What did you do today?

[Dan Dubeau]

Looking good Dan!

Thanks.

I wish I had the room for one. I have several stainless barrel shaped beer kegs that would make great forges.
I have made 3 BBQs from kegs. They last for ever.

I wish I had the room for one too lol. Not sure where this on is going, but I can see me building a lean-to off one of the sheds outback for this and the rest of my blacksmithing stuff I've been collecting for a few years. For now it's going to sit on a cart and get wheeled outside when I want to pound on metal. There is a forging press in the works right behind it too, so I better figure out the space soon.

[Bob Engelhardt]

I have a device that is mounted with a 1/2" bolt. It's kinda' hard to access the bolt with my fingers to start it & run it in that first 1/2" or so. After finger tight, I can swing a wrench enough for final tightening. I had a spare 7/16 nut driver which would reach the 1/2" bolt, so I did this to it:



Works great.

[Bented]

Not my problem, it appears that another local shop does not have the saw capacity for this, so they shipped it here.
The sharpie marker lines are charming.

[Bob Engelhardt]

At the dump today there was a pack of 10" carbide circular saw blades. Several of them did not look quite right. I.e., they didn't look like wood cutting blades: they had zero rake and were beefy. I suspected that they were metal cutting blades, so I took them. At home I put one on the table saw & turned the speed down to 1300 RPM. I put a piece of 1/4" steel sheet on and ran it through, being careful not to force it. It cut beautifully:



I've been intrigued by the idea of cutting steel on my table saw, but the idea that one "oops" could ruin a fairly expensive blade, made me hesitant. Now I'm good to go.

(One of the blades hasn't been used since being sharpened - it still has the plastic tooth protecting coating.)

[Butcher]

Zero rake = Metal cutting

[nickel-city-fab]

Changed the oil on a late-model Mack truck. Some overly-motivated gorilla had put the filters on with about 100 ft-lbs. There are 3 oil filters on the passengers side of the block. Takes 9 gallons of 15W-40. I looked like a coal miner but the job got done (ugh...)

[PStechPaul]

I bought a new chain for my 16 inch Echo 56 volt chainsaw. I have sharpened the old chain several times using my Harbor Freight sharpener, which works well for the teeth, but not so well for the guides. Here is the old chain:


Here are the old and new chains side by side:




I did grind down the guides a bit more so I might get a few more uses out of the old chain, but it was definitely time for a new one.

[RMinMN]

Look at the top angle on the two chain's teeth. You have allowed the angle to change which makes them have to tear the wood grains instead of slicing them. Also, use your HF sharpener to remove any bad burrs but finish the job with a file. The front edge should be nearly sharp enough to shave with. The guides just need a flat file to lower them and you can get a lot more use from the old chain. When the top angle starts reducing the width of the top you do need to replace the chain but you have about 50 to 70% of the chain life left.

[PStechPaul]

I can't find my chainsaw file (with the guide), and Ace Hardware didn't have one in stock, so it's on order. I agree that a file will produce a better edge. The manual for the Stihl 026 gives a lot more detail on chain sharpening than I've seen before. I've been using 20^o for sharpening with the motorized grinder. Looks like maybe 30^o would be correct.

[Dave C]

I'm curious as why you to decided on 20 degrees? I have never seen a saw chain that was supposed to have that angle on it. Maybe for rip sawing??

[RMinMN]

I usually simply freehand file my saw chains. Notice that the new chain has a score mark near the back edge? That is the guide mark for the angle to hold your file. Also note that the top corner of the cutter is square rather than chamfered or rounded. That is considered a professional chain and the file then needs to be held at a 10 degree down angle as you file to get the best cutter. The chains with a rounded corner need the file held parallel to the top.

I usually use that score mark at the back of the tooth as a gauge for when the chain is worn out. When you file or grind away that score mark, throw the chain away before you try to sharpen it again.

[Cenedd]

What have I been doing? Well, if I simply declared that I hate cam-lock "joinery", you'd all get it, right?!

This means we have quite a lot of cardboard from the packing and we seem to be making a cardboard airplane. What do you cut out cardboard airplane wings with? Aviation snips.... obviously!

[Ridgerunner]

I decided to confuse any thief's that try to steal this trailer spare tire lol. I drilled an extra mounting hole, then cross drilled a 5/8" bolt for a hair pin. The lug nuts are 7/8" and the 5/8" bolt head is 15/16". I had thought of drilling the bolt for a pad lock, but it would take a pretzel man to get a key in the lock between the trailer and tire.

[Tim The Grim]

I successfully silver soldered my first band saw blade repair. Put 20 deg angles on the opposing faces, crushed the solder to a flat wafer and used a little butane torch. Most of what you see there is flux. It cleaned up nice and bends well. Got 6 more to do…

[Bob Engelhardt]

I successfully silver soldered my first band saw blade repair. ...

Use this one a bit, to be sure that you were indeed successful. No sense doing the others until you know that you're doing it right. I never could get it right as much as they looked good.