JHCC

My brother and I made a lot of bows and arrows when we were little (inspired by Robin Hood and an old copy of Ernest Thomson Seton's The Book of Woodcraft). None of these were any good, which I suspect is why they never got confiscated.

There's a cocktail called a Bee's Knees that's made with gin, lemon, and honey. Rather tasty, when the proportions are right.

That was part of the original stand, which was given to me by a friend. It was one of a pair; here is the other, unmodified. 

51 minutes ago, jlpservicesinc said:

Depends on who the information is shared with. 

I used to believe this very thing. 

I find people are very stubborn to change.  Especially if there is a simpler way. 

 

People love complex. 

Ah, but the knowledge itself is not diminished.  Rather, they diminish themselves who choose not to accept it or put it to use. 

George, the “raggedy piece of angle iron” is a scrap of cap rail (detritus from someone’s car crashing into someone else’s front steps); I welded it on so that I could operate the hold-down clamp with either hand or foot. Here’s a quick video:

This adjusts with a telescoping center post. I set it at the proper height with the cam and then lock it with the thumbscrew:

Kim is a great teacher and a very cool guy. He's been very supportive, including passing on to me a big batch of duplicates and extras from his smithing library (whence cometh most of my back issues of The Anvil's Ring and The Hammer's Blow). His "chisel stand" (LINK) inspired my own combination stock-support/hold-down stand:

With something like this, investing a little more time, effort, and material in better function can more than pay for itself in the long run. As Carl West (owner/instructor at Prospect Hill Forge) remarked to me just this past week, anything that saves you even a couple of seconds every time you take your workpiece to the anvil adds to how much work you get done on each heat and how many heats you need to take to get a job done, saving you time, fuel, and frustration. 

15 hours ago, TommyVee said:

I also plan to weld on some loops for storing hammers, and maybe some tubing with bases to hold punches, drifts, etc.

Check out the tool rack that Kim Thomas has on the back of his anvil stand:

This is a screenshot from one of Kim's livestream videos; I've posted a link to the relevant clip HERE.

Here's a clip from one of Kim Thomas's livestreams, showing the tool rack on the back of his anvil stand. This holds his three favorite hammers, a pair of scrolling tongs, and his wire brush. Click on the video for Kim describing a few of its fine points and design considerations.

Knowledge is not diminished by being shared. 

I wouldn't worry too much about bracing, since it's only a 100 pound anvil and therefore probably isn't going to be subjected to the kind of major pounding that would require it. Add it if you want, but don't stress about it.

Very nice!

A little Repoussé-on-the-Road. 

That's about $165 today.

In an IFI context, it makes more sense to add a comment to a thread you want to resurrect than it does to post a link to it. The former gets the original conversation going again, while the latter can create a separate discussion.

The question isn't how we survived childhood; it's how many didn't. See Abraham Wald and the bullet hole map.

I’ve made a couple of nice chisels from truck leaf spring after splitting it lengthwise with a handled hot cut and the treadle hammer.

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

I wonder how the hazmat crew cleaned it up

I believe powdered lime sulfur is the standard mercury spill cleanup, but I could be wrong. 

Also, cut away one side of my grinder station and welded in a frame made from an old bed rail:

To hold a recently acquired tackle box:

 Which in turn holds supplies for the buffer:

A quick(ish) utensil holder for the kitchen. 

A few estate sale goodies; $10 total.

The tackle box is especially fortuitous, as I have a storage need for which none of my other spare toolboxes were the right size. 

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.

19 minutes ago, Frosty said:

I found myself in a swirling mass of angry yellow jackets holding a running chainsaw

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

I'm one of those weird hybrids that use an iPhone and a PC, so I can't take advantage of the app's capacity for sharing between iOS devices. There is a cloud-based sharing option that I could use to edit phone uploads on my laptop, but I'm too cheap to spring for a subscription that I don't really need.

7 hours ago, Frosty said:

You're trying to tempt me into finally cleaning and organizing the basement aren't you?

Not at all! Just scan the books where they are, and it'll be easier to locate a particular volume within the chaos!

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

I didn't open the link to check the price

$4.99.

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

organize them so I could locate them.

There’s a field for “Physical location”, so you could number your boxes and add those numbers to each book’s record.