Blacksmithing tools

[Lis2323]

Of course, the all-plastic rollers might not last long.

Vaughn we had REALLY good luck on the farm with 2-3” diameter heavy walled PVC rollers. Easy to repair or make also.




I’m certain they would hold up well doing stuff us normal guys do.

Maybe not for you tho. (Refer to Xmas greeting photo. )

[VaughnT]

Okay since we are talking about roller tables...

That's some pretty ingenious designing!

[whtbaron]

It is... I never thought of using an angle iron for a brake... I might steal that idea too.

[Lis2323]

Well, I couldn't stand it any longer and pulled the trigger on an HTC roller stand from Lowes. The buttheads said they had it in stock on their website, but when I get down there.... nope.

So I ordered it while I was there and paid them. Now I just have to wait for it to arrive and hope it's not complete ****e.

Never heard anything about them, but I don't really need much of a stand just to catch the tail end of a 10' bar that's sticking out from my bandsaw. The Ellis roller assembly that mounts to the saw is great for shorter pieces but doesn't extend far enough to stop light stock from flopping around.

I know I should have made something myself, but the $120 price tag was really hard to beat. That and I just didn't want to spend a couple hours cobbling something together.

I'll let you know how it stacks up when it comes in. Worth the money? Made in China? Not embarrassingly chintzy? We shall see!

You guys inspired me to make a roller stand. I used the roller from a POS stand someone gave me long ago and some Unistrut scraps, an extended 3/4” nut and a short piece of 8” channel.

[VaughnT]

Gorgeous design, my friend! I love the simplicity of it and how you managed the fine-elevation adjustment. Very rugged and industrial -- and I'm definitely gonna have to steel that design!

[ronsii]

Looks good what keeps the top threads from turning if you get a bit offcenter on the push?






Oh!!! and what's with that red headed stepchild of a bolt???

[Lis2323]

Looks good what keeps the top threads from turning if you get a bit offcenter on the push?
:

Good question. I suppose I might have to add a thin jam nut.

[VaughnT]

.....might have to add a thin jam nut.

Hmmm... hadn't thought about a jam nut, but it seems an easy fix. Just take the roller off, throw the top half into the saw and cut 3/8" from the end of the coupling nut. All you'll lose is the thickness of the saw blade, but the off-cut will make a good jam nut.

[Lis2323]

Hmmm... hadn't thought about a jam nut, but it seems an easy fix. Just take the roller off, throw the top half into the saw and cut 3/8" from the end of the coupling nut. All you'll lose is the thickness of the saw blade, but the off-cut will make a good jam nut.

Good idea Vaughn. That way I won’t lose any usable bolt length.

[VaughnT]

Got the HTC roller stand together and gotta say that "wedge lock" idea is pretty brilliant. There's zero way the roller could loosen and drop unexpectedly, which is a good thing.

All they did was, basically, cut a tube in half, on an angle, so the vertical element tapers from top to bottom. When you set your height and crank down on the tightening bolt, it's impossible for the tapered shaft to go down under a load.

Pretty heavy duty except for the one place where the welds matter. I think the powder coating is actually doing as much to hold the roller tabs in place as that bubblegum bead is.

Fairly easy to put together with a socket set. I found that the bolt holes that join leg to leg won't line up unless everything is bolted to the main body with the nuts barely catching a thread. Gotta keep everything super loose, get the leg-to-leg bolts in place, and then go around tightening everything up much like doing the lug nuts on a wheel. Took me two complete trips around the thing before it was all snugged up, but now it's not going anywhere!

For $120, it really isn't bad. Everything is 1/8" steel and has a good heft to it. Will it really support 500#? Well, I'm not gonna even come close to trying that out before I cut the roller tabs off and re-do all the welds there. Horrible stuff, but probably strong enough to handle a 20# bar.

Might should have purchased their two-roller stand instead, but I don't think it would have gone low enough for my Ellis. Of course, it'd be short work to cut the main body down by a few inches and make it work..... Something to think about for the future.

Oh, and yea, it's made in blasted China. They worked hard to hide that fact everywhere I looked. Finally found it in tiny print on the box.

[Lis2323]

Got the HTC roller stand together and gotta say that "wedge lock" idea is pretty brilliant. There's zero way the roller could loosen and drop unexpectedly, which is a good thing.

All they did was, basically, cut a tube in half, on an angle, so the vertical element tapers from top to bottom. When you set your height and crank down on the tightening bolt, it's impossible for the tapered shaft to go down under a load.

Pretty heavy duty except for the one place where the welds matter. I think the powder coating is actually doing as much to hold the roller tabs in place as that bubblegum bead is.

Fairly easy to put together with a socket set. I found that the bolt holes that join leg to leg won't line up unless everything is bolted to the main body with the nuts barely catching a thread. Gotta keep everything super loose, get the leg-to-leg bolts in place, and then go around tightening everything up much like doing the lug nuts on a wheel. Took me two complete trips around the thing before it was all snugged up, but now it's not going anywhere!

For $120, it really isn't bad. Everything is 1/8" steel and has a good heft to it. Will it really support 500#? Well, I'm not gonna even come close to trying that out before I cut the roller tabs off and re-do all the welds there. Horrible stuff, but probably strong enough to handle a 20# bar.

Might should have purchased their two-roller stand instead, but I don't think it would have gone low enough for my Ellis. Of course, it'd be short work to cut the main body down by a few inches and make it work..... Something to think about for the future.

Oh, and yea, it's made in blasted China. They worked hard to hide that fact everywhere I looked. Finally found it in tiny print on the box.

We need pictures please.

[VaughnT]

We need pictures please.

It's more fun to tease you!

[whtbaron]

Yes... they sound much heavier duty than mine... I think mine just uses a jamb nut ( one of which I've bent already) to hold the height....


Had a little flash flooding going on further downstream so I was water sampling yesterday... sorta makes you thirsty doesn't it?

[ronsii]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm mineral water

[whtbaron]

So I was Googling the HTC stands to see what Vaughn had and came across these.... interesting...

[whtbaron]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm mineral water

LOL... a few minerals... nutrients too....

[ronsii]

LOL... a few minerals... nutrients too....

Lololol, vitamin water. ��

[VaughnT]

Okay, so I managed to get a couple of pictures of the HTC roller stand.

So far, it's holding up quite nicely and I can't complain. The wedge-lock idea is pretty simple and brilliant. Even if you were to break the bolt loose, the roller can't drop farther than you've backed the bolt off. And since you can't "accidentally" move the handle more than three-quarters of a turn... you can't drop the roller more than maybe a sixteenth of an inch or whatever the rotation of the thread backs the bolt out.

Slick thinking, I have to admit!



Not quite a half-tube, the sides are straight and sit firmly against the wall of the square tube. You could likely slice a bit of pipe to get the same effect....



I'm going to put a jam nut on those threads just because they left me so much to use!!!





The taper of the "wedge lock" isn't extreme. Figure that the vertical element is probably 16" OAL. The brochure says it has a range from 22" to 32".

The way it works, even if the locking handle comes loose, the roller couldn't drop more than a hair - whatever the distance the threads will allow the bolt to turn. One full revolution of the handle is impossible, so you're likely looking at maybe a sixteenth inch of downward travel for a quarter-turn of the threads. What's the math for how far a bolt travels? Assume it's a 1/2-13 bolt... if you do a half-turn... that's big math and well over my head! :O

[VaughnT]

Well, it looks like I'm in yet another pickle!

A large chunk of the insulation had spalled off the door on my Majestic forge, so I thought I'd try a "field expedient" repair with some Rutlands Fireplace Patch.

That was a bad idea. Maybe I got a bad tub of the stuff, but I can't imagine how they thought all that aggregate would make for a good mix. They even say on the can to not smooth the finish out..... and I'm wondering how they think you could smooth anything with that much ceramic rock in the stuff!

Overall, a complete failure and my forge is officially dead.



This is why I do not like or recommend Majestic forges. Insulation that's only an inch thick is ridiculous, imo. Majestic has a reputation for being a gas hog, and now you know why. Why would anyone think that just 1" of insulation is a good idea? I get trying to hit a certain price point, but dang!!



That's not flat!

[psacustomcreations]

Dang. That sucks. Any idea what you are going to do next?

[Lis2323]

Bummer, Vaughn. Is that the door in the bottom pic? Is it bent from heat distortion?

[VaughnT]

Dang. That sucks. Any idea what you are going to do next?

Yes it does! I'm talking with Majestic right now to see if there's a solution. They do have a 2-burner forge that's "economical", but it's got the same problems as this one - very little insulation. Ugh!

Is that the door in the bottom pic? Is it bent from heat distortion?

The door is in the foreground of the top pic. The bottom picture is the top cap that covered the top of the forge where the burners enter. The distortion is definitely from the heat! When I finally got all the pins out and could pull the top off.... I released a bunch of tension and only magnified the distortion that the heat had caused.


This is the forge I'm leaning towards. As you can see, it has the same thin insulation, but now on only 5 sides. In other words, even less of the already lacking insulation. I wonder how this is measurably better than just pointing a torch at the metal I need to heat!



Still for $400 it'll get me back up and running. I can use the insulation from my dead forge to bolster the new forge, I think, and that might help. I can block off the big opening, and maybe even one of the burners, so I'm only using the minimal amount of area necessary. Considering that I mostly make hooks nowadays, I really don't need much chamber size at all.

I really don't know. I had planned to get some other things done, so shelling out four bills just to get back to work isn't making me happy. Of course, this is what I get for procrastinating. I've been drawing up plans for a forge, and even lined up the needed materials for insulating it. But I kept putting it off because I'm a lazy ***. Now I'm paying for it!

[Lis2323]

I just came across this pic today. No deets on locale or history but pretty cool!

Would love to have an old building like this.

[VaughnT]

Oh, wouldn't we all!

I've seen a lot of buildings like that yet never could come up with the money for them. When they're for sale, I'm broke. When I'm feeling flush with cash, I'm not flush enough!

Can you believe that the guy at Majestic showed me a new design they have..... and then stopped responding to my email? I was ready to drop the cash just so I could get back up and running, asked him where the link was on their webpage because I wasn't seeing it, and then nothing. Not a peep.

Weird that he was so helpful in the beginning and then falls short at the last minute when I'm ready to make a purchase. I waited around for hours hoping to catch his email so I could place the order, but nothing ever showed up.

He called it the "the 2 burner multipurpose", yet you can look through their entire website and not find any mention of a two-burner forge that has the end openings and a side door. I thought he was gaslighting me as I spent an hour hunting through every nook and cranny of their site!




Not perfect by any means. The unsealed gap around the door kills efficiency, but I might be able to put some gasket there if I can find some with a high enough temp rating. The real problem I've always had is that stupid locking mechanism they use for holding the door closed. It's real easy to lose those pins, but it's also aggravating having to pull both of them every time you want to get in and out of the forge. You end up having to lave the forge open just so you can access your parts more readily.

I really need to get off my duff and start building my own forge. At least that'll allow me to address all these little issues.

[Lis2323]

Vaughn, since you are doing so many hooks, have you considered a small induction forge?