Ted Stocksdale

Having spent FAR too much time replacing all of the fittings on my copies of that circled item... Learn From My Fail That is a 3/8" 90 degree male NPT to 3/8" male flare elbow. NPT is what most of us would consider a "normal" pipe - slightly tapered so it gets tighter as you go, but otherwise looks straight. Flare is that weird beveled thing. I would strongly recommend you get a parts list from someone who's figured out the easier way to do it or you run a high risk of spending a lot more money than you intended and end up with a bucket of oddl

Along the "do you have" lines... do you have anything narrower? Your store is creeping up into 4-inch land, and I usually use stuff more on the 1.25 side of things.

That's amazing. Really love it.

This weekend, I forgot that brass gets hot when you sand it and burned my fingers on a guard Besides that bit of brilliance, I worked on the machete made from 6150: I finished forging it out and ground it to shape, and got it sanded down to 120. Ran out of time to go any further, so more sanding and heat-treating ... some other weekend. I also made an attempt at my own micarta sort of thing with epoxy and some fabric

I can read... yeah, my FORGE is probably the size of a 30-lb tank (but I made it from sheet metal, not a tank). My tank that I use for the gas is a 40.... And I would listen to Alex because honestly mine was so big that I put extra kawool inside to make the interior volume smaller (on the plus side, the outside doesn't get as hot as it once did)

It does depend on your reason, I would think. I got a 40-lb tank just because it's a long drive to the most reasonable filling station and I don't want to do it very often - I only get so many hours in a weekend, and I'd rather spend them forging than driving to get propane.

I just tried an experiment of tracing through a piece of paper. As long as you draw "dashed" lines (trace a short distance, then pick up the scriber, then another short distance), the paper holds up well enough and the design is visible enough that I could easily "clean up" the lines. (I don't have any blue tack, or I'd try that: that sounds nifty)

You can't see all the layout dots very well, but what I did was measure the distances from the center and scribe a little dot at a number of locations: then it's just a game of "connect the dots". You can also always just cut the paper shape out and trace around it - the blue doesn't take any pressure to scratch off. The blue is also nice because to "erase", you just paint some more on over the lines you don't like.

I use blue layout fluid to put a layer on the steel, then use a carbide-tipped scriber to etch on the design (looks a lot like a pencil, but with a carbide tip instead of graphite) Amazon.com: Dykem 80300 Steel Blue Layout Fluid, Brush-in-Cap (4oz): Industrial & Scientific Amazon.com: 6 Pieces Engraving Pen Tip Scriber Includes 2 Tungsten Carbide Scribers with Magnet, 2 Double Head Scribers and 2 Replacement Tip, Metal Etching Engraving Pen for Metal Glass Ceramics Stone Wood: Home Improvement It ends up looking like this:

That's the kind of burner I have I could not weld with just one, even after fixing the other issues with my home-made forge, which included - Bricks: these are a heatsink, even the soft insulating kind don't insulate very well. Fiber wool works so much better - Uncoated: you need an IR coating. - One of those stainless steel burners: I could not weld with only one of those: it takes two even after fixing the insulation and coating. There is a frequent member here named Wayne Coe who runs a site that has really good deals on the materials. He'll be

I didn't cut it off. I ended up taking the combination disk sander/drive wheel part of the horrible old multitool thing and stuck it on the end. Figured it was better to save something from that sad failure, and I guess a 7" disk spinning away is better than nothing. It's a lot smoother than the old thing was (which in retrospect, it had better be... but I was traumatized by the multitool that would shake things off the wall even while bolted to my workbench) and everyone was right: it's not a problem. Thanks, everyone. I listened

I don't have a power hammer or a press, and I'm a software developer so as you can imagine I'm just not the strongest guy on the block. For me, something that isn't too stubborn and stays workable from bright yellow-orange all the way down to "just barely glowing" is a huge plus. Maybe the 5160 I got from Jantz is wonky but when I've used it, it only moves at all when it's super hot, and then only a tiny amount. The cleaver I made from it took two weekends of what seemed like endless cycles of "heat it as hot as I could, hit it six times, then back in the heat again." Forging th

This weekend, I assembled the stand and got my new grinder set up. It's a huge improvement over the frankly horrible "multitool" grinder that bolted to the side of my bench-grinder. That caused most of Saturday also being cleaning the garage to make a space for it to live. My elbow is also still being a bit twitchy, so I limited my forging to finishing up a dagger made from a file of sorts, and trying out some of the new 6150 steel. The dagger: (shown alongside a hardie-hole punch I welded up today too.) It was a very weird file: 14-ish inches long and a

So, finally got a chance to work with one of the 6150 bars. I've started a machete-inspired blade from one of the 1.5 x .216 bars: Personally, I found it MUCH easier to work with than 5160: it responded well to my hammering when hot, and it moved well even without being blazing hot - no need to be at welding heat. I found the resistance to hammering just right to allow for really good control for someone still on the early part of the experience curve, like me

Thanks for the weigh-in! Yeah, I think I'll just go with the PVC cover idea rather than trying to cut anything.