What Projects are People Working On/Wanting to Work On?

Oh man, I never thought about that as a failure mode (zinc hardware melting in foundry service), thanks. They check out as steel with a magnet.

 

A little more progress on the pouring shank.


I have a question: about what angle would seem best for the assist handle?

 

about 15 . i tack mine in place then play with it til im happy, always ends up about 15

 

Thanks Henry. So about like this? Assuming rest square/level to world and small handle angled 15 degrees toward ground.

 

Not entirely sure what angle you want so here is one of my 3 shanks

 

Thanks! Those pictures are perfect.

 

Working on getting A furnace, ANY furnace going. I have been waffling badly since my move to Michigan, I finally got the urge to get some aluminum melted.
Got a metal food can
Lined with 1" kaowool
Rigidized
Camp-stove propane cylinder crucible
Fired it up
Poured an ingot(ish) hahahaha

Burner is forced air using a CPAP machine. Two inline propane regulators, simply because I was testing one I bought at a thrift store and threw it inline after my 30# one just because it has the only tank adapter I own.

Happy melting folks!

 

Bucket forks 2.0
Fixed some of the shortcomings on the forks. I had built them from pictures on the web.
Without cross braces they just flopped around but I was able to pick up a couple parking blocks.
Afterwards I found one the 1.5" standoff welds had cracked. Those were preexisting on the rails and I had just built off them.
One of the 7/16" screw jacks bent from too much gap.
Hopefully these will work better. There's a log loading job next week.

 

How'd this hold up? I've been leery of these clamp-on things for my front end loader. I cannot see those welds holding any kind of weight. I would love to have some kind of pallet forks I can gather logs with on my property but I find it hard to believe those joints hold 2000#

 

Didn't get to use them yet. The guy that wants the logs hasn't shown up. I was going to let them rot.
I have no intention of trying a ton of weight, just a couple 10' logs at a time to load his truck.
I've been clearing a hillside with problem pines that were taking out the power lines when they had a snow load on them. Power Co. wouldn't take them down. If they did, they just leave them lay where they drop. I had to rig every one, pull it uphill, cut, de-limb and stack.
Burned 4 slash piles over the winter, have another ready for tomorrow.
I've become a hater of red pines, absolutely no root ball to keep them upright.

 

Bucket Forks 2.1
I've been using the forks hard. Had a huge Oak uproot and cleaning up the mess.
The jack screws were in the way and I bent them throwing logs into the bucket. They also inhibited dumping brush and logs out.
Replaced them with short bolts. Another mod I would do would be to taper the rear of the arms.



Jerad is 6'2".