LawnJockey

Another option is to purchase old well pipe for the in the ground pieces and frame the structure like a pole barn.

A proper stand for the 300 pound HB I purchased from Frank.

I have one of those Alaskan Mills made by Granberg that attaches to my chain saw. I used it for cutting 1' x 12" x 10' planks and I was surprised how well it worked. I was cutting fir and after the first cut is done it took me about 10 minutes per plank. You use a ripping chain for these cuts. I think I paid about $250 for it and I am sure they can be found for half that used.

Do a search on "lathe counterbore" and I think you will find several options that could be used after drilling most of the hole with a standard bit.

In the early 90s I injured my left shoulder crashing my mt bike. It hurt for over two years. The a friend that does massage therapy told me he thought he could help. Apparently he knew his stuff, he applied a lot of pressure to a particular area for a few minutes and the pain was completely gone within a couple of days. It never came back. I also have disc problems in my neck and back. When the neck problem acts up I feel it in my shoulder and sometimes down my arm. Regular yoga exercises have helped greatly. I can't even remember the last time my neck flared up. I try to avoid pain meds as much as possible. I have seen too many people ruin their lives with that stuff. That said I will still use them to break the pain-inflamation cycle when things get really bad and then only for a day or so.

Frank, here is the book you mentioned online: http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/techreports/PDF/NBS18.pdf By the way, it was nice visiting the other day.

The "Thinking Chair". A chair, stool or whatever to sit upon and mentally walk through the steps of the project. I like mine to be located near the shop wood burner. Taking a few moments to think the process through almost always pays big dividends in material costs and time saved, often by not having to do the job twice.

That shouldn't be a problem there are many replacement materials for asbestos gaskets. It does get spendy so make sure you save the usuable scrap. You use a hand held gasket punch for cutting bolt holes, they are cheap. Do a web search for the material. By the way, that is a cool project.

Hunter sounds like a good kid, he will be back.

Asbestos takes many forms. Items are often compounds that include asbestos. In industrial setting asbestos was commonly used for many functions through the 60s and at least into the 70s. As a kid I used to love playing in the white asbestos dust under the mills in my dad's shop. Who knew. Anyway I have seen flexible asbestos gasket material of the color of the material in your photos. It pays to be careful with unknowns.

Be safe with that thing, it is starting to look and sound like a Texas sized pipe bomb. I am looking forward to hearing how it works. I just had to replace a rust frozen 45 Willys differential, with a big enough tank your idea might of saved me some expense.

Wood can burst into flames at as low as 200 degrees F or so I have read. I have had good luck using sheet metal that is an inch or so off the wood. I leave an opening at the bottom of the wall and at the top. As the air behind the heat shield heats up it rises and is replaced by cooler air from below. If you can hold your hand on the heat shield while the fire is going that is a good indiction you are safe. I have followed this with all sorts of wood fired installations on boats, trailers and structures and I have never had a problem.

I may have misunderstood your question after seeing the heading again. Are you looking to launch a boat built on dry land for the first time? If so, you may be able to find an old boat trailer that can be wheeled under the boat (boat may need to be jacked up) and then have side supports welded on to the trailer. Here in the US old boat trailers are cheap. How much does the boat draw? If not much you could launch it from a ramp. If it is a close call you can securely chain the trailer to some fixed objects and remove the tow vehicle at low tide and then as the tide comes in the boat will be floated off the trailer. At the next low tide you hook up the trailer to the tow vehicle and drive away.

Is this for hauling boats out of the water on a marine railway? If so, something like this will work: You are not talking too much weight so even a modified winch like those used to strap down loads on flat bed trucks would work. Even a larger sail winch would work and can be had for not much money. Remember you can get further mechanical advantage by having a block and tackle between the winch and the boat carriage. Even a come along would work if you don't mind taking some time. Also do a little poking around looking at google images of third world boat yards. I have seen some amazingly simple solutions in Mexico, on the Amazon and in the Far East.

The book, "The Great Burn" tells the story in detail, it will take your respect those that fight froest fires to a new level. <script type="text/javascript"> //

Not exactly balcksmithing but this was one of my dumber moments. I loaded my tractor into a dump trailer I had at the time, I backed it in. I was taking it to my off the grid place in the middle of nowhere in NM. I was driving a two wheel drive F250. On the last hill on the dirt road I started losing traction. It was late at night and I was tired. I thought, no problem I'll just unload the trailer. I chained the back doors on the trailer open and hooked on the ramps. I climbed on the tractor and started to drive it down the ramps. Then I noticed everything was moving, the truck, the trailer and me and the tractor were all rolling down the hill headed for a 40 foot drop off. I put my hand on the seat belt and debated whether I should jump. The problem was everything was going to come down on top of me if I did. Suddenly the tractor rolled. I thought "This is how it ends". Then I was hanging upside down by my seatbelt. The trailer and truck had stopped moving. It was pitch balck and I had no idea what was going on and why I was alive. After a couple of deep breaths I carefuly let myself down fully expecting the tractor to drop on top of me any second. I got clear of the mess and hiked up to the cabin. No cell service so I couldn't call anyone. In the morning I returned to the mess and figured out what happened. When the trailer was half way down the ramp the weight was to the rear of the trailer which elevated the front of the trailer. The front of the trailer was lifting the rear of the truck and thus the rear wheels lost traction and everything started rolling backwards. What saved me was one of the ramps hit a rock and popped off causing the tractor to roll. The tractor actually rolled over the drop off but the roll bar hooked on the chained open rear door of the dump trailer. Once the tractor rolled the weight was mostly taken of the rear of the trailer and the lifting force on the hitch stopped so the truck again had traction and the parking brake stopped the movement. I am the luckiest guy I know. The take away is this, moving heavy stuff in trailers is not as simple as you might think. Never load or unload on a hill. And never do anything like this late at night when you are dead tired. In spite of my stupidity everything turned out fine. A skilled tow truck driver was able to right and recover the tractor in less than an hour. The only damage was some scratched paint on the rollbar and a few more gray hairs.

He has some nice tools and he knows how to use them. That slick he made the handle for is a monster. It seems like the only time you see those anymore is for boat building or timber framing. Great stuff.

Great stuff Frosty. George, I didn't go straight to law school either. I started working on boats as a kid. I spent my misspent youth racing sailboats and paying the bills by working as a general contractor along with some boat work. I have always liked working with my hands and figuring things out. Even when I was practicing I was always building something. I was a litigator and I liked winning. I would think about my work 24/7 which isn't a good thing. In the late 90s my wife had a temporary assignment in DC so that gave me an excuse to get out of practicing. I then went to work for a VC which involved lots of transactional work, managing a complex estate plan and the investments therein. I still do a little of that, as little as possible. The interest in blacksmithing started when I needed hardware for a project and it wasn't available. The more I learned the more I wanted to learn. Blacksmithing has its addictive qualities.

Recovering lawyer here.

George: A donative promise with detrimental reliance can be enforced. Not under contract law but through quasi-contract principals and equitable relief. Retired California State Bar

If it looks too good to be true it probably is. If you know or have reason to know something doesn't look quite right, clear it up before you proceed further. Lawsuits are expensive and take years. They are best avoided.

Nice. Were they locally designed or did Shivam do that too?

In the US our laws evolved out of the British Common Law so they are similar in some ways but not always the same. Furthermore in Louisiana their laws evolved from French law which is evolved from Roman law which is what is called Civil Lawn or a Civil Law Jurisdiction. Our Common Law heritage is one of the greatest gifts we recieved from Great Britan. The written document we all call a contract is not the real contract, it is evidence of it. The real contract is what is called the meeting of the minds, that is each party agreeing on a certain obligation toward the other. There is what is called the Covenant of Good Faith which is simply that you are required to deal with each other fairly in regards to the contract. If you under bid a contract just due to bad judgment and the other party did not know there was something wrong with your bid you are stuck. However if you make a calculating error, not a judgment error, and the other party knew or should have known there was something wrong with the bid and sought to take advantage of the error then the party who made the error may be able to get relief from it. If you receive a bid that looks way out of line on the low side but you don't know why you are put on what is called Inquiry Noitice, simply something doesn't look right and you need to investigate to make sure everything is OK. Failing to investigate in such a situation can make the contract unenforceable. There is a duty to disclose all material facts related to the contract to the other party. In real estate transactions this is the duty to disclose all know issues with the property. In construction is could be something like there unusual condition for the area such as solid rock 6' under the surface and the party asking for bids knows of the condition, he must disclose it. It could be that there will not be any utilities available at the site or that the residence is going to be occuppied during the construction or thousands of other things that are known to the one seeking to have the work done and not to the one bidding it. These known as defenses to a contract. What a lawyer does is first look to see if there was a proper contract formed by each party commiting themselves to some future act (one does the work and the other pays) and then he looks to attack the contract with one of the many defenses. If the contract is found to be void, voidable or otherwise unenforceable then the lawyers look to Equitable Relief. That is where the court can order certain things in fairness. Here in California there is a law that contractors must be licensed to contract for work over a certain dollar amount. So if an unlicensed contractor sues a customer to collect on the contract the other party can claim the contact is void because of the lack of a license. The court would agree and rule against the unlicensed contractor but there is equitable relief. The unlicensed contractor can claim the other party is being unjustly enriched and the court can order payment of the fair value of the work, even if it is in excess of the contract amount. But the other side will claim that the unlicensed contractor had unclean hands by not having a complied with the license law. It goes on and on and gets quite complicated. That is why lawyers do so much reasearch, they want to find cases that support their client and ones that deflect their opponents case law. The take away from all this is that you are not automatically sunk if you blow a bid. If it has not been accepted you can usually recind it. If it has been accepted all the defenses to the contract are available. You must act in good faith so to limit an unclean hands defense against you. If there is a problem you can not sit on your rights, that creates a Laches Defense. If there is a problem you must bring it to the attention of the other party as soon as possible. The best thing for a small or any business to have is a good relationship with a good accountant and a good attorney who practices in the field it works in, you don't want a divorce lawyer for a construction contract case. For a small business the best firms are smaller local or regional firms that have a few attorneys, not hundreds. You don't want to be just a source of billable hours. Ask your friends in the trades who they use and then check them out on Martindalae and Hubble, an attorney pier rating service. A firm with an AV rating is best. Stay away from law firms that advertise on billboards, etc. Like cigars, the bigger the band, generally the lower the quality.

Wow, reading that was like reading a law school contracts exam question. At first I thought calculating error so sue on the principal of quantum meruit rather than on the contact and get fair value for the work. Then you bring up the GC's ethical issues, we used to call guys like that sub busters, and it is clear there is an unclean hands issue. One of my all time favorite legal quotes came from Justice Cardozo, it goes something like this "Unclean hands will not be allowed to polute the pure pools of justce". I always chuckle when I think of that one. But seriously the unclean hands doctrine says that if you were involved wrong doing you are barred from equitable relief. This is important because (generally speaking here as all jurisdictions vary somewhat) if you make a calculating error and you have not started the work when you discover it you may be able to get relieved from the contractual obligation. If the work has been performed then you may be able to recover the fair value of the work even though it is in excess of the contract amout. This is particularly true when the other party knew or had reason to know that the price was too good to be true. But if you have not behaved in good faith, with honor and honesty the other side will claim unclean hands and you could be barred from any equitable relief such as not being held to the contract price or getting fair value for the work.

For caulking check out 3M 5200 marine adhesive, that is if you want it to stay put.