What's going on in your shop? Show us whats going on, and talk a bit about your work!

Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
I don't post here much but wanted to share my "new little friend".
It is an Orion 150s tig welder.
It does so many different welding protocols it is amazing. It energizes on auto-touch detect, or on the foot pedal.
You can set the waveform, agitation in the weld, number of pulses per second, type of weld (arc, tack, basic, etc.), power from 1 joule to 150 joules, and many more parameters. It stores 1000 weld parameters for instant recall, touchscreen, has instructive video on-screen, you select the metal being welded, is WI-FI, OH Yeah ... and has an auto-darkening microscope!

The round button at the tip of the sheath is a tip protector as the tungsten electrodes are needle sharp and range between .05mm and 1mm.

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That looks amazing Stacy... What kinds of things can you weld with it? It looks like it's for smaller items?
 
It will weld from 36-gauge wire (size of a hair) to around 4mm. At that point I would use my shop TIG unit.
It can weld stainless steel and pretty much every other metal.

The biggest advantage is a powerful weld in a specific place without affecting things around it. I can weld a ring on a pearl brooch without unmounting all the pearls. Same for welding the ring shut on a spring ring clasp. using a torch would destroy the temper on the spring.

Besides all sorts of jewelry related repairs and ring sizing, I will use it to repair watch bands, weld up small tools, repair stainless kitchen gadgets, attach pins and posts on metal things that could not take any heat.

In knifemaking it could weld a bolster on a knife that was heat treated. It could attach a stud for a removable handle or weld an extension on a tang. It could tack weld things together for a brazing task to be finished with a torch. I could see it being useful for assembling complex sword hardware like a basket hilt. I will probably use it to do seamless guard fitting, too. I could weld a tight-fitting guard on a hardened blade without harming the blade or handle. Same for welding up a pommel on the tang.

It can be used to weld up open spots and incomplete welds on a damascus blade after HT, or fill in a pit on a forged blade.

Another thing that can be done is removing the sheath from the microscope arm and hand holding it like a normal TIG torch. I have auto-darkening glasses that are sitting on the unit in the photo for things where you need to get the TIG needle in an odd place or move the tip in a seam weld, not the workpiece.
When someone is watching me weld with this, I hand them the glasses to protect their eyes. At 1-10 joules, it isn't much of a spark, but it gets intense at 20-150 joules.

I have a little Orion 20 that does great for simple jump ring welds and small jewelry welds but is nothing like this. The difference between the two is like the difference between a Home Depot push-type power mower and John Deere tractor with a PTO mower deck and attachments.

These aren't cheap. The Orion 20 is $2500 the 150s is $6000, and the 200s is $8500. They go up to $15,000. Honestly, the 150 is so much more than the 20 the quadruple price is not in proportion to the increase in usefulness and value. It does about 20 times what the smaller unit does.
Sunstone (the manufacturer) offers a $30 a month Forever Warranty called the Circle Protection Plan that is well worth it. A dollar a day for 100% protection and repair/replacement is a no brainer. They even send you a loaner while yours is being repaired or replaced. It also comes with a subscription to Mocro-Welder Today, advanced user tutorials/videos, as well as some perks and SWAG.
 
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Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
It will weld from 36-gauge wire (size of a hair) to around 4mm. At that point I would use my shop TIG unit.
It can weld stainless steel and pretty much every other metal.

The biggest advantage is a powerful weld in a specific place without affecting things around it. I can weld a ring on a pearl brooch without unmounting all the pearls. Same for welding the ring shut on a spring ring clasp. using a torch would destroy the temper on the spring.

Besides all sorts of jewelry related repairs and ring sizing, I will use it to repair watch bands, weld up small tools, repair stainless kitchen gadgets, attach pins and posts on metal things that could not take any heat.

In knifemaking it could weld a bolster on a knife that was heat treated. It could attach a stud for a removable handle or weld an extension on a tang. It could tack weld things together for a brazing task to be finished with a torch. I could see it being useful for assembling complex sword hardware like a basket hilt. I will probably use it to do seamless guard fitting, too. I could weld a tight-fitting guard on a hardened blade without harming the blade or handle. Same for welding up a pommel on the tang.

It can be used to weld up open spots and incomplete welds on a damascus blade after HT, or fill in a pit on a forged blade.

Another thing that can be done is removing the sheath from the microscope arm and hand holding it like a normal TIG torch. I have auto-darkening glasses that are sitting on the unit in the photo for things where you need to get the TIG needle in an odd place or move the tip in a seam weld, not the workpiece.
When someone is watching me weld with this, I hand them the glasses to protect their eyes. At 1-10 joules, it isn't much of a spark, but it gets intense at 20-150 joules.

I have a little Orion 20 that does great for simple jump ring welds and small jewelry welds but is nothing like this. The difference between the two is like the difference between a Home Depot push-type power mower and John Deere tractor with a PTO mower deck and attachments.

These aren't cheap. The Orion 20 is $2500 the 150s is $6000, and the 200s is $8500. They go up to $15,000. Honestly, the 150 is so much more than the 20 the quadruple price is not in proportion to the increase in usefulness and value. It does about 20 times what the smaller unit does.
Sunstone (the manufacturer) offers a $30 a month Forever Warranty called the Circle Protection Plan that is well worth it. A dollar a day for 100% protection and repair/replacement is a no brainer. They even send you a loaner while yours is being repaired or replaced. It also comes with a subscription to Mocro-Welder Today, advanced user tutorials/videos, as well as some perks and SWAG.
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Woooow that sounds amazing! So cool!
 
I wanted to post this blade split down the middle. I've never seen it happen like that. I quenched and did cryo. Then I let it warm up over night and forgot about it. I should have tempered it right away, but I came back and found this.

After thinking about it, it was cold rolled 52100. Could it have been something that happened during cold rolling that contributed to that? Besides the fact I didn't temper it right away. IMG_20221031_224926485.jpg
 
Just packaged up a batch in S90V and Z-max to ship to Peters' for HT. Missed the post office by 15 minutes!
 
got me some handles mostly squared away- on to the sheaths!
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bought a used heat treat oven that looked to be hardly used for only $385 shipped to my door. Its interior dimensions are only 8" wide x 8" deep x 7" high but i don't make knives longer than 8" anyway... I tested it with a Nicety Dt1311 k-type thermometer and runs about 25 degrees high when set to 1450 degrees. The coils are imbeded in the walls and i kinds prefer that over my brothers evenheat 18" kiln. I made 2 small knives from some scrap 1095 pieces i had laying around to test it and it worked perfectly. I did 3 thermocycling runs at 1475 for 5 minutes each then one more last soak at 1475 for 5 minutes before quenching in parks 50.
https://imgur.com/OS6JORo
https://imgur.com/FpGv6F6
https://imgur.com/n6XRNtK
https://imgur.com/c4z6fUJ
 
Did not want to post this before because I don't have the badge level to talk about my social networks.
I raffled these to celebrate my 10 years as a knifemaker last week, one on instagram and the other on twitter.

14c28n stainless, micarta and maple burl handles and laser textured and cut sheaths by yours trully.

Pablo

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