BillyBones

When i was in high school, back in the Cambrian age i believe, in health class i remember our teacher telling us that it is quite common that when people quit smoking they gain weight. He said it was becuase smoking takes away our taste and when you quit you start to taste things again so you want to eat more. Now how true that is i do not know but that is what we were taught.

Is it just me or is there no acorn on the bottom of the post?

TW, nice to see ya been a minute. Between working in the shop at home, building an "office", and working in the shop at work not much time for other pursuits. With the economy though that may change. We dropped to a 36 hour week, no OT to be authorized, even salaried employees took 10% cut in pay, and they have asked anyone willing to take unpaid time off. But at least we are not laying off like other shops. I did get a bunch of green beans canned, made some salsa with the many, many tomatoes i grew, (have to give thanks to Scott for planting the salsa idea in my head, first time i ever tried) harvested a few watermelon as well. Potatoes and sweet potatoes did not do very well though. And something ate every single apple i had growing but 1. My dad and i did get the Monte sanded down and ready for paint. Have to find the leak around the windsheild before we paint though, put on a new Edelbrock carb, high rise intake, and chrome valve covers. Scott, congratulations on quitting smoking. If i could go back and change one thing in my life that may be the one. To quote Blackberry Smoke "gonna soothe my soul with a fishin' pole."

Love the hummingbird. Give her a thumbs up. I like the idea of cattails, not something you see in a lot of bouquets. By the time Steve gets this put together there is going to be so much steel they will need a fork lift to move it.

Why not just contact Jacobs chuck and ask them if they can help? They have a website and tech support.

Here is one about someone we all know.

The price may be high but they have their reasons. You have to look at this as a trade show. And really, compared to many trade shows i have been to $70 is quite reasonable. On a side note my goodness anvils have skyrocketed in price. Swage blocks as well. My swage i paid $65 for 3 years ago was priced at $250. Not many good deals at all. I was however able to get another post vice for less than $100. The jaws are a smidge misaligned, but the screw box is in excellent condition, all the parts are there, oh it has 5" jaws and much more stout than my other one. Of course no identifiable markings.

I bought 3 tomahawk handles a while back. When i got them the handles were round and not tear drop like advertised. They were also tapered smaller at the head end. I ended up doing a lot of filing, sanding, and whittling. Found they also worked better upside down as well. As far as hammer handles go, since i found a place that sells 5/4" hickory boards at a decent price i have not bought one since. Welp, off to Quadstate. Hopefully get some "it followed me home" pics.

Odd, i have had a small set of vise grips i have used for years now to hold top tools. Are you using cheap vise grips? You could also get some 3/8" or 5/16" round bar and forge wrap around handles on all of your top tools. I have a few large punches that i did that with.

A vise is a vise is a vise... as long as it is stout enough to do the work you need it to do. If you are planning on doing a lot of twisting, or bending a bench vise will serve you well for many, many years. Id you are planning on doing a lot of of upsetting and hammering on hot steel that is a bit different. You would need a pretty big and stout bench vise to do that where as you can use a much smaller post vise. The bigger the vise the more it costs as well. In my opinion there is no better, it is all in what do you plan on doing with it? Is it stout enough to do what you want it to do?

Gewoon, I would love to come for a visit. Never got to go to Belgium in my travels across Europe. Pretty country and most importantly good beer. A bit nit picky but for any who care those greasenipples are called "zerks" fittings.

I always liked Mike Rowe. Seems like the type of guy it would be fun to sit around a fire with and have a couple adult beverages then when the bull breaks through the gate he will lend a hand rounding him up and fixin the gate.

When hurricane Gustav hit Louisiana back in '08 my parents had a HUGE pecan tree fall on the house. I helped my mom and dad with clean up and rebuilding. My dad had to have no less than 5 tape measures. Rather than using the little belt clip he would just lay it down, lose it, go get another. It became a ritual about 3 times a day me and my mom would gather up all the tape measures and put them back.

I could send you a letter in the mail that says congratulations on winning a tool box.

Jennifer, i completely missed the finished axe. Gorgeous. It reminds me of those time lapses of mold or something growing in a petri dish.

PB, sorry to hear ya wont be making it. The wife will be joining in on the fun Friday with us, she has to work on Saturday. Hopefully all the good deals wont be gone by Saturday so that she does not see how much i spend and i can slowly introduce the new stuff over the coming months to her. Fun story, a couple years ago i put a deck on my house. My dad could not find his hammer drill so he went and bought a new one. When we got done he told me to put it up at my house for a while so my mom did not find out he bought it. Almost 3 years later he still comes over to borrow his hammer drill.

It is hard. The best i can say is imagine hitting mild at just the point it is starting to get color. Heat managment is quite tricky. I had a small piece of 1 of the handles crumble under the hammer, i think i had it to hot. Not quite burning but a high yellow color.

Put an initial grind on my bow makin' tools then went to see the bowyer to get an idea of if they will work as expected or what changes to make to make them work. Happily they work as expected, now to finish the grind and put on handles. While there i watched and arrow being made. Amazing, started with a log that was split down into a bunch of ~1"x1" pieces then put in a jig and using a combo of a spoke shave and a card to bring it down to size. He used a hatchet to split his wood to which i said a small froe would work. So i got me a hunk o' leaf spring (5160? i am assuming) and started drawing it out. Took me a bit longer than it usually would have but that is becuase my granddaughter came to town this weekend with the great grandkids. Me and her dad enjoyed a Mason jar of KY's finest corn squeezzins friday night so i was not feeling the best yesterday. I worked till my forearm started cramping then called it a day.

Got some time to work on my own submission I had our tool maker at work cut me a peice of O-1, 6"x1/2" for this. I do not make blades and very rarely use tool steel. Which also means that i do not do much in the way of heat treating either. I got with a local bowyer (i learned a new word as well, i did not know that is what you call a bow maker) to make a couple tools for. One is a small draw knife the second is a scraper. These are the rough forgings, started grinding and cleaning them up and they still need handles but from my limited experience they seem to work quite well. I just did a hillbilly heat treat, got it glowy then dunked in oil, tossed into the toaster oven at 500* for a couple hours.

Shhhhhh. Dont mention that, else you will summon the puns.

You can buy a new hair dryer for less than $10 now a days. I know a yard sale can be cheaper but if you can not find one that route, new wont break the bank. On a note about hair dryers, get the kind you can turn off the hot air or at least disable the heating element. Running a forge with one you will be running that dryer for hours, not just a few minutes to blow dry your hair. Some dryers the heating element is wired in such a way that if it burns out it quits working completely. Also cold air is more dense than hot air so you will be getting more oxygen into the fire. A filter over the air intake also helps keep dust, scale, soot, etc. out of the motor. A small piece of furnace filter works great. You will want an air gate as well. I cut a slot in my pipe and used the lid off a soup can to make a gate leaving about a 1/8" gap from the bottom of my pipe. Then drilled a few holes between it and the hair dryer to allow it to vent out the excess air. I got fancy and also put a sleeve over the holes that could be adjusted. Using the sleeve i very rarely had to adjust the gate.

George, recently my granddaughter has started collecting rocks. I found a rock that looks like it has pyrite, hemotite, and quartz deposit all on 1 small rock about 2" or so. I say looked like because that is what it seemed to my untrained eye. My apologies for thread drift, now back to our regularly scheduled discussion.

Pretty cool, i really like the way the edges look as if they have pieces chipped out of them.

Jennifer, i unfortunately did not get to talk with him so i am not sure of his name.

Jennifer, you are right. If i am going to make them why would i make "genaric" when i can make something that not anyone else will have. Put mu own touch on them and make them fancy. Just got home from the Fair at New Boston. It is a colonial period fair, 1790-1810, so all the fair folk are dressed in colonial attire or Indians. We missed the cavalry charge and the battle between the settlers and Indians. Thought this may be of interest to ya'll.