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Animation Versus the Anvil
May. 3rd, 2005 01:30 pmThe world of animation will never know that I DENTED my anvil to repair the school's cell punch.
I went to punch paper last night and discovered one of the springs was snapped, so I took the broken bit home to forge them a new one. Spring leafs are tricky things. Hard metal but if you change the temper (cool them too quickly or not quickly enough) they lose their springingess and become soft or brittle (usually brittle) I used to make locks for flintlock rifles so I'm no stranger to spring metal and this was an easy one. It was just a straight bit rather than a bent bit.
Sooo. I went to the hardware store for my tried and true trusty source of light grade spring steel. spackle knifes. Unfortunetely I couldn't find one near the width I wanted so I had to hack a rectangle out of one. More unfortunately, I didn't check the status of my hacksaw before heading to the store. (otherwise, old hacksaw blads are also a great source for light grade spring steel!) Got home, discovered my saw was really too dull to do the job so I switched to a nibbler tool. Once I stuck the handle though the key in my anvil and started using a hammer, it was a lot faster than a hacksaw. :)
Anvils also make great heat sinks when drilling holes in metal so I didn't even muck up the temper of the metal. Feelin' pretty good here. Of course the proof will be when I get to school and install the thing. :)
I went to punch paper last night and discovered one of the springs was snapped, so I took the broken bit home to forge them a new one. Spring leafs are tricky things. Hard metal but if you change the temper (cool them too quickly or not quickly enough) they lose their springingess and become soft or brittle (usually brittle) I used to make locks for flintlock rifles so I'm no stranger to spring metal and this was an easy one. It was just a straight bit rather than a bent bit.
Sooo. I went to the hardware store for my tried and true trusty source of light grade spring steel. spackle knifes. Unfortunetely I couldn't find one near the width I wanted so I had to hack a rectangle out of one. More unfortunately, I didn't check the status of my hacksaw before heading to the store. (otherwise, old hacksaw blads are also a great source for light grade spring steel!) Got home, discovered my saw was really too dull to do the job so I switched to a nibbler tool. Once I stuck the handle though the key in my anvil and started using a hammer, it was a lot faster than a hacksaw. :)
Anvils also make great heat sinks when drilling holes in metal so I didn't even muck up the temper of the metal. Feelin' pretty good here. Of course the proof will be when I get to school and install the thing. :)
