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I did some smithing today and brought out the anvil too. I would say what I have been told by others was correct, the pit is too deep, or rather the air intake is too far down. I think it would be OK if I had the same overall depth but the intake was higher. But that would probably be wasteful. I am gonna reshape the bowl to move the intake higher up and make it shallower. I think I have designed this forge a bit too much like a charcoal forge rather than a coke forge. A charcoal forge wants a deeper firepit as I understand it. Once it's up and going coke has no smoke at all, so I think this coke is neighbor friendly. Anvil doesn't ring much either anymore though I think it can be improved.  I was going to make this poker thing for moving the coals about in the forge   I was thinning out the other side and was intending to draw it out and fold it back over itself to make a handle and hook to hang it from, but it suddenly went from sunny to a downpour. I had to put the fire out (removed the air source, closed the lid and put the chimney roof back on) and get the anvil back indoors and wipe it down and oil it.  I need a proper smithing hammer, the one I use is a 4.3 lbs one-handed sledge hammer, not really ideal. I found a smaller ball peen hammer that felt like it was a bit heavier than an ordinary 16oz hammer and I used this towards the end. Felt it was too light, but easier to work with. I think I want something in the 1 - 1.5kg (2 - 3 lbs) range. I also broke up and remolded the firepot to makeit shallower and move the tuyere higher up. Felt the sweet spot wasn't getting high enough. I might also have too much pressure on my air flow from the hair dryer. Lower pressure and more volume might be better. Burning in the new firepot:  Just a plain wood fire gets very hot with an air blast running 
His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 08:52
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cakesmith handyman posted:Thought you guys might appreciate this, about 12 minutes in hah, i was going to post that too. Pretty cool
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Aug 26, 2020 11:11
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What thickness of aluminium would you recommend as a router insert plate? Its job would be to sit in a pocket in a workbench, with a 6kg router hanging underneath it. Max 50mm of support on each side, at a guess. Suppliers around here seem to supply up to 6mm thick.
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Aug 27, 2020 20:35
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1/4" or 6mm would be just fine.
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Aug 27, 2020 20:45
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6mm is also obviously the most expensive, so if that's way overkill it'd be good to know too.
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Aug 27, 2020 20:57
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DIY secret santa maybe?
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Aug 28, 2020 00:37
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Jaded Burnout posted:6mm is also obviously the most expensive, so if that's way overkill it'd be good to know too. Most aftermarket plates are 6mm or 8mm, but they look to be ~100mm or more of unsupported length. Rough deflection on 4mm plate is 0.5mm. 6mm plate is 0.1 mm. I'll 2nd Sagebrush, go with the 6mm.
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Aug 28, 2020 02:25
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Jaded Burnout posted:6mm is also obviously the most expensive, so if that's way overkill it'd be good to know too. I use 1/4 plywood and haven't had problems. It gets screwed down tight to the router base which is the part really doing the work of keeping things flat. When I have bought aluminum plate I've been surprised at how not flat it was, but maybe I've just had bad luck. Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Thanks for all the hole sawing advice a few days ago. I've come up with a plan and wanted to run it by you all. I finally had a chance to try this and got....nowhere. I started with 4 3/16" holes around the perimeter and got nowhere, then I drilled about a dozen, and still get nowhere. Should I just drill a million more holes and hope for the best? The hole saws I'm using are general purpose Milkwauke HOLE-DOZER hole saws and seem to have fairly coarse teeth cutting a pretty wide kerf-might this be the problem? Are there specific metal cutting hole saws? My drill press only goes down to like 450 RPM, and I'm using lots of WD-40. I've tried very light pressure/low feed rate as well as pushing as hard as I can and get nowhere either way. It just doesn't seem to be cutting.
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Aug 28, 2020 02:52
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:I finally had a chance to try this and got....nowhere. I started with 4 3/16" holes around the perimeter and got nowhere, then I drilled about a dozen, and still get nowhere. Should I just drill a million more holes and hope for the best? The hole saws I'm using are general purpose Milkwauke HOLE-DOZER hole saws and seem to have fairly coarse teeth cutting a pretty wide kerf-might this be the problem? Are there specific metal cutting hole saws? My drill press only goes down to like 450 RPM, and I'm using lots of WD-40. I've tried very light pressure/low feed rate as well as pushing as hard as I can and get nowhere either way. It just doesn't seem to be cutting. What you probably need is a bimetal hole saw. It will have high speed steel teeth. They're much harder and last longer vs steel. Did it start cutting initially then just start to rub? Regular steel teeth vs wood will last a long time but vs metal die almost instantly.
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Aug 28, 2020 03:37
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Yooper posted:Most aftermarket plates are 6mm or 8mm, but they look to be ~100mm or more of unsupported length. Gotcha, thanks both. Kaiser Schnitzel posted:I use 1/4 plywood and haven't had problems. It gets screwed down tight to the router base which is the part really doing the work of keeping things flat. When I have bought aluminum plate I've been surprised at how not flat it was, but maybe I've just had bad luck. Fair point.
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Aug 28, 2020 10:15
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honda whisperer posted:What you probably need is a bimetal hole saw. It will have high speed steel teeth. They're much harder and last longer vs steel. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Milwaukee-2-1-8-in-Hole-Dozer-Bi-Metal-Hole-Saw-49-56-9626/202327751 It cut maybe 1/16"? deep if that and now I'm getting nowhere. The weight is cast iron-if I drilled enough holes would a good whack with a hammer crack it between the holes? Or any other way to break it in a controlled way? It's like an inch thick at least.
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Aug 28, 2020 14:25
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Hunh that should work. Take a close up of one of the teeth if you can.
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Aug 28, 2020 14:42
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:This is what I am using. They say they are bi-metal: On my limited experience breaking things made of cast iron, absolutely not, it'll break somewhere unpredictable.
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Aug 28, 2020 16:19
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honda whisperer posted:Hunh that should work.  teeth As far as I’ve gotten. Most all the chips are from the 3/16” holes I drilled around the circle.
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Aug 28, 2020 16:32
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Do you have a reciprocating saw? Cutting from the existing hole out towards the groove you've cut multiple times will leave you with fins you can more easily break off
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Aug 28, 2020 17:00
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Those teeth don't look too bad to me, but it's hard to tell, they could be dull or chipped. I guess one thing you could try, if you've got a grinder and a steady hand, is to grind away half the teeth. That would increase the pressure on the other teeth so they'll be more likely to bite in and cut. Since the teeth are staggered, you'd want to do it in a "grind two away, leave two, grind two away, leave two..." pattern, rather than just taking every other one. Any thoughts?
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Aug 28, 2020 17:58
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cakesmith handyman posted:On my limited experience breaking things made of cast iron, absolutely not, it'll break somewhere unpredictable. It might work if he had a die on the bottom and a tool on the top and hit it with a bloody great force. Like an ironworker punch does. But yeah with home gamer equipment it's anyone's guess.
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Aug 28, 2020 18:03
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Slung Blade posted:Blacksmithing & metalwork: It might work if you hit it with a bloody great force.
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Aug 28, 2020 19:26
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Turned this 1500g crappy looking smithing hammer into something lighter (1250g) and less shabby looking:    Still working on the handle (ash)
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Aug 28, 2020 20:04
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Karia posted:Those teeth don't look too bad to me, but it's hard to tell, they could be dull or chipped. I guess one thing you could try, if you've got a grinder and a steady hand, is to grind away half the teeth. That would increase the pressure on the other teeth so they'll be more likely to bite in and cut. Since the teeth are staggered, you'd want to do it in a "grind two away, leave two, grind two away, leave two..." pattern, rather than just taking every other one. Any thoughts? I did have a hole saw start to crap out on me recently on the last hole I had to do. I reversed the drill and kissed a belt sander with it. It brought it back to life. I was surprised.
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Aug 28, 2020 21:58
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why did i think a hydraulic press would be a good fit for tiny apartment living 
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Aug 28, 2020 21:59
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Ambrose Burnside posted:why did i think a hydraulic press would be a good fit for tiny apartment living Because you're one of us.
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Aug 28, 2020 22:16
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to be fair it legitimately probably IS the most apartment-suited "real" production metalworking tool, it's basically silent in operation, vibration-free, and doesnt take up a lot of room, relatively speaking- but i can still use it with simple dies and urethane forming pads to do small production runs of sheet metal parts. i did lots of experimenting with my employer's 100-ton press- until i lost my job, anyways. i've been itching to get press access again ever since. then i saw a decent 10-ton bench press, not a bottle-jack home build but a proper decent-quality press w separate high-volume hand pump, pressure gauge and cylinder, available new for a screamin deal, and i was helpless. i couldnt even buy the components for a much shittier homemade hydraulic press for what this commercial press cost, and after my first homemade hydraulic press's platens were stolen i've been too heartbroken to start building another, so it was an easy purchase to justify to myself still, there goes most of my 2x4' workbench, and 10 tons is very anemic for the rubber-pad forming processes i've used so far and have tooling for. i plan on getting into making more traditional two-part male-female conforming dies starting from 3d printed models, then using the models to produce composite cast stamping/forming dies made from copper-clad incompressible tooling resins. metal-forming with matched male-female dies takes a lot less tonnage than rubber-pad processes, so 10 tons should cut it for most workpieces once that happens- but for now i can only do very small pieces and/or limit myself to the thinnest useful gauges of cuprous alloy sheet, so the thing is a boat anchor until i drop a bunch more money on the resin printer component of my proposed tooling workflow. and also assuming i can electroform copper onto the 3d-printed tool models with good quality control, which is not a guarantee, electroforming is an incredibly finicky black-magickey industrial process. in conclusion: god dammit Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Aug 28, 2020 |
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Aug 28, 2020 22:31
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Aand the shaft is done and wedged.  
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Aug 29, 2020 09:45
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Much nicer than its original form. Question for any of you Belt sander makers; have you ever seen a design that uses all aluminium for the frame? I don’t have access to the thick sheets of steel plate many use and don’t really want to buy a lot of box. But I do have a nearly unlimited supply of aluminium and the means to cast it into whatever shape.
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Aug 29, 2020 12:59
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Beyond powder coating or painting I think I'd be ok with using aluminium, just ensuring it's protected from steel shavings etc wrt the whole oxidation thing I'm sure I'm overlooking something here but
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Aug 30, 2020 02:34
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Tbh I'm excited to get my belt grinder and build a decent workbench so I can finally restore this old axe of my grandfather's
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Aug 30, 2020 02:35
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I think the biggest thing would be make sure you can bolt it to a solid surface, since an aluminum frame will be quite a bit lighter than steel. I don't know that I'd be worried much about shavings of a grinder except for maybe around any adjustable sections, and everything should be going down or away anyways.
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Aug 30, 2020 02:51
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His Divine Shadow posted:Aand the shaft is done and wedged. That's a solid hammer dude. My grandfather gave me his grandfathers blacksmiths hammers. I started trying to restore them and realized the steel is total garbo. Glockhammer is boring though, you did good making it look nice. Question, is there a non-poo poo CNC router the thread can recommend? Looking to spend under $5k. Currently eyeballing the Shapeoko and Avid.
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Aug 30, 2020 23:34
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new entrepreneur here, i'm looking for recommendations for an introductory level CNC, does anyone know enough to give or link me a primer? my budget isn't nothing but at the same time the CNC isn't intended to be a workhorse
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Aug 31, 2020 05:52
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Hardon Crime posted:new entrepreneur here, i'm looking for recommendations for an introductory level CNC, does anyone know enough to give or link me a primer? my budget isn't nothing but at the same time the CNC isn't intended to be a workhorse Lathe or mill? Or multi-axis? Tolerances? Tormach is popular in the entry level niche. The only complaint I hear is you grow out of them. Which isn't an issue as long as you can extract some value. After that is Haas. They have a mini-mill for about $35k(which I would not buy unless space is a premium). For about the same money you can get a toolroom mill with a significantly larger operating envelope. If it's a lathe I'd look at Haas or a Mazak. The Mazak are really nice machines. If you need multi-axis then I'll let someone else chime in. Buying used/auction machines is an option. A lot of shops have the operations side and the machine side, the machine side leases equipment to the operations side, then after 7 years of depreciation they sell them. The accountants don't care if the machine has 100 hours or 50,000. So you can potentially get a fairly modern machine for a fraction of the price.
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Aug 31, 2020 11:43
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Also depends on the type of work you wanna do; there are multiple CNC mills/lathes cheaper than a Tormach that have niches they can hold their own in. For example, my own mill: a CNCed Taig micro mill will only run you a low couple thousand inc. basic tooling + workholding; they have a very small work envelope, no automatic tool-changing, and lack the rigidity to use large tooling or aggressive cuts. They're totally unsuited to production runs or large workpieces. *however*, they are perfectly suited for machining small + detailed 3D-contoured dies and tooling, as their very high spindle speeds are well-suited to the hours-long contouring programs using tiny ball mills + HSM techniques ideal for that sort of machining. That said, try taking some classes or joining a makerspace with a decent CNC tool you'd like to use, if you ahve no experience with 'em; if you don't have a specific application for the tool you'll probably find you don't use it nearly enough to justify the price tag. The niche that low-budget CNC milling/turning occupies is continually shrinking as competing budget-friendly CNC manufacturing techniques (3d printers, laser cutters, die cutters) mature rapidly while conventional machining's standing still. Unless you want to make hardened steel dies/tooling or very precise mechanical assemblies there's a good chance you can get satisfactory results with a much cheaper and easier approach.
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Aug 31, 2020 17:14
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Ambrose brings on a good perspective. I'm in a production environment with production requirements. Something like the Taig never even crossed my mind. I'd be interested to hear what is in between the Tormach and the Taig. My previous experience found a weird niche of import tools melded to Mach3 cnc controls with questionable results. I've seen some cool stuff come off of Taigs, especially in the hobby steam engine/model community.
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Aug 31, 2020 18:33
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Sherline machines seem to fall into the "a little better than Taig" niche, they cost a little more and can do a little more + have more Real Mill features but are basically in the same class of very small machine tool; I don't have any experience with them but iirc Brek from this thread has a CNCed sherline lathe that he's made a lot of swarf with. IIRC sherlines I don't think there's much else in the void between taigs/sherlines and Tormachs that I would consider a 'real' machine tool, there's lots of import tools and kickstarter eye-candy that are priced in between but I wouldn't even look at those b/c who knows if they're up to 'real' metal-cutting machine tool standards + good luck getting support or parts a few years down the road. I suppose the hodge-podge of Frankenstein user-CNCed import mini mills fall in between in terms of cost and capability, but that's not a realistic starting point for most people, and the amount of work and love it takes to make that class of machine a worthwhile machine tool is imo not worth it The two factors that make Taigs/Sherlines the only entry-level CNC mills worth considering, imo, are 1) they've been around for decades and are very well-proven designs, particularly wrt being able to machine steel to a professional standard without being limited by the mill itself; and 2) extensive and detailed support for every aspect of assembly/tramming/machining is available from both vendors and users but yeah, ultimately we need to know your budget, what you want the mill for and what your own background/experience is to recommend anything in particular, a micro mill like a Taig is a lot of machine tool for not very much money, but that doesn't mean it's enough machine tool for, to be frank, most machining work. Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Aug 31, 2020 |
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Aug 31, 2020 20:03
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no just the brand names helps tons, i'll get in touch with their people thanks much
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Sep 1, 2020 04:23
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Any tool/technique recommendations for cutting relatively thin lead sheet? (roofing lead, 1 or 2mm thick, ish)
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Sep 1, 2020 16:19
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A straight edge and a razor blade is how I've seen it done in the past.
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Sep 1, 2020 16:56
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immoral_ posted:A straight edge and a razor blade is how I've seen it done in the past. Alrighty then. My plan is to form it as best as I can (for funnelling water into a hopper) and then sealing with silicone or similar (though hopefully the lapping will be enough to not really need it). I don't really want to go down the rabbit hole of welding/soldering lead sheet.
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Sep 1, 2020 17:00
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Jaded Burnout posted:Alrighty then. My plan is to form it as best as I can (for funnelling water into a hopper) and then sealing with silicone or similar (though hopefully the lapping will be enough to not really need it). You can literally solder lead sheet with a big nail and a blowtorch.
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Sep 1, 2020 17:33
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Tin snips are easy mode on lead sheet Soldering it is also laughably easy, give it a go.
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Sep 1, 2020 17:36
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