What did you do in your shop today?

[Alan Longmire]

I have that torch, and I do indeed hate it!    The flame changes too fast with those little bottles.  Nice repair!

[Wes Detrick]

Nice save!  Why do you hate those torches Alan?  I use one for all kinds of small tasks.

[Alan Longmire]

I just never could get mine to work for very long at a time.  I suspect a bad seal in the oxygen regulator, since it ended up being one bottle, one use.  I may dig it out and play with it some more.  I could definitely use a more precise flame for silver soldering!

[Wes Detrick]

On 1/24/2018 at 12:54 PM, Alan Longmire said:

I just never could get mine to work for very long at a time.  I suspect a bad seal in the oxygen regulator, since it ended up being one bottle, one use.  I may dig it out and play with it some more.  I could definitely use a more precise flame for silver soldering!

I had one where the plastic knob broke off when I was trying to turn the gas off.  This was on one of the brass tips that did not have a button start or trigger and used a sparker to light it.  I could not turn the torch off, so I set it down in the middle of my drive way away from everything and ran and grabbed some pliers to turn it off.  The one I have now turns off if you let the trigger go.  The other one went in the trash.

Edited January 26, 2018 by Wes Detrick

[Joshua States]

21 hours ago, Wes Detrick said:

I had one where the plastic knob broke off when I was trying to turn the gas off.  This was on of the brass tips that did not have a button start or trigger and used a sparker to light it.  I could not turn the torch off, so I set it down in the middle of my drive way away from everything and ran and grabbed some pliers to turn it off.  The one I have now turns off if you let the trigger go.  The other one went in the trash.

At the risk of jinxing myself, I have had this one for years without a hitch.

[Wes Detrick]

2 hours ago, Joshua States said:

At the risk of jinxing myself, I have had this one for years without a hitch.

It worked great until it didn't.  It was crazy.  The knob never showed any weakness or play, and then just one day broke off.  I stood there for about 15 seconds holding that thing wondering what the hell I was going to do.

[Brian Dougherty]

11 hours ago, Wes Detrick said:

It worked great until it didn't.  It was crazy.  The knob never showed any weakness or play, and then just one day broke off.  I stood there for about 15 seconds holding that thing wondering what the hell I was going to do.

I had a similar problem with a kerosene heater this week.  I went to shut it down, and the wick wouldn't retract far enough to stop burning.  I fiddled with it for half an hour trying to get it to go out.  I finally resorted to a fire extinguisher. 

It turns out the wick had gotten crusty enough that it jamed up in the mechanism, and wouldn't get below the surface of the burner.  I've had the wick for 4-winters, and probably should have replaced it before now.

Let that be a lesson to you boys and girls.  Now I need a new wick and a new extinguisher 

[Jonathan Silas]

7 hours ago, Brian Dougherty said:

I had a similar problem with a kerosene heater this week.  I went to shut it down, and the wick wouldn't retract far enough to stop burning....

 I almost died three years ago to this very thing. My wife and daughter were visiting family, and I was on the computer watching a movie all the lights off in the house. As I walked by the kerosene heater I hit the shut off with my toe and heard it fall and shut off (or so I thought). About 10 min later I started feeling really really tired and the computer screen was getting dimmer and I could barely keep my head up, my throat was also re burning but I thought it was my acid reflux.  I tried to stand and fell out of the chair straight on my ass, I looked up and the house was full of smoke I stumbled over to the door and open it got a few deep breaths and heaved the heater out into the snow. We have a whole house exhaust fan so I triggered it and it sucked all the smoke out in a few minutes. We had black marks two foot down the walls that it took me a week to scrub down, prime and repaint. The thing that really gets to me was the fact that the house probably wouldn't have burned down but my wife and daughter would have walked in on me dead at the computer if I had fallen asleep ......

[JJ Simon]

I love my turbo torch.
Just propane.
Aspirated burner.
Love it.

[Joshua States]

Broken dreams are now really broken. Ready to be remade.

[SteveShimanek]

I am in the process of building my foundry for metal casting; temporarily suspended as we recover from tropical cyclone Gita. My shop is fine, but rain was blown in under the eaves and flash rusted a bunch of equipment. Still waiting on water service to be restored;  we lost power and water in the early morning hours on Friday.....power was restored mostly Sunday night, and yesterday to the shop. Lots of damage to infrastructure and houses, but personally I got off pretty lucky.

[Kreg Whitehead]

Finished this hunter over the weekend. Its going to my brothers friend......he thinks he has an anvil for me.

I told him I am getting the better end of the deal.....sounds like its 100 lbs plus.

Hopefully my next post will be some anvil porn =)

[Brian Dougherty]

20 hours ago, SteveShimanek said:

I am in the process of building my foundry for metal casting; temporarily suspended as we recover from tropical cyclone Gita. My shop is fine, but rain was blown in under the eaves and flash rusted a bunch of equipment. Still waiting on water service to be restored;  we lost power and water in the early morning hours on Friday.....power was restored mostly Sunday night, and yesterday to the shop. Lots of damage to infrastructure and houses, but personally I got off pretty lucky.

Yikes.  God's speed to you and all the other folks out there!

[Joshua States]

Epic fail, and I do mean epic.

Well, it was worth a try.

 

 

 

[JJ Simon]

Have two sets of dividers running.
One is for the entry fee to a hammer in next week.
They don't charge.
You have to donate a piece of work which gets raffled off at the end.

Josh, sorry to hear about your epic fail.
Any idea why it failed?
Feel free to hit me up.
I've run at least 20 of these.

[Joshua States]

Nice dividers there JJ. 

10 minutes ago, JJ Simon said:

Josh, sorry to hear about your epic fail.
Any idea why it failed?

I really don't have any idea. All I know is that the thing that came out of the bottom was more like a dish than a sponge. Maybe I should have concentrated the charges in a very small location? The dish thingy came apart on the stone anvil with very little effort. It basically cracked into pieces that I then stacked and tried to forge weld (piling method) back together.  It was really difficult to forge, almost like it had way too much carbon content. Maybe because the starting stock contained high carbon steel with some low carbon and iron mixed in? I figured I would loose carbon in the steel with this setup, not gain a whole bunch. The forge welding was going pretty well up to the first fold.  I got it to a bar about 1"w x 8"L x 1/4" before the fold and the fold seemed to take. After that, it all went south. It just came apart in the press.

I'll have to wait until after we move to try again.

[JJ Simon]

Basically I do this.
Let me know what was different.
My Tyurre is at least an inch above the floor of the hearth.
1 or 2 bricks high off the floor.
I can check later for you.
My hearth is 3 brick levels higher than the tyurre.
I charge it fully and have it fully burning before I add material
I just lay the material on top and allow it to drop with the rest of charcoal at a natural rate.
The material is 1-2" in front of the tyurre.
the tyurre is flush with the interior wall.
Once I've charged the material.
I let it burn down until sparks are flying out the top of the furnace.
After I see sparks like steel-carbon burning off I run it for at least 10-15 minutes.
Direct air blast will decarb. Non direct will add carbon.
So a mix of high carbon and iron should be good but all high carbon will be super high carbon or cast iron by the end.
I do add some sand or borax a couple times during the process.
This is Emiliano pulling a "Bloom" from a hearth at the F&B event.
You can see how the furnace was built.
Here are some pics of my hearth.
 

 

[JJ Simon]

[JJ Simon]

I finished this set today.
They are for sale if anyone is interested.

[Alan Longmire]

Nice dividers!

[JJ Simon]

Thanks Alan

[Gerald Boggs]

On 2/16/2018 at 11:34 PM, JJ Simon said:

One is for the entry fee to a hammer in next week.
They don't charge.
You have to donate a piece of work which gets raffled off at the end.

Pasture Party?

[Joshua States]

19 hours ago, JJ Simon said:

Basically I do this.
Let me know what was different.
My Tyurre is at least an inch above the floor of the hearth. (Check. more like 2-3")
1 or 2 bricks high off the floor. (Check)
I can check later for you.
My hearth is 3 brick levels higher than the tyurre. (Check)
I charge it fully and have it fully burning before I add material (Check)
I just lay the material on top and allow it to drop with the rest of charcoal at a natural rate. (Check)
The material is 1-2" in front of the tyurre. (Check)
the tyurre is flush with the interior wall. (Check)
Once I've charged the material.
I let it burn down until sparks are flying out the top of the furnace. (Didn't see any sparks)
After I see sparks like steel-carbon burning off I run it for at least 10-15 minutes. (I loaded it twice more after the last charge had burned down and let it burn down again)
Direct air blast will decarb. Non direct will add carbon. (Definitely non-direct)
So a mix of high carbon and iron should be good but all high carbon will be super high carbon or cast iron by the end. (Hmmm. Maybe too much HC steel in the mix)
I do add some sand or borax a couple times during the process. (Silica sand in the bottom of the hearth)

My hearth was two layers of fire brick at the base and three layers of clay brick on top of those. The bottom of the hearth was a shallow bowl shape lined with about 1/4" of silica sand.  I started a small fire with some newspaper and twigs, loaded it to the top with charcoal, waited abut 15 minutes to get it burning well and turned the blower on to a medium speed. When the charcoal had dropped two brick levels (about 6 minutes), I added the charge and covered it with charcoal. Repeat until all charges are gone. I filled the hearth 2 more times after ward with no added material. Just because it seemed like a good idea.

[Alan Longmire]

The iron has to start on top of the full hearth and make its way down.  And you gotta have a plume of fire and sparks!  That's part of the fun, and it shows you've got enough blast.  

[Joshua States]

Note to self.......

5 hours ago, Alan Longmire said:

The iron has to start on top of the full hearth and make its way down.  And you gotta have a plume of fire and sparks!  That's part of the fun, and it shows you've got enough blast.  

I got something confused. I thought when JJ said (in the KITH 2016 thread) "The material needs to be fed 2" from the tuyere." that it started futher down the hearth and then you piled more charcoal on top. It only now occurs to me that he meant 2" horizontal, not vertical. DOH!