SHC

Ha! I’ve got a cannon too! It would go great on a ship! Maybe a model of a ship. A model of a ship maybe a little bigger than a shoe box. Fires balls slightly smaller than .177 caliber, using black cat firecracker powder and fuses. You’ll have to zoom in to see it. I do have a small brass cannon somewhere that looks to be around .45 caliber. I haven’t had time to fully investigate it. It does have a fuse hole on the back so I’m assuming it was built to at least fire loose powder with no projectile. Found it at a flea market, but it’s still packed away somewhere after our move this past summer.

Y’all make sure you ain’t getting turtles from a sewer pond, I’d reckon that could influence the flavor. I caught a swamp man in a Jon boat out in the 15 acre sewer pond system I used to manage, he was collecting turtles and crawfish. Federal trespassing buddy, kick rocks before I call the law and don’t come back, that’s disgusting. He came back. Invited me to a crawfish boil as a thank you for not calling the cops. I politely but firmly declined.

I wasn’t thrilled to do it, but it was his wrench and his wishes. I warned him up front that I wasn’t 100% confident it wouldn’t just turn into scrap metal.

We got plenty of critters. Coyotes, black bear, alligators. Venomous snakes. I’m not worried about snakes for the most part, they don’t bother me. But I killed a couple rattlers at work just because they’re too dangerous to be left to their own devices in my working area and too dangerous for me to feel comfortable moving them. But if they ain’t in my way, have a nice day. This big old chunk was caught on camera about a mile from the house. Fattest black bear I’ve ever seen. I believe this may be the same one I’ve seen raiding deer feeders. I did actually get out to the forge and knocked out a small project yesterday evening. My boss requested a knife made from a crescent wrench. It’s a little disproportionate, he wanted “crescent” to be clearly visible which left the handle a bit long and not much steel for a novice to work into a blade after chopping off the wrench part, but I think it turned out alright. He specifically requested a “fresh out of the fire” look. I just got off the phone with him after dropping it off at his office this morning and I’m happy he’s pleased with it. I told him I have no idea how good a blade it will actually make but that sucker got hard, I had to use my diamond hones to sharpen it, and it took a wicked edge.

My own fear of spiders started when I was about kindergarten age. I was digging around between the couch cushions for something I’d dropped and got bit. Spiders are great teachers though. Anybody who walks into a web immediately learns Kung Fu AND a new language! I actually like black widows because of their perfection. Shiny, black, splash of red. Nightmare fuel in art form. A friend of mine got a tattoo of one on the back of his shoulder, and it was a big one. The first time I saw it, let’s just say I wasn’t thinking straight. I took off my belt and was determined to kill it. But that sucker was latched on good and I really had to give it a good walloping, numerous licks before someone convinced me to stop.

I’ll say something that may offend, but it’s just the truth… and keep in mind I say it with good humor in my heart. I live just north of Monroe LA. I’m not from here. I was raised in Mississippi but I’ve been all over. Up north, down south, out west and foreign countries. And the truth is, Louisianans just can’t drive. Rain, sleet, snow, dirt roads, PAVED roads (on the rare occasion you find a good one in this state) Louisianans just can’t drive. Uncle Si almost hit me head on, TWICE. I’ve had two accidents in my life, both here in Louisiana. More near misses than my Mississippi public education equipped me to count. My old school teachers told me when I ran out of fingers to count on my toes. Well, I ran out of toes to count the near misses on years ago. I bought a new car in 2012. The day after I got it I went to city hall to pay my water bill and it was hit in the parking lot while I was inside. I’d parked it in an empty lot across the street. I don’t count that as an accident since I wasn’t in it. The fella I replaced at my job had wrecked my work truck twice and sunk it in a wastewater pond. It only had 35K on the odometer when I got it. A friend of mine from Texas asked me if trading paint was our state sport or just a sign of affection. I felt safer cruising the streets of downtown Baghdad then I do when I cruise down to the corner store for a pack of smokes and a Red Bull. In the shop over this fine weekend I’ve welded some angle iron for the legs of the charcoal forge I’ll be building. Then I went to my buddy’s house down the road to pick up this “small” welding table he found and had offered to me. A “Small” welding table in his book is apparently approximately 5.5’X11’. I’m filing that information away for future reference. It’s too big to be useable to me. My oldest son and I have already discussed using the framework to make a “U” shaped table. Twistedwillow, here’s that there pipe heating gadget I was talking about. And here’s the masterpiece of my weekend. Instead of heating and beating, I did some heating and eating. That’s 17 pounds worth of brisket.

Y’all talking about winterizing pipes and such. I ain’t done much in my shop the past few days because my day job is water treatment and distribution. I have a LOT of plumbing to winterize. Twistedwillow, there’s a gadget available at many hardware stores, I call it heat tape. I’ll take a picture when I can. It looks like an extension cord without a plug, you coil it around whatever you’re trying to keep thawed and plug it in, you can use an extension cord. It has a built in thermostat so it’s not on all the time but turns on when it drops to a certain temperature. Used in conjunction with styrofoam insulation you should have no trouble at all. I have some water wells wrapped in this stuff, then covered with R-11 fiberglass insulation. Topped off with plastic drop cloth, garbage bags, or visqueen, whatever plastic sheeting I can get my hands on with plenty of duct tape to keep it dry. This may also work with your water troughs, but I’ve never tried it on anything that size, it’s meant for plumbing. It could be safe to drop the end into the water as the device itself is weather resistant, except for the plug. But please don’t risk your animals based on a “maybe” from me. Finding a frozen water well running wide open is nerve wracking. If you’re lucky you just burst a pipe. If not, running the pump dead headed will burn it up. Only have a short time to get everything fixed before the whole community loses water. Prevention is obviously much better.

Hey that thing looked mean!

Aw Billy, you just Ain’t Ready for Marines Yet, but it’s okay we still love ya. Marines do have a tendency of volunteering for the crazy stuff. Walking into the recruiter’s office is the first sign. Really, we had recruiting commercials about fighting lava monsters and if that don’t get ya fired up I don’t know what will!

But if it did work like that… I’m picturing the frustration my youngest son experienced when I put those trick candles on his birthday cake. He was blowing hard enough to get a sailboat up to speed, and as soon as he’d run out of air, they relit. Of course I thought it was hilarious.

On welders, the Hobart 160i is a DC stick welder that can use 120 or 240. My generator has 120 and 240. The manual says all I need is a 2500 watt generator and my generator puts out 6500. I went with stick because the machine is cheaper and it’s what I’ve used before Smart Marine vs Dumb Marine… When I enlisted the USMC and USAF were the only ones requiring diplomas too, maybe I joined in the same time frame as Rojo? Don’t want dumb Marines out front calling in artillery or hogs. You’re gonna have a bad day. Yeah, motor pool sounds good. I embrace the good natured ribbing though. Anytime I know I’ll be around army vets I bring some crayons just for the laughs.

I finally picked up a little welding machine last week. I went with the Hobart 160i rather than the Lincoln I wanted mainly because of availability and ease of use. So today I just practiced. Been twenty years since I’ve done any welding and I’ve never pretended to be a professional, so I just ran through a small pack of sticks getting the hang of it again and learning the machine. I had a piece of rusty old scrap steel and just ran beads all over it. Didn’t actually put anything together. There was a plate bolted to it to patch a hole (no idea what this piece was used for) so I did go ahead and weld that together just because. Didn’t take long to get back in the saddle. My oldest boy went to trade school to learn to weld and did a little on the wind and solar farms so he was there giving me pointers too. Gotta say by the end of those few hours I’m feeling pretty confident I can take on just about any task I need to around the house and shop.

Take the trip! You only live once!

George, I pushed the limit, hard. Three NJPs, one for unauthorized absence (there was a girl involved, naturally). Got the 45/45/2, would have lost rank but had none to lose. Then I was mostly kept in theater except for a quick sojourn back to the states. I’d had a couple dust ups in Ireland, Spain and Croatia. They didn’t let me roam in Germany though. Those incidences were just kind of swept under the rug, got lectured and unofficial restriction. They kept me so busy in the states that I couldn’t get in trouble. Then back to the sandbox and an extension. Made E5. Then back to the states. Drinking and fighting. Made E3 again. Captain told me while he was breaking the chevrons off my insignia, “There’s garrison Marines, and there’s combat Marines. Most do both jobs well enough. At the end of the day, garrison Marines are all spit shine and creases, fresh shave twice a day, quote regulations by heart and look darn good on the parade deck and panic when they’re shot at. Combat Marines get promoted four times in theater and cause nothing but trouble for the garrison Marines” I was demoted from sergeant to corporal and awarded three campaign medals on the same day. Go figure.

Thomas, when I was in it didn’t go to full court martial if you got hurt doing something stupid. You could still lose rank and pay, but if it didn’t cause you to miss a “movement” (like a training deployment or overseas deployment) you were more likely to just be put on restriction. I have to ask, why in the world were you trail riding in a chain mail shirt?

She has gotten past that. She’s just turned three this past December and is actually the most well behaved of our three dogs (we lost one to old age less than a year after Annie came to us). She has nightmares though, but I’m a light sleeper. I wake her up from hers and she wakes me up from mine, it’s a pretty good partnership.

This here is Annie. Heck of a story. Her mama is a stray that looks like Lassie but somehow purdier. She was pregnant, then one day she wasn’t. My wife runs a recycling center in Monroe LA. The workers noticed the mama sneaking in and out but couldn’t figure out where she was going. They assumed, correctly I believe, that she’d snuck in and had her litter amongst the giant piles of recyclables stocked in the warehouse. They searched, but couldn’t find them. Then mama got hit by a car right in front of the warehouse by a speeding idiot. Thankfully it was only a couple days later they got a big order to fill, and as they were pulling stock they finally found the pups. There were only two. The rest were killed by rats. Annie has scars on her belly, near the base of her tail, on her chin and a couple other spots where she’d been attacked. One of the guys put them in a box and brought them to my wife and was crying his eyes out. There’d been seven pups, they think, and all were dead but these two. The whole crew are dog lovers. My wife brought them home with the intention of getting them adopted. I wasn’t working at the time, I was actually waiting for HR at my current company to finish whatever process they were doing before they could put me to work, so I was there at home keeping the pups clean and feeding them from one of my grandson’s bottles that had been left at my house. Took them to the vet to get checked out and get shots and a few stitches and I was nursing them back to health. We found someone who wanted to adopt one and they picked Annie’s sister. Then one day Annie attacked me. Her eyes weren’t even opened yet, but one time I tried to pick her up to feed her and the little furball growled and latched onto my hand and shook. I decided I’d keep her. I’m glad I did. She still rides to work with my wife every now and then to visit the fellas that found her.

First anvil stand I tried to build was like those posted by Thomas. The wood split though. I’d mentioned casting a concrete stand and moving away from my 4X6 posts, and I think it was JHCC who recommended footing it 3-4’ deep. Looks like I will when I do that. The 4X6 posts are buried into the floor and bound on both ends with iron bands bolted together. But they seem to be shifting some. The anvil was level when I did this, but now it’s off level towards the bick and away from the upsetting block. Not bad, the bubble in my level still floats, but it bugs me.

George, I ain’t gonna lie, I’d really like to move someplace a bit milder. I’m not sure where though. I’ve lived in mountains (Appalachia), swamps, desert, coastal… I’m even willing to deal with a colder winter so long as it’s a drier winter than we experience down here. I’ve done summers and winters in West Virginia, loved it. It’s funny when it’s 80 degrees out and the locals say “it’s a shame you’re visiting during a heat wave!” I just laugh, 80 degrees doesn’t even make me break a sweat.

Can confirm the 80% rule for filling propane. All my generators at work run on propane, supplied by Ferrel. I’m required to be there when they fill them and have discussed it with the delivery drivers. I’ve seen the gauge spike to 95% in the summer. George, I been to Laramie. In June of 2013 I believe. Went out and climbed that there sugar loaf mountain. Got sunburned later while building a snow man in my shorts and tank top. It was 70 something during the day I reckon. Then went up in Medicine Bow park and camped on Rob Roy Reservoir. Beautiful country you got up there. Wouldn’t be caught dead there in the winter though. Actually, if I were caught there in the winter, it’d probably be because I died. Funny thing though, I’m losing my hearing and it was already starting back then, but I REALLY couldn’t hear anything there. My first night there I stayed at the Rodeway right off the interstate. I remember standing outside and seeing the tractor trailers running up and down the interstate, but I couldn’t hear ‘em. That was more than a little eerie to me. I reckoned the air was thin enough, coupled with my bad hearing that it just had an added effect. Folks around town kept asking me why I was shouting. They didn’t like me much. Didn’t matter, I couldn’t hear em cussing me behind my back! I was also really impressed with the roads. They know how to build ‘em there. Bear in mind I’m in Louisiana, so that probably colors my opinion a bit. On my way home from work I can choose between a dirt road and a paved road for the last two miles of the ride. I take the dirt road, it’s smoother, makes a pleasant little end to my day. Made a fire poker to go with my wife’s chimenea thingy. I like how it turned out. It started as some unknown thickness square stock about 18” long. Just plain mild steel from the hardware store.

Wrote that name down, sounds like my kinda music.

George, you just seem to read me. Yes, blue rhino. Their gas also seems to run out quicker too. I don’t know what’s up with that. Amerigas seems to burn longer and I never had an issue with their tanks. Only switched to BR for convenience. I have been strongly considering getting a bigger tank, or just getting a permanent tank out here. Could just get it refilled when I get the tank refilled for the house.

I did some cleaning, assembled a cheap shelving set I had laying around, that led to some light organizing. I’m a poor housekeeper. Went to the store to exchange propane tanks. Then went back to return them for faulty valves. I’m not sure how commonly people use the small propane cylinders you can pick up or exchange at gas stations but I’ll say this, there’s a particular brand that I will NOT be using anymore. Not sure if I can blast a specific brand on this forum, but I’ve experienced about a 50% fail rate with this brand. Faulty valves and missing/broken o-rings. I saved one empty tank. I may make a better propane forge out of it. I’ve got the little Mr. Volcano forge right now and to say it’s inefficient is a little generous I think.

Went to pick it up, out of stock. My second choice, a Lincoln mig welder, is also out of stock. Continued the search for a new washer and dryer. Found three sets at three different stores my wife likes. Out of stock. Earliest available set is a month and a half out. And they say online shopping is killing brick and mortar stores. Can’t help but wonder why.

Ugh, haven’t yet! I plan to get a Lincoln AC225. Just not enough hours in the day to get things done.