BillyBones

Wonder if they could be trained to put my tools away in the shop?

Reindeer, welcome aboard. My dad was a combat engineer in Vietnam. He was a heavy equipment operator, later went artillery. I chose the route of my granddad and road a tank around the ME. The Bedouins used to come running up to our tanks wanting food and water when i was there. We had one guy come looking for medical attention for his wife. While one of our guys was bandaging up her foot the husband tried to give me and a couple other guys his daughter. Not to "use" but the take back to the states with us. It is kind of odd but being in a war is both some of the best memories of my life and some of the worst.

I would guess that is you are adding something new or relevant to the thread that would be OK. But bumping it just for the doing it or for personal gain, like the tail gating section, that would be frowned upon.

Sodium hypochlorite pumped into the well, or as most people call it bleach. (yes i did have to look up the name) We had one of those whole house filter systems but i did nothing for the smell of the water.

I am not getting this bump thing, isnt that the same as when some one says they are reviving an old post maybe from years ago? Anyway, am i the only one who read that story in a Monty Python documentary kind of voice?

I have used leaf for a few chisels, mostly for wood working though. I made a couple big Bowie knives with leaf a couple years back, of course a few axes, i think i still have a couple unfinished, and the dies for the guillotine as well. I am kind of thinking of using one leaf, the one with the bushings on the ends, and build some sort of ballista. Use the spring for the limbs of a giant crossbow more or less.

Interesting fact i found out, the most mined substance in the world today is sand. My knowledge of what minerals that are around me is rocks and dirt. As a matter of fact that is about what i know about geology at all. Really though around here to find anything of value like that it would be either Indian artifacts like arrow heads, spear points, etc. or fossils. Oaks Quarry park, Frosty knows of it, is about a mile from my house. Someone there a couple years back found a fossil of some kind of tube worm. Now the shells of them are pretty common but this one had the worm's "head" sticking out of it. Looked kind of like palm leaves. It was valued at many thousands of dollars. I have found a lot of what i used to call natalists but i think someone told me they were ammonites iirc. The Indian artifacts that have been found here are really old as well. 500BC old. If you find something you are allowed to keep it but if you sell it you break a few laws. There are ways to sell the stuff but it is not easy. I have found a few semi precious stones, carbuncle, garnet, amethyst, etc. And one piece someone told me was jade but i have my doubts. Being this area i live was were the glaciers stopped, we have a town just south of me called Moraine, it can be a toss up on what you will find. So, thar maybe gold in them thar hills yet. Ohio also has a lot of flint and if pyrite were valued like gold, we would all be rich. I used to live with a girl that was a geologist and here father was a geology professor at an Ivy League school. When she moved in she was the one who told me my water stunk like sulfur becuase there was a vein of pyrite under the house, the bacteria eating the pyrite waste product was what gave it the sulfur smell. She took care of that and as long as we lived there had good water.

One summer they renovated our old Jr. high school (used to be the high school until the mid 80's). Built in the late 50's. When they were taking out the sinks in the science classrooms they discovered tons of mercury in the drains. For years it was just dumped down the sink from what i came to understand. Amazing how any of us survived childhood. Playing with mercury, lead based paint, asbestos, drinking water from the hose, long hours shirtless in the sun...

For a while it will be making rust... with the other dozen or so leaf springs i have.

Got some road kill in front of the house today. A piece of leaf spring, unfortunately it also explains the loud POP/BANG noise i heard pulling into the drive way. Guess i get to replace my leaf springs next weekend.

Wow, that is way more information about gold than i can digest right now. I have not heat treated yet. But was figuring on drawing it back to an almost purple. That is what i figured it would be for more scraping and breaking up soil than hard digging.

I gathered all that from watching a few videos, like cracks and crevices, where the water slow, etc. That one guy i mentioned, the geologist made a model river to show how hydraulic something or others worked in how heavy material gathers in certain spots. I thought it was pretty cool as a way of seeing physics at work in nature. I watched that show Deadwood and deducted this from gold mining. If i were to want to make money i would be either the blacksmith making and repairing the miners tools, the general store owner, or the saloon/house of ill repute owner.

I know there used to be a couple gold mines here in Ohio. But no, Ohio is not known as a gold producing area. I watched a couple of the videos he suggested and one a guy who says he is a geologist said the same thing about panning. Find the gold and then triangulate where the gold is coming from and that is where you mine at. But the pan is just used for the detective work. As far as getting rich, nah, i watched another video where a couple guys spent a day crushing rock and actually smelting gold. 1/2 ton of rock and 6 hours later they got 1 1/3 grams. Seemed like a waste of time to me unless it is just for fun. Fun to watch as well and i learned a bit about smelting. More interesting to me than the gold. Me and my grandpa went panning a couple times but never found anything. More of something to do with the grandson most likely and yeah it was fun. I could see it being a fun hobby, getting out in nature and the like though. I wouldnt know placer gold from a nugget or what ever it is all called. What kind of steel? Well the kind made from iron. Seriously though i am not sure. I cut a small piece off and it hardened in oil though. I am guessing that since i got it from work it is in the 1045 or so range since that is about the highest carbon steel we work with. Thanks for the compliments.

I would try the bearing on the seat of an old office chair. Have an old guy at work that has discovered youtube, specifically videos about gold panning. He has bought pans and a sluice and all that, i am expecting soon he will buy a mule, a floppy hat, and bibs. But anyway he asked if i could make him a small pick. So anyway yesterday i made this little guy. Needs a bit if grinder work, not real happy with the eye, the bottom one end is a bit thin, and heat treated. Made if a mystery metal that hardened in oil.

Frosty, you are absolutely right. It is like clockwork, all about timing. And yep, it is all in the set up. Just keep it fed and watch for problems, sometimes those problems can be quite disastrous too. Youtube has all the training videos available for the Davenport. They are kind of dated and a lot has changed as far as tooling and and a few other things. Like the training videos say that there is no adjustment for cut off depth, there is now.