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You may be one of the few people that actually reads more than I do. I have always been a big fan of the greatest generation because of their ingenuity. I would not have even guessed at this one.
It has been said that today's typical college graduate has the equivalent of a high school education from the late 1800's. When you look at the intelligence of what was being done in the 1940's, you understand better why the older generations can't connect with today's youth. Like talking to a hamster, just because it stares back at you is no indication that it understands what you are saying.
No offense meant to anyone that reads this, the simple fact you made it to this apology proves I wasn't talking about you.
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Another one for you, Chicken. America has only produced two dictators, General Leonard Wood (Cuba) and General MacArthur (Japan).
General Wood commanded President Theodore Roosevelt with the Rough Riders in Cuba. A Harvard graduated medical doctor, Wood became the American appointed Governor of Cuba and directed the research effort to eradicate Yellow Fever on the island. He felt that in order for Cuba to become a democracy, the population needed to better educated. He directed a large percentage of Cuba’s treasury be allocated on the construction of schools, with a one year construction schedule. But he needed teachers. He met with all of the wealthy island plantation owners spouces, as he knew them to be highly educated, and asked them how much he needed to pay them to become teachers. The answer was the same pay as they would get in America as teachers. He immediately agreed.
Leonard then telegraphed the President of Harvard and directed him to print Spanish language versions of the best American text books, and to schedule a comprehensive summer school for his “teachers.” He then booked a cruise ship to transport the women to Boston, Massachusetts and used the ship as a hotel for the summer. At summer’s end, the boat went back to Cuba and school for a nation began.
I think that this is one of the best example of completely rational execution of policy in American history.
General Wood had several successful brain operations through out his life. His last surgery in 1927, performed by the brilliant Harvey Cushing, ended in failure. Cushing was so crushed with the lost that he never operated again.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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Some of my Marine training was at Fort Leonard Wood. Fort Leonard Wood is a U.S. Army training installation located in the Missouri Ozarks. The main gate is located on the southern boundary of St. Robert. The post was created in December 1940 and named in honor of General Leonard Wood in January 1941.
The trainees at this Fort are some of the most respectful young men and women I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. On returning to Fort Leonard Wood, I stopped in a store 60 miles prior, Around 120 ricks had been out on maneuvers and were returning to base, I stopped at the store to see it filled to capacity with camouflage. Armed with only my veterans hat and awards jacket I entered the building, ahead of the truck drivers standing outside moaning and groaning. With a single excuse me, the sea of bodies parted and allowed me access to every part of the store I chose to go to. When it came time for me to check out, a young man says to me," Sir, are you ready to go?" I said yeah. He yells out," Make a whole, Marine coming through!" The bodies to the cash registered parted like the red sea and those young people looked at me and smiled like I was a celebrity. The same on the way out.
I remember thinking how much I missed having that youthful innocence before I became so jaded. Life ahead of me, not behind me. I wish I could do it all over again. I would truly be the example by which all others follow.
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Wood’s career as a medical student ended suddenly. While on rounds, a badly burned child came in his ward. He immediately looked around for a fat boy, surgically removed fat, harvested the excess skin and grafted it on the burn victim. The parents of the fat boy were not amused. He was asked to leave the hospital and joined the army to fight Indians and chase Mexican bandits as a medical officer. Later, he met Roosevelt (I think he married Roosevelt’s sister), and the rest is history.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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Chicken, you shook loose a dynamite story.
Back in the day, prospectors met in St. Louis to gather supplies for their trek out west. Typically, 1/3rd more mules were purchased than needed due to expected loses from climbing the Rocky Mountains.
One such prospector ran out of feed for his mules at the base of the Rocky Mountains, and reasoned that dynamite was mostly cellulose and should be OK for use as animal feed. To his amazement, he did not lose a single animal. Upon his arrival, he telegraphed back to his friends to purchase fewer mules (expensive) and purchase more dynamite (cheap). A doctor in St. Louis heard about the falling price for mules, and started to give nitroglycerin to his heart patients.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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I think the wrap item is interesting, but I’m okay with what I have. Looking through all the posts to catch up, and I’ll like to see what roasting my violin at a low temp will do.
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I mean roasting the bridge. Oh I should post that by the other message but can’t find that now. my Violin came new from Amazon without an antiqued bridge their I don’t know if this is to just improve the look or sound?
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Hello jill75. This thread has gone off the track so far now a new more posts will not make much difference. It is not unusual for a luthier to put a dab of oil (or concentrated water color) paint on a shop rag and apply it to a bridge for aesthetics. Burnt sienna comes to mind. Taking off the bridge to home roast it is very easy if you follow the instructions located elsewhere on the forum (search Roasted Bridge), but mind the sound post so that it does not fall over (search DIY sound post bungee clamp). I don’t know of any violin supplier doing it commercially.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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Thanks Irv. My violin looks antique, and bridge looks New however so I like the idea of try to antique it. I’ll look for that original msg.
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Hi Chicken, and others. Another story about explosives.
Back in the 1850s, it was pretty well known by the intelligent that the US was headed to a civil war, and chemists felt than any explosive more powerful than black powder was a potential gold mine.
Unprocessed wool in a funnel was extensively used as a filtering media in chemical laboratories. A letter to the editor of a period Scientic American provided a warning that unprocessed wool should not be used to filter nitrate solutions. The unfortunate writer of the letter did this, and blew off his hand when he later picked up the flask.
The letter had an unsuspected consequence. Months after it’s publication, the population of chemists was decimated in their attempts to create nitroglycerin.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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1,2,3-trinitroxypropane, black powder is dangerous stuff. Tannerite is much, much safer.
There are a lot of hog versus tannerite videos, but I am not into the needless killing or wasting a food source with so many people going hungry for the holidays. Can't stand, despise, the mistreatment of animals and people.
SO ENJOY THIS PUMPKIN MASSACRE!!!!!!!!
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The “dial a weld” spot welder came in today. The Bakelite plastic fuse holder was broke in several pieces (age), which is the likely cause of the sale of the welder. An easy fix. I also ordered a spare capacitor ($10), although I don’t know the rating of the resistor placed across one of the leads, and a strain relief for the power cord.
The telephone rotary dial was stuck, but a few drops of 3/1 oil on the gear spindles and a few spins resolved that.
When the paddles are pressed down, they make contact with a micro switch. Perhaps this is an arming switch to power up the capacitor?
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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Will be interesting to see if it works Irv. 
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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Should start to hum as soon as you turn it on, that is the capacitor charging. The microswitch should be like a trigger. All of this is should be because I haven't seen or been electrocuted by it.
Spot weld is extremely fast. Engage the product, engage the trigger for a second or 2, done. when you play with it, you want to see if it is automatic. like with a timed switch. If not you burn up a couple pieces of wire and stick the electrodes together. just brush the carbon off the electrodes, or sand them, good as new. If it is automatic, you are in the big time. you dial it in to where you are getting a perfect spot. allow a short amount of time to cool down another perfect spot. to big a hurry you have to adjust the heat up and you lose the first piece you weld too. You are about to enter production mode.
I was looking at my tips to see what might be useful, and what caught my eye was the copper tips on the plasma cutter. they are quite a bit thicker than mig tips. I no longer have mic gauges but they should be listed with the part on amazon, maybe ebay too. worth checking into if you can't find original replacements for your machine.
Congratulations.
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Hi Chicken. Where do I start.
I am still concerned with the 6,000 F melting temp of tungsten. I have thin tin strip used to connect batteries. If I put a piece of that tin under the tungsten wire, I might be able to braze the tin to the tungsten using the welder.
Taking off the cover, there is a four position rotary switch on the left hand side. Under the switch is a big potentiometer. As previously mentioned, there is a micro switch under the paddle. On the right hand side is the phone rotary dial. Under the dial is a linear electrical gauge. The only other two items in the box is a Sprague 400-480 MFD 110 V 60 Cy capacitor and a fist sized coil. Everything is clean with no welding dust. Fortunately, the item is new enough to have a third electrical wire for chassis earth ground. The welding terminal leads are heavy duty braided copper ribbon.
I just purchased a hunk of 1/2” diameter copper rod to secure the copper wire. I already have a machine lathe, so that part is easy.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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Let's forget the easy questions and jump straight to this one. Tin melts at 450 so will you be able to get a bond that is more than superficial to the tungsten? Probably not. Tin goes poof, tungsten will still be cold. Will this machine be able to get to 6200? It should if came it came from jewelry making. Tungsten and carbon steel and chromium have become popular in recent years.
if you have a tig rod, use that in place of the tin, heat it up and beat it flat.
For best welds, you heat up your metal slowly with a torch or something, this stops stress cracks. Should also work with the tungsten and reduce the amount of electricity needed, lessen the time also. I know you know that tungsten is brittle. it will shatter. Look up the four properties of strength. Compressive Strength, Tensile Strength, Yield Strength, and Impact Strength. It'll go into detail in discussion of comparisons.
In spots, there are no filler materials normally, just melting the material to hold itself. If you have a filing cabinet or metal desk, you will see spot welds all over it to the inside.
Anyway, the only sure way to get a hold using tungsten, is to use tungsten as your filler. otherwise you have to trick the tungsten into melding with steel and those joints work but not permanently because of the high difference of the atomic structure. Use a flux core liquid like you would in soldering and you should be ok.
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Or you try to simply solder, no pressure other than spring tension. Might work.
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This is another welding application using cobalt. intended for saw blades, it might serve your purpose.
The prepared tip has a surface prepared with something such as cobalt. This pure cobalt surface is fairly magnetically responsive. The steel heats up fastest but the tip also heats up as well. The difference here is the amount of heat transference from the steel to the tip. The steel then flows onto and around the tungsten carbide part. The steel alloys with the cobalt on the surface. It forms a very strong bond.
There are several problems. Braze alloy does more than join parts. It also acts as a shock absorber to keep the part from breaking. Brazing is also a better technology for the production of custom saws in limited quantities.
Welding tungsten carbide is used two ways. It is used in the production of inexpensive tungsten carbide tipped, circular saws for the handyman market. It is also used to make tungsten carbide tipped band saws.
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Chicken, this welder was designed to weld orthodontic Beta titanium (TMA) wire used to make the old type of braces. The wire I want to use is 99+ % tungsten, with a diameter of 0.010 inch. I am assuming that the welder uses low voltage DC with a lot of current, since the bare electrodes would arc if high voltage is used. I plan to place the copper electrodes about 1/8” apart, using a cone on one electrode and the other tilted flat to match the shape of the stick.
One thing of benefit regarding heat is that tungsten is not that good of a conductor (I think that it is a component of the wire wrapped around mica used in a resistance toaster).
Thing I forgot to mention before. It looks like the welder has some sort of a heat sinked transistor. I think that the relays on the rotary dialer trigger the transistor, which pulse the weld current. Elegant in a 1950’s way.
I might be able to preheat a bit with a tiny butane torch, but I kind of want to bathe area in Argon to reduce oxidation and to keep wood from scorching.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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Interesting experiment trying to well tungston on a fiddle bow, just a thought, a drop of thin CA glue should keep the tungston wire from unraveling if the welding procedure fails, I believe the CA glue will adhere to it.
Mark
Master the Frog and you have mastered the bow.
Albert Sammons
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