BillyBones

I was wrong. My dad was with the 20th engineers, 544th engineer company in Long Binh. So went out to the shop, discovered that winter has returned. Past week has been in the upper 40's to upper 50's. Today in the 20's and snowing. Think i may just chill on the couch today.

My dad is diabetic. Not sure which type but he does not need insulin. His has been determined to be from agent orange exposure in Vietnam. Fortunately for him, it being service connected all his meds and supplies are provided for by the VA. I want to say my dad was with the 583rd engineers. I could be mistaken, i will see him here in about an hour and will ask to make sure. No clue as to where at in country. Then again i barely remember where i was at in Iraq.

I need to work on that weld my self, hence the reason i used my stick welder to tack the basket on. I can either drop the tongs or weld but not both. Nothing but time today and it is supposed to be in the mid 50's. Maybe try again here in a bit. Getting tired of trying to figure out what i want to do. I have been off all week and nothing to do around the house so it has been mostly shop time. Get a bunch of stuff to work on, no time to do it... time to do it, nothing to do. Ah well, so is life.

Before moving up here from Louisiana my parents had a tree fall on the house during a hurricane. Seeing as how me and my dad are both pretty handy with tools we did a lot of the repairs ourselves. My dad has maybe a dozen tape measures. He needed them all, everyday. Me and my mom would have to go around at times and collect up all the tape measures where my dad would just lay them down and forget where he put them. Rather than finding the one, he would just get another and the cycle would repeat.

Another variation on chain. First attempt was with an old piece of rebar i found under a trailer at work. The weld failed, not real surprised at that with the way the material was. So i tried again with just a piece of 3/8 round. I was thinking it would look cool "butterflied" so that 2 chains could hang, one off each loop.

What were we talking about? ()

Ahhhh, meteoric content... So i tried a TP holder out of a RR spike, broke the end off punching it. So i finished the RR spike knife i made for the kid next door, his mom even thought it cool. I did tell them RR spikes do not make good knives and it is just more or less to show. Tried some variations on chain. Rough but fun to try and get the idea worked out.

Blue, i like the idea of the wrap where the basket is welded on. May have to use that.

DOH! As many times as i have heard you talk about using golf balls for that Thomas...

I totally missed that hammer. That looks like what we used to call a coal pick or coal hammer. You would use the pick to split the coal at the seam then break the pieces with the hammer part. The one we used when i was a kid took a mattock or pick style handle though.

I have had a couple doughnuts sit around for a couple days you could have used for a hammer though.

Amazing how when you are working under pressure from a clock hw much more you drop things, knock stuff off the anvil, etc. Seems like Murphy just has to show up at those times. Nice work. Even though my sound does not work i enjoyed the video, i did skip through the parts where you were heating the metal though and just watched the hammering. Why is there a golf ball lying between 2 nails on the side of your vice? (or at least it looks like a golf ball)

Ah, a cav scout. I was a 19K, M1-A1/2 tanker. Was with the A co. 3/8 cav 1st cav at Ft. Hood my last couple years in.

Had to repaint the porch in the old house a couple years back. I wanted to use hillbilly chrome (spray paint) but the wife would not let me. Had to use the boring old gray.

Das, if you have a Menards close by they carry 10" and 12" galvy pipe.

No need for apologies, I think we all get told to READ THIS FIRST. I was told when i first joined here to get a cold beverage, a sandwich and some snacks and start reading. Good advice. There is so much information here it can be quite overwhelming at times. There will be times when you will want to quench your metal while working it. Like if you are making an S hook with little pig tails you may want to quench them to keep from deforming them when you bend the hook. I am no bladesmith so i will not get into the science behind heat treating but i do know this, A-36 (which from my experience is what the box stores carry) can harden. Not that it will, but can. Like rebar, some of it will harden some wont... on the same stick of metal. If you have a steel recycler that will sell to you they should also have springs. I would try them before a pick-n-pull place. Springs are not the only places in vehicles using "good" steel. Axles, sway bars, CV shafts, etc. are also. When i worked in a tranny shop we had piles of them laying around along with transfer chains, bearings and races, input and output shafts, etc. One thing i must mention about auto shops, it will be up to the owner as to what they do with the scrap. I worked for one guy who could not get rid of it fast enough while another guy i worked for thought it was gold and wanted top dollar. If you go to one place and they say no do not get discouraged. Also a nice bottle opener made from a wrench or a dozen doughnuts will get you in with them.

So i am looking a these RR spikes i have. Some are marked HC, from what i gathered means "high" carbon (yes i know it is not high carbon but higher than a regular spike) but i have a couple that are marked "MC". I assume that would mean "medium" carbon, but we all know what happens when we assume... So am i correct in that assumption or could it just be a mark from the factory making them? Not off to the handy RR spike thread to figure out what the heck to do with these things.

Welcome aboard. Suprised no one has said this yet, but go to the thread that says "READ THIS FIRST" and read it. It will familiarize you with community etiquette and the do's and dont's here. Also a general location in your header is a good idea, not specific address or anything unless you want a bunch of dirty smiths coming over drinking all your beer and leaving the toilet seat up. You may be surprised how many of us are quite close to you. If you are near Dayton there is an open invite to all my IFI friends to come over and play in the fire. Pics of the project would help greatly, and we love pics. Are you quenching it while working on it? I ask becuase i have had S hooks form small cracks from quenching them while working on them, or at least that is what i have deduced was causing the cracks. That was in a piece of box store steel from like Lowes or Home Depot would carry. Anyway, again welcome to the forum. Make beautiful things and show them off. Have fun and stay safe.

Well, 40+ years just means that you have not yet. Just seems that you see these things all over. I know they are not good steel and i do not expect much more than a show piece. We have a group of ladies here that i let come onto my property to catch the feral cats. They take them to get spay and neutered then bring them back. If we have kittens they will take them to a rescue to find them homes. They set live traps up on the property through the spring, summer, and fall. They come and check them every couple hours or if i notice a cat in one i call them and they come get it. Pretty good deal, keeps the cat population down and keeps me from having to deal with it. Now if they could do something about the possums, racoons, skunks, and groundhogs.

I have a safety pin that is 8" long. It is a left over from back in the day when we had to pin our hunting license on our backs when hunting. Got my BBQ tongs finished, another bit of chain, and (not in pic) a bic with a groove to maybe, hopefully start getting round links where they are welded. Also made something i never thought i would make, a RR spike knife. My neighbors son brought me over a bag full of spikes and a bolt. He then proceeded to tell me he was going to go get more for his uncle, also a smith, and there were piles of them just laying around. So i proceeded to tell him that is not a good idea and could get him into a lot of trouble. Said he will wait till today so he can ask the guys working on the tracks about them, i said that is the best course of action. Even if he did take them he is 10 or 11 years old so they provably would not do much more than a good talking to about what he did and no real legal consequence. Is there some unwritten rule that all blacksmiths must at some point make a spike knife?

Welcome, like i said it was fun and gave me something to do. This could be kind of cool to maybe put up monthly challenges. Like yesterday i would have stood there staring at my forge trying to figure out what i want to do but this gave me that something to accomplish. Also to see what everyone else comes up with. Now about those boots, i kind of feel the pain on those. The place i used to but my boots at quit selling them and switched to some Chinese brand. Unfortunately they chose cheap instead of quality. After a short period in the oils and solvents i have to work in on a daily basis the cheap really came out in them. Generally a pair of boots will last me a year, and that was just worn souls and the like. These were falling apart after 4 months. Affordable, durable work boots are getting to be a rare species.

BGD, beat me to it, i was also going to suggest cutting the barbs with a chisel rather than try and weld. TwistedWillow, Torjborn Ahman (?spelling) did a video not long ago about making sockets out of pipe. I have a friend who used some of my clinkers in epoxy resin tables and such. A pretty good day (yesterday, me and the wife got into a discussion and i forgt to hit submit), no one home so shop time for me. Made a fire poker for JLP's challenge A few more chain links, up to 31 now. Tried a BBQ tong thing.

That shoelace kind of made me bonkers too. Anyway, the gauntlet has been tossed and the challenge accepted. I can not take a pic of my timer since my camera and my timer are both on my phone but i do have a clock. So here is my take on this. Just under 1 hour. I used 3/8" round and 1/4" round since that is what i have. I did use my stick welder to tack the basket on but i did forge weld it, the tack just to hold it in place. Anyway, gave me something to do today and had fun doing it.

I suppose i would be more like a quasar than a bright star. Every once in a while i have a bright and stunning flash but most of the time just a boring old speck. Anyway, to all my IFI friends have a very Merry Christmas. May the day be filled with the love and joy of family and friends. Got my best present from a SIL last night. 10 year old single malt Irish whiskey.

When i was lad that clicker box was a thump upside my noggin telling to go out and turn the antenna. I have a great grand kid, you will now and forever more be subjected to...