At Home In The Woods

[CurlyDave]

Will that hole saw cut through 1/4" steel plate?

A hole saw is your best bet for cutting a 3/4" hole in 1/4" steel. If I were doing it in my shop, I would step up a notch in quality from the Kobalt hole saws shown and get a Bi-Metal Milwaukee, Blu-Mol, or even a Lenox. Use lots of cutting lube on the hole saw and a 1/2" drill with low RPMs. Use light feed pressure and see what happens.

If you have a grinder and want to increase your odds of success slightly, use a 1/4" drill to make the pilot hole and replace the drill in the center of the hole saw with a piece of 1/4" solid rod. You will need to grind a flat spot on it to simulate the flat spot in the pilot drill in the hole saw. This way you are not using the pilot drill as both a drill and a guide.

 

[clemsonfor]

When I get around to welding my ball mount to the box blade, I am going to need to drill at least a 3/4" dia. hole in 1/4" thick steel for a 2" ball. I've looked at some step drills for doing the task. I just don't know if I will be able to successfully drill that big of a hole through 1/4" steel with my Dewalt hand drill. Here's a pair of cheap step drills at HF.





Do you guys have any experience with these? Or do you have any suggestions on how I can drill the hole?

Guy at work and his son have n use them and say they are good, but there not useing them on something like a boxblade!!

Your whole wishlist from HF can cost $400!!

Where did a bunch of posts go? **poof**

Im suprised a mod would delete them? Unless someone complained and i dont think Obed did? Usually a Mod will only remove something if it was talking ploitics or "BAD" about someone. Yalls few posts back and forth were no more off topic than anything we see on any other thread and there was nothing bad??? One guy was commenting on anothers workmanship??

EDIT: ok i looked back, i was thinking you (Jay) and the other guy who were commenting on your work were the posts deleted? I guess i missed what was actually deleted.

 

[ruralruss]

My Shopping/Wish List

Drill Press
Radial Saw or Miter Saw
Bench Grinder
Bench Vise
Welding magnets
Safety goggles
Wire wheel for angle grinder
10" drop hitch
2 inch hitch ball Qty=2

Most programmers don't even know what any of those are!

 

[radioman]

Yours welds are getting there. I think you are just not watching the relationship of the puddles and not weaving. As for the blowout spot - next time when you try to fill it- do a "tack" and wait. let weld cool off so its not red anymore - then tack on the weld a bit more moving over a hair to hole on the weld. wait for it to cool. This way when doing thin metal and the welder is welding too "hot" you can fill in the hole. I done it this way. Its a learning process - you are doing fine and doing the learning curve. I wouldn't hesitate to turn welder on high and do your cracks on your implements now.
The step drills from HF, I have them and used it in wood, thin metal. Its worth having. Theres so many projects that pop up taht makes me glad having step drills in my arsenal. If you are on a budget and need a large drill bits for the time being - getting silver and deming from harbor freight in the wooden case is a good start. Use lots of oil when drilling like giving it a bath will be fine. Those large drill bits will give you an opportunity to learn how to sharpen drill bits on a bench grinder by hand to understand how to do little ones. Like curly says - getting a quality hole saw is a great investment when the time arises by running to a local HW store- not from HF for large holes in thicker metal. Take a lesson from me the hard way.

 

[dave1949]

Now, about this tractor shed, Obed. :laughing:

My tractor garage/work shop is 28x48 and my 6' bush hog is sitting outside. I was doing okay until I got the Ram 3500 with a 12' bed on it, then it is was game over. One thing that can save a lot of floor space, and maybe an additional overhead door, is to put tractor attachments and other heavy things on dollies. You can shuffle things seasonally without hitching up, store them in a smaller area, and it makes the hitching up a lot easier too.

I have an 8' snowplow for the truck, 6" chipper, table saw, and 6' 3pt snow blower on dollies. I should build dollies for the backhoe attachment too. It is a real floor hog with the subframe sticking out about 5'.

Custom dollies are excellent welding projects.

 

[Beltman60]

Obed

well got to tell you I got hooked on this thread 2 weeks ago and had to read the whole thing
I think you need to be commended on posting the good with the bad and having a backbone to make your own discisions after other posters imput
It makes ordinary people want to try different things that are out of there confort zone after reading a thread like this

as far as your welds you aren't too far off of getting it as good as it gets with what you have
like some posters have said with a but weld you need a good chanfer on both pcs. and zig zag from one side to the other as you move down your weld If it doesn't hold grind and redo it just don't be afraid of it

as far as burning green wood
I noticed you pay electric of $120 regardless of usage
I would use the heatpump more and only start a fire when the temps get below 28-30 deg
that way you minimize burning your green wood and use the electric that your paying for anyway
If you continue to burn maybe make it a habit to bi-monthly clean your flue (given the pix you have shown)
you have a lovely daughter and a keeper wife that I would hate to put in harms way

I believe you have been blessed and have blessed us here by your posts

PLEASE keep it going

Beltman60

 

[clemsonfor]

Thats because he i assume or remember right is on budget billing, and pays that becasue he uses his wood stove/fireplace. If he were to use the heatpump more then that would go up each month next year to a higher number.

Next year the wood wont be as bad and the year after that even better. takes a good 2 seasons in this climate to get green wood to a decent state, esp oak.

 

[Beltman60]

I believe it's his min payment to his power provider for them to run his electric from the street to his house
he has to pay that for 5 years then it is whatever he uses
I think Obed said he uses about $80/ month in actual electric
I would use the extra $40 of electric if I had to pay for it
then in 5 years he will have seasoned wood and not have his his problem that he has now
I would run the air conditioner more also if I have to pay for the electric
it would help keep the moisture out of his nice floors

 

[Obed]

Obed

well got to tell you I got hooked on this thread 2 weeks ago and had to read the whole thing

Welcome the thread Beltman60. Thanks for the kind words.

It makes ordinary people want to try different things that are out of there confort zone after reading a thread like this

Well, the guys on this thread have helped me try things I might not have otherwise attempted. The welding is an example of that. Until clemsonfor told me I should just get my own cheap welder and watch YouTube, I didn't realize that you can learn to do some simple basic welding on your own.

as far as burning green wood I noticed you pay electric of $120 regardless of usage
I would use the heatpump more and only start a fire when the temps get below 28-30 deg
that way you minimize burning your green wood and use the electric that your paying for anyway
If you continue to burn maybe make it a habit to bi-monthly clean your flue (given the pix you have shown)

You are right, burning wood in our current situation isn't really cost effective at this point. After we have been in the house 2 1/2 more years, the minimum monthly electric bill goes away and burning wood could save us some money. In reality, we burn wood because we enjoy it. Also, I think I've finally gotten to the place where I will be able to burn 12+ months seasoned wood going forward. Next year's supply is cut and split. I want to start working on the following year's wood soon.

 

[Obed]

A hole saw is your best bet for cutting a 3/4" hole in 1/4" steel. If I were doing it in my shop, I would step up a notch in quality from the Kobalt hole saws shown and get a Bi-Metal Milwaukee, Blu-Mol, or even a Lenox. Use lots of cutting lube on the hole saw and a 1/2" drill with low RPMs. Use light feed pressure and see what happens.

CurlyDave,
This evening I stopped at Lowes and bought this 1" hole saw for $10.



I tried to buy some cutting oil at Lowes but found out that Lowes doesn't stock this stuff even though Lowes shows this stuff for $4 on their web site. If I order this stuff from their web site, they will charge $4 + $6 shipping. I would almost rather burn up a $10 bit than do that.



Grainger locally has some cutting oil for $25. However, $35 for cutting oil and hole saw starts making me want to just take the metal to a shop and pay someone else to cut the hole. I'll have to see if I can find some cheap cutting oil, just enough for my one hole.

I'm tempted to just use chainsaw bar oil.

Obed