The Road Giveth

Jake von Slatt — Sat, 06/06/2009 - 14:44

When I bike to work I always keep a weather-eye on the road surface. Here in New England you must always be prepared to bunny-hop the odd pot-hole (yes, you can hop a recumbent, just not very high) but I also find some very nice tools on my rides. Sparkplug wrenches are the most common, they get lost in engine compartments and fall out on the road. Box wrenches and screwdrivers are next, but I've also found vise-grips, channel locks, and specialty wire crimpers too, not to mention inumerable carpet knives, and a machete.

This one is particularly timely as I am beginning work on a foundry furnace and will shortly be mixing refractory cement.

I spotted this trowel at the roadside in an upscale neighborhood, I almost didn't take it because it had been so obviously mistreated. This is not the tool of a professional mason, this is the tool of a hack. I imagined that it would take a great deal of effort to remove the hardened cement and mortar. As it turned out, a bit of a soak in Muriatic acid cleaned it up with very little effort on my part!

It's really quit a nice trowel and I will be putting it to work very soon now!

trowel

toni d — Wed, 06/17/2009 - 17:41

I'm glad you bothered to keep and clean the trowel. By squinting hard I could tell that it was engraved Marshaltown, finest of trowels for years and the preferred trowel of most archaeologists. So if you don't do masonry, sharpen the edges and take it to an excavation. Nice find.

Foundry Furnace

Anon — Mon, 06/08/2009 - 02:30

Nice find!

I'm excited to see that you're entering the world of metalcasting. (It's been a hobby/obsession of mine for about five years now.) Anyway, if you haven't seen these yet, there are two metalcasting-oriented forums that I regularly attend, which together have an incredible amount of information and expertise available. They are the ABYMC forums (abymc.com/forum) and Backyard Metalcasting forums (backyardmetalcasting.com/forums). You'll recognize my username on both.

I'd be happy to answer any foundry-related questions you might have, and I look forward to seeing some suitably Steampunk castings in the future.

Thanks for the info, I was

Jake von Slatt — Mon, 06/08/2009 - 13:17

Thanks for the info, I was aware of Backyard Metal Casting but not the other. Interestingly, Doc Datamancer seems to have been bitten by the metal melting bug too, as he told me about his furnace plans at Maker Faire!
I think we're both thinking "sandbenders!"

You're not thinking of making

Datamancer — Tue, 06/09/2009 - 03:33

You're not thinking of making a sandbenders, too, are you?

Only because you mentioned it

Jake von Slatt — Tue, 06/09/2009 - 13:12

Only because you mentioned it first! :-) I can't wait to see what you do.
Actually, I think I'll start with a small steam engine project.

J.

I seem to keep finding

Marrock — Sun, 06/07/2009 - 14:55

I seem to keep finding carabiners of various sizes and colors when I ride.

Once I thought I'd found a really nice ¼" drive Craftsman ratchet but it had been run over so many times it was embedded in the blacktop.

Went back a couple days later with a two-fister screwdriver to pry it loose and they'd gone and tore up all the blacktop for a mile in either direction and trucked it off...

Good Find

Sgt. Mustache — Sun, 06/07/2009 - 10:15

I lament your town's policy on dumpster diving at the transfer station. I still have priveleges at mine (actually two stations) so continue to gather goodies. Right now I'm trying to find someone that wants a 1930's Art Deco sewing machine from Mongomery Wards....no pedal or table, just the basic machine up for grabs. Gorgeous!

Like you, I am building a melting furnace, in my case the stacked-opening one from the Gingery book. Have you tried the masonry suppliers in Boston itself? IIRC Waldo Brothers near downtown had refractory cement, brick etc, though I don't recall if it's the high-temp stuff you'd need, it might be for the linings of large boilers, etc.
But I also seem to recall they could order it in for me.......

Hi Ryan! A friend tells me

Jake von Slatt — Sun, 06/07/2009 - 11:00

Hi Ryan!

A friend tells me there is a place in Woburn that has what I'm looking for, the name escapes me now but I'll let you know when I'm ready for that part of the job.

I'm using the Gingery book as a rough guide and will probably scale his design up a bit to match the waterheater tank I'm using for the shell, I'm going to use gasoline/diesel for fuel mainly to get experience with forced induction burners as that's a key bit of engineering for a steam car project.

Jake.

Liquid fuel foundry burners

crerus75 — Sun, 06/07/2009 - 17:56

Jake/all,
I have a furnace for aluminum/brass melting. The refractory is a mix of Portland cement, fireclay, pearlite, and sand. Were I to do it over, I'd experiment with fireclay/sand/sawdust for the bulk of the refractory, and a fireclay/sand hotface. The sawdust (IIRC some people use styrofoam packing peanuts instead) burns out of the lining, making it slightly porous and thus more insulative.

My burner is an old oil burner out of a residential furnace. HVAC companies toss them away, so they're cheap (free) and plentiful, especially around winter time. Because they include a pump, burner, and ignition source in a single unit, they are extremely convenient, and they put out a ton of heat. I can go from cold-startup to molten aluminum in about 10 minutes with an un-insulated furnace lid. Older burners are simpler and arguably better for foundry use.

I've used gasoline, waste oil, diesel, ATF, etc. in my burner with no problems. Gasoline burns well, but is more than a little eye-watering (like driving behind an old clunker with the choke stuck on). Just about anything flammable will burn through one of these, occasionally with a little thinning. The nozzle atomizes the fuel finely, so is burns clean and smoke-free right from the get-go. Unlike burners like the Ursutz, no preheat is required for complete combustion.

Sorry for the long post. Please let us know how you're progressing with this project.

Thaks so much for the

Jake von Slatt — Sun, 06/07/2009 - 20:22

Thaks so much for the information!

Score! nice find. Here's

Datamancer — Sun, 06/07/2009 - 04:30

Score! nice find. Here's that place I mentioned at Maker Faire that has the refractory cement.
http://www.hwr.com/
ANH Refractory. Looks like they have a distributor in CT, though I'm not sure what the shipping would cost on it, as close as that might be (close enough to drive, maybe?).

I got the Versa-Flow 30, if memory serves (I'm not at home right now), which is overkill, but at only $30-35 a bag, it's a cheap enough upgrade that will probably let you get away with doing the odd bit of steel casting in addition to the brass,copper and aluminum. For the small HobbyMelter furnace kit I have, they recommend 2 bags.

I'm running mine on propane, so I got myself an adjustable regulator from http://www.cajunshoppe.com/combo.htm

Can't wait to see what you cast!

-~D~-

Thanks Doc! I stripped an

Jake von Slatt — Sun, 06/07/2009 - 09:15

Thanks Doc! I stripped an old water heater for the shell yesterday and I'm hoping to do the mock-up tomorrow. Then they'll be some playing with fire! I'm going to try using a combination of gasoline and waste oil (two seperate feeds) for fuel. If the gas doesn't work out it will be propane and waste oil.

So great to see you at Maker Faire this year! I asked my daughter if she had gotten a chance to meet you and she replied "you mean that dude from Hollywood?"

Heheh! ;-)

Yup funny enough, I actually

Datamancer — Mon, 06/08/2009 - 17:46

Yup funny enough, I actually AM thinking "sandbenders". Cory Doctorow was nice enough to forward some question to William Gibson for me a while back so I was able to get some input from Father Sci-fi himself on the project. I have a few rough designs worked out, but I really think I need bury myself in Navajo artwork for a few weeks to really nail the style.

Haha I guess I DO look "L.A." now if 2 separate Slatts mentioned it independently. Your daughters were adorable and your wife was lovely, but unfortunately I didn't get much time away from the table to chat freely with them. You know how it is...once you set up the table, you kind of get trapped there for the next 4 hours!

-~D~-

Walking to the train with

crowgrl13 — Sun, 06/07/2009 - 00:32

Walking to the train with Molly "Porkshanks" last week, we found a plastic belt. It was horrid, but had a really nice buckle, so she kept it , specifically for the buckle. As for me, I usually find...money.

Money is indeed the most

Jake von Slatt — Sun, 06/07/2009 - 09:09

Money is indeed the most versatile find!
What troubles me most are personal records or notebooks, I feel obligated to find the rightful owner and that's often impossible. I have a notebook that contains years of someone genealogical research, it had clearly fallen off of a car roof and its pages were spread all along a busy street. I spent 45 minutes dodging traffic once I saw what it was and that much of the contents were irreplaceable family photos. I emailed or called every number in the book but no one know whose book it was. While it had lots of information about hundreds of family members, the owner's name was nowhere identified within! Too sad.

Nice!

Randall Knapp — Sat, 06/06/2009 - 18:57

It's always sweet to find a new useful tool. Ever done a lot of masonry?

(is there such a thing as steampunk masonry?)

I've done very little

Jake von Slatt — Sat, 06/06/2009 - 19:48

I've done very little masonry, but what I have done has convinced me that it requires and instills a certain zen state.

I picked up two long tape

jpkalishek — Sat, 06/06/2009 - 18:21

I picked up two long tape measures a few weeks back. One 300', and one 200'. They were lying in the road at a rather high speed corner and I had to dodge them as I was on a motorbike. In the same corner (Renfro and Texas hwy 917), a year or so back, in the opposite lane, I got a LED converted Maglite.

Over the years of riding bicycles and now my motorcycle, I've gotten several wrenches, pliers, ratchets, and extensions. And, for some reason, they are never the cheapo stuff. Cornwell, SnapOn, Greenlee, and Mac, are the brands I recall off the top of my head.