Donal Harris

My cousin had a tree removal company before he retired. He had at least twenty acres of stumps and limbs. They have to dispose of them somehow and there is only so much wood one can split and sell. There is probably one near you. I use oak pallet wood for random things. Twice hammer handles. Both of them failed within a couple months. I suspect it may be because of the baking that would must undergo in order to be certified as free of bugs and other things. Now I use nothing but bois d’arc (Osage Orange).

I’ve tried floating the coke and coal from under the ash dump before. It didn’t float, but I didn’t swirl it. I will try that. With this I was just washing the suspicious pieces with water from the slack tub. Washing all sounds much more reliable. Some of them are solid black from coal dust. Very hard to find those. This Utah coal is not anthracite, but it does seem harder than the Vinita coal. I can usually break a thinner piece in half with just my fingers. This Utah coal I cannot.

It has been raining and my grandson has been sticking to me pretty tight for the past couple of days. I haven’t been able to get out till this afternoon. I really like the size of the coal. Most of the pieces are just a little bigger than my thumbnail. The association’s coal is about 3.5”. I have to bust up most of the pieces. This coal I don’t. As for clinker, it doesn’t seem any more or less of an issue than normal. The only major problem I noticed was limestone. Each shovelful will have at least three pieces of limestone in it. And it was impossible to be 100% sure I found all of them. It was fairly obvious I had missed a few. When limestone heats up, it fractures. Sometimes violently. I am going to have to make some sort of sorting screen to dump each shovelful into to look for the stones. I suppose I can pretend I am on an archeological dig.

Yep. Utah coal from Vinita. It was a much longer and more expensive drive than I expected it to be. I think it was something like $14 in tolls and a tank of diesel. They said they would deliver if the association bought a truck load. They are supposed to call one of our directors today. The coal side of the operation is closed, but they have managed to reopen the rock side. I have two empty 55 gallon steel drums, two empty 55 gallon plastic drums, and two empty 33 gallon drums. I will have to buy more. Exactly how many more I am not sure. One online calculator gives the weight of a gallon of bituminous coal as being 13.49 pounds. But before I need worry about storing the coal, I have to first work out how to get the pallet off the trailer. I am thinking run a chain though the pallet and attach it to a spare tire and pull it off. Hopefully the bag doesn’t rip open in the process.

The spring works well. I believe I will use it just as it is and just mount it a little lower than my other one.

1 ton of coal and a 4.25 inch leg vise.

Have begun trying to make the chain to hold up the grills. Not going well. The weld sticks on every third one. I think I will switch from 1/4” round to 1/4” square and just form eyes on the end of each link with twists in the middle. I need to build a bending jig first The bottom grill for the pork will be 30” in diameter. The smaller grill above it for the veggies will be smaller, it I will decide on its dimensions once the bottom one is done.

Put a lite more work on my flatter. Do I normalize it prior to punching SNF drifting the hole? I still need to clean up the struck end and tweak it a bit straighter. The face is flat and reasonably square. I believe it will work. As it sits now, it is 3.12 lbs.I forget what JLC’s weighed when finished.

4.5”. He recently acquired another one with 6” jaws. Do any of you know the guy? I’m picking it up Thursday. Looking forward to meeting him and seeing his shop.

I am buying it for $145. My current one I paid $75 for but that was three years ago. The guy seems cool. From Claremore. Billy Helton. Seems to make good knives. He has his JS qualification.

It sounds awful. Large file. I know how to shrink photos, but not video. IMG_5896.MOV

It looks odd.

A door can be placed in the back if something is too long to fit, correct? What internal volume should I shoot for? I want to forge railings for my back deck as well as a fence around the pool which is more attractive than the black mesh fence around it now.

2” of insulation leaves an internal radius of 6”. Chopping off 4” from the end leaves 20”. 2” of insulation at each end leaves 16”. 1,810 cu/in? Would I be better off using gas line pipe? Or would it just make it heavier with no benefit?

It isn’t really the peanut that makes fresh, boiled peanuts so good. It is the salt. I would pop a few in my mouth and suck on them until the salt was gone. Only then would I break them open and eat the peanuts inside. When I first bought a bag I was only cracking them open and eating the peanuts inside. The shells I just threw away. When I told a friend I couldn’t see what people saw in them, he told me I was doing it wrong and was tossing away the best part. As for boiled peanuts in a can, that sounds like a way to ruin perfectly peanuts. When I was a kid, on our way across town to football practice, we used to fill our pockets with fresh peanuts that had spilled to the side when the farmers unloaded their peanut wagons at the peanut plant. Eating raw peanuts now doesn’t sound appealing, but back then they tasted alright. Does yours automatically shut off when you hang up the torch?

What is: Anhydrous Borax Granular Graphite Crucible Powder Deoxidizing Casting Flux Just anhydrous borax or anhydrous borax with graphite in it?

I’ve been saving this water heater tank for a couple of years now to make a gas forge. The tank was half filled with calcium deposits. Measuring from the cut end to the weld line where the domed top is attached, it is 24” The diameter is about 16.5” I plan to cut the bottom off the other end of the tank to use as the back of the forge What is remaining from the tank cylinder, I am going to try to make a box blade for my mower, assuming I can reinforce it well enough. The tank was made from a much thinner gauge steel than I remember them being when I was a kid

I’ve never had a clam. Fried or otherwise. Plenty of fried oysters though. As for raw oysters, nope. Not gonna. That Vibrio vulnificus is serious stuff. Kills one in five. Those it doesn’t kill often have to have limbs amputated. And you cannot tell the good clams or oysters from the bad ones. These crawfish boiled up really well. I haven’t had any crawfish since moving back to Oklahoma from East Texas. I have been missing them. Another thing I’ve been craving is boiled peanuts. I used to eat them all the time when I lived in the Florida panhandle.

Probably won’t be able to forge today. Mud bugs. Laissez les bon temps rouler.

Except for the cold anvil sucking the heat from the steel, I love forging when snow is falling. Start wearing multiple layers. Finish with barely a t-shirt.

I bought a bottle of Iron Mountain flux yesterday. It was very spendy. $30 USD for a small squirt bottle. I only had time for one go last night, but is seemed to work better than my 20 Mule Team/Roach poison mix. It did not bubble and stayed where I put it instead of sliding off.

74 F isn’t too hot. Besides, I know a guy who knows a guy with a plasma cutter.

What is the bottom leaf spring called? I plan to cut a hammer drift out of it. Other than that, who l knows. Maybe one of those large cleaver things they use to split hogs in half. The coil springs, once safely removed, punches, chisels, a drifts. This thick plates with holes in them, who knows. Likely just leave them in a pile for my kids to dispose of some day.

eBay.

I find an agreeable farmer who has bois d’arc growing on his place. I find a nice fat limb, remove it and cut it into manageable lengths to haul home. Once home I split it and coat the ends in paraffin (American sense of the word) or bees wax. I stack it in the garage for at least a year or longer. Very sturdy wood. Bright yellow when new, but a rich, golden brown after a bit of UV from the sun hits it. No better handle wood to my way of thinking.