Needed some steel plate to make the engine mount adapter for the Binford 6000 Hydraulic Bender Project.
Didn't have anything suitable laying around. A neighbor who's every bit as much of a packrat as I am mentioned the other day that he had a YUGE stash of steel (He was on the State bridge maintenance crew for 25+ years) and I was free to come get anything I needed.
Drove up and...well...his definition of YUGE and mine are an order of magnitude or two apart, but he did have a good variety and I was able to dig out a suitable piece of 1/4 inch plate. Nasty, cratered (as opposed to pitted) and whoever torched it off was at about the same skill level as me when it comes to using a smoke ax. Ugly, in other words.
But hey, the price was right so...I lugged it home and fired up the plasma cutter and hacked out a piece big enough to make a finished piece 10x12. (My plasma skills are only marginally better than my torch skills...) Then I ground off the slag and marked out a piece with more-or-less square corners and trimmed it to size on my homey-made metal bandsaw. Makes a nice cut but I think I need to speed the blade up a tad. Slower than an IRS refund.
Then I wirebrushed the worst of the scale and rust off it and deburred the edges and corners on my homey-made belt sander.
Flopped it up on the table to mark out the shaft hole location and it did a pretty good imitation of a rocking chair, so I spent half an hour on the shop press flattening it as best as I could, then hole-sawed the 2-1/2 inch shaft hole on location.
All in all, I have about half a day of shop time invested to save myself the price of less than a square foot of plate. Good thing I'm retired...
Didn't have anything suitable laying around. A neighbor who's every bit as much of a packrat as I am mentioned the other day that he had a YUGE stash of steel (He was on the State bridge maintenance crew for 25+ years) and I was free to come get anything I needed.
Drove up and...well...his definition of YUGE and mine are an order of magnitude or two apart, but he did have a good variety and I was able to dig out a suitable piece of 1/4 inch plate. Nasty, cratered (as opposed to pitted) and whoever torched it off was at about the same skill level as me when it comes to using a smoke ax. Ugly, in other words.
But hey, the price was right so...I lugged it home and fired up the plasma cutter and hacked out a piece big enough to make a finished piece 10x12. (My plasma skills are only marginally better than my torch skills...) Then I ground off the slag and marked out a piece with more-or-less square corners and trimmed it to size on my homey-made metal bandsaw. Makes a nice cut but I think I need to speed the blade up a tad. Slower than an IRS refund.
Then I wirebrushed the worst of the scale and rust off it and deburred the edges and corners on my homey-made belt sander.
Flopped it up on the table to mark out the shaft hole location and it did a pretty good imitation of a rocking chair, so I spent half an hour on the shop press flattening it as best as I could, then hole-sawed the 2-1/2 inch shaft hole on location.
All in all, I have about half a day of shop time invested to save myself the price of less than a square foot of plate. Good thing I'm retired...