Hello, i am an artist. I have an idea for a promotional marketing plan that involves this glorious beast. You guys are the experts- Am I being too ambitious? Is this a practical project? What would you charge? Please be brutally honest with your opinion on cost and practicality. I appreciate your time and feedback. No feedback is bad, I am looking to have this made in the future. No this isn’t a joke, and it’s not made from gold

Another winter without power is coming to Ukraine. As the cold season approaches once again, we have a challenge: build as many stoves as fast as possible, as cheap as possible. Using scrap metal, pieces of bikes, and other junk we find, used gas cylinders we race to make as many as possible. It's a fun challenge trying to do everything as cheap and fast as possible since we have to make all our own tooling, like the sheet metal roller on picture 5. 🔥

I need to make a lot and i mean a lot of half moon "holes" at the edge of 1/8" metal. Annular cutter with mag drill will do the job but leaves lots of burrs which will take lots of time to clean up. I need to do this in place, edge will be vertical and have about 1.5" clearance on back side.

I know you creative suns of guns in this forum can come up with something genius! Thanks for your help.

Edit: Just to clarify these pieces of steel are already in place and cannot be moved or refabricated so I am stuck working on a vertical surface and having to move the cutting tool from piece to piece.

Any advice or resources on casting roundstock would be greatly appreciated.

I work at a manufacturing company so I have an endless amount of scrap steel/stainless/aluminum I could take home and melt down.

When I was researching aluminum casting I kept seeing people add silicon for a better finish, but if I'm machining it does that matter? Will there be empty spots inside? I eventually plan on casting more complex parts then cutting them down to save time and materials, is that a bad idea without adding silicon?

I haven't bought any casting supplies yet so reccomendations on needed supplies for primarily aluminum casting would also be appreciated.

Thank you for your responses.

Hey everyone!

I'm currently diving deep into metallurgy and rolling mill production, and I'm looking to build up a solid reference library. I would really appreciate your best textbook recommendations on rolling mill theory, plastic deformation, and general metal forming processes.

I am particularly interested in resources that cover both fundamental mechanics and practical engineering calculations—things like:

• Roll bite mechanics, grip angles, and contact stress distribution
• Pass design, reduction schedules, and metal spread/forward slip calculations
• Force, torque, and power parameters for hot and cold rolling mills
• Plasticity theory, yield criteria, and strain hardening models

Whether it is standard academic textbooks, classic industry monographs, or specialized theoretical works, I’d love to hear which books or authors have been the most valuable in your studies or professional work.

Additionally, what are the best digital archives, databases, or online technical libraries you rely on to find technical books, research papers, or out-of-print manuals on these topics? I already use platforms like Google Books and standard publisher databases, but I’d welcome tips on where engineers and researchers usually search for full-text material, academic papers, or obscure engineering literature.

If you have any favorite titles—whether classics from authors like Hosford, Caddell, Wusatowski, or Tselikov, or modern reference books on flat and section rolling—please drop the titles and authors in the comments!

Thanks a lot in advance for your help and recommendations!

I had a 1” aluminum part laser cut through Xometry. What is best practice at getting rid of the laser cut marks on the sides? This is a 21” x 21” part. I have power sanders on hand, but was wondering if tools like surface conditioning tools are used for this process? It doesn’t really bother me, just wondering what it would take to smooth this out completely and what is usually done by most shops.