Tire weight alloy

well yes, and I also forgot

"lead has a low specific heat" - about 3.75 times less than steel "lead has low thermal conductivity" somewhere between stainless and steel

So even if you're dealing with a large chunk of the stuff, it's not going to conduct heat all that well, and it doesn't take much heat to warm it up, plus it melts at a fairly low temperature. All three are idea for attacking it with a torch. Just stay the hell out of the way of the fumes.

Yes but... In most machine shops lead hammers were used to tap things in vises or other holding devices to ensure that they are firmly seated. I've been in shops that used a hand held lump of lead and others that had pipe handled lead hammers.

If I'm the only person in the world with a hickory-handled lead hammer, that's fine by me.

well, I make my own propane burners, and would go for a wide narrow flame or series of flames to behave more like a knife.

propane is plenty hot. Hell, ig probably already has natural gas connected to a garden hose anyways.

I wonder how thick these lead blocks are.

After all this discussion I'm going to cast a pair of screw-ins for my plastic mallet . One of lead and one of tire weights . It has a hickory handle ...

You're probably going to win this race, since I ran out of wax.

The plan is make a hammer shape, then wrap some thin sheet metal around the head of the handle then tighten it up a bit to make a cookie cutter then just melt/press that into the wax to cut out the handle hole and see if sheetrock patching compound can make a mold, melt out the wax and pour in the lead. This old stock handle comes with a selection of wood and steel wedge. I'm not sure what the deal is with local hardware stores and always having a "fresh" supply of 10 to 20 year old stuff on the shelves. It's like they stage stuff in the basement until the boxes finally fall apart, then they bring stuff upstairs to actually sell it. Anyways, the local Ace just got a shipment of some locally made Indestro wrenches. Indestro shut down 25 years ago.

I'm with you ... hickory is the only proper hammer handle. It's SO much easier to cast a lead head on a piece of pipe, but it's something that I can't be satisfied with. YMMV

Bob

Here is the complete Cook lead hammer kit:

The handle fits in the mold through the boss under the clamping screw. You hold the ladle end low while melting the lead, then tilt it up to fill the cavity.

You could hammer a piece of conduit etc into a tubular ferrule that will accept your wood handle and embed it in the mold.

-jsw

Even German tools are made with American Hickory handles- and they proudly mention this point in sell/spec sheets.

This is for a small 1-2 pounder, so the danger factor is low. I've busted sledgehammer handles before by missing, and seen taped up, split handles which is even more scary.

My neighbor welded a piece of pipe to the underside of his maul head. The pipe is about 4 inches long and surrounds but does not touch the wood handle. So when he misses a strike the pipe strikes the wood, not the handle. Eric

Gunner Asch on Tue, 10 Feb 2015 10:49:16 -0800 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Dumpster diving for fun and profit.

"Malone called Luce in 2006 after stumbling upon a huge find in the parking lot of Discount Electronics, a local Austin chain. The store was clearing out its warehouse and had hauled everything to the parking lot of its main store on Anderson Lane. Malone focused on the

Discount Electronics had contracted to test. He was still loading them when Luce showed up and walked right past the computers to the photo

printers that often, but they constantly need paper and toner."

There it is. The way to make money is to sell the supplies to the gold miners.

(Mys SO was appalled to learn that in some cases, it is cheaper to buy a new printer than replace the ink cartridges. Heck, the Pixma MP500 is $54 to refill at Costco.)

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

And when you buy it, the cartridges are only, at best, half full, so you are still much farther ahead buying ink for it than throwing it away and buying a new one when the ink runs out.

Don't know about that model, but on the earlier Pixmas, the 3000,nd

4000 series,up to at least the 4820, refilling the cartridges is very simple and the ink is only about $5 an ounce in Canada, so likely about $2 in Yankee-land.

Forget the business side, I'm still wondering why the pizza slices at their food court are so good (for so little).

snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:11:35 -0500 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

I could probably refill them for less than Costco, but - I can get all five cartridges done in an hour, without having to mess with them to any extent - for that price. Some times, it is worth it to me, to pay them for having the tools and workspace. Not to mention the practice. (I was doing something recently, and said "I have the notes on this, but no idea where they got put." Finally figured it out, and the rest of the process went like cats sliding across the kitchen floor after the string.)

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

I gave up inkjets a long time ago due to the cost. The Samsung CLP-600N I now own $400 on sale, with a $200 rebate: $200 final cost. Toner carts are $65-90 each for 4, BUT, I found fine toner + the little PCB chips for counting usage for $65. That was last year, over

4 years after I bought the color laser printer. I love it, BTW. All except the damned takeoff-end-of-runway turbine noises it makes when running. It's quiet but disturbing as hell. For the price, I love it and it's turned on ONLY when it needs to be used.

Refilling took, IIRC, 37 minutes for the rebuilds. 1 sheet of newspaper and a moist paper towel were destroyed during the engagement. That makes the cost about $17 a year. I can live with that burden for nice color laser prints.

I installed a cis on my ip8420, but I put about 5 gallons of ink through 20 some HP Officejet 8000 pro printers per year. - all through the cartridges.

I take it that was for the school? Why didn't you/they come to your senses and go with a laser printer? Total costs are 1/3 of inkjets, and they don't smear with water or damp palms.

Not for a school. Insurance office - and they also have a number of laser printer/copiers. There is a lot of printing done in insurance offices - they kill a LOT of trees. The laser printers are also very well used (and require a LOT of service) At the current cost of ink the inkjet still has a very slight advantage in per page cost - the latest 30% hike in ink cost, due in part to the sinking Canadian dollar, narrowed the gap significantly. A laser on each desk would be a real headache. Good inkjet prints don't smudge with normal handling, and I can wet a finger and rub the print a few minutes after printing and it doen't run or smudge at all. (It's good ink)