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I Forge Iron

Donal Harris

2021 Donor
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About Donal Harris

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Purcell, Oklahoma
  • Interests
    Tuning perfectly good scrap into amorphous blobs of burnt steel at the moment.

Contact Methods

  • Yahoo
    Vibriomimicus@yahoo.com

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  1. I have a truck rim I plan to use as a base for my grinder, but until I get a grinder with more hp, there is little reason for me to do so. I really only use it to sharpen my shovels in the Spring. I never noticed its motor was only 1/5 hp until I tried to use it with a buffer wheel. Anything other than a light touch to the wheel will stop it. I haven’t done much at the forge lately. My last two things I’ve finished are a cane for my mother-in-law and a divot repair tool for my father-in-law.
  2. I have been wanting to do something like your bowling ball thing from the first time I saw you post about it. I just haven’t come across a ball yet. I had thought I might weld a table to a trailer hub and axle to make it easy to turn. One problem I have with chasing (haven’t done the other yet) is vision. My old eyes just can’t see the fine details. I tried some clip-on magnifiers for my bifocals, but they didn’t help.
  3. He has a gantry hoist in his shop. That was the first thing I thought of, but it only moves across the width of the shop and not forwards and back. It also lifts too slowly. Something like that would be a good thing for someone who is totally incapable of standing up on their own. I considered counter weights as well, but that seemed to be something which would work well to make him essentially weightless, but way too complex. What I think may work is something like this, assuming it moved quickly enough. Or maybe something like that with a spring which wouldn’t totally do all the work, but would serve as more of an assist. I have also considered going to a place that sells used office chairs, but all I have ever seen or used don’t do a good job at lowering smoothly. You press the lever and they all seem to just drop to the lowest point quickly. Then you have to sort of stand while pressing the lever again, at which point the chair rises too high and you have to try again. I am really surprised that with as many Boomers and older Gen Xers as there are today, someone out there hasn’t already invented something to do this already. Seems like there would be a fairly good market for it. I need to keep him going out to his shop for as long as possible. As long as he is still able to get out and work in his shop, training his dogs, or down in South Texas or North Dakota bird hunting, I will still have him. This came about because he told me the smoker he was building would be his last. I told him it wasn’t and bought him another 8’ of 18” pipe. I told him that he may wake up tomorrow and just not feel like getting out of the house and when he does, he should just say, “Not this morning. Maybe later today.” And if he gets out there and feels done in after an hour, that is OK. He should just tell himself he is going to go take a break and will come out again later in the evening or maybe tomorrow. He should never think he’s made his last smoker, bird hunting trailer, press break, or any of the other things he has always been making. There will someday be a half finished this or that which I will find and finish once he is gone, but I am just not ready for that yet.
  4. Both rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis. Not a lot of cushion in his spine. Same with his knees. Plantar fasciitis. Leg pain. AMI a couple of years ago. The guts of an EZ Lift chair or something similar using hydraulics instead of electric motors was my initial thought, but I am not an engineer. I work in a clinical lab.
  5. Does anyone have a suggestion as to welding chairs which help a person with problems going from a standing position to seated and then back up?
  6. I got my youngest daughter to try setting a weld for me once. Didn’t work. The flux squirting out scared her. My latest key chain. It is for my baby brother he was in the Oklahoma National Guard. 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. He was a TOW crewman. This is what his shoulder patch looked like if I remember correctly.
  7. Sweet railings, John. What stock did you use? What coating did you use? Billy, nice corner hooks and brazier. My wife has been on me to make some to replace our old and tacky tiki torches. Start of a small wrought iron hatchet with inserted high carbon bit and possible HC poll. Hunting knife with old file welded in for the edge. Tip warped during quench. I tried to straighten it by bending it in a vice between two pieces of flat bar. Tip snapped off. Ground in a new tip. Quenched and it warped again. Reheated and quenched again in oil, after 10-12 seconds I removed it and placed it between two pieces of flat bar and let it cool. No warp. Once side of the blade had the wrought iron totally ground off. The steel is solidly welded, so it should hold, but assuming I wanted, could I repair that side by forge welding on a thin piece of WI without burning up the edge steel?
  8. Me too, I was just surprised you didn’t already have a pair. Not that having 3 or 4 or the same tool is a bad thing.
  9. I think the paint stirrer is the sand paper block? Went to LA’s Recycling Center with my Dad in OKC today. Primarily just to see what they had. It is sort of hard to walk around the place and get to things you want to look at. I several times had to remind myself that I am no longer young and the paths I was picking as we wove our way through the junk to find the treasure were probably a little to sketchy for me to go down, and if a bit too sketchy for me at 60, would certainly be too much for my Dad at 74. I will go back later with a trailer. Today was just for scouting, but I did leave with a couple of things. Some sort of cable and a worn out bearing? or something like that. The welder was one my Dad brought me from his shop. I had taken his much larger MIG to a repair shop in the City a few months ago, so he no longer needed the little one.
  10. Some more recent things. Arrowhead keychain fob for my Director. Heart with my initials and those of my wife chiseled in. It has a cross on the back. It also is a keychain. It was for my wife’s birthday
  11. Cool S hooks. Birthday present for my wife. Wrought iron and copper.
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