BillyBones

The heater i have can run on diesel, K-1, fuel oil, and i even put jet fuel in it once. JP-8 aint much more than K-1 though. I use diesel becuase that is the cheapest right now. I dont use propane any more so it has been a while since i bought any. When i was it was a bit over $17 to fill the tank on average. Also a lot of the exchange tanks are only filled to 15#.

I aint sat in a drum circle in years. I gave my Djembe to my daughter a while back. The last time i played it i was, lets just say i was in an altered state of mind and wore a hole through the head. It took sometime but she finally found someone that knew how to replace the skin. Oh i should mention it was a traditional African Djembe with goat skin head. She took my Dumbeck years before. I actually bought the Djembe hoping she would give that back, now she just has both. We were at a show one year in Alpine valley. Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart came out and sat with us for an hour or so before they had to go on. Anywho, the shop. One of them old 1950's garages that is too small for a car. It also aint that clean and some changes have been made. Like my forge hood, but basically here it is in all its glory:

JHCC, my old torpedo is one that burns diesel, yeah it gets pretty nasty. My dad has one of the newer ones that runs propane and it is way way much cleaner. However i do not know if it is his regulator or what but it will go through a 20# tank in about 5 hours. That seems excessive to me, $16-$20 dollars in propane for 5 hours just dont seem right. I also keep a door or window open and i have an exhaust fan that is wired up so that as soon as i turn the power on in the shop it comes on. CGL, aint seen ya in a while. Hope everything has been good for ya'll down in your neck of the woods. Alexandr, well, as always...stunning. Gorgeous work.

I have 2 brushes i use. Neither are butchers block. I got them before i got my yellow belt in google-fu. One came from a welding supply, long bristles that are "carbon steel" (thats what it said) after a year in usage the bristles are still straight. The other is a short bristled painters brush. Not the long skinny type but short and wide made to take a wooden handle like for the paint roller. It has stainless steel bristles. While they have deformed some it still removes scale nicely. I got it from the local hardware store.

Love me some good liver and onions. When i was a kid, around 5 or 6 my parents and i went out to eat at some restaurant. The waitress asked what i wanted and i said liver and onions. The waitress literally stopped holding her pen and pad looking at my parents like "Uh, what? Did he really just say that?" My mom was just like yes you heard correctly. So yes i have always been odd, it is not a new thing for me. I have eaten a lot of different critters but i can honestly say i have never had moose. Chad 1 word : Torpedo. Or salamander depending on where you live. You can pick up a torpedo heater fairly inexpensively. It does not get WI cold here but it was 10* out yesterday and i was in the shop with just a t-shirt and it was around 70* in there. Bets part is the beer dont freeze.

Being an old vet i have several tattoos. My old lady actually has more. Her ex used to be a tattoo artist and me and him worked in the same tattoo shop years back. I tired branding once back many years ago. Yes we did brandings and piercing in that shop. I got my iron shaped the way i wanted, heated it up good and hot, grabbed it, took a breath, started to brand myself, paused, another breath, paused, another breath, pause... a couple minutes later stuck it on my forearm. Oh lordy, lordy, the pain, instant blister. Yeowwwww...i waited so long the brand did not take, all i did was cuased my self some pain. The iron was hot enough to hurt but not enough to be a permanent scare. I have since grown up.

2 city boys came out to the woods to do some deer hunting. After most of the day they finally bagged a huge buck with a giant rack. they each grabbed a hind leg and started dragging it out of the woods when an old hillbilly comes along. The old guy says to them "If ya'll drag it by the antlers it is easier, the antlers wont snag on the under brush." After another half hour of dragging one of the city boys looks at the other and says "That old guy was right this is much easier." to which his friend replied "Ya, but we are getting farther away from the truck." George, my family lives deep in the woods of KY. We will just sit on the front porch and wait. No, really though it will be kind of a family hunt. Of course the kill will go to whoever gets the tag. Aint none of us ever had the chance for an elk hunt so it will be pretty cool just to go along. I know deer are hard enough to get out of those hills, i could not imagine trying an elk by myself or even another person or 2.

Pnut, you are not mistaken. My cousin, and me, has been trying to get a tag for a good 5 years now. Deer are thick as thieves here. I was in the shop one day when all of a sudden there was loud knocking noise that scared the bejeebus out of me. So i went to investigate. On the corner of my roof there was a red headed wood pecker pecking away at the eves. We also have a striped (banded (?)) woodpecker that comes and hangs out.

Guess i did leave out what kind of stone. It is an "Arkansas" stone, albeit a cheap one. They call it an Arkansas stone but it is more like a block of pressed and glued sand. Arkansas stones are one solid rock, right? I use cutting oil on the stone, Northcut 410. Thanks for the suggestions guys. The stone is at work and my dishwasher, she would complain if i put it in her sink. We do have dish soap in the shop so i am thinking now maybe some soap, hot water, and a scrub brush. It being a cheap stone i am just not sure of the binders holding it all together. Sure it only cost me about $15 buck i dont want to buy another unless i have to.

Not quite sure where i should put this. I almost put it under knife polishing and finish but then figured we all use them so here it is. How does one clean a whet stone? I used my stone to grind off a projection on some parts i made. The steel was 12l14 and clogged it up something fierce. I dont want to use a chemical for fear of the bindings disintegrating, i thought maybe a wire wheel but wouldnt that just sharpen the wires? Anyway thoughts and suggestions please.

We get some good sized white tails around here. For a while the largest deer taken was killed with a bow about 1/4 mile from my grandparents house. The Beatty buck, 39 point scored a 304 6/8 (yes i had to look it up). Huge deer. There have been a couple bigger taken but this part of Ohio is known quite well for big deer.

Trust me, it is nicer than what she calls me.

Only time she comes out is to tell me there are other things i need to do besides play in the fire. She is more of an indoor person, she does a little gardening but would rather be inside cooking or what ever it is women do indoors.

Welcome, your name reminds me of the wife. I call her a "monkey butted turkey duck."

Oh guards shmards. No just kidding. I have seen first hand what a cutting disc coming apart can do. A co-worker was using one on a surface grinder when it came apart. 15 stitches in his forehead. My dad taught me long ago : Do not fear the tool, respect the tool. Kind of like being gun shy. If your are scared of the gun that is when you dont get a firm grip, firmly set to the shoulder and end up bruised. But really if you are uneasy using an angle grinder ask your neighbor to do it for you while you watch. Ask him to put a grinding wheel on it and just touch the bar for a few seconds so you can see the spark pattern. You could even take the bar to him and explain what you are trying to see. Having another person do it can give another set of eyes also, not to mention free up your hands so that you can take some photos of the sparks. The pics will "freeze" them in time and i would think be able to match to pics of known materials better. Anyway, i spent the better part of the day studying the treasure of St. Ninians Isle. Pretty interesting. All silver, brooches, bowls, cross guards, sheath tips and 1 small knife. If anyone is interested in Celtic/Pictish art it really is quite stunning. Frosty would have got me if not for proof reading, i put studding instead of studying. That give a completely different meaning, farriers at least would have giggled...

My grandpa worked at Wright Pat AFB. He told me that it was his job to feed the aliens. That kind of looks how he described them. I know gramps would never pull my leg so it has to be true. But i am still waiting for my baby fingers to fall off so i can get my adult ones. I have an app on my phone, it is free, called sky view. I think it only shows thing that are visible with the naked eye but it show the planets, stars, constellations, and even the Hubble and ISS.

5mm is .096" approximately (doing math in my head...) 3/16". It also looks like you need a little more twist in the jaws. From the pic it looks like they are turned 45 degrees instead of 90 degrees.

US Army, Abrams tanker.

Welcome. Sounds like you have been bitten by the bug. Next thing you know you will be going to flea markets and stopping at every garage sale you come across. Standing in the hardware section looking at things and asking "How can i use that at the forge?" Anyway, stay safe and have fun.

George, get one. They do make life somewhat easier. I use mine mainly for making tenons and isolating areas of metal. Makes necking down pipe a breeze. I would suggest building it. They are not hard to build, especially if you have a welder. Get a couple good sized leaf springs and set aside and you can make many many dies as needed. Here is the one i built this past summer. Its ugly but it works great. The frame is made from a vibration dampener off the transmission of a Ranger, the dies are made from the leaf spring of a late 90's Dodge 2500. I have since added a bolt to hold the bottom die more stable, you can not see it in the pic but there is one on the back also under the mouse. I did however build it wrong. I built it to fit cut dies rather than the width of the spring. So my top die has to have an extension welded to it. If there is a wrong way to do something, i will figure it out. That dampener was a stack of steel plates about 10" long, stacked 6" or so high, held together with 2 big rivets. The rivets now have a home in 2 sets of tongs.

From what i know of tool manufacturers it could be a good quality steel for a knife it may not be a good quality steel. Pry bars are not made to cut nor hold an edge so who ever is making them is going to use the cheapest they can find that has the specs they need which would be strength and flexibility, not edge retention and hardenability. But having said that a pry bar should be something close to a car or truck leaf spring, at least that is what my quick reference says. That still dont tell you much about the steel though. If you are getting good results that you are happy with, whom ever is receiving the blade is happy with, and they are not flying apart hurting anyone, keep on. But for the price of them i can go to my supplier and get a drop of high carbon steel that would make 4x the knives that one pry bar would make.

A coworker i used to have, me and him used to try and find the most obscure words for things we could. Just a way of throwing each other for a loop everyday. I hear tale that the Arcturan megadonkey is quite a delicacy, Granddad told me that when i was knee high to an Arcturan mega grasshopper.

khmiller, welcome aboard. If you would please fill out your header. Let us know where in the great big ol' world you are. General location, not exact address. Many questions here can be answered by region. I could say go down to Bobs hardware and get a good quality hickory American made handle, but if you live in Romania there are not many Bobs hardware stores there. Handling a hammer is one of the most talked about and argued about subjects there are. BT or TT, that is new to me. TT i have seen for abbreviating "Tru-temper" which is a brand name. My method is get a handle that is close to what i want then sand, file, cut what ever to fit the eye. I may be an odd ball here but the store bought engineers handle is a perfect fit for me, just remove the slick finish is all i need to do to one. Anyway if you have not yet, go to the "Read this first" and read it. Fill out the header. Get out to your shop and make something beautiful. Then post pics for us. Stay safe and keep it fun.

Kexel, i like that book end. I think it is quite elegant.

Torx is a trademarked name, the drive is actually called a "hexalobular internal", abbreviated "6 lobe". Sort of the way we call them Allen drive is actually called a socket cap, Allen is a trade marked name. But in answer to your question yes, they are universal. They are makred with a "T" followed by a number "T-40" as an example. There are however internal and external Torx. Most of the major tool companies now, Snap-on, Mac, Matco, etc, have made multi drive sockets. They are designed to be used on standard 6-point, external Torx, even triple square, basically one socket used on all drives. Now a note about whiskey. The word whiskey comes from Irish Gaelic "uisca beatha" pronounced "Ish-ka Baha". Translated it means "Water of life." The original mountain dew.