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When I was attending the college where I currently work, it was surrounded by cornfields. The same fields are still there, but nowadays they rotate between corn and soybeans.

Yeah, I suppose it had something to do with being surrounded with cornfields.

You probably surrounded by fields! The only "fields" around us were either truck farms, orchards or vacant lots. My graduating class was 1,013 and those were the ones who graduated. Deb and I were visiting her Sister who lives about 6 blocks from where I used to work in Burbank and her son's girlfriend now wife graduated from my old high school, Sylmar Hi. Her graduating class was close to 3,600 but it had been split for the last semester and her graduation was held over 3 days. When I found out Thom the minion of Thomas, grew up maybe 3-4 blocks from where I lived in Sylmar I took a look at satellite pics of the old place and school. Sylmar high used to take up a 4 block lot site, in the mean time it had absorbed the park's 4 blocks and Olive Vista Jr. high's maybe 4 block site. And that was just N-S, it had expanded at least one block E-W too. IIRC my old high school was surrounded by 3-4 much larger than my old one Jr. highs and there are larger middle and high schools in the valley. It was really hard to grasp how much it had changed in the 53 years since I moved here. Anybody out there who wants a little shell shock check out your old neighborhood if you've been away a couple few decades! Heck, there's a good chance I used to ride horses with Thom's grandmother! Frosty The Lucky.

Yeah, making the front wheels turn like an automobile is more stable but holy COW is it more complicated. We used to build go karts in high school shop class and getting them to steer properly was always a challenge. I never built one of my own but I helped on a few. A way to make the entire axle stable turning is to put bearing plates at the pivot point. One connected to the top (cart) and the other attached to the axle. A zirk fitting to give the space between a shot of grease every once in a while makes it pretty functional. Frosty The Lucky.

Things have changed. My schooling was in a town with 360 people. It might be why I did not learn properly. We had NO field trips.

High school sure has changed since I graduated, field trips for us were an evening at the theater (The Mikado) or the athletic field to watch the school balloon club launch a package. Yeah, walking to the athletic field was counted as a field trip. Are your students in an exceptional group or are you guys just really lucky? Thanks for the look Jono. Frosty The Lucky.

Send you to meet your maker. I carry a pen.

Were the yellow jackets all holding the same chainsaw, or did they each have their own?

Yellow jackets are a bane and a sting can put you on your butt sensitive or not. We had a number of nests around here but one day while clearing some ground near the house I found myself in a swirling mass of angry yellow jackets holding a running chainsaw. The smoke pushed them back a ways and they didn't come back but I was still in the swirl. While looking for a clearish direction to take out I noticed the ground nest maybe two steps back. I was less than 6' from a nest I'd stomped on with a tree and they were really angry. I'd never been stung by a wasp but "knew" that 25 or so can kill and I was looking at a couple hundred. Smoke from the saw was just barely keeping them off me but I was screwed. Then I had a brainstorm, took the bottle of mix gas out of my shoulder tool bag and squirted maybe 1/4c on the nest opening. They stopped coming out and any that landed near the nest went all quivery and died. I knew of a couple more nests and tried a squirt of gas on them and it worked WAY better than wasp and hornet spray so that's how I've dealt with yellow jacket nests for the last 25 years. Ones that build a paper nest in a tree, eves, etc. succumb to a squirt of WD40 or another penetrating oil spray. Just get it on the nest and it dies quickly. Once again better than wasp / hornet spray. Thinking you're going to die PAINFULLY makes you creative. Frosty The Lucky.

The drain tube was leaking on the floor. I tore out the trim and headliner and all assorted pieces from the door bottom to the drain hole up top, only to find somebody perviously fixed it with a splice sealed with electrical tape right near the where it goes down the front windshield support thing. I broke every push in plastic fastener, in the process. Bad enough they design this stuff not to be worked on, but worse when somebody "fixes" it previously. It's a Ford Explorer, I suppose that has something to do with it.

The closest I've ever been to a screw machine was helping the people who bought Dad's shop building move their's in. Dad new them, heck he knew most everybody and I'd met the new owner a time or two myself. I've only ever seen one in operation in online videos and that isn't very informative regarding operating one. What I could see looked like a clockwork machine, lots of set up but once it's running, keep it fed and watch for problems. Having set up work in lathes and mills I realized setting a screw machine up was WAY more demanding. Even if you get to kick back and sip coffee once its doing it's job, nothing is ever that simple. While I can find the front of my lathe and do basic operations I've never called myself a machinist and never had the job. Used a lathe at work yes, but never a machinist. Frosty The Lucky.

I have a suspicion that the caffeine will only make them sentient.... Have you tried an atom bomb or perhaps death laser? In all seriousness, I have never tried, because yellow jackets are God's curse for man's hubris. I hate them so much. They nest in our ground next to the septic tank and cause me royal grief when I try to weedwhack. Perhaps someone with a entomological bent will try it and get back to us?

Thanks for sharing. That sounds like it was a fun field day, Juno. My daughter just took a class to Washington, DC. No iron work photo's though. She was close to me but we could not arrange a visit. I'm not an expert but those doors look pretty thick and substancial..

Does it work on yellow jackets? I'm allergic.

Scott, preach. Rest in peace, 1994 Chevy Lumina.

One time when I was younger, I applied for a machinist job, thinking my hobby knowledge would serve me well, but it was a pump manufacturer and I was out of my element and failed badly. They hired me with the promise of easing me in but that went out the window in short order (and I know perfectly why and it's understandable, in hindsight). I could cut small gears on my own equipment, doing the calculations and building my own fixtures, but that was with no pressure, time line, and no-one looking over my shoulder in my basement shop.

It is the time of the year in Maryland where the wood bees and mosquitos come out and love to harass innocent blacksmiths- but I have a solution! go to the store, buy a bag of espresso ground coffee, add some to a dish (it will get very stained, so a metal dish or ceramic dish you don’t care about) and light it on fire like incense. the smell is bearable, but bugs hate it. It can clear out a 20x20 shop easy, and it burns steadily depending on how much you have.

Doo dad works Billy. Back in Nebraska we used to say geegaws or just contraption. I haven't heard the lingo for it here yet but I bet it's colorful. It's just a fun thing I collected and on my doo dad tool shelves. Actually, Doodads was the name of a snack chip brand back in the 70's or 80's. You could not stop after just one unless the salt killed you.

Yes it is a screw machine. Davenport model B. I think the ones we have were built in the 70's and 80's. No electronic controls except for the button that turns the motor on. Adjustments are made by tweeking a deadstop or swing arm. However the new tooling for these things helps tremendously. We use carbide inserts now instead of the old circular or dovetail tooling. Change an insert and vary rarely do you even have to make an adjustment. I must also admit that tight of a tolerance is usually only one or 2 of the dimensions, the rest i usually get +/- .002 or .003 on. One job i run has a +/- of .005" on the tightest, i love that job. I can sit on my but and watch cat videos when i run it. I am hoping that soon i will not be doing that anymore though. My foreman wants me to move into the tool room to take over for our tool maker who will be retiring soon. Our tool maker and engineer are also both trying to get the GM to give me the nod as well. Since the first time i ever set foot in a machine shop that is where i wanted to work.

Never buy a vehicle with a sun/moon roof. Unless it's under warrenty.

I agree with the others. Well done. Just in case you do something similar with the bars through the frame, if you don't want the welds to show, drill the frame and put the bars through with the bars being just inset from the frame, then you can plug weld the bars in the holes and grind the welds flush. I have also used the hole technique to weld other shaped pieces to another piece so the attachment point wouldn't look welded. Not saying I see an issue with how you did it on this piece.

I will be interested in the periodicals, although I know you said you have yet to try it. Maybey missed something. It would be great to list articles of interest instead of all those pesky little torn paper marks and bad memory. You would know right where to look. I may have to ditch android finally.

I have said it before, but I always like your creative style and this one is up there. Thought provoking and very nice.

That is a deeply evocative piece. I agree that the welds being imperfect fit the idea of a jail - unless its meant to be a window? But it captures the unexpectedness of loss and longing, no time to perfect the cage that holds us back...

That sounds like a screw machine with electronic controls. When were they built? I don't think any of Dad's lathes, punch presses, shears, etc. were designed in the last century, most were built before 1930 except the newest one built sometime during WWII. Dial indicators were new fangled but he was converting. I THINK I can still read a vernier but it's been quite a while. I'd love to have laser instrumentation but will probably not do enough lathe work to justify any. Frosty The Lucky.