Forge Team Meeting 15/05/22

Teams Blacksmithing
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The next Blacksmithing & Casting Team Meeting will be held on the 15th May 2022 1pm. The meeting will be held physically on site and virtually on the Meetings voice channel in the HSBNE discord server.

As per HSBNE’s Teams Policy, any items requiring a vote must be posted here to allow for 5 days notice to the membership. Thus the deadline for agenda items with votable aspects for this meeting is midnight the Tuesday before. Any items posted after this deadline will not be able to be voted upon this meeting and tabled for the next meeting for discussion and team member voting. Any HSBNE member may attend the meeting, but only Blacksmithing & Casting Team members are able to participate in voting. There will be open member forging after the meeting.

Standing Agenda Items:
Checking of volunteer contract roles/tasks
General Business
Updates on Ongoing Projects
Updates on Machine Repairs & Minor Upgrades
Voting Items
Announcements

Agenda Items:
Reassessing team goals - short, medium and long term
Reassessing Team purchasing priorities
Reassessing Team consumables

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Getting a wooden stump for indenting soft metals and sheet metals. Eg, to make dents for a flower.

1 Like
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Make Fraser make more things because he is good at it.

2 Likes
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Hi Guys we have chatted a bit on these items already but good to get them on the offical goals list:

Plan for gas bottles, options for:
on account for bottle swap
better storage, fix/fab new cage (on wheels)

Tooling:
set of tools for each station
hardy tools (can some of these be started on power hammer and finished by other team members on thr grinder?)
hammers re-handled

Blackboard/whiteboard for wall

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Hi I have just rejoined after being away for a few years.

Some suggestions that I may be able to help with.

Re-lining of the forge with castable alumina refractory (add some zircon sand too) will last longer and heat up faster and hotter. I get this through total refractory management at slacks creek and zircon sand from currumbin minerals. With the right blend I have pushed furnaces up to 2000 degrees Celsius before.

Might even be worth making a few forges for when you run a class.

I don’t know what state of repair the old oil furnace is in but can help make a new one so we can cast metal. A big blast furnace on full noise always draws the crowd lol and would double as a heater for the quad.

Are many members interested in the casting side? I am happy to teach

Thanks nick

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Hi Nicholas

Dave seff has loaned his furnace to us for some time now. It is built out of a beer keg, and I am not aware it needs repaires. We don’t have an oil furnace any more. Dave’s furnace runs on deisle after warming up with lpg.

I don’t want to sound negative, however I don’t think there is anything to d on their. The furnace adequately melts aluminium, copper, and brass (which I boiled by accident once). But check in with Dave seff (molten aluminium) or Alex, they would have finer knowledge on all the above than my self :slight_smile:

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Hey Nick,

I would encourage you to come along to team meeting on Sunday if you would like get re-acquainted with the status of the blacksmithing & casting area. There’s a lot of detail around the forge & foundry that’s non-obvious and easier to explain in person.

On that note though, I’m sure you’re aware of the updated membership rates - if you are keen to join a team, volunteer some time each month to improve the foundry setup or another aspect of the blacksmithing & casting area, and qualify for the volunteer rates, I’m sure we can find an appropriate role for your skills and knowledge :slight_smile:

Alex

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Bins in Forge Area
Something we need to address as a team is the rubbish/recycling situation in the forge area. There is a tendency for people either using the forge area or passing through to use any upturned, bin shaped object as a bin, as well as placing heavy steel scrap in various bins in the forge area. This makes it difficult for us to empty the bins (because they are way too heavy to lift) as well as increases our environmental footprint by sending recyclable materials to landfill etc.

As such, I would like to propose we add the following to the Team’s purchasing priorities.
Three new 80L wheelie bins - one Red, one yellow, one green (lid or entire bin).
Label them as “general Waste”, “Cans/refundable deposit containers” (Anything where we can receive the 10c/ container) and “General Recycling”

I also would like us to acquire or build at least two, maybe three heavy duty stillage/scrap bins for various metals (mild steel, Stainless, aluminium/non-ferrous/other?) something similar to these 158L Heavy Duty Storage Box to keep metal out of the generic waste and recycling bins. Main requirements for these are: small enough that a fully loaded container can be lifted by our walker stacker/transported on a standard ute if needed, matching/stackable so they can be stored in a compact manner, steel so they can cope with hot metal/carry a high weight load/solid walls (not mesh) so small pieces of scrap don’t fall out.

The cheapest/fastest way to acquire some might be through grays or similar industrial auction site.

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More than happy to to help I can be there Sunday

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Excuse me a moment to infodump re bins?

We need to improve the site bins in general, replace busted lids, get more, etc etc. Metalshop also has a need for some manageable method of ‘steel goes here’ cos any bin like that gets unreasonably heavy very quick.

At one point we had scrappies keep a skip on site. We could do it again with a smaller unit in the bin area, but we would have to make sure people properly understand its for metal only. That way they come collect it for us (but we dont get paid for the scrap unless we bring it to them).

If we’re getting more bins, we should stick to the australian standard:

I don’t have a copy of that one currently but heres a ref image someone made:

image
image1920×1203 128 KB

I believe theres also a convention starting around purple lids for glass only.

Theres also some conventions for spill kits, they seem to be all yellow.

So colour wise, full colour bins for specialty purposes? The standard is mostly around black/green body and colored lid. All yellow for spill kit, All orange/brown/purple/black/white seem to be available in that they’re not on an existing standard/convention.

I would suggest orange/brown/white for cans & refundable deposit containers. Either full or just the lid.

We normally buy this stuff from PIP:
https://peopleinplastic.com.au/product-category/wheelie-bins/

We really should get some kind of bin lifter:
https://www.electrodrive.com.au/products/choosing-the-right-bin-lifter.aspx
https://www.backsafeaustralia.com.au/product-page/wheelie-bin-tipper-forklift-attachment
https://www.equipmentwarehousebrisbane.com.au/wheelie-bin-tippers-2

I proposed one about 5 years ago ($20k unit for $1k) but it got voted down. Lately feels like sentiment has changed.

Theres one in gladstone at the moment for an affordable price ($2k) but obv have to transport.

6hr drive each way, kinda rough. doable.

We could build one but its ‘yet-another-project’. Maybe @Zanshin could do some magic lol.

If we get some kind of not-wheelie-bin for scrap metal, we should make sure its compatible with some form of bin lifter.

One final thought, we originally went with 80L bins because they would fit under our benches at the time. that never eventuated. These days, i would probably opt for 120L, the next size up. especially if we had a lifter.

We should have no bins on site that don’t have wheels. Too hard to deal with them.

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Orange Lid for cans & refundable deposit containers sounds like a good plan, keeping yellow for mixed recycling. Then as needed the rest of the space can standardise/match this.

I agree the bin lifter would be great, but until then sticking with a smaller bin size helps keep them realistic for people to easily empty. Plus they are slightly more compact in the forge area - the amount of waste really shouldn’t be high enough to justify larger bins imo.

I had a quick look into this, and again my issue is the smallest one available for this type of service seems to be 1500L, weighing up to 2T or more when full, meaning we would have to have it picked up, plus having multiple bins for different metals would take up significant space. I was envisioning a stack of three bins in the corner type deal, which can easily be transported by us to get the scrap value, take up minimal footprint and allow for easy sorting of metal types (to streamline getting our monies worth at the scrappies). At the rate it appears to build up on site, it would be probably once every 2 month task to empty these small bins at most. Happy to share these scrap bins with the metal shop in the short term, and ideally have matching ones in both areas longer term. We could perhaps find/build some are both stackable and forklift tippable.

Whatever scrap bins we sort, I will ensure they are clearly labelled so people know that only specific materials go in them.

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Oh, i was thinking the scrappie bin would be in the bin area with the other skips etc, and we would have some kind of local to each working area scrap bin that would get emptied into it. Not sure if they need you to separate by type.

And yes, if you have the scrappie’s bin on site, they deliver/collect it but you dont get paid for the scrap. so its down to do you want the money or the convenience.

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Too much double handling imo, and difficult/dangerous to empty bins with steel into a larger scrap bin without a full featured forklift. Something small that is visible to the work area and doubles as a container for transport to the scrappies would be ideal.

With current finances, I’m sure there would be people willing to take bins to the scrappies for extra funds in their team budget. Separating by type lets us maximise scrap price paid out.

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Sure thing, if people are willing to make the trips then thats great. I just came off the back of talking to substation33 scheduling their pickups with us hence my thinking about making it not require member effort :slight_smile:

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Meeting Minutes:
Opened meeting 1:15pm

Checking of volunteer contract roles/tasks
All volunteers have completed their roles

Updates on Ongoing Projects
Swage Block stand estimated finished end of month

Updates on Machine Repairs & Minor Upgrades
Working with Beau to uprate the power cable for the power hammer to improve performance
need to machine a 1 degree taper on the replacement bottom pallet to finalise fitting it and tool holder.

Short Term:
Seal gap between covers
flashing along tops of containers.
Blackboard & chalk
Improving Tooling
Casting Station
Coke/charcoal Forge

Medium:
New (Propane) Forge build
New (waste oil) Forge Build
New Furnace build

Reassessing Team purchasing priorities
Plasti-dip for tool handles
HSBNE makers mark

Reassessing Team consumables
propane - Reminding people to pay regularly through Spacebucks
coke/charcoal - same deal

Closed Meeting 2:15pm