[TheForge] Hammer drills

[Woolley]

Carl,
Gas for AL Tig- argon.  cheers.......


Carl Tappan wrote:

>Hey all. 
>So I just went to the flea market today, and found a bucket containing
>20 lbs. of aluminum square stock, assorted hand tools, crochet hooks, a
>fork, and last but not least a pair of big honking hammer drills. I paid
>9 dollars for the bucket, got it home, and both of the drills work
>great. One is in nearly perfect condition, and drilled a respectable
>hole in a granite block with little trouble. The other runs fine (except
>for the lack of a way to start/stop it, short of unplugging it. This
>makes sense since it seems that someone has essentially bypassed the
>trigger. Oh well, simple enough to fix.), but has a broken off handle.
>The body is made of aluminum, so I was thinking that I could probably
>use some of the stock that came with it and make something. So I have 2
>questions. does anyone have any advice relating to the handle? I am
>thinking I will probably try to about copy the handle shape on the other
>one, but if anyone has done something like this before I would be
>interested to know how you went about it, and if you changed anything
>from the original handle. Next, I am wondering about attaching it. I
>would like to weld it, but I do not have a TIG welder quite yet (I
>started building one and had a problem with the engine, so it will be
>some time), and my MIG welder is not set up for aluminum. So I am
>thinking I will gas weld it, and wondering if anyone has any advice for
>this. I have done TIG on aluminum, and heard that for gas you want
>oxy-hydrogen as opposed to OA. I am also open to suggestions other than
>gas welding for ways to attach it, but the way it is broken there is not
>much chance of bolting or riveting it. Any advice would be greatly
>appreciated.
>Thanks,
>Carl Tappan
>Blue Toad Forge
>
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