Yeah, strikers can be a Godsend. It gets terribly hard sometimes to handle big material with a hold down tool. Those little mechanical hammers---what do they call them?---an oliver?---can be good too.Of course, the best would be a nice big power hammer, but I doubt it would ever be possible to get your money back on the investment.You'd probably need to stick it in the middle of a five acre paddock too, if you didn't want neighbour problems.
Of course you're right about bad cakes, but gas compared to charcoal or coke---well, its really a walk up start. Compared to coal, where you need to coke the coal before you can weld, there simply is no comparison.Two totally different worlds. I've taught a number of people how to forge weld, and what I've found is this:- with good clean coke, a committed learner, starting from a low knowledge base, will pick it up in about 6 to 8 full working days.With gas, again starting from a low knowledge base, a couple of three or four hour sessions is enough to have a committed learner doing good tight welds.In fact, even my wife can weld in a gas forge. Further, it is possible for a relative new-comer to achieve complex welds in gas that in the heyday of blacksmiths would only have been able to be achieved by extremely talented masters.Gas is cheap, clean, effective and very easy, when compared to any other fuel.
|
28th September 2007, 10:13 PM
Threaded Mode