[TheForge] Re: Fw: Anvil repair

[Mike Spencer]

Bruce wrote:

> Somewhere I believe read something about a fusion layer that, IIRC,
> was essentially a thin layer of thermite.  Imagine taking a sheet of
> "paper", cutting it to size, and placing it between anvil and steel
> plate.  The fit would have to be good -- IIRC, this stuff had no
> gap-filling ability.  Set it off, and instant weld.

Might you have mixed up the order of the ingredients in the sandwich?

If you put the carefully milled face on a carefully milled body and
put a layer of sheet explosive on *top*, covered with some kind of
heavy felt/sandbag/whatever matting, and fire off the sheet, you can
get a full-surface weld.  I assume that to get good, reproducible
results would take some care and experimentation.

I looked into doing something like this once but the regulatory
horseshit made it more trouble than it was worth.  I tried to find out
how an artist in AZ (or TX? I forget) managed to do a bunch of
explosive-formed pieces without getting mired in the regulatory
crap. She didn't tell me so herself but I eventally learned that she
had political connections -- daughter-in-law of the governor or some
such -- and they just cut her as much slack as she wanted.

BTW, about that thermite-roasted goose:  I thought real blacksmiths did
their Christmas geese with a barbecue onto which they poured a bucket
of lox.  (Anybody know where there are any pics still on the net of
George Goble's lox barbecue? After Purdue asked him to remove his site,
there were still some at ep.llnl.gov/msds/Chem120/lox-oxidation.html 
but ep.llnl.gov no longer resolves.)

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^