Thursday, November 01, 2012

15 minutes



Cleats are a useful item to have in the memory chest. Ripping a length of timber with the circular saw set at 45 degrees gives you two pieces of timber that can be used to interlock in many ways. You can attach one to a wall to hang a cupboard or bracket onto etc etc.
I find the gas saver a really useful addition to my tool set, but I can not justify buying another for when I need to use the torch up by the press. So I spent 15 minutes sawing up some bits of wood to make it a simple matter to detach the saver and move it up to the press area without needing to unscrew anything.
The top picture shows the saver in its usual spot, the mounting plate on the back of it needs to drop a further five centimeters for it to be set in place.

This shows the back of the mounting plate and the cleat on the 'wall' that it interlocks with.

This is the pillar block it slots into up by the press. Aside from having to detach the quick release gas nozzles it is a simple matter to move the saver where I need it.
The other addition to the device a while ago was the piezo electric sparker from an old stove that means I don't have to hunt around for a lighter for the pilot light, just flick the arm on the sparker to light it up. I don't know why the thing didn't come with one already fitted.
So what is gas saver?
When you use a torch that has two gas supplies, oxygen and some fuel gas you light the fuel gas and then turn on the oxygen to get the kind of flame you want. This is a pain. The gas saver has a hooked arm on which you hang your torch, the arm is attached at its base to two valves that shut off the two supplies of gas I the right timing. So you lift the torch from its rest pas the nozzle by the pilot flame and it springs to life with the flame you want, then when you are done you rest the lit torch on the hook and it turns off while you are busy doing whatever operation the heat was used to allow you to do. When working steel you use heat a lot and when you work all kinds of other stuff as I do lighting up a forge for a few hours is too much argy bargy, so this device makes it very easy to take on a small project with a light heart and almost no setup time.
Oh, if you look at the top picture there is a sooty looking sheet of metal above where the torch sits, the flame does take a second to go out, so this is a heat shield to avoid some of the fire risk. There is a fire extinguisher within easy reach too.