Hi ksor, it's interesting to see a cold saw in use, and someone using a horizontal mill to do some not so serious milling. When you cut pieces off a chunk of steel that large that's been cut with either plasma or flame, it's good to try to center the piece you want rather than trying to get as much useful metal as possible, unless you can arrange to get the whole thing up to critical temperature, and let it cool long enough to aneal it, just for the very reasons you demonstrated in your second cut with the "slab mill". I've got a couple of pieces of inch and three quarters that were flame cut, each about hundred kilos and more, and I put pieces in my wood stove which heats my shop in the winter, and they will go in with a full load of hardwood chunks, and stay in till next morning. It's just another month or two before I can put a fire in my stove. I envy the way you cut right through with the big cutters and that horizontal mill though. On the cutter you used for a face mill, you can take a fine stone, find the one edge which is high, and stone it down to match or better yet, stone all the face edges, and get good, flat facets on each edge, then find the high one, and give it extra stoning, and get rid of the line mostly. That you can see it, but not feel it makes it more a matter of looks than function though. Nice work, makes me want to find a decent vise for my small and rather antique horizontal mill and use it for a change. In my book, there is an "up" side to wiping out a cutter, it lets you know you are working tool steel, and not just some merchant stock, and it is hardenable. I get most of my steel scrap, so finding tool steel is always a bonus. You've got a fine start on the project, it should last a lifetime when you're done.
mad jack
