Re: the poor state of econ. What will happen to tech jobs?

[ChrisC]

Originally Posted by lollykoko

Mac, it's obvious to me that it was one piece. I was checking out the cut lines and trying to decide what tool you had used to remove so little material with such a clean cut.

I was wondering the same thing. That's some damn good cutting torch work if that's what it is.

Originally Posted by lollykoko

Chris, if you are wanting to sharpen your axe, you'll probably need/want to temper the blade. If you know someone who specializes, let them. You can do it yourself, though. A little reading on the subject and I think you'd be fine. Charcoal fires are best, of course. The latest issue of Mother Earth News has a brief article with photo of a homemade charcoal stove (page 70) and a note that the plans can be found on-line at Charcoal-Making Stove - Do It Yourself - MOTHER EARTH NEWS. Of course I can't actually get there to retrieve the link this evening.

I'm going to have to read up on it a bit. I'd sure like to get it all spiffied up and shiny like Mac's...

[lollykoko]

Originally Posted by ChrisC

I was wondering the same thing. That's some damn good cutting torch work if that's what it is.

Actually, I was thinking a very fine toothed band saw. The material loss looks to be about .125 which influences my thinking.


I'm going to have to read up on it a bit. I'd sure like to get it all spiffied up and shiny like Mac's...

If you can find yourself a copy of Machinery's Handbook, grab hold and don't let go. I think my copy is from 1947 and it's still full of more things than you'd ever be able to learn first hand. When I took the test for SME certification as a Manufacturing Technology Specialist that was one of the books I used for reference.

It will tell you what you need to know about types of steel, how to cool properly for the attributes you are wanting. There is also information on how to set up a chain fall hoist, step power up or down by using gears (with equations to make it easier), information on all sorts of materials..... Well, I think it's invaluable and should probably buy a new one for the shelf. I checked availability on-line and found they are cheaper now than when I bought one as a gift 15 years ago!

One of these days I'll figure these response boxes out. Or not, as the case may be.

[Mac_Muz]

I saved the pices since they are tool steel. Someday I can forge them into a bar, with other tool steel and make something else from that.

I used a metal cutting vertical band saw. It's industrial. To clean up the blade I used a belt on a powered wheel like most any knife makers use.

Chris, It depends on what age the axe is and how it was made. You might steel wool, sand, and try to hand file the edge back a bit, and look for a line where steel turns to plain wrought iron, which will tell me what to do.

Many old hewwing axes were just forged wrought iron, real soft metal and then a tool steel
'Bit' was lap welded into the axe head and so just the cutting edge and a inch or 2 back is the only part that can be hardened.

OR if it is somewhat more modern it might be all tool steel, and you won't find any line at all.

Probably you can clean it up with a electric orbital sander and not create much heat. Probably you have that tool on hand too.

IF you have a power belt like knifemakers have that sure will get hot and dam fast. This is faster too, and you would need to constantly quench in plain water as soon as your gloved hands felt a tad warm.

That axe you have is a tad large for my heat treating equipment, but I know how, and I do on as large as W-1 horseshoe rasps. That W means water quench, but in my experience water will crack that metal in a heat beat to harden. Water works ok on 'Drawing/Tempering' though.

I have made Rio Grande Knives or what's called a Camp Knife of them. Once Bill Moran made one that was taken to the Moon. It was damacus steel I think. I made a nice lance from another, and after hardening it, I tempered it to be spring steel, so you could throw it. I left the blade the bright peacock blue that shows the temp was around 650 degrees thru out the metal.

I tested this like the fool I am I lashed that point to a 11 foot long fir closet pole. Then I wedged it in a door reveal up at the top. I bent the blade and the pole to the floor and let go. Oops!

I spent the rest of that day fixing dry wall......

That much steel getting quenched to be glass hard is plenty enough to flash fire the quench box too. If you get a hunk of steel that size, that hot, and quench it in any oil, you want your other hand on a quench box cover to fit the quench tank tight.

No axe will be hard thru out either.

Not sure which rock lock yer talking about, but heat treating Frizzens aka Battery is a trick. The face the flint strikes must be glass hard, but the rest of the part must be fairly soft, and it's small part.

Many modern frizzens are tool steel castings and it's real hard to get them heat treated properly and to get more carbon into the steel, which must be done since the heatings draw out the carbon in the first place.

I use a commercial compound that gets mixed in water to slurry on the frizzen face, then cook it in with a cutting torch, while the part is held in mud to draw off the excess heat to the front. I also pad the frizzen pan cover part in sheets of hammered and annealed copper, held in place with sacrifical vise grips to heat sink heat off that part of the frizzen.

It's tricky. I can soft solder to steel and then braze with brass rod on the soldered on part too, but that's another trick.

Back to that axe.... I have another made by Collins that is a mirror image, and I don't need 2 felling axes the same.

I cut off about 1 pound making that 2 and 1/2 pounds, a nice size for a heavy canoe axe.

I gotta take the time and get decent pics of it with it's ash handle, and then the leather case.

The only other way I know to cut steel like that is CNC or plasma wire cutting. I don't have the machines for that. So it was just a really big band saw made to cut metals only. I don't own that saw, but I have access to it every day.

My land lord is a electrical engineer and a full blown machinist. I am his mechanic, and we share tooling back and forth as needed. He lives here and shares his house with my wife and I. The shop is a 80 feet from the house, then the barn is a few more feet from there.

We have duplicate tooling in some cases, such as cutting torches, air compressors, some wrenches, but over all I have more wrenches and sockets since I was a foreign car mechanic. I have 3 types of wrenches and sockets as SAE (American), Metric, and British Standard.

I used the Brit Std on old English cars, and last left over parts in SU type carbs used on Volvo. Not much call for Brit Std anymore, but once in a while they fit some very rusty bolt or nut.

Another tools type we overlap on is multimeters... I got around 6 and he has so many all over the place I have no count, but he has a lot more of them than I do.

Together, we build new or rebuild old vacuum ovens, some big enough 10 men could go in and the 11th man could lock the doors. One smaller one we made new was 40 feet long and have a conveyor belt running inside it.

We build test equipment new for foot wear, and rebuild belt grinders for glass, which is use for the medical field. Just the frame on a grinder like that weighs 1 ton. The motor mount weighs 54 pound with no motor on it. It's just a steel plate. I wouldn't know what that part weighed, but on Dec 31, that part got away from me and ended up breaking my little finger, and bruising my left hand pretty bad. That injury is just healing now.

I fixed that all by myself too.

[ChrisC]

Originally Posted by lollykoko

If you can find yourself a copy of Machinery's Handbook, grab hold and don't let go. I think my copy is from 1947 and it's still full of more things than you'd ever be able to learn first hand. When I took the test for SME certification as a Manufacturing Technology Specialist that was one of the books I used for reference.

It will tell you what you need to know about types of steel, how to cool properly for the attributes you are wanting. There is also information on how to set up a chain fall hoist, step power up or down by using gears (with equations to make it easier), information on all sorts of materials..... Well, I think it's invaluable and should probably buy a new one for the shelf. I checked availability on-line and found they are cheaper now than when I bought one as a gift 15 years ago!

One of these days I'll figure these response boxes out. Or not, as the case may be.

Thanks for the info; I'll look that one up on Amazon.

You're probably right about the ax head cuts, on second look. There wouldn't be a need for that middle cut with a torch, plus it would have to look at least a little bit sloppier on the cuts... unless Mac has the steadiest hand east of the Mississip! (or a cnc machine in his back yard...)

[lollykoko]

Originally Posted by ChrisC

Thanks for the info; I'll look that one up on Amazon.

You're probably right about the ax head cuts, on second look. There wouldn't be a need for that middle cut with a torch, plus it would have to look at least a little bit sloppier on the cuts... unless Mac has the steadiest hand east of the Mississip! (or a cnc machine in his back yard...)

There is a CNC machine that uses electric current through wire to cut tool steel. They bought two for my department, but they were used for dedicated jobs so I never got to try one out. While I understand the basics, I don't have any idea what the requirement list is for use. For instance, the pieces I saw cut always started from flat stock. Requirement of the machine or simplicity for the parts being created, IDK. The waste material removed isn't much, but it's a slow process.

[Mac_Muz]

Chris, That is a band saw cut, and really big only for metal band saw, and it was slow going just the same. I blocked the blade for a level cut. I will use modern tools if they speed things up and so long as modern tools work I will use them for some things.

Other things i do I won't use them even if they speed things up. Some things i do, people who buy want to the old time tool markings.

That axe is my biggest trecking axe. I have many others some what smaller, to belt carry.

If you count hawks and axe's combined, I probably have around 40. Hawks are weapons and not much good for wood cutting or splitting.

It would take an extended treck or a purpose to get me to pack that large axe too. I don't chop much wood for any camp fire on a short treck. I don't need to drive tent stakes on a short trip either, unless it's a event where camp is set up in a field somewhere.

Going alone or with a small group I just tie lines to trees and don't carry a lot of metals for setting up a shelter. Besides a flintlock rifle, a few knives the only things i carry are light weight for cooking, like a few pot hooks I make which are strong and very light, and maybe a pot. I am a minimalist in any ages I live in. Only fat thing I got is my Kawii Nomad motorcycle. I have a hard time beliving I bought that bike because it's so dam fat