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WHY THREE FORUMS? Well, this is YOUR blacksmithing forum to use for whatever you wish within the rules stated above. It is different than the Slack-Tub Pub because the messages are permanently posted and archived. This page is NOT a chat - it is a "message board" Our chat, the (Slack-Tub Pub), is immediate but the record of it is temporary. DO NOT post permanent messages there. We refresh the "log" every 24 hours now and your message will be lost. The Guru's Den is where I and several others try to answer ALL your blacksmithing and metalworking questions to us. Please note that this forum uses an e-mail encryption system that prevents spam harvesters from collecting your e-mail address.

J. Dempsey  <webmaster> Rev. 7/98, 3/99, 5/2k, 6/2k, Friday, 04/06/01 16:43:25 GMT

Lock & Key: Frank, take pictures! I've always wanted to make a Mastermyer chest with original lock. Much of the extant lock is missing but there are other Swedish locks of the period that fill in the gaps. Its pretty primitive but an interesting side slide key lock. - guru - Sunday, 11/30/08 21:17:38 EST What should a Peter wright sell for: Hi what should a ok surface 125 lb Peter Wright sell for? I found one. Thanks Tmac - Sunday, 11/30/08 23:52:57 EST Anywhere from $150 to $550 depending on what you mean by OK, where it is, who is selling and who is buying. - guru - Monday, 12/01/08 08:32:08 EST Old Varient Locks: One of my reenactor friends, a former locksmith, declares a number of these old locks virtually unpickable by civilians, since they wouldn't understand the principle behind them. If you don't know what's behind the lockplate, you go crazy. Of course, the fastest way in may be to take an axe or pry bar to it. ;-) I do contend that the prevalence of corner ironwork is to not only reinforce the wooden chest but to prevent sneak theft by the simple expedient of carefully prying one face of the box off. Medieval Ironbound Chests Bruce Blackistone - Monday, 12/01/08 14:19:31 EST Bruce: I agree about trying to pick an unknown mechanism.I have one old padlock, all copper-brazed together, that requires two keys, maybe made in India. Both are barrel keys, one with an internal left-hand thread. The threaded one screws into the narrow side of the case until a shoulder stops it. Then, the front key turns counter clockwise, releasing the shackle. When I received the lock, both keys were tied together with a ribbon. Good thing, too. Frank Turley - Monday, 12/01/08 20:54:17 EST : I believe that, to my possible detriment and likely to contribute to my untimely demise: That I have inadvertantly discovered the identity of Miles Undercut. While perusing back issues of the Anvil's Ring I found an article, humorous and entertaining. While laying on my pillow and enjoyimg a mint I noticed an unlikely simililarity to a lot of his postings, that I follow closely and enjoy mightily. I will be willing to disclose my theory to the highest bidder. Post your interest here and I will respond with the dead drop details. - Anvilblock Forge - Monday, 12/01/08 23:13:19 EST Old Locks: Security by obscurity was a primary method of the early lock makers. On a typical German Armada Chest there is a big estuction plate on the front that covers a dummy lock that does nothing. But an attack on a lock that does nothing could take considerable time and would definitely frustrate a sneak thief. The box also has two shackles with large padlocks. So there are three "obvious" locks, one a dummy. The actual lock on this box is in the top and the keyhole hidden. A pin must be inserted into a small hole to open the keyhole cover. Then a large warded key operated the mechanism which drew multiple bolts that are as strong or stronger then the rest of the box itself. I have designed such a mechanism that takes a long "key" inserted from the back or side of the box (who would look there?) and this raises one of many decorative bosses on the top of the chest hiding the keyhole. The lock in the front unlike the Armada chest would be a secondary lock that releases an interior panel of a hidden compartment. If the lock is operated or picked with the lid closed it does nothing. But if the lock is operated while the lid is open then the hidden compartment would open. . . Three keys required. An option was to have handles on the side of the chest that when lifted would open the secret compartment. Who would lift the handles on an open chest? Other secret compartments are locked when the lid is closed and the interior tray in place. Remove the interior tray, then press the correct fitting and the compartment opens. . . You can have great fun devising such schemes that work in real life. The trick to security by obscurity is that you never let anyone else see how it works. Secrecy is as important as the keys and their operation. And in the end, as they say, "Locks are for honest people". Crooks will try to gently open something but if that fails then a brute force attack almost always works. When a friend had heavy iron bars made to bar the doors of his business the thieves just destroyed the door between the bars. . . In the attack most of the door jamb was destroyed (just to steal a stereo). Locks are puny things when a desperate person with a sledge hammer and a pry bar wants in. Armada chest - guru - Monday, 12/01/08 23:37:02 EST Anvilblock: Please don't. His friends know who he is and publicly he prefers to remain anonymous for various reasons. Others try to be anonymous but as webmaster/sysop and root user of our server I have access to IP addresses, logins, passwords, server access records. . . It took about 10 seconds to find your Bellsouth DSL account. If you want I can tell you where you entered anvilfire, what pages you visited and how long you stayed. Then there are simple Google searches that often turn up the answer in milliseconds. - guru - Tuesday, 12/02/08 00:01:17 EST Anvilblock forge: Do Tell. Which issue? You have freedom to disclose authors and participants of published works. We all enjoy the ramblings of Miles Undercut. - Rustystuff - Tuesday, 12/02/08 00:02:55 EST Anvilblock forge:: Guru is right. Let sleeping dogs ly concerning Miles - Rustystuff - Tuesday, 12/02/08 00:41:32 EST Guru You know who I am. If I didn't want someone to know who I am I can cloak any broswer I use and your server would not be able to tell you who I was. There is no reason for most people to do such a thing on a site like this, however. - Rustystuff - Tuesday, 12/02/08 00:47:08 EST Not a secret; just a nom de plummet sort of thing and respecting the wishes of an author is a good idea lest they take umbrage and excoriate one in the media! A lot of medieval locks seem to be just to prevent random pilferage. Having people around was the major security method and just making it so it would take time or cause noise was sufficient deterrance. The heavily ironed, massive chests are a special case for highly valuable items where the size and weight help prevent it being moved to a place where the bad guys could break it open undisturbed and the ironing prevented smash and grabs in place. Unfortunately these chests tend to get preserved prefferentially due to their massiveness and ironwork. However hiding stuff was still very much used at least in viking times as the many burried silver finds show... Thomas Thomas P - Tuesday, 12/02/08 11:10:05 EST Henry Wright anvil: The only Henry Wright anvil I have seen, I purchased for a friend of mine. Yes, it looks a lot like a Peter Wright EXCEPT it didn't have a (chipping?) shelf where the horn attaches to the body. Haven't seen another in California. The guy that sold it said it came from the midwest, it is now in Ohio so I guess it sorta returned to its home. Fog season here in the Central Valley of CA. When fools drive too fast and the Darwin Effect improves the breed (except when they take out innocents with them). The hated and feared Tule Fog, when you can't see 20 ft in front of you, yet you can look up and see the stars - David Hughes - Tuesday, 12/02/08 12:35:09 EST David, When I was working in the Sacramento area I learned back routes on small roads to avoid the fog on the Interstate South where everyone just kept moving 70 MPH when they suddenly couldn't see the hood ornament on their car! In that fog the truckers were above it and could see each other and only detect 4 wheelers by the faint wake in the fog. . . if ANYONE chickened out. . everybody would crash. So I started taking the "long" route to the plant. - guru - Tuesday, 12/02/08 15:46:30 EST Fireplace Poker: Received an e-mail from cdeluhery@yahoo.com they are looking for someone to make them a basket handled fireplace poker. Beyond my current capability. If you do such, please contact them directly for their requirements. Ken Scharabok - Tuesday, 12/02/08 17:43:09 EST Change of name: I read the post that said that "somewhere there is an anvil with my name on it". So I am going to change my name to Peter Wright. That way my name should be on hundreds of anvils. Or would Dudley be better? Maybe would for if ever I end up back in UK. (Horrible thought). - philip in china - Tuesday, 12/02/08 19:38:00 EST Mea Culpa. I'm probably mistaken and I did not mean to poke a hornets nest. Just me being intractable. I have always enjoyed his humor and had no intention of "outing him". Just misplaced humor; Mr Undercut, I apologize. His secret is safe. - Anvilblock Forge - Tuesday, 12/02/08 20:38:57 EST And Mr Dempsey, please abort the hit squad. - Anvilblock Forge - Tuesday, 12/02/08 20:46:18 EST Mr. Undercut is deeply shocked and has asked me as his administrative assistant to post the following notice: Nothing whatsoever to out. Undercut exists only as a transient configuration of pixels on this screen. Chastity Dangerfield - Tuesday, 12/02/08 21:05:58 EST Chastity D: How positively refreshing to see you again! It has been far too long you have been absent. I trust that you, Swarf and all the rest at the Institute are doing well in your self-imposed seclusion. Perhaps we'll hear from you again in another six or eight years. Until then, fare well. vicopper - Tuesday, 12/02/08 21:24:11 EST Manufactured Horseshoes: Just a bit of trivia. See http://dictionary.babylon.com/JUNIATA#!!NCKREEGP2A. Apparently commercially manufactured horseshoes (key shoes) began about the time of the start of the Civil War. Ken Scharabok - Wednesday, 12/03/08 01:43:38 EST Guru: What's a "hood ornament?" - Peter Hirst - Wednesday, 12/03/08 03:44:35 EST I have a lovely hood ornament on my blacksmith truck. Barbee riding a dragon:) ptree - Wednesday, 12/03/08 07:28:20 EST Hood: I think what the Yanks call a auto hood, the Brits call a bonnet. Frank Turley - Wednesday, 12/03/08 07:35:36 EST Hood Ornament: Peter, like the famous SPIRIT OF ECSTASY or "The Flying Lady" found on the bonnet of a Rolls Royce or the Chrysler and Mercedes 3 point star emblem. Then there is the famous bulldog on Mac trucks. If the fog is so bad you can't see you hood ornament then its time to park. - guru - Wednesday, 12/03/08 11:08:28 EST Phillip; or should I call you Harbor? evil Thomas Thomas P - Wednesday, 12/03/08 11:40:28 EST I think Peter's just calling us old, seeing as how hood ornaments went out back when cars still had carburetors. Thomas, Phillip's chosen last name is already on *those* anvils. (grin) Mike BR - Wednesday, 12/03/08 17:16:34 EST Mike BR, I may be old, but the truck that has the lovely Miss Barbee riding the dragon has a carburator! A wacking great Quadrajet, 4 barrel (Choke for you Brits) on top of 350 cubic inches of Detriots finest. Hauled home a ton of scrapped pallet racking today as a matter of fact. ptree - Wednesday, 12/03/08 18:27:01 EST Old?: My backyard mechanic friend says, "When I look under the hood and can't see the ground, I won't work on it." Frank Turley - Wednesday, 12/03/08 19:00:23 EST See the ground??: That's what I liked about my '64 Plymouth Belvedere 2-door with the 225ci slant six. In a car designed to accomodate up to the legendary 426 hemi, you could see not only the ground but also anything else between the front wheels! Even if equipped with an aftermarket Offenhauser intake manifold with a 4-barrel Carter AFB 750cfm carb and header. If only the previous owner had ever deigned to change the oil between 1964 and 1984, I wouldn't have had to have sold the thing before the crankshaft predictably fell out. Would have been even better if the guy I sold it to had bothered to rebuild the engine before he took it to time trials... Alan-L - Wednesday, 12/03/08 19:53:11 EST Detroit's finest: I didn't know that they made a carburated 350 in a diesel! Surely anything called "finest" must be diesel ;). The hood ornament on my diesel shop truck is a sheet metal silhouette of a pig (cork screw for a tale) mounted on a pivot. The one cop thats ever pulled me over didn't think it was that funny till I explained that it represented how much fuel the truck burned. Then he laughed, told me to slow down thru town, and said to have a nice day. Judson Yaggy - Wednesday, 12/03/08 21:09:56 EST I share the VI cop's attitude, so good to hear from the staff. Seven years is way to long. So, I can answer my door? Ignore the alarm? Mr Guru, You failed to mention that I have been posting here for 5 years plus, a prior CSI member; and I met you at a Madison conference. - Anvilblock Forge - Wednesday, 12/03/08 21:12:27 EST Mike BR: What's a "carburetor"? Peter Hirst - Wednesday, 12/03/08 22:49:57 EST Anvilblock, I didn't want to give away everything. . . A carburetor is something that will let an internal combustion engine operate without a computer or high pressure fuel pump and will last almost forever if you keep dirt the size of grains of sand out of it and don't remove the hood (bonnet) and leave it open to the weather. It is also something that a kid with a screw driver and high school education can repair and adjust WITHOUT plugging the engine into yet another computer. - guru - Thursday, 12/04/08 00:33:58 EST And the Carb on top of my 350 cubic inch, 4 bolt main Chevy small block (no Judson, Not all "finest" are deisel) has been working since 1972 without a computer of any sort. Heck the spark plugs are fired by a primitive thing that uses a switch, opened by a cam that rotates in time with the engine, and when I need to adjust it I slide a little sheet metal window open on the switch mechanism and insert a hex key and twist to adjust. A well tuned set of ears can get very close on that adjustment, and if I want to be even more perfect on the adjustments, I have a neighbor who has a magic meter and light, very old and arcane that I borrow that lets me do magical adjustments. (If I remember how to hook them up after this lo many years) ptree - Thursday, 12/04/08 06:09:49 EST AH! Its all coming back to me now: like a dream, magic flashy light gun, nail polish mark on a belt pulley, butterfly valves, lots of little brass parts, knurled adjusting screws, yes, yes, and a number - 283 - figures in there somewhere . . . Peter Hirst - Thursday, 12/04/08 09:15:57 EST carburetor: An honest question. When someone asks what a carburetor is you suddenly realize how old you really are. - Rustystuff - Thursday, 12/04/08 09:41:58 EST Auto Trivia: Distributor adjustments. . . The old British sports cars had an external spark advance to adjust for various qualities of gasoline (petrol) which were often not available at home but was kind of funny here in the U.S. where "Ethel" rained supreme. I always thought the perfect distributor would be a combination of those old Lucas distributors and the GM Delco. Timing and point gap both externally adjustable while the engine ran! But later I found that the perfect distributor was the early 70's Chrysler solid state units. I had one on a Dodge pickup that was still working without maintenance or adjustment other than a new cap when the truck was scrapped at over 300,000 miles. The reason the truck was taken off the road was the idiot driver was showing off hotdogging it on a gravel road and overreved. . breaking rings on a couple cylinders. Great truck I still miss it. The old British sports cars had more mechanical adjustments than anything else on the road at the time. Owners (and unskilled mechanics) couldn't resist fiddling with things they didn't understand that were almost never the problem. . . I made a living off their ignorance by simply reading a couple manuals. Classic Automotive Trade secret of the day: Ever have trouble adjusting an idle mixture screw on an old car or motorcycle carburettor? The trick is that "turns" are 180 degrees, not 360! So that initial 1-1/2 turns adjustment is 270 degrees. Most run perfectly within 15 or 20 degrees of this setting. But if you start at 540 degrees (1-1/2 full turns) rotation you can go nuts just keeping the engine running long enough to find the right adjustment! I think I've found this true on lawn mowers, chainsaws and other small engines as well. - guru - Thursday, 12/04/08 09:58:51 EST Ahh yes the oldies where you could have 4 people sitting on the fenders, 2 per side, with their feet hanging down inside discussing the chunk of greasy iron in the middle. The new ones are a lot harder to work on; but I've owned several that *never* needed any work on them for the years I've owned them! (and that's generally from 70-100K to scrapper) Thomas Thomas P - Thursday, 12/04/08 10:40:53 EST Choke: Remember the choke pulloffs on the Cryslers. They were heated by the intake manifold. The manifold ports would always carbon up and plug up. I always had the bonnet off my 71 van and a screw driver stuck in it. I was always bending the rod to the pulloff and even put a new one on it. The carbon build up would eventually foul the plugs. You guessed it I carried extra plugs and tools to change them on the road. I was to lazy to install a manual choke pull. The next owner did and fixed the problem. I could not image going through all that trouble to drive around now. - Rustystuff - Thursday, 12/04/08 10:44:53 EST You think ca. 1960 adjustments are tough...: On my dad's 1923 Model T Ford all the adjustments are made at the driver's fingertips: Manual spark advance and throttle on either side of the steering column, pull choke on the dash, carburetor needle valve adjustment right next to it to allow you to burn anything from kerosene to pure naptha (they don't like anything heavier than kero), plus a set of magnetos and coil boxes to burn your fingertips if you open the wrong lids. Well, there are a couple of adjustments to make under the hood, but once you have the commutator (primitive distributor also known as the timer)working and the carb float full that's about it. Add to that an "automatic" transmission consisting of two forward speeds and one reverse controlled by friction bands around a set of planetary gears and you've got yourself transportation! If you could only get the #@$@#@! things to STOP without hitting something they'd have been perfect. The "brake," such as it is, is another friction band on the transmission. There's a little finger on the side of the brake pedal that's supposed to disengage the high/low range pedal, but if that particular band is a bit tight it never really disengages. The handbrake controls a pair of expanding shoes inside a 6" drum on the back wheels. In practice the only way to stop a T on a downgrade is to hit the brake and reverse pedals at the same time while simultaneously feathering the hand brake just enough not to lock the wheels... Kinda reminds me of my '77 International Scout in that regard, minus the optical pickups in the distributor that would fog every time it rained. Alan-L - Thursday, 12/04/08 11:02:06 EST Tool Dressing in the forge: Got a blacksmith question: Tool dressing in the forge, I seen my dad do it but I never watched close enough. Ok so I have some "old" hammers, chisels and the like, that have mushroomed out. You know, with bits sticking over the sides. My dad would dress as needed in the forge when replacing the handle. I have a nice straight pien that Dad made that needs dressing and the handle is out. I have dressed it back to size on the hammer face, but it left me with a cupped face. I quit there. How should I deal with the cup. The cup edges are nearly 1/4 inch high. I could just grind the face to correct. But I would like to finish in the forge. Myself with round hammers such as ball pein, I used to dress in a lathe, I even had at one time, a lathe big enough to clean them up with handles it them. I always kept hammers and the like clean in my machine shop. Any tool can be dangerous if used with mushrooms on them. - Tmac - Thursday, 12/04/08 13:11:49 EST Dressing Mushroomed tools: Tmac, Once they start cracking the mushroomed material should be cut off with a grinder. If you forge it back to shape all you have is a reshaped tool with lots of dangerous cracks. In severe cases the entire end of the tool should be cut off in a abrasive cut-off saw. Normally if you only have minor cracking then grinding off the mushroom and back to a heavy chamfer takes care of it. Struck tools should have a crown (like the face of a hammer) and a heavy chamfer so that it is impossible to strike a corner at an agle that will accept any significant force. On that cupped hammer you need to cut everything back to flat plus a little with a grinder. Then you need to chamfer the edges (a lot), then crown the face. The edge between the crown and the chamfer should be wekk radiused (about a 1/8" to 3/16" [ 3 to 5 mm] radius). Tools that wear down, plows, jack hammer bits, mason's chisels and picks can be dressed in the forge. But mushrooming should be cut off for safety reasons. A small piece of shrapnel flying off a tool at bullet speed has resulted in groin wounds that have been fatal. Most are lucky to just have to pull a piece of sharp hot tool steel from their leg or arm. I have a collection of old tools that were used until the mushrooming was curled around on itself and large pieces had started flying of. I like to think that these were from the era when folks did not have cheep convenient grinders. But I have also seen modern tools in similar condition. - guru - Thursday, 12/04/08 13:47:55 EST My 72 chevy has a manual choke now. My 68 Scout had a delco window distributor on a V-8 cut in half to yeild a 196 in inline 4. Had the V-8 crank and both the crank and distributor had 8 eccentrics, but only 4 did anything. Factory engine:) ptree - Thursday, 12/04/08 13:49:24 EST Blacksmith Question: Do we allow Blacksmith questions in this forum? I thought this was automobiles only...GRIN...LOL. - Rustystuff - Thursday, 12/04/08 15:43:17 EST Hey! I'll have you know that the frame and upholstry are about the only parts of a Model T that can't be fixed in the average blacksmith shop! Except for the block and transmission case there's very little cast iron on the things. One of thier ads showed the front axle tied in a knot to prove its superiority to a cast axle. Of course, if your blacksmith shop includes a wainwright's, you can also work on the frame and wheels, and quite possibly the upholstry! Alan-L - Thursday, 12/04/08 16:26:12 EST OK, I owned IHC Scouts, too...2 of 'em. Is there something genetic; some blacksmith/pyro/scout gene? Just a hunch, but I bet that the proportion of previous Scout owners here is higher that that of the general population. My first Scout needed so many parts that I can still recall it's VIN. My second Scout had the front universal joint on the front driveshaft fail, at highway speed. the driveshaft caught on the pavement, and came up through the floorboards directly behind my seat. I can still taste the adrenaline.... - Charlie Spademan - Thursday, 12/04/08 16:30:04 EST Carburetors: If you were born after the baby boom (just), a carburetor is a device that, when connected to more vacuum hoses than an Electrolux factory, meters about the right amount of fuel, most of the time. A friend's lawn mower wasn't running right once. I went to set the mixture and found that the screw had been backed out four or five *full* turns. I asked him if he'd adjusted the mixture -- no. So I asked "did you ever turn this screw." "Only like the manual said." I made him dig out the manual, which said to turn the screw 1/8 turn CCW if the mower was hard to start. He'd done it every time the thing didn't start on the second pull! Mike BR - Thursday, 12/04/08 17:38:32 EST Another Scout owner: I just bought an F 150 (used) from the son of the man I bought my first new car from, and paid exactly the same price. That first car was a 1970 Scout. Conventional manual 4x4, power nothing, manual locking front hubs, AMC 232 straight six. The dealer warned me about the front drive shaft thing: happened a lot, apparently, chronic u-joint problem. Never happend to me, but I did have t replace the clutch linkage - a cable with a swaged ball end -- a zillion times. That always failed shifting into first gear, usually at a light. Did you know you can drive a synchromesh transmission for hundreds of miles without using the clutch? Peter Hirst - Thursday, 12/04/08 18:07:13 EST Peter Hirst, My 68 Scout had a 3 speed manual, no synchro in 1st. That was my daily driver when I broke my left knee. Had a cast from my ankle to my ... And I drove that beast daily. Put a steel beer can in the left front corner to rest my cast on, and I looked like I was playing a Wurtlizer when shift time came:) That thing has a solid rear axle, as in NO differential. Interesting in a tight corner, especially in the rain. ptree - Thursday, 12/04/08 18:17:19 EST model T front axil: I remember watching a movie in high school history class about the industrial revolution and of corse the Ford model T assembly line was one of the features of the movie. In that segment they showed a line of workmen moving front axil blanks that were suspended by a chain way to a very larg drop forge. Each man would sling his axil into the open die and while still on the chain it would receive 5 or 6 big hits and then move on all in an endless procesion of workers. I would see this same segment in other history films and usualy anytime mass production was the topic(it was usualy seen with the segment from the Ford factory of the guys riding the little wagons to keep up with the assembly line) Many years later I happen to see the same two segments on some program on PBS and for the first time I noticed a couple of signifigant details. In the shot of the axil and drop hammer line we see the hammer being loaded by one man and operated by another and I understand now that this is the common methode. I also noticed that the third or forth guy to feed his blank into the machine didn't quite get all the way in and settled befor the hammer driver droped the peddle and piled up the whole machine right on camera! If you see a long enough segment you will see it happen and see the chain support pulled down from the track and part of the blank sticking out of the die. I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of people have seen that same segment over the years and never relised what actualy happend? Charlie Spademan, I do believe there is something inheirant in grown men that persue a hobby or occupation that is as dangurous and labor intensive as blacksmithing and, the strong attraction to things that are well built and very rugged. One of my personal favorites is the M35A2 2 1/2T truck that the military has so sadly replaced. Ohh Well, lets not dwell on the past... - merl - Thursday, 12/04/08 20:14:01 EST I, too, owned a Scout, a boyhood fantasy-- there I am one day and this guy stops and asks if I'd like a car-- come true. Sure enough, local doctor, a friend, got irked when his Scout died and stranded him back in the boonies once too often. He asked if I'd like to have it and he thereupon gave it to me, free. Problem was a gasket or some such on the accelerator pump. Under $2 to fix. I liked it, embodiment of entropy, rust in motion, or not. But the CEO here hated that machine even more than she hated the Land Rover that preceded it. Too bumpy, noisy, etc. Gave it to youngest son who turned it over to second-oldest son, who traded it to a cabinet maker.... - Miles Undercut - Thursday, 12/04/08 21:25:09 EST Now a Pinzgauer or a Unimog.... Miles Undercut - Thursday, 12/04/08 21:26:44 EST Scouts: Yep, I owned three of them. A 66 Scout with the half a V-8 and manual everything. Terrific little vehicle! Also a 68 Scout with the whole V-8 - too much power for the drivetrain. And finally, an Indian Scout, a one-lung flathead bike that I barely got running after finding it abandoned. I was fourteen at the time and that fueled my lust for a motorcycle, so I wound up getting a 47 Indian Chief, the big 80 cubic inch flathead with suicide clutch, hand shift and the "death grip", as I called it. I'd learned to ride motorcycles on old British bikes, mostly Triumph Bonnevilles and the like, and had the "Amal carburetor starting drill" down pat. Unfortunately, when you applied that drill to the Indian, that sudden wrenching of the right hand grip just as you leaped on the kick starter was NOT the thing to do - it advanced the spark about fifteen or twenty degrees. I was a skinny little kid who barely had the mass to turn over that flathead if I jumped down on it with my knee locked, and it hoisted me over the bars several times until I unlearned old habits. Damned embarrassing. Wish I still had that old monster. vicopper - Thursday, 12/04/08 22:07:00 EST Pinzgauer or Unimog: Now that would be a tough choice Miles. I know were there is a M911 tractor(no trailer)complete with the two rear 20,000lb recovery winches, the tag axil and, exallent tires all around. Now if I only had some M60 tanks to haul... I wanted to mention a good read if anyone was interested. The title is "Truck. A love story" The author is Michael Perry. A well writen book about the authors efforts to restore his 1951 L 120 International pick up and, his life along with it. - merl - Thursday, 12/04/08 23:11:22 EST Merl, You really miss the M35 A2? Check this out: http://capecod.craigslist.org/grd/944897972.html I have to say, I am tempted myself Peter Hirst - Thursday, 12/04/08 23:22:16 EST Merl, i too have many miles in a M-35, and the multi-fuel was MY version. The straight 6 Cummins 5 ton tractor with a 30' COFT van for the Shilliegh Missile system was what I drove in Germany. Hard to start in the cold, but once running, almost nothing could stop it:) ptree - Friday, 12/05/08 07:29:50 EST scouts, again: I had to get rid of mine due to the CEO as well. She kept getting a headache (or claimed to) from exhaust gasses coming up through the cleverly designed climate control system, aka rusted out floorboards in the back seat footwell. Well, that plus the fine spray of water that filled the cabin if one got it running in the rain. It was the long wheelbase edition with the hatchback. I always wanted one of the 1960s half-8s, though. Trouble is, like the 1960s Broncos I'm too tall to drive them if they have the top on. Been trying to talk the CEO into an old Unimog, but she's not impressed. Alan-L - Friday, 12/05/08 10:50:55 EST Unimogs: I told my wife I need a Unimog to haul around the weld/gen. unit and by the way it would pull her horse trailer without even working hard. She was not impressed. She then reminded me of our old deal- she can have as many horses as I have power hammers and we are not currently equal. I countered that the 23# Little Giant was worth no more than a pony and she had a perfectly good Quarter Horse equal to my bigger hammer. She then pointed out that not only was I ahead but that the big fly press and the treadle hammer added up to at least a Morgan. I don't think I'm getting a Unimog anytime soon. Judson Yaggy - Friday, 12/05/08 14:08:24 EST Oops should have typed 25, not 23. Sorry. Judson Yaggy - Friday, 12/05/08 14:10:41 EST There is another, maybe earlier (c. 1971) memoir also entitled Truck, by John Jerome, I think, about his battles with an old Dodge. Only problem with it is that dreadful "helpless little me, how do I confront this complex and mysterious machine" point of view so many writers seem to feel they have to adopt to get readers to identify. Miles Undercut - Friday, 12/05/08 17:47:32 EST Alan-L My CEO rode many miles in my half 8 Scout, with the top off. She NEVER drove it:) She has driven the 72 Chevy once since we got it, even though she drove that very truck as a teen! It was her Dad's, and we bought it from him in 86. ptree - Friday, 12/05/08 18:44:24 EST Miles Undercut I do not understand the point you are trying to convey. - Smiles Underwood - Friday, 12/05/08 18:49:06 EST Earth: Respecting the Guru's request do move from the Den, zero gravity at the center of the Earth is the correct answer (either that, or I'm wrong too). If you really want a brain teaser, what would atmospheric pressure be at the center? I'm not sure how to work that one out myself. Mike BR - Friday, 12/05/08 21:31:19 EST Smiles-- Okay, here it is again: Lotsa mass market writers like Jerome, dealing with how-to and other tech-heavy subjects, disingenuously adopt a helpless little me, babe in the woods pose to enhance reader empathy with themselves as the central figure in the piece. It's a bit presh, cloying. Miles Undercut - Saturday, 12/06/08 00:19:54 EST That is, I am not just merely going to tell you how to fix an old truck, nor about how I wasted a year of my life that I will never have to live again fixing an old truck, nay, but how I picked up my wrenches and crawled under this rusty piece of worthless crap and brought it back to life. Moreover, I am going to take you along for every laugh-filled minute as I recount my bumbling adventures in the strange and foreign land of throw-out bearings and piston rings and timing gears and how I single-handedly confronted-- and conquered-- the daunting mysteries of internal combustion. etc., etc. Miles Undercut - Saturday, 12/06/08 00:29:05 EST Miles: That's exactly how the much revered "Zen/Motorcycle Maintenance" strikes me. People tell me I just don't get it. I get it. I just think its bull. Kind of like the therapists who kept telling my ex and me we just weren't communicating. We were communicating fine; we just didn't like each other. Peter Hirst - Saturday, 12/06/08 07:44:24 EST It's part of a dark plot by OmniMedia to portray the American male as a pitiful but ever so darling klutz seeking satori and epiphany in the hardware store and the greasepit. The sissification of America. Miles Undercut - Saturday, 12/06/08 10:24:11 EST Yes Miles, that is an apt and accurate descrition of the book I refer to. Sometimes it's OK to read books like that to help establish a base point. Some might think the book just had some hummor in it and read it for that... - merl - Saturday, 12/06/08 11:28:36 EST Hey, I enjoyed the Jerome Truck book a lot, and look forward to reading the later truck book as well. I just feel the pose is hokey, is all-- and think it's sad that editors and publishers feel that such persiflage is necessary so as not to frighten off readers from buying books. Miles Undercut - Saturday, 12/06/08 16:45:04 EST I have to agree with you there Miles. Why can't a book be sold and, become popular on its own merrits? I happen to hear the author of this book reading a passage from it on a public radio program and thought it sounded like my kind of subtle humor so I checked it out on his website and orderd a copy. I admit to being a little biased because the guy is from Wisconsin and actualy lives not too far from me but, it certainly was not a life chainging read. Just some gentle humor without the obligitory sex scene like you offten find used to sell books. The book wasn't on "Opra's list" either so that was a big mark in its favore. I hope you do find time to read the book because it sounds like you already have by this other title. It would be iteresting to see how close they run together. BTW Guru, I know I promised a short blacksmithing story by Holloween but there have obviuosly been some hold ups,one beeing the mis-placment of the note book with the story bord in it. It has finely been found so I will continue. - merl - Saturday, 12/06/08 22:57:57 EST Air pressure in psi would be AT LEAST the weight of a 1" sq column of air about 4,000 miles long of increasing density along its entire length, up to the point where it liquifies, then the weight of liquid air for the rest of the 4,000 mile column. Just because gravity measures zero, that doesn't mean there's no no pressure. The magnitude of gravity at the core is huge: it just measures zero because its omnidirectional. Peter Hirst - Saturday, 12/06/08 23:47:27 EST Actually, I have read or heard that plain old word of mouth is indeed the most powerful force behind best sellers. All those kids telling each other about those great books about wizards are what made J.K. Rowling a zillionaire, ditto teenage girls raving to their friends about Judy Blume have sold all those millions and millions of her books. Miles Undercut - Sunday, 12/07/08 00:13:54 EST Peter Hirst: Persig, Zen & MM: Read that again sometime, but forget the bike, the trip & His kid. The story is about the re-emergence of His former personality, the one suposedly destroyed by electroshock therapy after His nervous breakdown, and how He deals with this personality away from home, without professional help. The rest is just to fill in the spaces. - Dave Boyer - Sunday, 12/07/08 00:16:16 EST Gravity and Air a puzzel to think about: Peter, the pressure of the surrounding gas is caused by the same gravity that would be zero (or omnidirectional) at the center of a large body. When there is a hole through that body it becomes topologically a torus. Generally gravitational are toward the circular axis of a torus. I postulate that the pressure in the hole would be about half at some point. - guru - Sunday, 12/07/08 09:34:35 EST Literature vs. Manuals: If I want to fix a truck I want clear concise directions and plenty of accurate legible diagrams and charts of the needed data. The manual I recently bought for my Japanese forklift is neither. If I want to read about someone's daily life and tribulations I'll pick a biography of someone who interests me. Whether you like his art or not, Picasso led a very interesting life. - guru - Sunday, 12/07/08 09:41:01 EST I *think* Peter and the Guru are both right about the air pressure. A particle of air at the center adds nothing to the pressure because no gravity is acting on in. But there's a huge column above that that *is* subject to gravity. Roughly speaking, the mass of the column increases exponentially with depth while gravity decreases linearly, so the pressure at the bottom is very high. I see it as being a little bit like a vessel with air at the bottom, water at the top, and a piston in between. Even though the trapped air has very little weight, the pressure at the bottom of the cylinder is no lower than the pressure at the bottom of the layer of water. Mike BR - Sunday, 12/07/08 10:18:07 EST Technical writing: My ex-father-in-law, another Frank, developed and taught a technical writing technique at McDonnel Douglas. He developed the methodology, because the engineers and other tek-heads used sentences that were often too wordy, convoluted, and abstruse. He called it SVO, "Subject Verb Object." To simplify and set an example, he would tell them, "I see the dog." He encouraged them to try to stick to SVO in their writing realizing that the entire report or manual couldn't be done that way. It might become stilted. Frank had many other suggestions, one being to avoid dependent clauses. He also encouraged them to eschew adverbs, meaning words that often end with "ly." For example, what may be "heavily riveted" to you may not be "heavily riveted" to the reader. It is better to say that the pieces were riveted and to say how many rivets were used. Frank tried to help with punctuation, especially commas and semicolons. He would help his students with agreement in sentence structure. He couldn't stand overly long sentences. He encouraged students to read Ernest Hemingway to help them understand the directness of SVO and how it could even be used in some fiction writing. Frank Turley - Sunday, 12/07/08 11:05:51 EST Anvil Horn?: Is there a best size: What would be the best size and shape of an Anvil Horn for general shop use? I have seen many shapes of them. Of coarse horns vary in size according of the size Anvil. Could anyone post the dimensions of a good universal size. Thank You - Tmac - Sunday, 12/07/08 11:35:30 EST What gets my goat is fiction writers who go out of their way to describe a technical subject -- and then get it wrong. If the writer describes only what's necessary to the plot and makes a mistake, he writes about something that couldn't happen. But then it *didn't* happen; it's fiction after all. If he gives unnecessary detail though, he's trying to teach the reader something, and had better get it right. For example, there's a Robert Janes that gives the analysis of the steel in traditional Laguiole knife the main character buys -- and the analysis matches that of 440C. I know 440C existed in 1942, but it could hardly have been "traditional." I figure the author looked up the analysis for a modern knife and didn't realize it was for stainless. (Of course, the thing I resent most about Robert Janes is that he seems to have stopped writing (grin)). Mike BR - Sunday, 12/07/08 11:45:13 EST RE: McDonnell Douglas: I have used and own many McDonnell Douglas books. Those books are all well written and straight to the point. I thought aircraft maintenance for years, and used many of those for my class room studies. Some of the early MD books have been incorporated into the basic FAA maintenance technician manuals. - Tmac - Sunday, 12/07/08 11:47:03 EST Truck by John Jerome: Miles? If that is the book I'm thinking of, it has the best line in it that I can ever recall reading "the emergency brake, faced with an emergency, promptly broke" JimG - Sunday, 12/07/08 12:16:34 EST Horn Size: Do you have a choice? Horns are usually the width of the anvil and a little taller where they join. The bigger the anvil, the bigger the horn. There ARE choices. Shape varies. CW says that conical horns are not as useful as those that are ovoid on the top and nearly round on the bottom creating a greater variety of curves. Conical horns are a late invention designed to be machine finished. If they are not, then they are poorly applied. There are anvils with both square and round horns. I've never used a square horned anvil a lot so I cannot expound on their advantages or disadvantages. I do believe that the more shapes available the better. The big difference is length proportional to the base. A long slender horn has different uses than a short steep angled one. You also find old anvils that have had the tip of the horn broken off (or upset) and reground. I find these difficult to work on. I prefer a slightly longer horn as it is easier to find and stay on a specific radius. Most early anvils were hornless or had little stubby horns. To augment this smiths had stake anvils with proportionately long slender round and square horns. Then there are those very weird duck billed anvils made in the Orient where they don't have a clue about Western anvil design. The modern anvil with a horn is a universal tool deriving from farriers anvils and the stake anvil. Like any universal tool they are a compromise. On farriers' anvils they put much of the mass in the horn which makes the anvil poorer for forging. In old Colonial anvils the mass was in the body which made them much better for forging but not quite as handy a tool. Modern anvils with proportionately slender waists need to be heavier than their earlier counterparts in order to give the same forging mass under the hammer. So, you get the best anvil you can. Then augment it with stakes and cones if you really need them. - guru - Sunday, 12/07/08 12:17:33 EST Technical Fiction: Technical fiction needs to be absolutely correct OR use fictional inventions that cannot be disputed by known reality. The problem is when reality catches up with science fiction. Who would have thought that by the end of the 20th century almost every teenager in America and about half of the rest of the planet would have Dick Tracey video telephones? - guru - Sunday, 12/07/08 12:23:00 EST Dick Tracey video telephones: I'm still waiting for my Shoe Phone, though. Oh, and my flying car. Rob Dobbs - Sunday, 12/07/08 17:07:46 EST Not that I'm coming to his defence but, this Michal Perry that wrote the book I refer to obviously dosn't have a clue when it comes to wrenchin' and restorin' and by the end of the book he's not much further along on that score. It's just a book writen by a guy who can wax poetic about a delapitated old truck and still not take him self so seriously that he doesn't see the humor in what he is doing. He also has a good descriptive and naritive style that makes it easy to visualise what he sees and has experienced. Yes, the fact that he is just a couple of countys to the west of me does help but if the book wasn't of interest I wouldn't have given it a second thought even if my own brother had writen it. There is nothing technical in my story. It's suposed to be a ghost story inspired by an old, old farmstead in a part of the county were I spent most of my summers when I was younger. BTW I saw a good size anvil yesterday at the shop of someone in the engine modeling club I belong to. He claims dy dementions it works out to between 400-500lbs. and I would say it went an easy 400. We couldn't get any name or markings from it as it has a thick coat of black paint on it. I'm trying to talk him in to scraping the paint off of it to find a makers mark of some kind. It looks like a PW at the feet with the cast in ledge for hold downs but, Iknow that probably means very little. It has the holes for the porter bars so I asume it is forged wrought iron at the base with a 1" thick table plate of tool steel. It looks like he tried to clean up the top face with a disk grinder at one time but, gave up. It is in realy exalent condition and it apperantly came from a factory out on the west coast were he and his father bothe worked and, his father used it from time to time. When this company decided to throw it out (!!!???) he took it home and has had it ever since. He claims not to be a blacksmith of any kind and keeps it for sentimental reasons. - merl - Sunday, 12/07/08 21:06:45 EST Foreign Tech Manuals: If you think your Japanese forklift manual is pretty useless Jock, you should read (or rather, try to read), the manual that came with my Chinese tractor. If I hadn't been pretty much capable of reverse engineering a lot of mechanical things, I'd never have been able to assemble that tractor using the provided manual. What a comedy of errors and ommissions that thing is! Most of the tractor has been developed further and re-designed since the manual was published, and no updates are included. Only about 50% of the drawings actually match what is in front of you, and the translations are incredibly, wildly erratic. I must say though, that the machine itself is well built and works like a champ. It has the virtue (for me) of using engineering mostly from about the 60's and 70's so I can actually understand it and cope with it. vicopper - Sunday, 12/07/08 21:49:19 EST These truck books are not fiction and they are not technical writing in the sense of how-to or manuals. They are real-life non-fiction adventure stories, personal accounts of journeys into the strange and foreign land of old machinery. As the man said above, the writers re-discover themselves along the way. That's fine with me. I'm all in favor of people writing books about their lives and better yet, selling them. Just spare me the disarming self-deprecation hooey. Miles Undercut - Sunday, 12/07/08 22:32:42 EST Grapes of Wrath: It's been a looong time since I read that book, but I'm minded of a segment where the Joad family has their Hudson Terraplane break down. Of course, they're on their way to California. I believe they had to pour their own babbit for the bearings. One family member barked his knuckles to bring a little blood, while he was wrenching. He remarked that he never really felt like he was into a car repair until he had a little accident like that. Frank Turley - Sunday, 12/07/08 23:19:59 EST Painted Anvils: Merl, You can never tell. One thing though, all PW's are forged, there is not a cast mark, line or texture on them anywhere. You also need to be aware that many foundries over the years have used the nearest anvil as a pattern to make a cast iron one. . . Generally these have raised lettering or numbers on them somewhere but not always. Some even have machined faces removing the parting line. But parting seams can be easily recognized as well as sprue or riser locations. Raised lettering on old anvils is always an indication of being cast. On late anvils a number that have been forged, especially small ones, that have raised lettering. Terminology, forged vs. cast is very important in identifying an anvil. Then there is hand or blacksmith forged (large shop with power hammer) vs. drop forged in dies like a Peddinghaus. Paint makes it difficult to tell about surface texture and repairs. It has been said, "Beware the Painted Lady" - guru - Monday, 12/08/08 00:26:47 EST Peter Wright "ledge": Over the years, I've seen a couple of Kohlswa anvils that had the PW ledges, and I've seen a couple of Kohlswa's that did not have them. Frank Turley - Monday, 12/08/08 07:07:32 EST Come to haha think of it, though, and harking back to an issue of Country Journal Magazine that had a piece re: the tools needed for living in the boonies, replete with instructions on how to use a wheelbarrow, maybe the bewildered helplessness is not a pose. Who else but a sojourning wayfarer from a land where such was necessary could find drama under an old truck? Miles Undercut - Monday, 12/08/08 11:02:53 EST The Mysteries Under the Hood: For SOME things I have a fantastic memory, especially about childhood. The first time I looked under the hood of an old car I was about eight or nine. It was an old Buick with a flat head straight six. A big black mysterious rectangular thing. But it was fairly simple even then and there was not much else to look at other than an old 3/4" wide fan belt and the spark plugs. I changed the plugs in that old car once. I cannot remember if it ran afterward. . . I learned a lot about mechanics helping a buddy that had English sports cars that were always in need of something. Triple carbs and enough parts in the linkages to make any tinker-toy or erector set crazed kid happy. Lots of mysteries there. We learned from trial and error as well as after market manuals. We did some amazing things with very limited tools. In later years I had old trucks from the 1950's with slightly more sophisticated engines than the old Buick. Still pretty simple and lots of space to work. On these I swapped engines, rebuilt transmissions and just about everything else you can do to an old truck. In the 70's electronics started to creep into the engine compartment and vacuum hoses ran riot. Every manner of odd part sprouted out of every surface of the engine, firewall and fenders. I worked on quite a few of these but was never as confident as working on the old 50 and 60's stuff. For a while I specialized in British Sports car repair and did everything from engine and transmission rebuilds to adjusting voltage regulators and instruments. Today looking under the hood of a car is more bewildering to me than when I was eight years old. Far too many parts doing who knows what. I no longer work on my cars other than changing a battery or a head lamp. The rest I leave to experts. I feel sorry for young kids that want to buy an "old" car and fix it up. Many things on modern cars just plain cannot be fixed when they get a little age on them. The high tech becomes outdated so fast that those keeping up with it can only afford to be sharp on the recent. Parts become unavailable much too soon and there are far more to go bad. Today a 15 year old car is from when they were just as complicated as today. You have to go to a late 60's or early 70's car to find something that you can learn mechanics on but those are now into the "classic" category with rare (expensive) parts. While I enjoy the dependability of modern cars I still miss the "good old days" when you could work on them your self. So goes to world. . . - guru - Monday, 12/08/08 12:09:08 EST Over the years, again: Miles, You may have something there. I've had a handful of students who have probably never had a hammer or screwdriver in their hands. When I broached the subject with them, they SWORE that they had used tools before. You can't fool the old man, though. We are taking manual arts out of high school curricula. In my classes, when we go to the drill press, I have to explain the Jacobs chuck and accompanying key. We spend time explaining proper hammer swing. We're living in a strange era, one in which two thumbs depress keys on a mini-keyboard while attention deficit continues. Frank Turley - Monday, 12/08/08 12:14:48 EST Old vs new cars: I have been working on cars since I first owned one a 1952 Plymouth with a flathead 6. I have had a succesion of fun cars such as several of the poorly understood Corvair, a pair of Plymouth(mitsubishi) Champs, an IH, An NSU( that was a nifty little oddball) and others. I basically do not electronic or vacumn work. I do exhaust, brakes, front and rear axles tie rods etc. Those are still mechanical work, and ripe for money savings. I can put a pair of front axle half shafts in in a afternoon, for $150 VS $800+ at a shop. Not an electronic item in sight there, except maybe a wheel spin sensor for antilock. Good thing as I have 4 kids with junkers, and I get to repair on a regular basis:) ptree - Monday, 12/08/08 18:23:32 EST I'm lucky that I've found a local mechanic that is both good an inexpensive. Cost me less to let him fix things than to look for the parts. Replaced a broken axle including tow for about $100. Repaired Sheri's nearly totaled 4 year old car plus earlier dings for enough less than the insurance company estimated that we had no deductible costs and got it back in 10 days. Often you cannot beat a man at his own game. I've got more work for him. However. . the last dealer that worked on my Ford truck didn't do the job right (wrong master cylinder) and charged $800 for the cylinder and a piece of brake line. . . Why did I take it to a dealer? Brakes failed entirely on the heavy truck in front of the dealer that was on TOP of a hill. If they had failed a minute later I probably would not be writing this. . It was also suspected that it might be a brake booster that I know NOTHING about . . So the dealer won the lottery. I used to do it all including replacing windshields (not recommended). - guru - Monday, 12/08/08 19:55:17 EST big anvil- big fake?: I have to say I do have my suspitions about this anvil. exibit a.-- no disernable makings of any kind. Even with the heavy paint I would think I could see the logo or something showing through. exibit b.-- at the feet on the front and back side I can plainly see a round boss sticking out slightly from the surface. They are about an inch around and very reagular and symetrical, not like a sprue or riser that has been ground off but, like the marks left by an ejection pin on a diecasting or, the ejection pin marks left when you mold a core from that terrible smelling lost foam prosses. exibit c.-- Why the porter bar holes in a casting? (one on in the front and back and one on the side) The table is clearly hard from the evidence of the grinding and giving up on it about 1/3 of the way through. There also seems to be a distinctive line showing the thickness of the table (1"+) It has a 1 1/4 -1 1/2 hardy hole and probably a 1/2" pritchel hole. The darn thing does look for all the world like a much bigger version of my 100lb PW... I'm trying to talk him into bringing it over to my place so we can try some heavy striking but, I think he's afraid it will get hurt some how... Daddy's anvil and all... BTW Miles, I love that word "replete" . It's rather a chalange using it in a modern machine shop setting without drawing the inevitable round of dumb looks from the slack jawed yokles hanging around. - merl - Monday, 12/08/08 22:36:20 EST Mechanicin' and such: I, too, grew up with old cars and the smell of leaded gas on my clothes. I had old Fords, Mercs, Dodges and even a Corvair, plus a succession of GM products that actually worked, which the Corvair didn't, most of the time. The old 35 Ford PU and the 40 Merc sedan were both flathead V-8s that were a snap to work on, once you got past that first trauma of splitting a number of the special thinwall 5/8" sockets for the headbolts that were frozen. As I recall, the clerk at Sears finally just gave me a box of a dozen of them to save me having to take the bus down every day for a new one. :-) I learned a lot from those old cars, bu tprobably not nearly as much as I should have. Liek the rest of you, the new computerized, vacuum-hose jungled cars of today are not something I can do much with. I do have an OBD reader so I can decipher what the stupid little warning lights are telling me and then ignore it, but that's about all I can do these days. That's why I bought a Chinese tractor the other day. That thing is right out of the sixties as far as engineering and design goes and I can understand it. Well, the hydraulics are something I'm working or learning more about, but the rest is old hat, fortunately. The more I piddle around with that tractor, the more I appreciate it. Not a single bit of solid-state Zen required, as long as the voltage regulator holds up, but can live without that if need be - diesels don't need electricity to run! (grin) And it doesn't even have a windshield, either. To be fair, it also doesn't have a syncromesh gearbox, so I had to re-learn double-clutching and slip shifting, but that came back pretty quickly. All I need to do now is make it a nifty hood ornament as nice as Jeff's "Barbie on the Dragon." vicopper - Monday, 12/08/08 22:54:28 EST When our oldest son, who had been a foreman on a subdivision development in town and had designed and with his brothers and their girlfriends built an addition onto our house, got to Rice architecture school, no one else in his class had ever built anything, had ever used a hammer or saw. Miles Undercut - Tuesday, 12/09/08 00:35:31 EST Rich, tractor hydraulics have been pretty sophisticated ever since Harry Feurgeson invented the 3 point hitch system with mechanical draft control. The hydraulic side is usually pretty simple, the mechanical feedback can be a bit interesting:) Trying to maintain cheapness, has many of the makers using "power beyond" controls that are also a bit interesting. Best suggestion, keep that hydraulic oil clean, and watch for water in the oil. Those mobile systems breath in a lot of moist air and it condenses. Probably more mobile systems die of water contamination than dirt. ptree - Tuesday, 12/09/08 07:25:46 EST Grand Opening: Thanks to a lot of help on this forum and the Guru's Den, Keziah's Forge is open for biz at its new location, 1150 Old Queene Anne Road in Harwich MA. Stop in anytime yer down the Cape. My landlord, who runs the old barrel and fish box factory that this forge once served (now Barn and Barrel Fine Yankee Goods) is throwing an open house and opening for me this Sattidy, Dec 5, all day. This forge is one of Bob Jordan's former locations, and proudly bears his mark in the slab and a couple of fixtures. Yesterday, I installed the LG 25 pounder in near mint condition, thanks to the talents of Sid and the gang at Little Giant Hammer and Bob Kluge of Anvil Artistry in Morris, Connecticut. How I love a machine with leather parts. Thanks again to all here. Peter Hirst - Tuesday, 12/09/08 09:46:23 EST Note that many old anvils had very light striking for the trademark and it's fairly common to find them obliterated; so much so that Postman gives a series of methods to guess what brand an anvil is that has no markings readable---the indentation in the base can often point to the maker for example. I know of no modern casts that have had porter bar holes added to them for verisimilitude. I can quite picture the bosses you are speaking of but several brands of anvils have had bolt down lugs on the feet, Fisher is one of them. Is the heel fairly "fat" rather than long and tapered? Thomas Thomas P - Tuesday, 12/09/08 10:51:14 EST Anvils, Machines and Paint: Thomas, I have seen cast anvils with the porter bar holes carefully cored! But Thomas is right on point about the markings and paint. Old forged anvils were hand stamped albeit with a sledge hammer but the stamps were huge and probably wore rapidly. Even on a good clean anvil they can be uneven in depth, missing characters from the uneven (hand forged) surface and very faint. A coat or two of paint will completely hide them. AND most of the time old tools and machinery that get painted do not get cleaned very well. They get wiped down with a bit of kerosene on a rag and painted as-is. SO, take a 100 to 200 year old anvil, let it rust, collect scale and coal dust in the markings from use, oil it, wipe it off, do it again between periods of rust and generations of users, use it as a table for your paint can (possibly making those round marks) and then slop a coat of old thick paint on with a brush. . . THAT is the life of a typical "painted lady". And they often get more than one coat of paint. You just have to see a machine shop painting session to believe it. Most of the time commercial paint crews are hired that are given terse instructions. "If it doesn't move paint it grey (or the color dejur') and if it moves paint it red or safety yellow, and if it looks shiney and well oiled don't paint it". Most of the crew are typical painters and know nothing about machinery. Everything gets a heavy coat of hand brushed enamel often including the machine slide ways. The decision about what moves and what doesn't is often arbitrary or based on the last paint job. Cleaning is usually the routine with a kerosene rag. I've had old machinery were oil cups had gotten buried in the debris that accumulates around it and the dirt AND cup was painted over more than once. . You had to chip through thick layers of paint to find the oiler. I had a drill press that chips, dirt and debris had built up in the base T-slots which were then painted over maybe a half dozen times. Except for a broken T-bolt sticking up from one of the slots you could tell there were 5/8" wide 1" deep slots in that base! I've also had machinery that was painted with sea-foam green water based latex paint. - guru - Tuesday, 12/09/08 13:35:46 EST Why the sloppy paint jobs: You may be asking yourself WHY would anyone hire painters to do such a lousy job when all the machinery needed was a wipe down and good oiling. Money and Politics. Like many businesses machine shops need to secure loans on occasion OR impress a possible investor new partner or local government officials. So, one weekend here comes the paint crew. . . On Friday the worers are told to clean their machines and put anything away they didn't want painted. On Monday the painters are finishing up and asking which part to paint yellow? On Tuesday the shop is back in operation and HOPEFULLY the inspection by visitors is that week . . . The idea is to make 40 year old machines look new to the untrained eye and to give the shop an aire of prosperity with nice uniformly painted equipment. . . If the shop had an anvil. . . it got painted the color of the walls too. - guru - Tuesday, 12/09/08 13:48:20 EST Machine paint jobs: When we moved the Valve shop from Louisville Ky to Indiana, about a 22 mile distance, We ended up draining all fluids prior to loading, Pressure washing and painting with a high grade polyurathane paint in a very nice deep blue. Many of these machines had been in long industrial service for almost a hundred years. Amazing what we found when they came clean:) For about 450 machine tools cleaned and painted we shipped about 5 tons of solid waste and I have no idea anymore how much oily water. We only had a couple of water ingression issues from the pressure wash as they were real pro's. And since the polyurathane was a 2 part cure, not solvent dry, it actually stood up to the coolant and did not wrinkle and slip off like plain solvent dry enamels always did. ptree - Tuesday, 12/09/08 19:13:12 EST Oops, thats December 13, not Dec 5. Peter Hirst - Tuesday, 12/09/08 21:29:30 EST Machine tools & paint: In the late '80s I was working in the tool & die shop of an auto & truck frame manufacturing plant. All of the machinery had been painted the light green that had been popular for the prior 50 years, They finally cut loose some money and got 2 new Series 2 Bridgeports, one for the machine shop and the other for the tool & die shop. The superintendant was rather taken with the light grey paint scheme on the new machines, and corporate was pushing to get the plants "World Class Clean". A company was hired to prep and paint the old machines to match the new Bridgeports. They wiped them down with naptha, walnut shell blasted where needed and painted them. They did a good job with the paint, but the worn out machines were still just as worn out. - Dave Boyer - Tuesday, 12/09/08 21:37:49 EST Painted lady: I have to paint my anvils. Not to hide any problems but simply because otherwise they would just rust away. Warmth and humidity are a dangerous combination. philip in china - Tuesday, 12/09/08 22:24:38 EST Mobile Hydraulics: Jeff, Yeah, the draft control is a real intriguing invention. My tractor has both position and draft settings, though I have little use of the draft control for mowing with a bush hog or dragging a box blade. Maybe if I want to really drop the scarifiers into soft soil... Most people don't even realize that 3-point hitches usually have no power down, just gravity. And some draft controls work one way and others work the other way. As you say, the mechanical linkage to feather the hydraulic valving can get pretty interesting. Mine appears pretty simple, but I haven't checked to see how well it works yet. On one old tractor my uncle had, you could just push on the top link with your hand and the draft control would respond. Water in hydraulics is just as welcome to me as water in diesel fuel. My tractor has breather vents for the lift box that have rudimentary filtering on them. I'n cogitating on ways to improve on that. It also has open breather tubes for the front axles and gearboxes, to which I've added simple fuel filters to keep out dust and dirt. A cheap and easy fix. The loader controls on my machine are pretty poor, and I don't much like joysticks anyway, so I'm going to change them out one of these days. I just have to find a cheap source for a Brand PLV22RFSTKLWB 2-stick valve and I'll be in business. I'm beginning to grasp the concepts of "open center" versus "closed center" systems, power beyond, and other intricacies of mobile hydraulics, bu tI have a good ways ot go yet before I'll feel comfortable that my knowledge is sufficient to cope with issues that may arise. I'm really thankful to have people like you I can ask about these things. It is definitely a learning experience! vicopper - Tuesday, 12/09/08 23:15:25 EST Rich; in your environment couldn't you just use a flamethrower to trim the greenery? Where I'm at doing so would take care of the entire state and perhaps the next one over as well; but I hear tell that in the VI you have to sleep with a machete in hand so you can hew your way out through what grew overnight every morning. Thomas Thomas P - Wednesday, 12/10/08 10:56:29 EST Rich, That brand part # should be able to get crossed over to another maker. I am fond of Gressen for mobile valves. Try Baily Sales in Knoxville TN 1-800-800-1810. I think if you use the single stick for a while though you will become very adept and never want single levers again. All of the little excavators etc are pretty much joystick, and once mastered, very easy. As far as keeping the water out, a water trapping filter subb'ed for the breather is a good start. Another way is to use a water trapping hydraulic filter. I built up several filter carts using a 6" x 18" "Lubrifiner style" canister filter. The elements were pretty reasonable and they make one that will trap and hold a quart of water. Just suck out the oil thru the filter, dumping into a container and then irculate for a bit, say half an hour. The pump thru the filter back into the tank. You get pristine clean, dry oil. If you can find the canister on a junked truck, I believe the plain elements run about $6.00 each for plain and about $30 for the water trap. You just need a little 1 GPM pump, and it only needs to make about 20 psi. Or just change the oil alot. :) ptree - Wednesday, 12/10/08 18:10:57 EST Thomas P, no the feet do not have anything like hold down lugs. As I say they look more like something left over from the casting prosses but who would cast in the porter bar holes? Also, the heel is about 2" thick at the end and it developes from a long arc coming up from the base rather than a tapperd or wedge shape. I'm waiting to see if the club newsletter has any usable pictures of it I can post. - merl - Wednesday, 12/10/08 19:15:36 EST dew point: It's not just heat and humidity. We just had a 50 deg.F upward temperature swing in less than 24 hours (starting at -10) and everything in the shop is dripping with condensation. Rich- If you already have a hydraulic power set up in your shop disregard this, but I set up the power beyond port on my tractor hydraulics to mate with a coupling that feeds into my shop. My occasional usage of cylinders in the shop is fed by the tractor. Would be a PITA if you needed lots of hyd. power but suits my needs. Judson Yaggy - Wednesday, 12/10/08 19:49:18 EST Hydraulics: Jeff, thanks, I'll work on those suggestions. Judd, I've been thinnking of ddoing something on that order myself. If I scrounge up a cylinder for a press, I'll probably run it off the tractor at least initially. I built a parking place for the tractor that is on the other side of one shop wall for that reason, among others. The OEM loader valve doesn't have power beyond, but any replacement will. It does have a set of quick connects near the 3-point though, come to think of it. Those radical temperature swings can drive you nuts, I know. In Boulder, CO, we'd frequently get them where the temp would swing fifty degrees in an hour or so, either way, depending on whether the wind was upsloping or downsloping at the time. You could watch a foot of new snow disappear before your eyes. Fortunately, those radical swings happened in the winter when the humidity was in single digits, so no condensation. Not so when I lived in Phoenix, though. vicopper - Wednesday, 12/10/08 22:26:51 EST Hydraulics and wet. My old landrover had the original breathers. They were just a breather with a ballbearing in the tube. The weight of the ball sealed it but excess pressure would lift it and vent out. Just cleaned them up every year or so by taking them out and rinsing in paint thinners until the ball rattled freely. If you were going to do quite a bit of wading you could replace them with plugs. There are probably newer ideas now but newer doesn't necessarily = better! Re. flamethrower- they can be a lot of fun. I have diagrams on how I made a very effective one but I don't think Jock would welcome me posting them here. - philip in china - Thursday, 12/11/08 00:34:06 EST Flame Throwers: Some forge burners are pretty close. Some even squirt liquid fuel. . I often thought the solution to small propane cylinders was a burner that worked like a hot air balloon burner. Liquid fuel going through a coil at around the burner nozzle to evaporate and preheat the fuel. Of course, this is also how rocket engines manage to dump thousands of gallons of cryogenic fuel through the engine in just minutes. It is also what keep the nozzle from melting. - guru - Thursday, 12/11/08 00:58:43 EST Fuel Prices: Regular gasoline is 1.499/gallon in Boonville, NC. Only a few days ago it was 1.639/gallon. How LOW will it go? They are still charging $1 more for Diesel! - guru - Thursday, 12/11/08 01:02:42 EST Fuel: Here on St. Croix, within six miles of the largest refinery in the Western Hemisphere (Hovensa), the gas prices have recently changed radically. Down from a high of $3.90/gal two weeks ago to a low of $1.46/gal last week and now up to $1.56/gal today. And yes, diesel is still $2.95/gal. I don't understand that at all, but then I know almost nothing about petroleum product pricing. Across the water 45 miles on St. John the gas prices are still over $3/gal and diesel is right at $4.50/gal. I guess all the jillionaires over there can afford it. vicopper - Thursday, 12/11/08 02:36:14 EST Diesel Price: If I'm not mistaken part of the reason for the continued high price of diesel is that years ago at one of their world wide summits on pollution and emissions the nations involved agreed upon a tax on diesel since it emits more pollutants. The tax didn't go into effect until years later based upon their agreement. That future date just happened to occur at the same time as the latest rise in prices.The information was published in assorted environmental magazines and given limited press in other sources but was not widely publicized.Just another instance of taxation without representation. - Robert Cutting - Thursday, 12/11/08 04:17:13 EST horse shooeing: looking for shoorer in Lafayette, opelouses, Ville Platte LOUISIANA area - ron cortez - Thursday, 12/11/08 08:42:38 EST Ron Cortez: You might try www.americanfarriers.org and click on "Find a Farrier." Frank Turley - Thursday, 12/11/08 09:48:54 EST Fuel Prices: At the current price, if they were to rise back to the previous high just under $5/gallon we figured we could afford to buy a 500 gallon tank, have it filled and be ahead in a year to 18 months. That included the cost of the tank and a good hand pump. No, that doesn't help when we are on the road but it covers all our local driving which is mostly going to the post office daily to ship packages with about 15% going to the grocery store and to eat out occasionally. On out of town travel that fuel from home would usually get us where we were going at least. Of course, if even a small percentage of us were to buy a year's supply of gasoline in advance the prices WOULD skyrocket back to where they were. . . probably while many were just getting delivery of their tank. . . - guru - Thursday, 12/11/08 11:25:57 EST What is this condensation you speak of? We very often have 40 degF temp swings but I can't recall a sweating anvil in the 5 years I;ve been out here in the desert. Thomas Thomas P - Thursday, 12/11/08 14:35:39 EST Flame Throwers: From time to time, I read in the paper that they'd use troops with flame throwers to clear the inauguration parade route of snow if necessary. It's almost got me hoping for snow on January 20th. But I expect the papers have it wrong -- it's hard to imagine folks spraying napalm on Pennsylvania Avenue. Does the military even *have* flame throwers still? Mike BR - Thursday, 12/11/08 18:05:02 EST Mike BR, i believe that flame throwers have been outlawed by a amendment to the Geneva Convention. To my knowledge, there are no flame throwers in the military arsenal today save for mueseums. I do not believe that flame throwers could be used to clear snow in a built up area, the wind would blow the napalm about and the city would burn. They also held little fuel in the backpack mounted ones, a flame thrower tank holds more but those are also long gone. Would not a mordern snow thrower or plow make just a little more sense:) ptree - Thursday, 12/11/08 18:36:00 EST Thomas's lack of water: When you put a swamp cooler in your smithy you'll find out all about condensation on tools, unfortunately. I had one in my sign shop in Phoenix and had to cover the table saws and other heavy tools at night or they condensed water from the cooled air and rusted like mad. Renaissance Wax helped a lot. A/C was not an affordable option, unfortunately. Neither was living with the heat during the summer months. vicopper - Thursday, 12/11/08 19:04:41 EST Snow clearance: The RAK used to have a device on some airfields which I can best describe as a jet engine on a forklift. The heat from the engine quickly cleared the snow. When I worked in Tomsk (maybe -50C) they had amazing snow clearers. 2 trucks. One had padles that pushed snow onto a conveyor belt. The belt dumped the snow onto the other truck which then went and tipped it into the river Tom. No big banks of snow like you get with ploughs or blowers! philip in china - Thursday, 12/11/08 19:09:07 EST Hmm sounds like I need to run the swamp cooler outside and make up a heat exchanger to run cooler air into my shop. Or let the damp air flush out before night fall. Thomas Thomas P - Thursday, 12/11/08 20:01:13 EST hammer finish: Back in the early 70s I learned from a retired Canadian Air Force smith. I would buy my bar stock in the spring from the bottom of the pile that was stored out doors. It was evenly coated/pitted with rust. It had to be dug out but I still got a discount. I would heat it to dull red, flat hammer to knock the rust off. the result looked like a ballpeened finish. Very nice. PS, I'm new at this site so send an e-mail so I remember where I was. Now working out of the Seminole tribe res. Fl. Thanx kencrow02@yahoo.com ken - Thursday, 12/11/08 22:02:48 EST Thomas: I htink if you simply shut off the swamp cooler about an hour before nighttime temperature drop and then ran a fan to change the air in the shop and dry it, you'd be fine. In a commercial setting I couldn't economically do that very well, so I dealt with the issue other ways. But for a home shop I think it would work out fine and be easy to do. Shut off the swamp cooler, turn on the fan, clean the shop. eat supper and then turn off the fan and call it a day. You could maybe even leave a small low-wattage fan running all night inside the shop to inhibit settling of condensation, too. Let me know how it works out for you. Down here I just wax everything or Vaseline it and then still have to deal with surface rust on some things. The joys of island living, I guess. vicopper - Friday, 12/12/08 01:04:41 EST I have found that a small oscillating fan, aimed up at the ceiling of the shop greatly helps with the condensation inside my tin shop. I leave it on 24-7 ptree - Friday, 12/12/08 07:21:55 EST chimney temperature: Does anyone know how hot the chimney gets on a coal forge? I'm in the process of building a new home with the shop attached to the rear of the house and the building inspector wants to know what material I can use. We've moved to Northern Michigan and I didn't want to wade thru the snow to far when I was in the mood to play. Tinker - Bud Williams - Friday, 12/12/08 10:10:02 EST Bud Williams, to have a flue that will make the inspector happy you will need a high temp all fuels flue. These can be masonary or there are triple wall prefab. The prefabs are not cheap, but are cheaper than a hand built masonary flue unless you are a mason or have a friend willing to trade. The all fuel prefabs are rated to 2100F I believe, and are a stainless outer and inner with high temp blanket insulation inbetween. They are a system and if installed per instructions are sure to make the building inspector happy. Look up Dura-vent ETC ptree - Friday, 12/12/08 12:12:07 EST The Simpson Duravent tech support people are terrific, extremely knowledgable, have infinite patience, helped enormously when I did a relining of our masonry house chimney and extended it up through a new roof last year. There are other products out there, but after looking, we chose them. (Unsolicited testimonial.) Miles Undercut - Friday, 12/12/08 13:27:12 EST Miles, My wood stove flue, installed about 23 years ago was Dura-vent. All that you note about them is true. The wood stove was replaced in the house with an outside wood burner, but the flue was removed, and works on as the flue for my col forge, and for a woodburning furnace in the upper shop. ptree - Friday, 12/12/08 20:50:07 EST Only caveats I would add to the above: Simpson makes several quite different lines of piping for different applications, but with confusingly similar names. Be SURE you are getting the right stuff for your job, because it is damned expensive. Also, their flex piping for getting around smoke shelves ain't all that flexible. in my case this meant cutting out the 3/16 plate inside lining of our prefab fireplace with an angle grinder. Ptree and Vicopper helped enormously with advice re: respirator, etc. Miles Undercut - Friday, 12/12/08 22:27:50 EST Being that #1 I am cheap, and view waste from the perspective of growing up in a large underfunded household I tend to reus