piece of plate like im showing here. That is what the supports for the catwalk weld onto.  Cut a hole to make room for where the stairs are going to be.  Built a small side deck. I didn't get any pictures of the actual building/prep work of the hand rail or the cat walk I just took pictures after it was all buttoned up and cable was strung.  View from the driveway.  Looking up the steps from the driveway.  Steps coming from the master bedroom to the side deck.  Back side of the house.  View off of the back deck. fps_bill fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Apr 13, 2012 |
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2012 17:48
|
|
|
That's impressive work fps_bill, my last job before I got laid off was making bespoke high end gates, railings, stairs and custom stuff like your deck/balcony. We got shafted by guys importing lovely cheap stuff from china, even with the cost of shipping it halfway around the world we couldn't compete. People don't appreciate the sheer amount of work that goes into that sort of job. I hope you got suitably rewarded. Was that stuff just painted? All our stuff was hot dip galvanised or zinc blasted to survive in our lovely climate.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2012 18:56
|
|
|
 Holy poo poo, how did you get those beams up in the air? Hire a crane? Nice work.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2012 19:23
|
|
|
Slung Blade posted:All my boxes of rivets look like that. gently caress Stanley Tools. Shipping a 40-60 lb box of nuts, bolts, screws, etc in a flimsy cardboard box held together with 2 small plastic straps. Once a week one of those boxes would break and gets stuff everywhere 
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2012 02:45
|
|
|
echomadman posted:Was that stuff just painted? All our stuff was hot dip galvanised or zinc blasted to survive in our lovely climate. The steel that is red was existing steel from when the home owner originally built the house. The stuff that looks straight from the mill is new steel I added. All the handrail is stainless steel. Stainless posts, flat bar, pipe, cable. The only part of the hand rail that isn't stainless are some of the crimp fittings which are zinc washed copper. Like I said earlier I got really good at sharpening drill bits after I was done drilling the posts. The reason you might think it was painted was because before I put anything up I spent a good god drat long time with an orbital sander with 60 grit pads putting a nice scratch pattern on the stainless. I really don't know how to explain it but the finish that stuff got is amazing. After everything was up I had to back through with the orbital and hit some places where I joined pieces of pipe together. It gleams in the sunlight so hardcore. As far as how i got the beams up we rented a fork lift with a telescoping boom. That made setting the structural pieces pretty easy. The one was the one above the door.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2012 06:02
|
|
|
fps_bill posted:The steel that is red was existing steel from when the home owner originally built the house. The stuff that looks straight from the mill is new steel I added. All the handrail is stainless steel. Stainless posts, flat bar, pipe, cable. The only part of the hand rail that isn't stainless are some of the crimp fittings which are zinc washed copper. Like I said earlier I got really good at sharpening drill bits after I was done drilling the posts. I meant the I-beams and support structure, even that would have to be dipped here is it was outdoors. Thankfully we didnt do much stainless work. We did all the exterior gates and rails for this place  The poor bastards that had to do this interior stair balustrade had their hearts broken. its all stainless with either a teak or mahogany handrail 
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2012 11:08
|
|
|
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGjKRvGH17U A clip from Hands, a nice documentary series from the late 70s about Irish traditional trades and crafts. This one is about harvesting rushes but the first half is about traditional blacksmiths. echomadman fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Apr 15, 2012 |
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2012 22:31
|
|
|
echomadman posted:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGjKRvGH17U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gyvjvvSKcI&feature=related look at 1:50- that is such a cool tool; looks like a loose belt sander for polishing up round pipe and bar. I've never seen one before- anyone know what it's called?
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2012 04:57
|
|
|
Linux Assassin posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gyvjvvSKcI&feature=related Could it just be a normal wall mounted sander, but not mounted? We have one of those at work but it is about 3 feet of work area to sand on. http://www.ferreestools.com/Buffing_Polishing_files/Page613.htm This is what ours is.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2012 05:36
|
|
|
echomadman posted:I meant the I-beams and support structure, even that would have to be dipped here is it was outdoors. Oh, after everything was up and before the contractors started laying wood down we rented an airless sprayer and painted the poo poo out of everything.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2012 06:46
|
|
|
Fire Storm posted:Got a cheap office chair a few years ago and the tiny weld holding the pneumatic cylinder to the tilt base cleanly snapped off (what little weld there was). Tube collar and base are abount 1/8" thick apparently mild steel (attracts a magnet at least). I want to use my DC stick welder to fix this but I'm trying to figure out what rod and settings to use.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2012 06:47
|
|
|
fps_bill posted:A year or so ago I was laid off. Being a welder/fabricator by trade I did a few side jobs and stuff, but this one takes the cake. Slung Blade posted:Holy poo poo, how did you get those beams up in the air? Hire a crane? fps_bill posted:As far as how i got the beams up we rented a fork lift with a telescoping boom. That made setting the structural pieces pretty easy. The one was the one above the door.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2012 15:11
|
|
Bad Angus! Bad!
|
Linux Assassin posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gyvjvvSKcI&feature=related European tool manufacturers like Metabo, Mafell and Fein make really strange niche tools that you seldom see in shops but do special jobs really well. Edit: Found this after checking the Fein homepage: http://www.fein.de/en_uk/surface-processing/sanders/rs-12-70-e-060417/ Iskariot fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Apr 15, 2012 |
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2012 16:26
|
|
|
BBBigpost. Been doing some things in the garage lately, compounding the usual giant piles of projects we have.  Garage is a little bit cramped thanks to a tractor that needs to be split to find the source of some mystery metal in the hydraulic fluid.  Front splitting stand  Rear stand (this one stays stationary, so a 20 ton jack goes under the bar and that's all)  Also working on getting this truck operational. It's sat for about 5 years with 1 year of use inbetween. Lots and lots of cleaning and getting rat pee smells out (wasn't fun), and now rebuilding the hitch. 1 ton, 1995, 350ci, 2wd. It's lived just about the hardest life a truck can.  Rear brake seized a bit, so just teeter-tottered it up with a tractor and the double hitch + a bolt method.  Untouched motor, transmission, rear end. Second set of ball joints, 2nd rear main seal, first rad, etc.   The problem  Weld the frame plates to the bench, cut the tube out, clad the frame plates and drop in a piece of 3.5" 3/8" wall box tube, repierce the receiver hitch back in and gusset the tube to the plates. Got to get it stripped down to the frame and sandblast and repaint with POR15. Going to pick up cab corners and rebuild that, then buy doors and fenders and paint it all. Bed needs to be replaced someday, but it's still functional so who cares. Hypnolobster fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Apr 15, 2012 |
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2012 17:21
|
|
|
Iskariot posted:http://www.metabo.us/Product-catalogue-Metabo-Metal-hand-held-power-tools.36360+M5c6c6a37ef1.0.html Huh- neat, looks like the basic body is an angle grinder, might be a neat 'tool re-purpose' project at some point. Make it use the most common/cheap belts you can find, and then also built a mount for it and it will also serve as a great belt sander as well as pipe sander.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2012 17:38
|
|
|
Linux Assassin posted:Huh- neat, looks like the basic body is an angle grinder, might be a neat 'tool re-purpose' project at some point. Make it use the most common/cheap belts you can find, and then also built a mount for it and it will also serve as a great belt sander as well as pipe sander.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2012 17:53
|
|
|
Hypnolobster posted:Garage is a little bit cramped thanks to a tractor that needs to be split to find the source of some mystery metal in the hydraulic fluid.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2012 22:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 10:31 |
|
|
jovial_cynic posted:Whoa. I just tig welded for the first time. No sparks, no smoke, no splatter, no slag, no cold starts... Yeah, TIG welding is kind of like the luxury suite of welding.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2012 08:17
|
|