[TheForge] grape comments

[Jerry Frost]

One effective way to quiet your tumbler WAY down is to 
wrap the drum with felt. I know 1/2" felt works and 
"Amber Weatherstripping Cement" stuck it effectively 
for the past 30 years or so. I did this to quiet down 
the "L.A. Abrasion" machine at the soils lab.

The machine is a thick, 30" dia. 1/2" thick hardened 
steel drum with a single lifting lug intended to test 
how fast a particular gravel aggregate will wear out in 
road use. You load it with four pans containing 1,500 
gm. ea. of a specific size gravel (I don't recall the 
sizes) then add 12 ea. 1" steel balls. Then you turn it 
on for 500 revolutions, pull the sample and run a 
gradation to see how it fared. The device is designed 
to be destructively hard on gravel, the lug lifts the 
sample and steel balls and drops them so they impact 
the far side of the drum at 90* / perpendicular.

The below URL is what the thing looks like though I 
don't know if it's the same model, size, etc. I know 
the abrasive (steel balls) charge is a LOT larger in 
the one on the site, the one we had used 12lbs of 
balls. Anyway, that's the beasty.

http://www.durhamgeo.com/testing/aggregates/hydrometer-laabrasions.htm

You can't imagine how loud it was, ear plugs and muffs 
were inadequate protection. It was painfully loud 
standing outside the building it was in. Before I 
wrapped it in felt they had to pay someone OT to run 
L.A.s at night. Afterwards you could stand next to it 
without ear protection, not a good idea but it wouldn't 
bring you to your knees.

At the time I wrapped it I built an insulated cabinet 
around it like in the above URL but within a month or 
so the other lab rats had removed it as unnecessary.

Anyway, the felt really works.

Frosty
-------------------------------
If it ain't forged
it ain't real.
Wrought iron is.
The FrostWorks

Meadow Lakes, AK.

http://www.artmetalradio.com/

From: "Cindy and James" <jallcorn at suddenlink.net>


>  Per someone's suggestion here, I used a cement mixer 
> to tumble the leaves to shine them up and knock the 
> plasma dross off... worked well.  Noisy as hell!  I 
> let it run all night and got a note from the local 
> Police Dept. HA!  At least they drove by the shop!
>
> James Allcorn
> Bois D'Arc Forge Blacksmith Shop
> Paris, TX
>