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Oh also please don't build a power hammer out of a hydraulic press frame. You need mass, both for your striking anvil, and so it doesn't walk across your shop floor when you turn on the reciprocating arm. Power hammers strike with a lot of force quickly, it will shear the pins holding the work area in place or bend the crossarm that sits on them. Build a frame from scrap or fresh structural steel and fill the static bits with sand whenever possible to make it as massive as possible.
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Jun 22, 2019 01:43
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Hey don't get rid of it, presses are useful tools for all kinds of things. And don't get discouraged, always be tinkering, find new stuff to cobble together into something you can use!
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Jun 22, 2019 07:22
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Kenshin posted:I feel like this should be the thread title in some way I agree but I think it's a little too long.
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Jun 29, 2019 15:27
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Oof, that's going to be a bitch getting in there and removing all that. Good luck HDS, really enjoying your write up on that thing.
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Aug 9, 2019 06:02
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Vise bodies are almost always cast iron, generally speaking only the jaws are tool steel. So yeah I wouldn't worry about loving up the temper. If the garage burned down you wouldn't need to worry about it anyway  I would try dunking it in a 5 gallon pail of Diesel and acetone first, give it a week at least. Tap the threaded rod with a hammer a couple times throughout the week. Then go to town with the heat if that doesn't work.
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Aug 14, 2019 20:32
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I tend to find flap disks in big packs on sale at Canadian tire on a pretty regular basis, I usually just use those so I'm not switching grinders all the time. Once my supply gets low then I go back to massive supply pile of grinder disks I have.
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Dec 4, 2019 18:23
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That's the coolest wrench I've ever seen.
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Dec 15, 2019 16:48
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captkirk posted:
Ambrose is 100% correct. You need to burn it to get the darkened coloration. To shortcut this with easily found materials and far less chance of burning down your house, just get some black tremclad in a can, cut it with some thinner (I usually do about 10:1 thinner:paint), apply with a brush like normal, lightly sand it with a sanding sponge and then just clearcoat it. Works a treat and shouldn't cost more than 15-20 bucks, might take an hour of your time.
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Jan 2, 2020 05:15
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Dude basically made a manual shaper. Nothing wrong with it, nothing genius, but a good recognition of tools at your disposal.
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Feb 1, 2020 17:00
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I did it when I put a limited slip diff into my car and changed the final drive ratio. It's tedious and takes forever but it's pretty cool once you've done it and understand how gears mesh.
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Feb 13, 2020 06:09
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That atomic hydrogen welding is loving badass, never heard of that before. That would be useful for all kinds of things. Regarding the battery tie down j bolt:. Don't even bother bending it. Put a nut on the end about an inch back from the end of the rod, place in car, and secure with another nut on the other side of the sheet metal eye. Put the battery in, then use another nut to secure the battery on top. Fishing j bolts when they come loose sucks rear end and I did it so many times on my wife's fuckin corrola. Bypass the lovely cheap design altogether. Alternative is to get unthreaded rod and bend it cold, then borrow a tap and die set and thread it yourself, it's easy.
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Feb 26, 2020 05:17
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Yooper posted:See it in action! 1943, GE cartoons and all. This was super interesting. The low amperage requirements is intriguing as hell. So I guess embrittlement and the fuss of lining up the tungsten's made it not worth it? That whole series of videos is really cool, also.
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Mar 3, 2020 19:50
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cakesmith handyman posted:A blob of silicone sealant will do that perfectly then. Or putting the magnet inside a ziploc type bag. That will let you clean the magnetic shmoo off occasionally.
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Mar 18, 2020 22:48
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Ambrose Burnside posted:yep. there’s this zippy oxyfuel technique for welding sheet metal called “flange welding” where you bend the last ~1/8” of the sheet edge into a 90-degree flange, then butt the flange flats against each other and then play the torch along the joint, melting the flanges into each other in lieu of filler wire. it’s so easy and satisfying to weld up, it’s like zipping a zipper- and it eliminates the skill barrier to weird challenging stuff the hobbyist would normally never attempt with conventional welding, like butt-welding very thin sheet parts together Well that's a disgustingly simple idea. Wish I had known it earlier. I'm going to try to make a drawknife, a curved knife, and some little carving knives for a buddy. I have access to 1075, 1084, O1 (I don't want to use this, it's 3/4 round and will take me forever to forge down), 5160 leaf spring (1960s car) and some old metal files and a rasp. What would you guys suggest I go for? I've never made wood-toucher tools before.
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Jun 11, 2020 04:32
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Leperflesh posted:Drawknives are often used for debarking and other rough outdoor work. I'd want an alloy that is tough and can take a beating over one that is more brittle but maybe holds the edge slightly longer. 5160 is ideal. For the smaller knives, any of those alloys are fine too but I might favor the 1075 or 1084 for easy forgability. They're very close in carbon content but in theory the 1085 would be slightly harder/hold edge longer while the 1075 would be slightly tougher/hold up to more abuse. None of those are bad steels for any of those purposes though. They are all oil quenching, do not water quench. I don't think I'll have to forge any of them except the hooked one (for spoons/depressions) and the drawknife handles. I've got a little 2" wide bar of the carbons that I think I can just saw off the end and grind/sand it down into the blade for the carvers. Heat treat, sure, will have to do that and that shouldn't be a big problem. I've got my oil bucket. Thanks for the advice folks, pretty much in line with what I was thinking.
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Jun 11, 2020 15:52
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Nah, I'm familiar with the heat treating process, not worried about that. Thanks though. I've watched a lot of videos of carvers doing their thing, I know that's a pale substitute for actually doing it yourself but I've done some super basic woodworking back in jr high three decades ago, and I whittled a little when I was a kid or whenever I'm out in the woods. I have enough material to make them all several times over if I really gently caress it up bad. Also, yeah, best part is this friend is by no means a pro-carver either, so this will be a learning set for him as well.
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Jun 11, 2020 19:42
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honda whisperer posted:Used a machine at work to engrave a scale on some tubing. gently caress, that's brilliant.
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Aug 2, 2020 05:54
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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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Ages ago, I made a blade. Or at least, I cut a blade shaped object out of a piece of that chrysler's leaf spring, flattened it out in the forge, ground out a rough shape, heat treated it, and tempered it. Then I got busy with stuff and it kind of sat around. For a couple years. Two weeks ago, I was going to help my neighbour straighten out a forklift tine, but he wanted to do it after I was going to be gone (I was headed out camping). So I had some free time, and I was already out in the shop, so I picked up this old project. I love my Buck knife for when I'm out hunting, but the handle is a tad short for my hand, plus I would like a more solid bush knife, and a slightly longer blade doesn't hurt. So I kind of copied the handle shape, since I liked the general form if not the dimensions.  Since I had the blade, I needed some scales. When I had the addition put on my house, the builder ordered way too much hardwood flooring, like waaaaayyy too much. Which is ok, it means I have dozens of kilograms of good, clean, kiln dried maple ready to go for projects like this. Took the bandsaw and ripped a piece along the router channel.  Gave it a super rough cleaning, drilled some shouldered holes for the chicago screws, and pretty well left it there.     While out camping, I picked up some epoxy, and some blue loctite. Glued the scales on, loctited the screws, clamped, and left it overnight.  Filed the screws down, rough sanded the handle.   Then I spent my idle time around camp sanding with progressively higher grit paper, eventually ending with emery, and then I used some boiled linseed oil for the scales. The worst of the scratch marks are from my very poor and uneven sharpening stone that I have in my RV kit.     I'm pretty happy with it as a tool. It's not a super high quality object or anything, but it'll serve my purposes. It still needs a good polish and a sheath, but I'll get to it.... sometime.
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Sep 24, 2020 22:46
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For a first pair of tongs, those are excellent. Well done and nice job.
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Oct 8, 2020 06:19
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Cross-posting from my house thread. Finally built something for us again. So this time of year the sun comes straight west into our living room through the patio doors. Since the wife works in the living room now, we need some curtains there. I've wanted to do this for a while, but I needed the excuse and impetus. Started with some leaves I made over a decade ago for a table I made for my parents, ended up not needing all the leaves, so they sat, waiting for a project to claim them.  Cut off the base material and drawn out.  Coiled up. Love that glow.  Cleaned up, some paint. I used my typical 10:1 thinner to black gloss tremclad.  Once it dries, which doesn't take long, you sand it very lightly.  Then you clearcoat it.  That little bender I bought was worth every penny. Made the brackets super easy.  The finials are just hanging on there, not actually attached via anything other than gravity.  Turned out ok! 
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Mar 19, 2021 03:44
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Vim Fuego posted:Nice work! Got a link to your house thread? Thank you kindly  Sure, it's just here in DIY though. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3264505
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Mar 19, 2021 05:25
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Yeah don't bother unless you can get a decent used one for less than half of an equivalent new anvil. The boomers have been hoarding that poo poo for decades and letting them rust. They won't sell unless they get a huge profit. Deny them that. (Buy it from their widow in 10 years for a tenth of what they paid for it and give it to a teenager in need.) I wouldn't go anywhere under 110-120 pounds for generalist stuff. Mine is 120 and is adequate for the poo poo I want to do. Go as big as you can afford. I want one that's 3-400 for my money's-no-object wish sized anvil. E: a brand new 120 pound Nimba titan is 975 dollars right now. Made in the US. That's what I use and I'm very satisfied with it. That's like new iPhone territory. Slung Blade fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Mar 24, 2021 |
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Mar 24, 2021 02:39
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Bulldozer parts, pretty much anything railway related, or anything from any kind of heavy industry is likely to be a decent alloy steel and will make a decent improvised anvil. I would call up your local machine shops and steel suppliers and ask if they have any off cut of 4140 laying around. A couple blocks of that stuff in different shapes and you're golden. Plus you can make rad tools with it when you get a proper anvil (if you decide you need it). You can totally get by with stake anvils. Those can be made easily at home with basic tools and a forge. Maybe a big rock. I'll dig up a video here in a sec. E: yeah here, check this guy out. He does great work without a lot of anvil. A lot of stump backing up the anvils he does have though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdJVGi2pWM8 E2: actually that's another thing. If you can't get an anvil or decent blocks of alloy steel to start with, go find a rock. Like a big granite boulder of the appropriate shape. That will also work. Slung Blade fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Mar 24, 2021 |
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Mar 24, 2021 16:02
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Ghostnuke posted:Am I going to notice a difference building my anvil stand out of oak instead of pine? What's your shop floor made out of? If it's gravel or dirt, sink your stump / composite stand a foot or two into the ground. Won't make too much difference one material or the other. If it's concrete, nah probably not, use whatever you can find. Oak might help a little bit. If it's a wood floor, yeah, try to use as heavy a stand as possible.
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Apr 2, 2021 04:37
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At the park we just use some medium wall pipe welded into a frame for our post vices. Nice wide base, light enough to move around. If you need more mass one of the guys will stand on the back lol.
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Apr 26, 2021 01:38
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Yeah that broad-ish axe is fuckin weird. Every single one of those that I've ever seen has had the offset to one side for cleaning up the side of a log.
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May 10, 2021 03:11
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His Divine Shadow posted:That's the weird part. Centered is the normal way to me. That looks like a small hewing axe to me, sorta like a gränsfors 1900 but smaller. I totally get what you're saying, and I can see what you mean. Axe stuff always results in friendly discussion, there are a lot of ways to skin this particular cat, as it were.
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May 10, 2021 18:37
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threelemmings posted:
Depends on the cat, dunnit. 
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May 10, 2021 19:03
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both of those are way to small to be cat axes
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Ambrose Burnside posted:crosspost from 3d printing thread: i'm using a specialized high-temperature resin to produce casting molds for low-melt eutectic alloys with various tooling applications. here's a test mold, a vector trace of a genghis-era mongolian diplomat's 'passport' Cool tenths of an inch ruler, there.
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May 26, 2021 16:22
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taqueso posted:I'm also looking to get a leather apron, it doesn't need to be the best ever, but I'd prefer to get a good one. What should I look for? Every commercial leather welding apron I have ever used or seen in person has been absolute garbage. I've seen some high dollar ones that look pretty ok, but they are car-level expensive. I can only recommend going to a thrift shop and looking for like a leather couch or something that you can take the skin off of and make your own. Just need a knife and maybe some hammer-on snap buttons from the craft store (like 5 bucks) and a hole punch. One of the guys in my blacksmithing guild made one out of a cowhide rug that still had the hair on, it's pretty cool, and tough but flexible. Be willing to use canvas or denim as well. Old jeans are plenty good enough to make hard-wearing fire resistant shielding.
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Oct 5, 2021 19:37
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HolHorsejob posted:How would you grind & lap a small steel surface flat in a very barebones shop? I think your best bet is to take some scrap strips of leather and make a little strop (rough side up) on a thin piece of wood, or metal if you can get the right dimension and use it directly on the skiver. Put the homemade sharpener aside for a bit. Using chromium oxide paste on that will work, it just might take a while to get it as sharp as you want. Also isn't the top side just an angle? I thought the business end of the skiving knives was on the bottom, so getting that channel on the 'top' sharp shouldn't matter. I mean, sure, you might need to remove a burr or something, but I thought the top was just your wedge to lift whatever you're cutting. e: or is it 2 sided? Slung Blade fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Nov 24, 2021 |
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Nov 24, 2021 17:11
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HolHorsejob posted:
Ok, I see the bevel on the top now. Yeah that's bizarre. Way I see it you have four options: 1. Sharpen the underside with a stone, remove only a tiny bit of material, and only right on the edge, don't impact that radius if at all possible. Strop to polish. 2. Get a diamond mini file that will fit in that channel and use that to sharpen your edge. 3. Buy a better skiver, or make your own. 4. Get a roll of emery cloth and cut it to the width of that channel with a pair of scissors you don't like all that much. Suspend that somehow so it's held securely in the air so you can get the skiver edge onto it and go to town.
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Nov 24, 2021 21:41
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Yooper posted:We pulled a bearing out of an unknown age spindle. I'm trying to figure out how old this thing is. More curiosity than anything. Rumor in the shop says it's a pre-ww2 to ww2 spindle from a battleship machine shop. Neat. Did you manage to snag a picture?
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Jan 19, 2022 01:44
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Yooper posted:I will stand corrected. I just remember the militant sales calls that were just ridiculous. Once I told them to gently caress off they just started calling someone else, then he told them to gently caress off, until they went through the whole shop. Start with a medium sized round bar, take some of it to a smaller square, then take some of that to a smaller circle. This will teach them how to draw stuff out effectively and is pretty neat to have a nice taper. Leaves! Make a simple chisel from an old car coil spring. But yeah little pokers are good, those ones I make from 3/8ths square bar I can knock out in 15-20 minutes, shouldn't take a beginner more than an hour. Dead simple, useful. All pretty simple stuff, doesn't take forever.
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Nov 30, 2022 20:07
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Hadlock posted:New thread title? 
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Dec 27, 2022 05:42
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Been a while since I've posted some work, so here's some I did before christmas, and some I did this week: Needing a present for my brothers in law, I decided to make some cowboy style pot hangers for a campfire, but I wanted them to be take down-sized so they could fit in a backpack. First up is the main stem, with a bend in each:  Then the top part of the stem, with a decorative hoop, though I suppose if you were to use both at once you could use these to hold up a bar to hang things off of and span an entire firepit.  Next is a handle, a series of coils, and some delicate balance work for the cantilever arms:  Round bar, turned on the lathe and drilled out (gently caress do I ever love being able to do little things like this, doing this by hand in a drill press is a huge pain in the rear end):  Sized, approximately, to hold the top part of the stem.  Welded, beeswaxed, and handle brushed lightly with a brass brush to get that gold ~patina~.  It's really hard to get a good picture of these things put together in the orientation that they're meant to be used, but hopefully this gets the idea across. I am pulling down on that cantilever arm in this picture, it's self-supporting, and it holds better the more weight you hang on the arm. You can move it up and down, and turn it 360' to get it into and out of the fire.  Now for the carrying case, starting with a little canvas:  Pockets sewn in, webbing added:  Button snap, nice neat little package. Bonus shot of my sewing anvil.  Quick S hook with a hole punched in one end (the one you can't see, because I am a good photographer  ). BiL wanted this to hang some stuff on his carpenter's tool belt I believe. This week's work I made a poker. Friend of a friend asked me to make a birthday present for her husband. Started with 20mm round bar, hammered it square over most of the length, drew it down to a taper, gave it a twist, and chiseled a pokey bit on the end:  Decided to use my stamp on this one, because why not.  The whole idea for this one was to use a Harley Davidson grip handle for the poker. By some miracle I had a piece of pipe that I bought probably 12-15 years ago that was just about the right size to fit in said grip.  Poker goes in the tube, tube goes in the handle.  I tack welded the poker into the tube (in the back, where you won't see it). Then I sprayed wd-40 into the rubber grip and tapped it on with a rubber mallet (thanks for the wd-40 tip Lloyd  ). End product is pretty decent. It's straighter, though by no means perfect, than it looks in this picture, perspective got a little screwed up when I took the picture. It's a little rough on the toolmarks in a couple places because holy poo poo I was tired from doing that kind of hand-drawing, I haven't done anything that heavy in ages. All in all about a 3 hour project, and for once the majority was hammering time. 
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Jan 27, 2023 17:03
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That folding drawknife handle loving owns, I need to make one of those. Also hi thread, long time no see. Love the new title.
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Nov 23, 2023 23:21
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