POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?

[dkemppai]

Seems like you could regular mild steel for this?

I could have just ground it from mild steel. However, I may bump into/trim just a bit of wood/osb on the bottom and would rather have something a bit better than plain carbon. The TIG only took a couple of minutes, so good cost/benefits ratio...
That, and tool steel edge buildup is something I'd like to 'perfect' here.

 

[pontiac428]

I could have just ground it from mild steel. However, I may bump into/trim just a bit of wood/osb on the bottom and would rather have something a bit better than plain carbon. The TIG only took a couple of minutes, so good cost/benefits ratio...
That, and tool steel edge buildup is something I'd like to 'perfect' here.

I bet you'd get good results using alloy steel as a base material and powder torching some tungsten carbide doping on the cutting edges in a nonmachineable 65 hardness nickel powder base. That's how they do plow discs and swather blades (and how my dad taught me how to do lifetime service mower blades as a side gig). The hardface ends up getting a bit of a back-cut to it as the base metal wears around it, making a self-sharpening, hard, wear-resistant cutter for long life in soft but mildly abrasive materials. So probably awesome for foam.

 

[savarin]

It took a fair bit of elbow grease but I've managed to clean, polish and repair these two toasting forks of my grandad.

They are actually very highly polished now but it doesnt show in the photo.
When I was a very young child they hung either side of the main room fireplace.
I cannot remember what evening it was but once a week the Muffin Man would would ring his bell in the street and we would buy fresh crumpets from him and use the forks to toast them over the open coal fire.
It was just like a dickens movie, the muffin man would balance the tray of goodies on his head and walk the street ringing a hand bell and selling his wares.
I dont remember if he had a van as well but he must have.I dont know how old they are but they must be more than 75 years old.
As I have no fireplace they now hang at each end of my bookcase.

 

[rwdenney]

I seem to recall This Old Tony found some TIG rods that harden under the heat of TIG welding to the HRC middle 50’s.

Yup, here it is…

Weld Mold 958 is the stuff he mentions.

Rick “might have to learn how to TIG just to use this stuff” Denney

 

[Gaffer]

It took a fair bit of elbow grease but I've managed to clean, polish and repair these two toasting forks of my grandad.
View attachment 439664
They are actually very highly polished now but it doesnt show in the photo.
When I was a very young child they hung either side of the main room fireplace.
I cannot remember what evening it was but once a week the Muffin Man would would ring his bell in the street and we would buy fresh crumpets from him and use the forks to toast them over the open coal fire.
It was just like a dickens movie, the muffin man would balance the tray of goodies on his head and walk the street ringing a hand bell and selling his wares.
I dont remember if he had a van as well but he must have.I dont know how old they are but they must be more than 75 years old.
As I have no fireplace they now hang at each end of my bookcase.

Did you live on Jury (Jewlery?) Lane?

 

[savarin]

Did you live on Jury (Jewlery?) Lane?

I think he lived down Drury Lane, miles away on the other side of london.
But we used to see him on our street.
Just for interest we used to get the shell fish man on a Sunday arvo, sunday tea was always shell fish and salad.
Winkles which we had large hat pins to winkle them out of the shells for most of us with half a pint of whelks (shelled) for dad and grandad, who wearnt allowed to eat at the table as they had to bite and pull the tough tendon out and spit onto the plate then chew the welk.
Interesting that in those days bread and milk was delivered every day, meat and vegetables were delivered twice a week and groceries once a week.
Now we have to waltz up and down the isles searching for the goods because they alter the shelves every so often making it difficult to just pop in and out, and pile it into a trolley, then hit the self checkout and do the checkouts job, then get inspected before we leave the store in case we were dishonest and placed an item without scanning it.
This aint progress.

 

[savarin]

Made this bit today in stainless

I'm hoping to eventually make a hammer with a brass head and a lead head.
Dont know when I will get to that though

 

[Gaffer]

I think he lived down Drury Lane, miles away on the other side of london.
But we used to see him on our street.
Just for interest we used to get the shell fish man on a Sunday arvo, sunday tea was always shell fish and salad.
Winkles which we had large hat pins to winkle them out of the shells for most of us with half a pint of whelks (shelled) for dad and grandad, who wearnt allowed to eat at the table as they had to bite and pull the tough tendon out and spit onto the plate then chew the welk.
Interesting that in those days bread and milk was delivered every day, meat and vegetables were delivered twice a week and groceries once a week.
Now we have to waltz up and down the isles searching for the goods because they alter the shelves every so often making it difficult to just pop in and out, and pile it into a trolley, then hit the self checkout and do the checkouts job, then get inspected before we leave the store in case we were dishonest and placed an item without scanning it.
This aint progress.

The good old days. You're reminiscing about shellfish reminds me of a song I love, Molly Malone.

 

[dkemppai]

I seem to recall This Old Tony found some TIG rods that harden under the heat of TIG welding to the HRC middle 50’s.
...
Weld Mold 958 is the stuff he mentions.

I have access to a lot of scrap drill bits in 1.5mm to 2mm by 6 to 12 inches long. So, drill bits make sense for me.

Have some of the 958. It's pretty impressive stuff. Tried some samples with that and old ~2mm drill bits. The drill bit hardened even harder than the Weld Mold 958. IIRC the Weld Mold was mid 50's HRC, and the drill bits were ~63 HRC. The 958 had massive grain structure where the drill bits had a pretty fine grain. Weld mold has many other alloys available, but some of the 'better' tools steels require a pretty high preheat (~600 to 800F).

When the Weld Mold 958 first arrived, welded some on the edge of a steel bar. Ground it sharp, and used it as a cold chisel to curl a pretty big chip some mild steel plate. It was impressive.

 

[Tony111]

Finished making some parts for the Harold Hall grinder rest. Been working on this for a few weeks and I am very happy with the results that this rest can produce. I have purchased several of his books and highly recommend them.