BillyBones

Pat, dont know if this will help any but i find it easier when doing a leaf to upset the bar first. This will put more mass on the end and is easier for me to pein it wide. I also just break the corners rather than taper. Once i get it started flattening i will start the point on the end. I like your leaf, specifically the way the chisel lines pushed out the metal to give the edges some contour. Almost looks like a holly leaf.

The DM can have fun to. I had a Paladin that i used to play. He was the strongest of the group i played with so there were times i would be the one to smash a door or something. Anywho, during one game we came across a door and i said i would just charge it. The DM rolled and said, i was now laying on the floor unconscious with a broken nose. I says what happened, he said maybe next time draw your axe and attack the door, dont use your face.

Working on my doors still. Was going to strip them and stain but i discovered i have doors made of 2 different woods, and i have spent the better part of 3 weekends trying to strip them, i asked the lady of the manor what color paint. They will be double doors and there is nothing in the middle, so to keep the not used as often side closed and give a little more rigidity i decided on a locking mechanism that goes top to bottom. Still needs brackets to hold it to the doors, and i am not real happy with the twist so i may take those out and redo them or just leave them out all together. Also that door kob is not what i am using. I will forge "L" shaped handles for them. The knob is just holding everything in place. I also have not set the one tenon yet. That is just so it is easier to move around the shop instead of 6' of articulated bar. Next i switched gears. Seems we may have a some what normal spring and summer which means festivals and farmers markets. Dug out all the old camping stuff, S-hooks, trammels, squirrel cookers, fire pokers, etc. A bunch got pitched into the scrap pile. Started making a garden rake. I will give this one to the wife provably but if they are worth doing may try and put a few of those out this season. Made from 3 pieces of coil spring. Still need a little work but i almost scrapped the whole thing trying to set the rivets. man what a PITA to keep all that aligned and together.

My last hair cut was 25 years ago. When i got out of the Army i had a guy absolutely butcher my hair and i swore i would never get another hair cut, and i havent.

Can i have the Yamoto? With wave motion gun?

My old neighbor i had every Sunday they played D&D. I am old enough to remember when AD&D came out. Elves and dwarves were character classes, not races in the original D&D.

I liked watching the mountain monster guys. They hooked me when they were going after moth man and to catch him they built a giant bug zapper. But as with most of these shows they went off the deep end too. What i really like is bad movies. I recently discovered an app on my tv that has free movies but they have all kinds of those old 70's kung fu movies. Those and the B sword and sorcerer movies, old sci-fi, etc. I am a big fan of Ed Wood movies.

Saw a video of a smith in some far off country that was making something but was barefooted. He knocked a coal out of the fire then when walking around the forge stepped on it. We laughed, it was pretty funny watching him dance around. Copper pennies minted before '82 are worth $.02 in copper. The '42-'45 silver nickel is at $1.42. You guys may already know this but there is a website called coinflation that lists melt prices of coins. I was trying to buy a pop at work one day and the machine kept spitting a dime back out at me. After the 3rd or 4th time i looked closer and it was actually a steel penny. One of the mechanics we had when i was stationed at Fort Hood was putting the winch on a deuce and a half when it slipped and fell on his foot. The innards of his toes were squished out like toothpaste from a tube. Has anyone used a steel toe to forge? I have a couple pairs of old boots i found and was thinking maybe i could use the toe to make coal shovels out of or something.

There is a place here that deals with wood stoves mainly but also does coal stoves. They also sell anthracite. So a call to a stove dealer may help. My local TSC does not keep there coal in a store room during off months. They just have a big tent thing out back they keep it in out back of the building. So it is the same price all year. I got to know the guys at the TSC pretty well, i was in there almost everyday when i worked for the AAMCO next door to it. My boss was paying the car parts place $5 or $6 dollars for a couple bolts. I pointed out to him that i could run over and get those same bolts from TSC for about 50 cents. But instead of him buying a couple hundred bolts (3/8-16 x 2" were mostly what i got) he would send me over and get 1 or 2 everyday. Do not burn any kind of treated lumber. The wood will release some serious nasty toxins into the air and on top of that the ash will contain potentially lethal levels of arsenic. Many localities have an ordnance that you can not even put treated lumber in the trash, it must be taken to a land fill and disposed of. I assume that is becuase many trash companies incinerate the trash.

If you go to TSC ask for the manager. I had to buy a couple bags 2 years ago i think. I went in one day and the guy there got me what i wanted. About a week later i went back and asked to get some and was told they dont carry coal. So is says what about the 10 or so tons you have out back. They called the manager and was surprised to learn they did indeed carry coal.

Concrete will not always spall either. When i was under cars a cutting torch was one of the best tools in the shop. Bolt wont come out, burn it out. For years i would just lay something on the floor and cut it with the torch no problem or hassle, and of course very little PPE, goggle sometime if they were not broken. Anyway i started working in one shop and went to cut something and concrete chips started flying at me. That was when i learnt about spalling, the hard way. My point is you can go years or even a lifetime doing an unsafe practice with out something going wrong, but it is that one instance that could very well change your life forever. Better safe than sorry. My grandkids like to come out in the shop with me. They have hooks for each of them to hold their safety glasses on and the first thing they do is get them and put them on when they come in. Teach them young to practice safety.

I have found coal to be an odd fellow. How long it burns depends. I get my coal from the same supplier that gets it from the same place. The last load of coal i got a couple hunks about the size of a football and i was good for most of the day. This new batch i got seems to take 3 almost 4 hunks that size. It also seems to make more clinker. If you want to use coal and are in a residential area try getting anthracite. There is a thread about working with it. It burns way cleaner than bituminous. You must keep constant airflow on it though or it will go out and it is a little harder to get going. Tractor Supply was selling it last year for $7 a bag, 40# i think. It amazes me that living in one of the largest coal producing areas of one of the largest coal producing countries how hard it is to find coal.

If you are defending yourself and you pull Hans Brinker's finger out will you get in trouble?

You run into a few things in life that scream run away. A bear slowly walking towards you with that look, a growling mountain lion in a tree, a naked man running down the stairs with a spear...

My first job out of the Army was in a machine shop. I have since then always had a bottle of Dykem in the garage. The shop i work in now we get Dykem by the gallon. Pretty convenient when my bottle starts to get low. As far as color it depends on what i am marking. I have found on dark metals i like the red better but on shiny metals the blue stands out better. Same with cutting oil. I just get me an old pop bottle or something and fill it up. A 20oz bottle and i am good for about 2 months. We use Northcut 410 oil.

Jennifer, i assume you know how to ohm out the wires. Keep in mind that you are also looking for one with high resistance. If that heater was kept stored someplace that was prone to moisture it could be corrosion inside the wiring. I see a label that says "Beckett" on the motor. Is the motor from a Beckett furnace or is the whole thing a Beckett? If it is a Beckett you can go to their website and they have a bunch of tech info about their furnaces there. Everything from manuals, trouble shooting, parts, to how to read the date of manufacture. Edit: Missed a whole page of replies, please disregard the above.

The last shop i worked in had 3, then 2, now 1 of the old twin post in ground hydraulic side by side lifts. The first one the tank was in ground, the fill tube broke off about 4' underground. Replaced with a Rotary. The second i had a box truck on and when i went to lower it only one side dropped. If you went up the side that did not drop was the only one that would go up. The truck was on almost a 45* degree angle and we could not get some out till the next day to help recover the lift. So like good hillbillies, a few chains, jack stands and some boards we left that evening hoping it did not fall over night. It did not. So yeah that is a real PITA. That lift still has not been replaced. The 3rd is still in service and kind of works. When you get a vehicle on it you have to put a one of the tall jack stand (for those who do not know they make jack stands that are 5'-6' tall) under the lift. If not the whole thing would drop, suddenly, about 2" or 3". You can watch the oil bubble up from around the posts. It will drop a couple inches at the time till the tires are on the ground. So glad i work in a machine shop now.

I have now run across 3, not vises, people who like PBR. Thats is my mom and my daughters favorite beer.

Those jacks will also lift a car high enough to actually get underneath of too. Always seemed a standard floor jack needed about another 3", or i am getting old and lazy, nah that can not be it, it is the flaw in the design of the jack. Now if i can find that guy that keeps lowering the floor a little more every year...

Das, i aint seen a jack like that in years. Love those things and yeah they are quite secure. I studied Wu style Tai-chi when i was in the Army. Practical application of Tai-chi, or how to actually use those slow motions. It is mostly about using the opponents momentum against him. A kick is intercepted on the left, lifted and with the right hand a small force applied center of the chest is enough to propel the attacker backward several feet. Or intercepting a punch and rather than blocking it, pulling it toward you causing your opponent to become off balance. A simple palm to the chin snaps the neck. Tai-chi while meditative and calming is quite an effective form of martial arts.

Weird instruments. Since we talked about Mickey Hart earlier i will bring up "The Beam". A 12' piece of aluminum c-channel strung with piano wire. Played as a percussion instrument. All the string are tuned the same but in different octaves.(i think that is the terms, i like music but i aint no music scholar) Gives a very low resonance. And since we like to play with fire dont forget the Pyrophone. And organ powered by combustion.

I do not have one particular kind of music that i would say is my favorite, but there is one i can not stand. It just dont make me want to do no hippity hoppin. It depends on my mood for the day as to what i put the radio on. I will listen to about everything from big band to zydeco. My grandmother on my moms side was a piano teacher and her love was jazz. Even though she died when i was quite young she gave me an appreciation for music. Her opinion was it is all good music if it stirs emotion or just makes you feel good. A couple months ago i was in a Calypso phase. The guys i work with started hang pics of bananas on my tool box and the like. I would stand at my machine in my own world dancing a little and singing Harry Belafonte. The Hooligans did a cover of "Whiskey Before Breakfast", no bag pipes though.

I misunderstood when you asked if it was a drinking song. My bad. From my understanding the bagpipes originated in Turkey but who knows. Provably kind of like trying to figure out where the drum came from. We have a Celtic festival every year the just so happens to coincide on my birthday. Gaelic Storm comes and plays 3 nights for free usually. What has always amazed me is just how many people actually own kilts. I am not a fan of heavy metal either, one of my daughters likes that stuff. I tend to lean more towards country and western or bluegrass. Always bluegrass on Sundays. Love hearing Bill Monroe sing gospel.

The song is "Finnegan's Wake", i have lifted more than one pint to in my time. Named after the Joyce novel. The song is about an Irish brick layer who falls from a ladder and breaks his skull. They have a wake where a fight breaks out and Tim Finnegan is revived when a barrel of whiskey is dumped on him. It has been recorded by like Goerge said the Clnacy Brothers, more traditional Irish music, to the Dropkick Murphy's , heavy metal Irish music. The Dubliners do a fun version of it where the audience participates. Another song the Dubliners also cover that mentions a hod is "The Sick Note". If you do not know that one look it up, it will put a smile on your face and giggle in your belly. I have listened to Irish music most of my life. I am one of the odd folks in the world that likes the sound of bagpipes.

"O'Frosty lived on Watkins street, a gentle Irishman mighty odd. Had a brogue both rich and sweet, to rise in the world he carried a hod." Might just work, what ya'll think?