Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Sir Cornelius
Oct 30, 2011

Ambrose Burnside posted:

I've used those before and they only work acceptably with cast alloys, so no go there. Tbh I have no intention of using a fill material at all, if possible, smaller resistance/pulse-welded rings never do. Because I'd be hypothetically welding dozens or hundreds of rings I'm looking for something more production-oriented. Speed and attractiveness + consistency of the weld are primo, which is why resistance/pulse spot-welding is the go-to- as long as you're welding the same size of ring over and over, you can do some timer configuration wizardry to get things perfect without much struggle. The catch is that the go-to machines people typically use for welding rings for maille can't handle the size of ring I want to use, and do poorly with high heat conducting metals like aluminium. I don't know if the spot-welders people use for sheet metal and such would be appropriate for what I want to do.

Spot-welding aluminum requires water cooled electrodes, 3 times the current and 25% of the weld time compared to steel. Aluminum spot-welding machines are insanely expensive.

Sir Cornelius fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Mar 25, 2014

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

King of Gulps
Sep 4, 2003

Ambrose Burnside posted:

I've used those before and they only work acceptably with cast alloys, so no go there. Tbh I have no intention of using a fill material at all, if possible, smaller resistance/pulse-welded rings never do. Because I'd be hypothetically welding dozens or hundreds of rings I'm looking for something more production-oriented. Speed and attractiveness + consistency of the weld are primo, which is why resistance/pulse spot-welding is the go-to- as long as you're welding the same size of ring over and over, you can do some timer configuration wizardry to get things perfect without much struggle. The catch is that the go-to machines people typically use for welding rings for maille can't handle the size of ring I want to use, and do poorly with high heat conducting metals like aluminium. I don't know if the spot-welders people use for sheet metal and such would be appropriate for what I want to do.

I've done a lot (like a lot lot) of similar stuff (exclusively TIG so I can't speak to other techniques that might work, and probably bottoming out at 1/4" in aluminum). The main problem to overcome is that the ends go from solid to a big splat on your table really fast, and even if you are butting the ends together pretty tightly and being careful with the heat, they are likely to just retract into two big balls on either side. Using filler rod acts both as a localized heatsink, and as a bridge/seed for a central puddle to form. Also if you have any kind of kerf, and it's a small enough diameter that you need a vise or something to bring the ends together, I've found it's way faster to just fill the gap than it is to fiddle with one more clamp/vise/alignment process each iteration.

glyph
Apr 6, 2006



Anyone know about anodizing aluminum? I've made some rather large- for us anyway- (2+ square foot) optical breadboards made out of 3/8" 6061 I'd like to anodize. Thing is, I don't seem to have a power supply with enough rear end to do it.

Is the relationship between time and current linear? I.e. Can I use half the juice for twice as long?

sixide
Oct 25, 2004
Anodizing isn't something you normally want to DIY if there are any performance/appearance requirements whatsoever. Same with any other electrofinishing operation.

That said, anodizing (with typical parts in a typical anodizing shop) is fairly straightforward; thickness = current density * time.

glyph
Apr 6, 2006



sixide posted:

Anodizing isn't something you normally want to DIY if there are any performance/appearance requirements whatsoever. Same with any other electrofinishing operation.

That said, anodizing (with typical parts in a typical anodizing shop) is fairly straightforward; thickness = current density * time.

It's something we routinely do here in the lab, but often for small pieces like threaded adaptors for SLR filters and polarizers. We have the constant current power supplies and a giant jug of caswell dye, the only catch is that the power supply pegs at like 10A.

I'm not doing this is in my backyard, more that I'm well beyond the scope of the functional knowledge of my coworkers.

Only performance requirement is that it's harder than bare 6061 considering they'll be in a high traffic area, and the only appearance requirement is that we have blue dye and well, it'd look cool. Should it fail I'll just bead blast the fuckers back to silver.

FWIW, here's what I'm talking about anodizing for reference, the holes are 1/4"-20 on 1" centers (the cutout on the bottom ones is for that 3/8" flex line and fitting):


And here's some of the process (was pleasantly surprised to see a 7/16" collet holds a sharpie quite well.)




I cleaned up this program a lot, there were a lot of extraneous holes that my OCD side couldn't deal with







glyph fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Mar 26, 2014

sixide
Oct 25, 2004
For something that size with your rectifier you're probably looking at a half a day of anodizing per plate. I also don't think you'll get any real thickness, maybe a couple tenths. Probably not too much of an issue given the application and assuming you've got some decent pretreatment.

Ambrose Burnside
Aug 30, 2007

pensive

Sir Cornelius posted:

Spot-welding aluminum requires water cooled electrodes, 3 times the current and 25% of the weld time compared to steel. Aluminum spot-welding machines are insanely expensive.

Yeeeeeah, I was afraid something like this was the case. Oh well. I'll figure out which fancy flux I need for gas-welding whatever alloy I finally settle on if I get motivated enough to start a low-priority project in the future.

ReelBigLizard
Feb 27, 2003

Fallen Rib
Could you just turn them from aluminium tube with a custom shaped lathe tool?

Ambrose Burnside
Aug 30, 2007

pensive
I'd be using it for large-scale chainmaille, not finger-rings or whatever, so if I did it that way every ring would have to be sawed open, woven into the chainweave, and welded shut again. Much faster to make the links the normal way, by winding heavy wire around a mandrel and then sawing down the length of the coil to get a couple dozen rings all at once.

Kasan
Dec 24, 2006
Well, I fixed my heat issue. I drilled some extra holes in the bottom (4 before I broke off a drill bit and got it stuck in the hole because of work hardening), swapped out my wimpy bathroom ceiling fan for a hairdryer, and swapped charcoal for bituminous coal.

:derp: Holy. poo poo. :derp:

After finally getting it started (this was harder than I thought it was going to be, and took some sap pine and some charcoal to get it going), and getting a nice flame I stuck a 1/2inch piece of square bar stock over the fire and went inside to get some manfuel. When I came back outside (about 2 minutes later) I was missing 3 inches of steel that had melted off the end. :supaburn:

I finally got in there today (the following day) and dug out the clinker and chunks of melted steel that appears to have bonded to the coal in small rusty chunks.

I discovered a new problem as a result of all of this. My firepot is about 6 inches deep. This is all well and good, but when my fire is 4 inches down and surrounded by a 12 inch wall of gently caress you, how do I actually heat up sections of metal that don't either fit completely inside the firepot, or just need the tip heated? Do I need to carve out a chunk of my firepot to allow laying metal across it that deep? If so, how I keep the heat loss to a minimum for when I'm also doing casting and need to half bury my crucible? :iiam:

Edit: Or do I just make a 6 inch ball of molten coal that looks like the mouth of hell and hope my brake drum doesn't melt?

glyph
Apr 6, 2006



Ambrose Burnside posted:

I'd be using it for large-scale chainmaille, not finger-rings or whatever, so if I did it that way every ring would have to be sawed open, woven into the chainweave, and welded shut again. Much faster to make the links the normal way, by winding heavy wire around a mandrel and then sawing down the length of the coil to get a couple dozen rings all at once.

What's the magic of aluminum? Weight? Not the most cost effective, but 1/4" or so soft copper 'L' tubing can be reliably coiled around a broomstick. If you have an O/A torch with a brazing tip and some phos copper rod, you can cut and braze with the same torch.

For example, the hanging ring on this birdbath [I made a couple years ago] is 1/4" tubing.

glyph fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Mar 28, 2014

Sagebrush
Feb 26, 2012

glyph posted:

What's the magic of aluminum? Weight? Not the most cost effective, but 1/4" or so soft copper 'L' tubing can be reliably coiled around a broomstick. If you have an O/A torch with a brazing tip and some phos copper rod, you can cut and braze with the same torch.

He says he's making chainmail, and since he's considering aluminum, I have to imagine it's more of a renaissance faire thing than intended to be functional. So yes, absolutely it's going to be for weight reasons. Copper is more than three times as dense as aluminum.

Ambrose Burnside
Aug 30, 2007

pensive
Yeah, for the weight, because I'm more interested in the worn applications I got rattlin' around in my noggin. Wouldn't mind doing some large-scale decorative steel chain, though- just don't really have an application for it right now beyond, i dunno, a rain chain to replace the gutter round the side of the garage that fell off, maybe?

glyph
Apr 6, 2006



Sagebrush posted:

Copper is more than three times as dense as aluminum.

Thus, copper tubing. Hollow copper tubing.

Antinumeric
Nov 27, 2010

BoxGiraffe
I'm making some chainmail at the moment using HS3 steel. It's heavy as gently caress. Wasn't sure if this was the place to post such stuff.

edit: also making some paper models for some gauntlets, but that is much harder.

Antinumeric fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Mar 28, 2014

Ambrose Burnside
Aug 30, 2007

pensive
Need two picture hooks, can only find one. NOT A PROBLEM



(have since lengthened the hook a lil to match the prefab one's length)

(but did not fix the hook-nail angle from 90 degrees, because i drove it straight into the wall instead of at a downward angle like youre supposed to :cripes: )

Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Mar 28, 2014

Sir Cornelius
Oct 30, 2011

Ambrose Burnside posted:

Need two picture hooks, can only find one. NOT A PROBLEM



(have since lengthened the hook a lil to match the prefab one's length)

(but did not fix the hook-nail angle from 90 degrees, because i drove it straight into the wall instead of at a downward angle like youre supposed to :cripes: )

Most over-engineered picture hook ever. Why don't you round the shaft with a hammer and cut some threads with a tiny metal saw?

Rapulum_Dei
Sep 7, 2009

Ambrose Burnside posted:

I'd be using it for large-scale chainmaille, not finger-rings or whatever, so if I did it that way every ring would have to be sawed open, woven into the chainweave, and welded shut again. Much faster to make the links the normal way, by winding heavy wire around a mandrel and then sawing down the length of the coil to get a couple dozen rings all at once.

Spring steel washers work well using 2 pairs of pliers to twist them open then closed. Very resilient to pulling apart once done.

ArtistCeleste
Mar 29, 2004

Do you not?
I finished the lamp, although I am told I need to replace the bulb with hand blown glass.



Some progress on the stair rail.



Here is a long video of me making the rail. It's pretty in depth. If you want to skip to the gratuitous power hammer close ups they start at 5:15.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v28c-ulQw4

Kasan
Dec 24, 2006
Not that they're as awesome as anything Celeste has done, but god dammit, I'm really proud of these. My first ever successful pair of tongs. ALL BY MYSELF. :sun:



Coincidentily, this is also the first successful anything I've smithed. :smith:

Edit: The tines were supposed to be longer, but I managed to snap one of them off near the base of the twist (lost 3 inches) so they became flat tongs.

ArtistCeleste
Mar 29, 2004

Do you not?
Kasan, I really wish I would have taken a picture of my first tongs. I was making quite a few and ended up throwing them all out.

A couple of things, always twist with a high even heat. Twists are stressful and a lack of heat will cause it to shear, uneven heat will cause it to twist tighter where it is hotter.

Square stock is easier to work because you almost always want to be working on 2 planes, exactly 90 degrees to one another.

I would find a step by step video tutorial and follow it. It takes a lot of calculation and planning to design tongs that work well. I worked for 6 weeks straight and went back to the drawing board many times. (maybe this) http://www.anvilfire.com/iForge/tutor.php?lesson=jd_tongs/demo

Keep making tongs and keep posting your work. I love seeing the progress of a dedicated smith.

ArtistCeleste fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Mar 31, 2014

Acid Reflux
Oct 18, 2004

I've been eyeballing the Central Machinery mini milling machine that Harbor Freight sells. I understand that it's not the pinnacle of precision and quality, but the reviews made it seem solid and reliable enough overall. There also appear to be a decent number of inexpensive upgrades available for it. I'm really looking for something that I can use to make small aluminum and plastic one-off parts for personal projects. Fabricating stuff by hand is starting to get tedious.

Would I be shooting myself in the foot by getting this particular iteration of the machine? The same basic unit is also branded by Grizzly and Micro-Mark, presumably with better final QC and different options and whatnot. The price of the HF rig is a little more in my ballpark, though, when I start to account for the fact that I'm also going to need all kinds of tooling and poo poo.

Acid Reflux fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Apr 5, 2014

iForge
Oct 28, 2010

Apple's new "iBlacksmith Suite: Professional Edition" features the iForge, iAnvil, and the iHammer.
So I did something I haven't done in a long time. Made something with fire and hammer. I have been getting interested in coppersmithing over the past few months. Mainly just been making tools, stakes, and watching a lot of videos. I started with a 4 inch copper disc and made a bowl. Next time, I will pay more attention to my center mark and line when I finish the bottom, I had the flat bottom centered nicely when it was roughed out but it drifted on me when I finished it, though I actually kinda like it being a bit crooked. I fixed that dent along the base after the pic was taken.



Ambrose Burnside
Aug 30, 2007

pensive

iForge posted:

So I did something I haven't done in a long time. Made something with fire and hammer. I have been getting interested in coppersmithing over the past few months. Mainly just been making tools, stakes, and watching a lot of videos. I started with a 4 inch copper disc and made a bowl. Next time, I will pay more attention to my center mark and line when I finish the bottom, I had the flat bottom centered nicely when it was roughed out but it drifted on me when I finished it, though I actually kinda like it being a bit crooked. I fixed that dent along the base after the pic was taken.





heck yeah. Did you buy the copper blank or cut it yourself? Being able to cut reasonably-sized discs would be a huge asset to me, I'm not good enough with a jeweller's saw to end up with anything that isn't visibly-wonky and I'm not sure of what other methods will work well.

CrazyLittle
Sep 11, 2001





Clapping Larry

Acid Reflux posted:

I've been eyeballing the Central Machinery mini milling machine that Harbor Freight sells. I understand that it's not the pinnacle of precision and quality, but the reviews made it seem solid and reliable enough overall. There also appear to be a decent number of inexpensive upgrades available for it. I'm really looking for something that I can use to make small aluminum and plastic one-off parts for personal projects. Fabricating stuff by hand is starting to get tedious.

Would I be shooting myself in the foot by getting this particular iteration of the machine? The same basic unit is also branded by Grizzly and Micro-Mark, presumably with better final QC and different options and whatnot. The price of the HF rig is a little more in my ballpark, though, when I start to account for the fact that I'm also going to need all kinds of tooling and poo poo.

1) Do you plan to convert it into CNC for making multiple parts?
2) How big are the parts you plan to make?

I kinda started where you did, and ended up going with something much bigger: Grizzly G0704

Acid Reflux
Oct 18, 2004

CrazyLittle posted:

1) Do you plan to convert it into CNC for making multiple parts?
2) How big are the parts you plan to make?

I kinda started where you did, and ended up going with something much bigger: Grizzly G0704

Actually, one of the first things I want to do with it is finish up the parts I've been putting off for my CNC router table, which has been sitting at about 80% completion for a couple of years now for various reasons. So no, no intention of converting the mill. As far as part size goes, I guess I'd have to say...larger than a much smaller hobby mill would handle, but too small to worry about having a full sized knee mill. The sort of stuff that a machine this size appears to be just right for. It's hard to be specific because I'm always trying to cobble together all kinds of crazy mad scientist poo poo. I try to use as much standard hardware and as many "found parts" as I can, but every once in a while I need to whip up a little widget here and there to make something work. I'm getting to the point in my life where I'd much rather let a machine do some of the harder work. :)

Sir Cornelius
Oct 30, 2011

ArtistCeleste posted:

I finished the lamp, although I am told I need to replace the bulb with hand blown glass.




Amazing job!

I agree about the bulb though. Why not just hit it with a propane wrench and form it a bit?

Brekelefuw
Dec 16, 2003
I Like Trumpets

iForge posted:

So I did something I haven't done in a long time. Made something with fire and hammer. I have been getting interested in coppersmithing over the past few months. Mainly just been making tools, stakes, and watching a lot of videos. I started with a 4 inch copper disc and made a bowl. Next time, I will pay more attention to my center mark and line when I finish the bottom, I had the flat bottom centered nicely when it was roughed out but it drifted on me when I finished it, though I actually kinda like it being a bit crooked. I fixed that dent along the base after the pic was taken.





Nice!
I am doing a silversmithing course right now and loving it.
We have done two kinds of bowls, and are now forging spoons.

Did you sink that bowl or raise it? Raising is a bit depressing and then all of a sudden the piece looks great.

Bruinator
Jul 6, 2005
I'm planning to pick up an TIG welder for hobby type fab use and could use some input. I've had a Lincoln 115V MIG for a few years that's done pretty well by me but I'm ready for a new challenge and adding some new capabilities. I have tried tig before but only briefly so I'll be learning from the beginning. My uses are going to be mild steel mainly under 1/8" but occasionally up to about 1/4", some stainless exhaust tubing, thin stainless tubing/sheet up to 2mm for my brewing system, and as yet undefined aluminum projects. Not having aluminum capability has been one of my main gripes with the Lincoln.

I only have 40A 240V service and the machine needs to be at least a little bit portable for storage so the obvious choice of an old 250 syncrowave, idealarc 300/300, or other transformer TIG isn't an option. I'm not opposed to buying used but since I need an inverter used is a little less attractive.

I've narrowed down to a few units with a ~$2500 cap:
0) Thermal Arc 161s, $700 new. Pros: Cheap. Cons: DC only, lift tig only, a little underpowered, forget about aluminum projects. Learn to tig weld steel now and upgrade to an AC machine later.
1) Thermal Arc 186, $1700 new Pros: Cheap, local service, 3 yr warranty. Cons: Some internet complaints about foot pedal sampling rate, resale value probably not so high. Same machine as Longevity so questionable long term reliability beyond warranty period.
2) HTP 221, $2500 new. Pros: 3 year warranty, most powerful machine in this range, advanced AC features I'll probably never use, good internet reputation, high quality accessories included. Best duty cycle of these machines. Cons: Single point of support, no used units/parts, unknown resale, Italian made. They also never seem to go on sale for more than $200 off.
3) Beat to crap Dynasty 200DX, $2500-3000. Pros: All the bells and whistles, Miller name, high resale, takes any input power, gold standard inverter. Cons: Questionable Craigslist or ebay machine at this price point. Expensive to fix if it breaks.

I've been watching ebay and SoCal CL for a couple of months. Used Japanese made Thermal Arc 185 (way better machine than the 186) never seem to show up and cosmetically thrashed Dynasties with thousands of hours command close to the same price as new units.

At the moment I'm waffling between testing the waters with the DC tig or just jumping in and buying the HTP. If I was buying for work or for making cash on the side the Miller would be a slam dunk but it's a little bit harder to quantify the differences at the hobbyist level.

Has anyone made a similar decision, and if so how did it turn out and would you do anything differently?

iForge
Oct 28, 2010

Apple's new "iBlacksmith Suite: Professional Edition" features the iForge, iAnvil, and the iHammer.

Ambrose Burnside posted:

heck yeah. Did you buy the copper blank or cut it yourself? Being able to cut reasonably-sized discs would be a huge asset to me, I'm not good enough with a jeweller's saw to end up with anything that isn't visibly-wonky and I'm not sure of what other methods will work well.

I cut it myself. The piece of scrap I used was about 4" x 6" so I made a center mark and used my calipers set to 2" (half the desired diameter) to scribe a circle then after annealing, used a pair of tin snips to cut the circle. I tapped the bumpy edge flat with a hammer and went around it once real quick with a fine cut file to smooth it out. Tomorrow I'm going to my parents house for dinner, while I am there I will pick up my small O/A rig so I can finish the last stake I'll need for now. I have a bunch of scrap copper left over from a copper roof and gutter job and have a 12"x24" sheet I bought online to run through, so more pieces will be posted in the coming weeks.


Brekelefuw posted:

Nice!
I am doing a silversmithing course right now and loving it.
We have done two kinds of bowls, and are now forging spoons.

Did you sink that bowl or raise it? Raising is a bit depressing and then all of a sudden the piece looks great.

I raised it on a stake made from some 3/4 steel pipe and a pipe cap ground to a nice profile and polished. Haven't done much dishing other than making steel flowers, since I never ground the casting lines and rough surface off my swage block. I need to get on that.

Edit: Steel pipe not copper for the stake

iForge fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Apr 6, 2014

CrazyLittle
Sep 11, 2001





Clapping Larry

Acid Reflux posted:

As far as part size goes, I guess I'd have to say...larger than a much smaller hobby mill would handle, but too small to worry about having a full sized knee mill.

I ended up geting the g0704 when a guy at the nearby shop (with that mill CNC'd) was having trouble mounting a part in the mill vertically and getting the tool to clear it. Turns out that the Z travel on sieg x2 clone mill is only ~7 inches, and I might need more than that.

Acid Reflux
Oct 18, 2004

I don't *think* Z-axis travel is a major concern for me at this point, because I'm usually making more flat-ish pieces like adapter plates and brackets to mate things up or reinforce corners.

Having said that - I'll do a little more research on machines and sizes before I pull the trigger on anything. Budget is going to be a large factor here, so I may be limited to an X2 style in the end anyway, but I'll start scouring the local ads and Craigslist for used stuff too. Might stumble into a good deal. Hell, if I could figure out a way to get one into my basement workshop without demolishing the house, I'd probably snag one of the dozen or so knee mills I see for sale around here at any given time.

Claes Oldenburger
Apr 23, 2010

Metal magician!
:black101:

Brekelefuw posted:

Nice!
I am doing a silversmithing course right now and loving it.
We have done two kinds of bowls, and are now forging spoons.

Did you sink that bowl or raise it? Raising is a bit depressing and then all of a sudden the piece looks great.

I feel the same way. I've moved onto anticlastic raising and everything looks kinda weird until it all comes together at the end.

King of Gulps
Sep 4, 2003

Acid Reflux posted:

I don't *think* Z-axis travel is a major concern for me at this point, because I'm usually making more flat-ish pieces like adapter plates and brackets to mate things up or reinforce corners.

Having said that - I'll do a little more research on machines and sizes before I pull the trigger on anything. Budget is going to be a large factor here, so I may be limited to an X2 style in the end anyway, but I'll start scouring the local ads and Craigslist for used stuff too. Might stumble into a good deal. Hell, if I could figure out a way to get one into my basement workshop without demolishing the house, I'd probably snag one of the dozen or so knee mills I see for sale around here at any given time.

Using a round column mill/drill, I sometimes get z-axis issues if I don't plan ahead - that hole I just drilled with a stubby bit, whoops now I can't fit a tap, tap holder, and tap guide between the spindle and the workpiece, which means I have to raise the head and lose the location of the hole. Square column mills like the ones you and CrazyLittle are talking about obviously clear up the location problem, but 7" is a lot less than you might think. Anyway, the Grizzly version of the HF machine says 11.5" between spindle and table (less than $100 more expensive too, surprisingly). I'd say do it, especially in a basement - if you decide you need something bigger, getting a 150 lb machine back up the stairs to sell to a dude on craigslist is a lot easier than starting with a bigger machine and later deciding you'd rather have the extra $500 - if only those stairs weren't in your way. The little one would be an awesome secondary setup in the future as well.

Acid Reflux
Oct 18, 2004

In the short run, I've got about $1000 to spend. The more I review my meager needs, and the more I plan toward all the tooling I'll have to buy, I honestly think I'll be able to get by just fine with that HF machine. I guess I've completely forgotten to mention that I have access to a full size knee mill and a 16x40 lathe at work, but using it for personal projects means I have to spend more time at work. :) It also kind of sucks for the guy who normally runs the machine tools, because I have to undo all of his setup to work my stuff, and then he (understandably) has to set everything back up to his liking when I'm done. Not the end of the world for either of us, but it's still lost time.

I found this site, and if their numbers are true, I don't think I'll be losing out on a whole lot with the HF rig. On the other hand...if I hold out for a couple hundred more dollars, I can get this machine with better specs and included tooling delivered to my door.

Much thinking to do, still. I really appreciate youse guys's input so far. :)

Wandering Orange
Sep 8, 2012

The tilting column is a huge pain in the rear end. You will never use it.

But it will make everything more difficult because it acts as a lever with the fulcrum on that bolt through the column. And not just in the X axis parallel to the table! The whole column assembly will flex around that bolt in the Y axis as well. That's why there are pages and pages, threads upon threads, of people adding braces to fix the column in place. Hell, now that I am learning to weld I have been thinking about making a complete external skeleton for my X2 that attaches to the base and column at multiple points. It's kinda like a boat in that regard - a hole you throw money into.

If you're set on the X2 size, at least get the fixed column version from LMS. The Z axis work envelope still sucks after you add a vice and a drill chuck though...

Kasan
Dec 24, 2006
So on a partially unrelated note, since I've gotten into blacksmithing, and started out as a hambeast, I've had a noticeable change in the definition of my dominant bicep. Swinging a hammer is doing some good for me apparently. But I was curious, what can I do to keep my left arm from looking like a noodle. I've tried using my left arm for power hits, and I'm surprisingly accurate with my non dominate arm (even if it feels weird) but after two or three swings, my arm is dead for the day, where as I can swing most of the day with a 3lb hammer on my right arm before really getting exhausted.


tl;dr How r muscle work? :psyduck:

Bad Munki
Nov 4, 2008

We're all mad here.


Kasan posted:

But I was curious, what can I do to keep my left arm from looking like a noodle.

Only jerk it lefty, it'll take practice, but you'll get used to it.

Ambrose Burnside
Aug 30, 2007

pensive
if you're doing a lot of smithing and you're not truly ambidextrous you're pretty much inevitably gonna be imbalanced. It's fine. Embrace the fiddler-crab look imo~

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Brekelefuw
Dec 16, 2003
I Like Trumpets
WOOOOOO
I'm getting a Sherline Mill tomorrow morning off of Kijiji. I can't wait.

I am going to make a Sherline sized radius tool for my lathe based on the Bedair design http://www.bedair.org/Ball/ball22.html


I am also going to be starting to make a natural trumpet from scratch in my silversmithing course shortly.

Metalworking is the best.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply