Paul TIKI

Hopefully I will be back at the forge very soon. The weather finally broke and it'll be warm and dry enough this week. I have some plans to make my grill forge into a one with 2 places for the air to come in, hopefully giving me better heat over a much better area. They announced the end of production of the venerable Learjet line where I work, So 250 layoffs are coming. My particular group is not in immediate danger since we do the servicing of jets other than the Learjet. Still. It's sad to see a company that was an early pioneer in the aircraft business stop running. And One of our old timer cats passed this week, which kind of capped off a rough week. All the talk of slingshots gave me an idea to dig out one I found when we cleaned out Dad's garage. A fairly new wrist rocket type. I was never allowed to have one as a kid, so it was a surprise to find. I need to build a BB trap for the backyard. Been meaning to so the wife can practice pistol shooting with an old BB pistol I have. 9mm is too expensive and scarce to go to the range right now. I can use it for the slingshot too! If anyone is interested, if you search for Kramer Ammons on Youtube You can find a lot of stuff about amature bow building. When I first took up Blacksmithing I was at a point to choose between hobbies. smithing or being a bowyer. Ironically, I was able to start smithing with less investment, though a bowyer can make a start nearly as cheaply if he has a good source of wood.

Very Nice! I love the roofs that have that central point with the interlocking timbers like that. I've always thought it gives a pleasant, organic feel to the structure

Will-I-am, It was Earthships that put me on to the concept of earthbags in the first place. I haven't read the books, so I'm sure they address the bits I have not been able to wrap my head around, mainly fire resistance and how to fill the gaps created by using essentially circular building material. Seems like a lot of fill work would need to be done to complete a wall. Straw bales I know are fire resistant because they are dense, and earthbags, well, you know, dirt. I suppose the other stuff and packing the tires with dirt makes them fire retardant as well, but I have been to enough college bonfire parties to know old tires burn pretty well. What do you use to heat your place? I love the concept of a Rocket Mass heater stove things, with the inverted steel drum, but I'd be happy with something like the old wood stove in my last house, which was a 65000 BTU cast iron monstrosity that kept the house toasty warm.

I have been looking at ideas to build a cheap recycled materials type of structure to use as a shop. Earthbags are one potential material. Also recycled pallets. Earthbag construction fascinates me. It seems a deceptively simple and cheap construction method, extremely solid, and very flexible with the things you can do with it in terms of curved walls and windows. Combine earthbag walls with Catalan Vaulting (sometimes called Timbrel vaulting or Gustavino vaulting) and you can build whatever shape your heart desires out of local materials and at very little cost beyond that of labor.

Very Nice! How much does it weigh?

Today is one of those days where the temperature out there really bites since I don't have a sheltered place to forge. If there was ever a day where heating a chunk of metal and hammering it into submission would be therapeutic...

Heck, I'm nearly to the point of being willing to drive all the way to illinois if you had some Ammo to spare. It's getting scarce out here. Not a problem of rising prices. You just can't get any unless you camp out at the sporting goods store or firearms outlets in anticipation of the truck coming in.

Knife laws just don't make any sense to me. Where I'm at people don't even blink at fixed blades worn on the hip, big pocket knives clipped to belt or pocket, various utility knives in leather holsters on your person. Then again, I'm surrounded by Farmers, so...

Well, for those who do not have garages and are in the middle of this lovely arctic weather, remember to tend your vehicle batteries. I just found out the hard way that severe cold can kill a battery. In the middle of yet another furbaby crisis (one of the wife's cats may have to be put down today), both of our vehicles have completely dead batteries. The last time it got anywhere near this cold, we were living in a house with a garage, so it was not a problem. I need to move farther south. Like maybe to Las Cruces...

We have 4 doggos. One old lady, a White German Shepherd dog who does not seem to care, She's 13 and kind of a cranky old lady. Two brothers of the same litter, lab mutts who seemed really surprised at the cold between the toes, and then the big boy, a Lab/Newfoundland cross. He was fine out playing in the snow for about 5 minutes and then the cold started seeping in. Boots are not an option for him. He's a rescue and even though he trusts us for the most part, he drew blood on my arm when I pulled a goat head sticker out of his paw and we have to drug him if we need to trim his nails. I get what you mean about losing a pet. I still miss our first dogs that my wife and I got after our twins were born. Bear made it to 16 and Ellie to 18, Border Collie mutts. Bear looked like a cross between a Chow and Rottweiler.

Frosty, Paper can be dangerous. Just look at the damage caused by well meaning politicians over the centuries. Also, paper cuts hurt. the winter blast we go last week has pretty much kept us all inside. It has warmed all the way up to -1 Farenheit so far today. There has been much soto voce swearing at the dogs because they won't settle down, and I can't walk 'em and I can't just turn them loose outside. Poor baby's came inside with a limp from packed ice in the paws. Last night, one of them flat refused to go out for the last of the night potty breaks out there. How would one train a 120lb dog to use a litter box?

There is an "Email" link on XKCD.com. I've been reading that comic for years.

Love XKCD. Unfortunately, The weather for the remainder of this week is going to be brutally cold and snowy so this shall be my fate:

Whatever it is, it's happy to se ya!

Alexandr, I am always impressed by the metalwork, but the woodwork that goes into that stuff is also amazing. Thanks for sharing the photos of your work.

Oi, that stinks Steve! Glad they caught it before there were worse side effects. It sounds like a bunch of us just got a reminder about blood sugar. Probably a good thing especially since it didn't come at the cost of an ER visit or worse this week. (at least I hope not!) I have my quarterly appt for an A1c check coming up. I hope it's low enough to just stay on the pills and not need insulin.

Sounds more like a blast furnace to me

35, Yikes! Glad you are still with us. And just think, you have a legit excuse for the bedtime snacks now. No one can gainsay you! People keep talking about royal measurements. I wish I could afford royal cubits. All I can afford right now are Serf measurements. If I save, I might be able to lay my hands on some Baron or even Earl type cubits. Feudal systems are rough.

Well, then. I know we stay pretty isolated. Once weekly town runs, masked up, lists made, get in and out as fast as possible, and then cook most meals at home, That's the theory. we had been eating out more often for a while, but now, it's back to the hidey hole.

I was kind of the same. I love my bread machine. I love my salty snacks. Someone says "Nachos" and I find myself in the kitchen in a fugue state with chips in one hand and cheese in the other. I can go to a mexican restaurant and put a serious dent in the chips and salsa supply. One of my favorite things as a kid was when mom would cook a roast was just a piece of bread on the plate covered in gravy. So yeah, I'm having some troubles. The twist of the knife comes from the fact that a normal substitute for chips is pork cracklins or pork rinds and I hate those. and don't talk to me about kale chips. At least they have not tried to take away my coffee. There might be fatalities if they did

Yeah, the type 2 kind of runs on my mom's side. On dad's side I get the triple whammy of BP, cholesterol, and Triglycerides. Cookie Poisoning, as dad used to call it. I'm getting better at listening to my body with the sugars, I can tell if it's getting too high, but it's more than a little scary. What really gets me is that I need to significantly alter my diet. I love Breads and potatoes and starches, so since that drives up the ol' glucose, I have to really reduce or eliminate them. Makes me a little cranky.

Yeah, Type 2, diagnosed about 4 years ago. I changed my diet and started exercising and was doing great for a while. Dropped about 30 lbs (50 still to go) but then my eating habits started to drift back to the old ways. Now I can't seem to get the same reset. It's driving me nuts, because the weight loss plateaued as well. I did just get an Exercise bike and that helps though

Been too cold outside, but yesterday was better, so it was a shop cleanup. OK, that's totally misleading. The 'shop' is the backyard and with 4 dogs ranging from 60 lbs to 120 lbs, well, lets just say some messes needed to be dealt with. then it was tax filing time. After paying off some bills, paying the property takes, and dumping some into savings, there will be some left for tools, maybe a new anvil from the scrap yard. TP, I feel ya on the balancing blood sugar thing. Mines been running high, and I'm starting to think the meds aren't keeping up with it. Not on Insulin yet, and don't want to be. I'm sure shedding 50 lbs or so will help.

Very Nice!

Our last house was designed with the water main supply running under about 40 feet of driveway and garage floor until it made a hard right in the back yard and into a back corner of the house. I blame guys in the 70's smoking too many joints during the design and building of that house. we had 2 severe breaks at the water meter on our side and then another under the driveway. We ended up doing one of those trenchless deals where we took the water line into the house at the closest point to the meter, into the basement, then back to where the water heater an everything else was. It significantly improved our water bill and quality.