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Simple steel flasks

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vtsteam:
After deciding not to cast aluminum flasks, and resigning myself to wood for iron casting until I could acquire a lot more aluminum, I started to think of ways of protecting the wood -- of particularly the cope, which gets the most abuse.

I was thinking that if I made a box of 1" angle iron, I could press it down into a wooden cope to protect the edges and give a drip edge to keep spilled iron off the side.

Then I thought if I actually just replaced the wooden cope with two 1" angle irons welded together, that would be better. Then I though well you might as well just buy channel. But could get expensive. Might as well find out, though.

Any excuse to go down and visit with Lester in his old machine shop, really. The real thing, overhead belts, dusty shapers, etc. And of course a nice long chat before getting down to business.

I won't go into the hour long swapping of tales between myself, Lester and various customers, plus showing him my last iron casting, which he greatly appreciated. Anyway I asked how much for a stick (20 feet) of angle vs a stick of channel iron.

Lester took out a pencil and worked it out on his lunch bag. I'd told him what it was for, and we both figured a stick of channel would make five 12" x 10" ID flask halves. Seemed like six would make more sense, so he added on another 4 feet. Fifty three dollars, he said. It came out the same if I fabricated the channel up from angle, than if I bought it ready made -- within a couple dollars.

I was thinking it over, and said will you cut them channels in half for me Lester to fit in the truck?

No, he said, how bout I cut them up into your 24 pieces?

How much would that be, I said. Same fifty three dollars, he said.

Thank you Lester I said, I'd like it then.

But it was another 20 minutes talking about his time in the Coast Guard before we actually got to cutting the channel up on his Kalamazoo. While I was watching it slice through the channel like it was made of cheese, I thought of my 4 by 6 Harbor Freight bandsaw nibbling away at 24 pieces of channel.

Just then I happened to notice behind the saw and under a big pile of assorted stuff, like a belt sander, a slip roll, and lots of metal shapes was a familiar arch and a heavy 1 foot thick cast iron bed about 10 feet long -- never noticed it before.

Is that a shaper, I asked?

Yup that's a shaper, he said.

Must have been something to see that work, I said.

I remember my old man cutting a keyway on a gear with it, he said.

That would have been a big gear, I said.

It was, oh, like this he said stretching out his arms.

I got my 24 pieces, and headed home in the rain.

Not much chance to weld it until this stuff lets up. But talking with Lester was almost as much fun as making something.

awemawson:
 :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: I claim my rights for planting that thought in your mind  :lol: :lol: :lol:

vtsteam:
Yer corrupting me Andrew.  :lol:

dsquire:
Steve

You know that you should have had a tape recorder going so that we could all enjoy the stories.  :lol: :lol:

Lester sounds like my kind of guy.  :D

Cheers  :beer:

Don

vtsteam:
Don, his story involved approaching a disabled Russian submarine off of Greenland. Mine involved being aboard a sinking schooner off of Atlantic City. Not much of interest, really.

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