The Armour Archive

Took some pictures tonight after a cursory cleanup. Thought I'd share what work in Helmut der Schreiber's intermediate shop is like.

Bear with me if the pics don't add.

View going in. It started life as a 1-car carport.

This is a shelf unit by the door, with plywood bolted to one side. I hate grinding, so there are only two grinders. I manage to get by without belt sanding as well.

At some point I'm going to have a wool blanket anchored to the side that I can pull out if need be, to prevent dust from going farther into the shop.

Forgot to mention that there's a hanging storage space above the shelf, for tube, bar, and some wood.

Here's the side of the shelving unit. You can see that my stick welder (220) is easily accessible. Unfortunately I don't have the stones to run my own line out to the shop so I have a really long extension cable I have to plug in every time.

Here's a picture of the helve hammer. Hopefully this shows that you really don't need a lot of space if you manage it correctly. Admittedly I built it with the amount of space I would have available in mind. Most helve builders for instance have the spring linkage behind the pivot point for the arm, whereas I put mine on top and in front of the pivot point.

I also mounted it on a wood frame, so if misfortune should befall me I could remove the metal bits, toss the wood, and be able to store it/ move it/ get rid of it more easily.

You also won't see any that have a 45 degree lower anvil. I did that with the idea of eventually raising helmet bowls.

Here's the B2 workstation.
The B2 is mounted to a large piece of angle iron. It's held in a 4" vise. One of the rafters above and behind the worktable has a large bolt in it, and the end of the B2 handle has a D ring in the end. So I can take out the B2, hang it up out of the way, and put the RW#8 or Lowbuck beadroller in the same station.

The stand is another HF special.
Notice the green block of wood with my RW dies.
Also, the blue rubbermaid tub is full of the shavings. When I'm cutting I pull it out and throw scraps in it as I go, to help keep them from crawling around the shop.

Forgot to mention that the B2 is probably mounted higher than most people would put it, what with the vise in the equation. But it works for me. The shear is just high enough that when it's almost down all the way, I can put both hands on a piece and have the handle in my armpit, then use my body weight to finish a cut.

Next up is metal storage. I've never needed to keep more around than will fit in here. I could probably fit 7 or 8 entire sheets in there, if I cut 'em into 24x48 sections.

The patterning/ fitting/ marking/ GP table. Sorry about the quality on this one.
The craftsman toolbox has my vise grips, clecos, dividers, calipers, two RW#5jr sets (wish I had one more!) and other non-armoring stuff like knives, hex keys, etc.

Wasn't until I was taking out an old crappy medicine cabinet from inside the house that it occurred to me that I had been going inside to look at myself wearing stuff regularly. Made sense to move it to the shop.

If you have the type of shop that a mirror can go in safely, it's a good idea.

Forgot to mention that I designed this bench to be just high enough for me to comfortably rest my elbows on with my upper arm straight down and my forearms straight out. Makes assembly and messing with clecos really comfortable.

Also, forgot to mention that there's a 4" vise on the corner that I use to do all my filing. The vise jaws are about pectoral level. It gets tiring keeping my arms up all the time, but it's really easy to see the edges I'm dressing, and I can get a lot of purchase on really messy edges if I need to.

This one is under the GP workbench. Dremel, various toolboxes (I think that one has miniatures modelling stuff in it....)
I keep the wet/dry vac under there. It has an extra long hose, and I can reach most of the shop with it without pulling it out.
The drill press is right above. Most times when I use the drill press I have the vac going right next to the drill bit, so I get the chips up before they get on the workspace.

Here's a fun project. I made lots of shoe patterns by taping up my foot, carefully cutting off the tape along preplanned seams, and then flattening out the pieces and tracing.

Why not use clay and a bottle cap to figure out a scaled down bascinet?

Still working on this one. I'm not working with a traditional 3 piece idea, but I probably will in the future.

Here's the dishing table. The left form I made out of a king architectural metals hemisphere, a piece of pipe, and a plate. I don't use it much since I got the ironmonger forms.

The four most used hammers.
Large ball pien for tough creases, embossing.

Modified tack hammer (unsplit back). The magic riveting hammer. Yes, all my rivets get set with that. The cross pien end is used first to stretch the end of the rivet in one direction, then perpendicular to that direction. This gets the rivet set in place really quickly - especially if it was clipped, since smacking it twice perpendicularly to how it was clipped will curl the clips over and anchor it.

Really cleaned up HF fender kit hammer. Creasing, fluting, planishing (though I go out of my way not to planish).

Rawhide mallet - almost all dishing. The nice round rawhide face is done. I haven't bought a new one because I'll be damned if I'm paying $25 for a rewound $2 dog bone. Plus I just got a really big HF rawhide mallet with a curved face. Need to try that.

The stake station. You'd be surprised what some PT 2x4 will put up with.
Note the bucket of sand. We're coming back to that.

Hammer and small stake storage. This is literally constructed of crap I had lying around. The spikes are from Lowe's - 12" spikes formerly used as cheap tent stakes, welded to some kind of 12g strapping stuff a friend in construction dumped on me a long time ago (that stuff sat around for a year before I decided I didn't want it in my shop... so I started using it and guaranteed it would stay in).

Forgot to mention that I also had to frame in the entire place. Block walls. The original idea was just to put up pegboard. It worked to my advantage in more ways than that, as you can see here.

I found at a point a couple years ago that I was sticking couter halves in my sand bucket to hold them in place while I welded them.
So I went with it.
18x36 galvanized tub, full of sand, on top of a wire shelf set.
Underneath are two medical oxygen concentrators. They provide all the o2 I need for welding. Not for cutting!

Here's the face plate you probably noticed earlier.
Notice I'm not clamping it to anything to hold it in whatever position I need!
As mentioned, 2-piece couters and poleyns are a snap.
The only problems are a) gotta be careful not to get sand in the weld! and b) if I'm also using vise grips, gotta be careful not to get sand in the threads!

Another interesting project I have going on ( my biggest fault is that I have so many at once ).
This is chopped up computer case, with a bead rolled in the middle.

Here are some examples of Cobra torch welds.
The face isn't as messy as it looks - and the important part, the Z axis, is really low.

The bargrill was basically not cleaned up at all.

Well that's all for tonight's tour.
Going to bed.
Hope you found it interesting!
Noobs, bear in mind that aside from the tools, most of this was done on the cheap. Also bear in mind that this is all a 1-car garage. There's a lot you can do with that much space!

Very nicely organized!

-Derian.

Ah Man.... That was just like you offered me a beer and asked me to come in and look around.

I loved it... a great shop with some dang nice tools.
Thanks for the hospitality.


Hal

Thanks, guys!

Other stuff regarding workflow I was too tired to point out last night....

-Notice that the more explodey stuff is closer to the door.

-I can get my stick welder cables inside of the sand trough really easily - it's right across, only about 6' linear distance. They also reach out the door, so when I stick weld large pipe or bits of helve hammer, I'm outside.

-metal storage, layout table, and B2 are in close proximity.

-I'm right handed. The stake plate is right next to the gas systems, and there's a vise right next to it. I can hold a torch in the vise, which is intentionally on the left of the stake plate, so when I'm raising, I flip the piece to the left, heat it up, then it goes right on the stake and is getting hit right away.

-Running oxy/ propane (remember, the O2 is free) for raising is economical enough, and I'm paying enough attention to economy of motion, that I don't need to shut off the torch in between heats.

-I also intentionally set everything up in a way to be able to get maximum people in there working. Two is really comfortable. Three is doable. Four inside would probably work if they were doing dedicated tasks. If we move the forge equipment outside to the parking area, then we're up to five or six. Of course, I'm thin, and I have a lot of thin friends.

schreiber wrote:I found at a point a couple years ago that I was sticking couter halves in my sand bucket to hold them in place while I welded them.
So I went with it.
18x36 galvanized tub, full of sand, on top of a wire shelf set.

Dude. Brilliant.

Very nice shop. I like how you mounted your grinders. Good job

schreiber wrote:-Running oxy/ propane (remember, the O2 is free) for raising is economical enough, and I'm paying enough attention to economy of motion, that I don't need to shut off the torch in between heats.

While you've already got a cheap setup, you could use a foot pedal system to lower the cost even more, while retaining ease of use.

I'm pretty sure there are folks here who have set up similar systems. Anyone care to chime in?

-Derian.

nice shop! stuffed as it should be. I also have a cobra torch and LOVE it! It'll weld anything! thanks for the view.

Hi there, can you tell me where to get a medical oxy concentrator and where I could look for a propane, oxy setup to heat/weld with?

thank you

Pitbull

Hi Pitbull,

I have found the propane does not weld good for me.
It seems to heat OK but it will not wet the metal for welding.

The guys at the welding supply have a brass screw adaptor that will let you attach your acetylene hose to a BBQ propane bottle.

Hal

Halberds wrote:Hi Pitbull,

I have found the propane does not weld good for me.
It seems to heat OK but it will not wet the metal for welding.

The guys at the welding supply have a brass screw adaptor that will let you attach your acetylene hose to a BBQ propane bottle.

Hal

Better to run acctual LPG hoses though - which the nice folks at the welding supply place will also sell you along with high pessure regulators for LPG which as Hal said will screw into your BBQ bottle.

Pitbull Armory wrote:Hi there, can you tell me where to get a medical oxy concentrator and where I could look for a propane, oxy setup to heat/weld with?

thank you

Pitbull

My Harris torch ( I only found out it's a Harris much later ) is a harry homeowner special I got from Sears back in... 01? Ah, memories... I was starting my IT career by doing phone support, and I won a cases closed contest and a gift certificate to the mall... so it was either 50 Orange Juliuses or a crappy O/A torch kit.

It just happened to have good instructions with it. It didn't say outright whether you could run propane through it - there was some sort of back vacuum test to run or something. I lost the instructions since then, but I did the test and burned "this regulator works with propane" into my long-term memory. As far as I've ever heard, it is NOT a good idea to run propane through a regulator which isn't rated for it. Something about eating out the seals.

(And now I have a really disgusting visual in my head.)

Sears doesn't sell kits anymore, last I checked. The HF kit looks to be comparable quality, but I'm not sure if it's rated for propane.

Considering what I do with it, I think the crappy regulators work fine. I do notice differences in flame from time to time, but it's related to the concentrators, not the regulators. They kind of ebb and flow while they're running. I need to adjust flame every couple minutes. They have adjustable Liters/minute output, and I find that one running at a high LPM will ebb and flow more than one at low LPM or two chained together.

The concentrators I found on ebay. I just happened to win a lot of 12 of them for $25, an hour away in Baltimore at some kind of huge electronics recycling complex. Seven of them went straight to the dump - but I still have five to play with! Of those, I think one will die once in a while.

It really was the score of the century. I don't know if another opportunity like that would ever come up - but I will say that used and untested concentrators have incredibly low value. Lampworkers get into situations where if they lose heat at critical moments, the piece is ruined. And people with emphysema tend to take exception to cutoffs too. But finding them in that state is the trick.

I googled "oxygen concentrator torch" and "oxygen concentrator lampworking" and found a good number of hits for refurbs.

Buying new means buying equipment that has "medical" in the name. (I remember seeing a show about medical examiners who go out and get pruning shears from Home Depot to get around the cost of that word.) Buying used still sets you back 3-7 hundred per. Buying a light industrial model looks like 2 grand or so.

http://www.sundanceglass.com/oxygen-concentrator.htm
http://www.pyronamix.com/page4.html
http://www.oxygenplusmedical.com/oxygen ... ators.html
http://www.oxygenplusmedical.com/OG-15- ... trator.htm

One will run the cobra torch well, up to about 14g mild. I don't do stainless much so I can't say how it does. It all depends on tip size and how big a flame I want. The pressure should always be 4psi, but with bigger tips I need more volume and therefore more concentrators. Using two concentrators also evens out the flow.

Now that I know Henrob Jim sells rosebuds, I'll probably look at chaining three together - but that's a $1500 luxury if you didn't score a dozen of them at once.

Cutting relies on high pressure O2 and the concentrators max out at about 9psi, so it's out of the question.

I also use two with the POS Harris torch with propane, for general heating. I do that because the Cobra torch does not do propane really at all, despite what the seller will tell you.

I'll back up Hal and say that welding with propane, even with a normal torch, SUCKS. I tried it a couple weeks ago and it just didn't get hot enough. I was inventing new curse words as I was inventing new techniques to work around the lack of heat.

If you have the money to spend on decent tools, I also suggest going to a gas supplier. The ones I've run into are really helpful, and they'll be able to get you exactly what you need, with the appropriate markup for commission, of course. Most of them are also pretty interested to know that you're not doing normal work.

very cool! thank you, its one thing to hear the discriptions of how its done, its another to get an inside peek! inspireing to a noob like me
thanks again

Nice shop! Wish I had one of those nearby right now. Much less stress would be had then, and you fine people would have more eye candy to enjoy.

On the recycling warehouse: ESS perchance?