LawnJockey

If I do name my forging antics it will be Blasarius Forge.  It is sort of a play on my legal background, my being a pyro and my being a bit of a trouble maker.

Thank you for posting this info.

What type of wood are you using?

The little guy was a bark scorpion, I got a picture of him.  What happened is I was putting the railing back on my flat trailer after unloading some equipment.  It was jaming so I picked up a chunk of wood and gave it a wack.  I got stung on the second wack.  The scorpion was hiding in a crack in the chunk of wood.  The shock of the second bow killed him but not before he let me know he was there.

Perhaps it was Karma for my "good snake" comment, I got stung by a bark scorpion on Friday.  I guess that was my official welcome to Phoenix.  For the first 16 hours it felt like I had a red hot railroad spike driven through my hand.  My whole body went numb except for the pain.  At the ER they filled me up with Percocets and that did nothing for the pain. Here it is two days later and my hand is still numb.  My wife went out Friday night with a black light and got 16 of the little monsters, and another 10 last night.  I am taking it easy dreaming up an appropriate flame thrower. 

That is what you call a good snake.

How is your project coming along?  I just picked up a 9" model B last week.  I got it from a guy that does estate sales.  It appears to have very little use.

I had it happen yesterday.  I wanted to thank everyone on the prayer request but was not allowed to.  So thanks everyone.

I hear you about restrooms travelling in China.  The worst I have seen was at the border crossing from Hong Kong into China proper.  After wading in I wished I hadn't.

I used to love bumming around 3rd world countries.  I would always seek out boat yards just to see how they were doing things.  What I found was that they found simple solutions to complex problems whereas we in the so called developed countries find complex solutions to simple problems.  Now tell me who is uneducated?

I will second what Thomas said about tires.  I had a tire failure carrying a way too heavy load of green rough sawn planking for my cabin on the freeway at 55mph.  My first mistake was not realizing how heavy the wet planking was.  My second mistake was thinking I could make it home to split the load in two so as to be able to make it to the cabin.  The trailer started swaying and then a tire blew.  I jack knifed at 55mph.  There was a hard impact and I thought I had totalled both the trailer and the tow vehicle.  Fortunately I had a heavy duty rear bumper on the tow vehicle so it was fine.  The professionally made trailer's frame had totally bent from the impact with the bumper and it was a total loss.  I ended up facing the oncoming traffic.  Due to some sort of miracle there just happened to be a gap in the traffic when the incident happened.  I could have easily been killed or worse, I could have taken out an innocent family.  Some chances are just not worth taking.

Thank you all.  He passed peacefully early this morning.  I spent the day working things out with lawyers and accountants and a lot of things were said.  One thing everyone argreed on was that being around him was never boring.  I had to go over to his place and pick up a couple of things for my wife late this afternoon.  On his desk there was a picture of him on top of some mountain, ice axe in hand, probably Nepal.  The photo was about 30 years old and he had the biggest smile I ever saw on his face.  I immediately thought that is the photo to use at the memorial.  I had every thing my wife requested and with the photo in mind I called her and asked if there was anything else she wanted me to pick up.  Her response was "Yes, there is this photo on his desk..."  It was one of those synchronistic events that happen now and then and somehow seemed perfectly fitting for the day.

Thanks again.

Thank you both.

My Father in Law is in hospice and is going to pass in the next day or so.  He is a very complicated man. Whether he just fades to nothingness or meets his maker I don't know. Whatever the present and future holds for him I hope he doesn't suffer.  He is what he is and all we can do is think of him with forgiveness. He could use a prayer or two.

DSW's comment brings to mind the concept of job costing.  Everybody tends to under estimate what it takes, labor, materials, consumables and overhead to perform a job.  The only way to mitigate this tendency is to keep notes everytime you work on the project.  At then end total up everything used including your time.  Don't be surprised if that 20 hour job really took 35.  It is all part of the learning experience.

The Salt Fork Craftsman website has all the contact info for Clay.  I picked up a set of plans from him a few months ago so the info was current at that time.  There is also his regular mailing address there.

You know what they say about big girls, more to love.

Just be glad the bottom edge of the photo is where it is.

Try it and report back.  I have seen videos of them being used forging hand held in Europe.  I think the biggest issue would be figuring out how to control it with enough finesse to be useful.  I have a 60lbs electric hammer and it is sort of an all or nothing type thing.  In my misguided youth we did use smaller "chipping guns" for all sorts of uses in the shipyard but again, hand held.

I tried to copy and paste a joke I received by email this morning but the pasted part didn't transfer.

Don't get me going....   Anyway, I have always believed Wavy Gravy had it just right when he said "Without a sense of humor life isn't funny".

Start off insulting his ancestry, the less PC the better. Then insult his intellect by telling him he should have listened when told not to sniff the solvent fumes.  Ask him when he is going to start his apprenticeship.  Then insult his wife and dog assuming they are not one in the same.  Then ask for a favor and tell him to hop to it.

What are you guys talking about?  It is all furrin to me.

The shooting comment reminded me of a time I was buying some land in New Mexico.  I asked the Realtor about shooting on the property and his response was great, "Just be careful, in New Mexico neighbors shoot back".  My kind of place.

When I lived at higher elevation I used to snow blow the whole neighborhood with the tractor mounted snow blower.  One neighbor complained because some small pebbles that were on the surface of the road ended up in her yard.  After that I did the whole neighborhood except near her house.  I know it was a character flaw but I smiled every morning I saw her out there shoveling away.

My neighbors are great.  In the past it always hasn't been so, that is before I learned the secret.  The secret is being a great neighbor yourself.  I am always ready to help a neighbor out.  I am always ready to help with heavy stuff, tractor tilling, trenching, etc.  I do handyman stuff for an infirmed neighbor.  I help out any way I can.  Since I have a shop and equipment stuff that is easy for me is a big deal to them.  Also I never run power equipment before 8:00am on weekdays, 9:00 on Saturdays and 10:00 on Sundays.  Being a good neighor is like putting money in the bank (these days even better).  You build up goodwill and when there is a problem it seems like a minor issue rather than turning not a Hatfield and McCoy situation.  In the 5 years I have been at our present location I have never had a complaint from anyone.

We are also in the process of moving to the Phoenix area.  For the near term we leased a place near Camel Back so we could get my son in the high school he wanted.  After we sell the place in California we will either buy or build.  Both AJ and Cave Creek are on the short list.