David, I just printed out the August issue on prepunched paper using my inkjet. One of the lightning rod designs is nifty. Jerry will sell you the same paper he used to use. I just use heavy paper from the office depot.

Today I finished the green hammer and banged out several calla lilies from rr spikes. I may have to machine the flat dies into 60-40 combination dies if that's what he wants. Love my current rendition of the stroke tuner and will start to upgrade my own machine tomorrow.

Wired a switch on the '32 to replace the small jumper wire with alligator clips that I've been using, started it from inside the cab for the first time, and drove it around the 3rd world yard several laps. My fuel tank 10 years ago came clogged with an amalgum of dirt and old gasoline. Kids had done the deed according to the seller. Bizzare. I've been fussing with this tank for at least a week, probably longer. Built a sump to catch the debris and it has a big ball valve to dump the contents. Works. After 4-5 dumps I'm hoping the debris tapers off soon. When the truck stalls, I dump the sump and blow into the fuel line backwards to restart the flow. The inside tank baffles are so restrictive that the big chunks have to dissolve to eliminate them. So I'm putting in a gallon, sloshing it around by driving it, and then later draining the smaller debris.

trailer hitch hoist

When I got the new truck I gave up my receiver socket/hoist setup that was in the old pickup. When I installed that set up in the old truck, I reinforced the frame/ bed of it so it would handle the weight.
I did not want to mess with the new truck bed so I made a fixture that fits into the trailer receiver socket. I did it with scrap I had laying around... I must say, it cam out nice. I may make a set on table next, for job site bending such. Nothing like the weight of a truck to keep your table from moving while bending something.
Anyway I got pictures of it in th gallery.
JIM

forge lube and antique trucks

Jeff, can you put my name on a gal.? With the rate I'm using up the diluted qt I got from Tom Clark, a gal should last 20 years. Makes creasing and punching shoes a breeze.

Double clutching is not a thing of the past folks. I have to with my 2002 Nissan UD2000 6cyl turbo diesel, 6 sp trans, 19800 gvw cab over flatbed. 18mpg hwy/15 mpg city

Gas tank debris

John L., That can be a real pain!

Going Digital

Interesting that, when I was in under-grad school 15yrs ago, they spoke of the coming "paperless" society. Computer and digital technology has in fact advanced by leaps and bounds, but I believe we consume More paper now than back then!

Hoping to re-light the forge in a week or two!

Anyone have contact info on Keith Frey? He has a small pic gallery on the be-spammed forum, and he lives in my area, and I'm trying to collect my smithing contacts together.

Trailer hitch hoist

Jim,

Thanks for posting the pics of your hoist arrangement; I've been thinking about something similar for my little Isuzu Pup. Of course I've thought about it so long that now I have to make it so that I can lift it on and off the truck with the front end loader!!

Take care all,

Dave

Ric Furrer, Brian Robertson I will have gallons for you at SOFA. Josh, 3 for you at SOFA

I've been blacked out twice trying to post; lightning in a wooded community. I'll try again.

Started to upgrade my own hammer in preparation for the September shows. Some disassembly required. Will continue with that tomorrow and several more days. Mostly I worked on testing pulley sizes on the demo 7.5 hp Quincy that I keep mounted on my trailer. This something I've been putting off doing for a year because of the work involved. I found a 9" pulley vs. the 7.5" original, a 20% speed up, pumped up the tank in 7.33 minuters instead of 8.33minutes, a 17.5% shortening. The tank may be more than 80 gallons. This was with shop power as well as with the truck mounted generator. The Miller Trailblazer generator powered the motor just fine when starting from zero, but when trying to restart at 100 psi the 50 amp breaker would trip. So I converted back to the 7.5" pulley after all the testing and work of swapping pulleys. I was unable to get the pop off vale to function for the alternative of continuous running and until I do the on-off pressure switch is dominating the process. I painted the trailer some. In the process I wanted to raise my winch, but found that it seems stuck from just sitting there for a while. Better to learn now than the day before ACBC. Tomorrow I'll investigate further. I suspect the electric solenoid for up and down valve control is stuck. I did test and found oil is available to the pump, so the valve isn't triggering.

I putzed with the '32 for 15 minutes and found that if I don't fill the radiator to the top I don't have what appears to be an over flow problem.

I wanted to make a vise to mount on my Honda Civic, mostly for holding steel so I can cut it up at the steel center. I couldn't find a good mounting point, so I wound up making a base I can set on the ground and park on.

Got another welding job today right after breakfast for next week. When I got to the 3rd world I tugged the trailer to the shop again and prepared to do detective work on the hydraulics. Bo and lehold the thing worked like there had been no problem last night. Temperature? Overnight loosening under pressure? Gravity waves? Dumb luck? Possibly all of the above. In any case, hurray!

Finished rattle can painting the trailer. Then I completed putting my own hammer back together. The modified stroke tuner works as intended. Adjusted the mechanical brakes on the '32. Welded/restored some 18 wheeler spring perches. Took an over the road trucker friend for a spin (literally) in the '32, shooting gravel for a few seconds. For right now, it looks like the fuel tank debris is nearly purged. :-) The rebuilt Model B four cylinder engine is better than the Model A. Stock, with the same displacement, it has higher compression, bigger machined ports, bigger carb and intake manifold, higher lift camshaft, slightly different exhaust manifold, a fuel pump, and an automatic advance distributor-----50 vs 40 hp. When I get my insurance policy that I've applied for, I'm going to drive it a few miles on the road as is. It ought to be smoother and faster than the Model A. Am having a good dose of spiritual renovation, which is the rationale for it.

I was supposed to get two hammer down payments today, but didn't. Real soon now I be hammer building agin.

This is the third deuce I've owned and by far the nicest (as raw material goes) and most rewarding. The first one, bought on the sly (Dad finally found out and punished me) when I was 17, was a channeled 5 window coupe with the top cut off like a roadster with a '36 Ford V8 and a Columbia 2-speed rear axle. Floyd Oldewurtel who sold it to me still builds hot rods in the Phoenix area. The second one was acquired at a Pennsylvania Labor Day auction 12 years ago as an old Depression Era logging tractor. I used some of its pieces and sold the rest. I still have the front axle that had been reverse bent to gain ground clearance. It had 2 transmissions for low gearing and a Model T truck axle with hypoid gears.

John

The model B engine, does that also have poured bearings? Just curious.

Thanks,
Ellen

paper! getcher paper!

I too would hate to see the passing of paper books and magazines. What do I do? Install a computer in the bathroom? The E-book readers from Sony and Amazon are getting pretty impressive though. Nice black on white. Store 200 books. I like that you can e-mail a document to Amazon and get it right back in E-book format. still.......

Mike B

That a great Idea.
Man I wish I had that little tidbit before I did the hitch idea.
Although reading Dave S's post makes me think I'd have a hard go of it getting it into the truck after all was done.
JIM

"Cutlers Resin"

I saw a piece on the History Channel this morning where a smith said that old time knife makers often used what was called "cutlers resin"- a mixture of pine pitch, bees wax, & saw dust, to affix handle material such as stag to their knives. Anyone ever hear of this?

Brian,

I haven't heard of that recipe but I will say that combined with rivets would likely make a strong bond. Pitch/pine rosin is used to hold metal tips on wooden arrows and does a first rate job so it stands to reason that it would work to fasten handle material to a blade. The sawdust acts as a binder to give it some additional strength and the beeswax reduces the brittleness of the pitch. It sounds logical but I s'pose we'll need someone smarter than me to prove the provenance...

Did some trailer wiring work this morning, and delivered some sand blasted lawn furniture. Got the brake lights and directional signals running right. But the trailer brake control box needs to be dealt with differently. I got fed up for one day and quit. A truck repair guy in the 3rd world wanted some air compressor advice so I spent some time looking at five machines that he can't seem to figure out. I told him how to decide what should stay and what should go on a time and money basis. He's an idiot. The '32 got my attention in the afternoon. The dash board got removed, sand blasted, and painted. Got to play some 8-ball with Dominick at the end of the day.

Cutler's resin

Google it. there quite a bit there. It isw similar to a mix that used to be used in lab work, back in the dark ages. In the lab we used chalk as the filler instead of sawdust. if you used the sanding dust from working the handle wood, there would be a good color match.

Paperless trials.

This morning I spent a couple of hours reading one of the machining manuals passed down to me from my grandfather which belonged to his father. I sincerely hope that I will be passing down something more than microchips to my future grand-kids.

google

John Odom- thanks, I keep telling myself "Google is your friend", but sometimes It never occurs to me.

google

Google is over load for me 120,000,000 ansures for 1 question. Man that's a bit much. Smile
JIM

Jeff Reinhardt Lube?

Email headed your way. JIM

Went to the Westminster Md blacksmith guild meeting and entered an ice cream spoon in the show, tell, and swap event. Talked to customers and wannabes. Ate lunch for the first time in two months. Am (or was) down to 212 and striving for 205, which may still be a bit heavy for 6'4". Left after lunch and worked on the '32, doing sanding and painting. Henry had some mighty tenacious paint.

John, Model B engine question

Just curious if the bearings on the model B engine are poured? Thx!

"B" bearings

Ellen, I think the 1932 "B" (4-cylinder engine) had babitted bearings that were bigger and stronger than those in the "A." It also had a pressure oil system and a fuel pump. It has been too many years since I had my hands in one for me to be sure.

John Odom

Thanks, I was just curious. Early auto engines are interesting; seems like the oil filter was not added until the late 1920's and then by Walter Chrysler if I am correct.

Babbitted bearings seem to have performed well on early 1900's vintage power hammers, as well as on many, many auto engines. They were also used on most steam locomotives as well as I understand it.

Plain Bearings

Ellen, Plain bearings still have a place. Allison, then independent developed a "shell Bearing" with a steel back and white metal bearing surface for aircraft engines and when GM bought Allison before WWII started using them in the car engines. Takes a more precise initial machining of the block but greatly speeds assembly and rebuilding.
The big upsetters and forging presses still have plain bearings as those will carry the load, and work well for that design. Plain bearings work very well when hydrodymanic lubrication is possible. This uses a film of lube to seperate the bearing from the shaft. The correct width, for a load, and viscosity of fluid etc are required. In a stop start case like a press, the fluid gets very thick to keep the surfaces seperated when starting and starting. In the upsetters we used an ISO-460 gear oil. At 20F, it is easier to shovel than pump:)
Oddly perhaps many of the WW1 aircraft engines ran on ball bearings. The rotarys ran on two emense ball bearings for the most part.
The Hispano-Suiza V-8 and V-12s ran in many ball bearings on the crank and the WWII Daimler Benz Inverted V-12s of 23 to 38 liters displacement ran in needle bearings, including the fork and blade rod big ends! Took a very high level of filtration and oil cooling.
On the other hand our Allison V-12 ran on silver Cadimum plain bearings and was a very good engine below about 16,000'. The RR Merlin also ran in plain bearings,but since it had a marvalous 2-stage supercharger it dominated above 16,000'. The WWII engines all were about 20 to 50 hour life maximum in combat.
Also note that a 1650 cubic inch Merlin delivered 1500 Hp+ in a continous mode for those hours at a boost of up to 70"Hg for take off, and as much as 120"hg for 5 minutes, and when this high level called war emergency was used the throttle broke a wire when it was slammed forward.(At altitude, at full throttle, the superchargers pulled 650 Hp from the crank, now thats a blower!) The standard thing for the plane cheif was to hop up on the wing and check the wire as soon as the bird got home. Broke wire, engine was condemmed and pulled for salvage.
Shame you are not closer, I have some very odd and very fun engine books. E-mail me if interested and I can advise the isbn's etc for a interlibary loan.

Yes, Ellen, the Model B bearings are poured babbit with shims between the back main's halves. Like John Odom says, the mains and cam bearings are pressure fed in the B, but the rods continue to be splash fed. The fuel pump allowed the '32 to have the fuel tank between the back rails in cars and under the seat in trucks. In both cases the center of gravity was lowered a bit. Back to the bearings, the first V8 in '32 started using pairs of rods on shell-type insert bearings and they were pressurized. It became hot rodder practice to pressurize the 4 cylinder rods by drilling the crank because at high rpm the splash system robs power and also becomes less reliable. In late 1932 the crank was given counter weighting and so the combination for the guys using over head valve heads and such was to use a counter weighted and drilled crank with insert bearings added to the rods. The pre-WWII hot rodders were the pioneers.

I've been taking the pickup cab exterior down to shiny metal and have another day at least. When I started I thought there would not be much rust to contend with, but I've been finding otherwise. Many pits and scratches have taken root, so to speak, and I'm having to chemically treat the rust. "Metal prep" is the standard phosphoric acid wash and it works, but there are other things I'm trying. One thing is a similar chemical, though stronger with a gel binder that allows it to cling to vertical surfaces a bit better. Today's experiment seemed promising. A second thing is rust conditioner as an alternative to metal prep prior to primer, and third is Rusoleum rusty metal primer. My plan is to strip and paint the deuce to get through to a future point in time when I will have the body dunked. Now I don't want to spend that much time. There is wood inside for one thing, and the roof needs to be unbolted.

I worked on a customer's projects this morning and will continue tomorrow. Am thinking about how I will straighten a trailer frame.

thanks

Thanks guys, fascinating engine info! Much appreciated.

Peter Wright

On ebay, check out the face. I wished it was closer
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360080363129&_trksid=e11010.m204&_trkparms=algo%3DSI%26its%3DI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D8&ssPageName=ADME:B:WNA:US:1123

Punch Lube

Jeff, I talked with Kevin Donahoe yesterday and he said he'd pick up and send out the punch lube to Jim Fecteau and I from Quad State as he plans to attend. If you have another gallon jug left - please put my name on it - I'm only 1/3 thru the jug I bought two years ago - but I believe in keeping good product on hand when available. Kevin can pay you - I'll send a check to him on punch lube and shipping.

Thanks,

Ralph Sproul

Ebay PW anvil

That is a very nice anvil. Would make a good tool for someone...

Peter Wright

Yeah I was hoping one of us could wind up with it. That's too nice not to be worked.

John Larson keep up the work, I sure like to here what's happening >>---->

Cutler's Resin, I've heard deer dung in the mix too.

The Neo-tribal smiths use a version of cutler's resin: pine pitch + PHD, (Powdered Herbivore Dung)

Take a look at some of Tai Goo's blades as he uses resin quite a bit in his work.

Thomas

forge lube for Ralph

I put you on the list. Looks as if Kevin will be packing two jugs back.

forge lube for Ralph

More if he keeps on saying yes!!

JIM

Well, Tuesday I built the rectangular tubing pieces for a new trailer hitch, mounted them, and negotiated with the yard boss about tweaking the frame versus tweaking the hitch pieces. He agreed that the fuss to remove a minor frame kink was not worth it and allowed as how I can tweak the hitch instead to get it on center. Cool by me cuz I really had no good idea of how to fix the frame without a 3-way tug and wqe could muster only two forklifts which aren't very precise, and I didn't want to cut and weld becuz of fire hazard.

Then I went to the third world and worked on the '32 cab. Later I ran after supplies. I never have the right stuff when a new problem is encountered. I'm taking it to bare metal in order to determine the extent of the rusting problems because of what I found when I stripped the back of the cab. Every rock chip and scratch has rust digging into the metal on almost every panel. I'll have to use a combination of chemotherapies plus abrasives. I've found a dandy Norton fiber-type derusting/stripping disk for my 4.5" grinder; expensive and short-lived, but extremely effective on large panels versus sanding etc. and they're fast workers. It's the nooks and crannies that take all the time and hand work.

Lotsa good stuff in the photo gallery. Mike S , don't be a stranger :-)

HW's 68 inch piece

HW, I like how you used a subtle variation in the symmetry by incorporating those split ends instead of going completely with scrolls. Nice touch.

Quad State

The registration link is up on the SOFA site. Also, the list of demonstrators is there.Sounds like a great bunch!
Tom C

Hollis, the aye's have it. Your split ends on spirals are attractive.

Spent most of the day hanging out at home waiting for an appliance repair man. Sorted through my clothes to adapt to my "new" 36" waist; been quite a few years--those pants were on the bottom of the stack. Found all kinds of pocketed T shirts in the process plus stuff to throw away. I was a regular spring fever guy. I got the vines off #1's garage and outta her Japanese style bushes. Got stung by an irate bee.

Then off to the third world where I sanded my deuce cab before and after some Naval Jelly. Decided that stuff is of low power, but it does cling to vertical surfaces. I'm going to try some muriatic acid tomorrow; stronger than metal prep, probably. Also have to do the rest of the hitch job, weld a hinge on a container, and build some stuff for the customer's new Landoll rioll back trailer. Gotta order some steel, too. I don't know what Henry used for primer but "graffitti remover" leaves it when totally eliminating the lacquer top coat. I'm also suspecting he primered less-than-shiny sheet metal. Onward, regardless.

John Larson, please E-mail me at ptreeforge at aol dot com.

forge lube

Jwff
Would you increase my order to two gallons.
I always try to buy more than one of something good so I have a better chance of finding at least one of them in the piles of stuff

Any messages for Nathan of the North as I will see Him Friday morning.
BAD Roger in Minnesota.

Thanks all for the kind words. Each split side was done on the same scroll tool - you may think that's cheatin' but I also forged the tool...I'd also point out that one side follows the balance of the scroll while the opposing side points straight away from the other - I played around with how far to go until I got the look I wanted.

PS - I'm digging the piston engine discussion and really like the old WW2 warbird powerplants. There is absolutely no sound like a P47 roaring by on a pass...except maybe for an F4F Corsair or a Hellcat (hehe)

Allison--V12

BOBBY FAVOR-- Put an ALLISON in a 3/4 ton fish-plated chasis with the 4X4 from a 6X6 or something bigger for a drive train.

BOBBY had no fear of speed or power till he built the GREEN MONSTER for a pulling truck. He tried it a few times and quit it. Could not get control with the hydralic toggle stick for steering.Scared the dickens out of him and everyone, on and around the pulling track.

Talk about noise, I forget the horse power rating--Way too much for a pulling truck.Grin

chuck

Metal prep

John,
You might not like the effects you get from muriatic. Phosphoric converts the rust to a stable paintable compound. Muriatic makes more rust.

Photos

Put up a couple of photos of some hinges. Thanks for the eye bending tips.

Darrell, nice job on the hinges. What are the dimensions?
Stephan attractive setting for a shop. Big slack tub there too :-)

Muratic

John. Muratic is fast for rust removal, but very dificult to neutralize! Multiple rinses with bakeing soda water, and then plain water. Even then it may still rust on you. Be careful!

Great job with the hinges, Derrell.

Punch lube

Jeff Reinhardt I would like to reserve a gallon of punch lube if you have any left. I will have whoever picks up for Ric Furrer at Q.S. get mine. Thanks Jeff Benson