rockstar.esq

Glenn, I might add a few modest corrections to your last sentence. He's the fifth generation of a family that developed and maintained a high end, high dollar product, and a niche market. This is the business side of extraordinary niche markets that often gets overlooked. Five generations of a family had to be market leaders without changing the traditional qualities of their product. There's no guarantee that the market was always strong, or that it was always profitable. Over the span of one hundred years, it's entirely reasonable to expect that there were very hard times in this market. I would imagine that WWII was a serious threat to this business as a going concern. That would convey a certain pride of ownership for fellow countrymen.

One thing to remember about epoxies, resins, caulks and adhesives is that a lot of them will give off toxic fumes if they burn. I saw a video where a guy poured an epoxy in between his anvil and a stump with a recessed top. It hardened into a 2" thick shiny black epoxy slab with the anvil sticking out of it. The whole thing looked nice and custom in the video but I know I drop red hot steel often enough that it'd be a problem for me.

OK I've got an idea that might work. Set the anvil face down on a level surface and cover the base in masking tape. Now cut a bunch of wood so that you've got 1/2" square by maybe three inches long. Build a wooden frame that tightly matches the perimeter of your anvil's base. Tape in in place so that the wooden rim is level. Now start gluing in the wooden pieces, making sure that they are firmly against the anvil's base. Once everything is fully dried, take off the tape and you should have a wooden box with a bunch of wooden fingers that generally map your anvil base's topography. Take a straight edge along your rim and mark the fingers so that the shortest fingers constitute the cut line for all the rest. Cut everything nice and square. Now you've got an "anvil socket" that can be reinforced with a stump, a plate tripod, or whatever you're looking to use. For bonus points, you can add some caulk to make up the asperities from using 1/2" square stock.

Just spitballing here, but your setup looks like you could ratchet strap a drum to the back side and fill it with water. If you do go that route, you might opt for a lid of some kind. I've noticed that hot steel never seems to land in my quench bucket unless doing so would ruin whatever I'm working on. The real question is how does the steel know where the bucket is?

JeepinJoe, I appreciate the clarification.

Fleur, your last few photo's remind me of something I learned at a bladesmithing demonstration. The demonstrator showed how to forge a square corner at the transition from blade bevel to tang on a ricasso-less knife like yours. He forged the bevels partway down, then he used a ball pein at that corner to pinch out material diagonally towards the future corner. Then he went back to forging the bevels. The material filled in the "pinch" because he'd created an easier place for it to flow to. The lump at the corner moved to the corner as he forged the bevel. It takes longer to describe than to do. Honestly, it was really impressive how naturally everything fell into place.

I must admit, that made me chuckle!

Well said.

One common thread among the last three responses is that "technology" is being surreptitiously used for control. One side see's this as a bug, the other as a feature. As an interesting expansion of this thinking, I've noticed that tech being overtly used for control tends to be much more humane. For example, accounting software is set up so the typical user can't "cook the books". I'm not saying it's infallible, so much as I'm pointing out that there's actually a good reason why accounting software typically doesn't have a "back" button. The rules are clear and everybody's got to work according to them if they're using said software. Unintended consequences aren't tolerated for very long because the technology exists to limit liability. Surreptitious control invariably requires people to believe that things "just so happen" to fall short in a way that consistently benefits one side. It was the lawyers, or the nerds, or the sales people. "My hands were tied" is the common refrain of people who spend all their time looking for rope. I came up in the trades where interpersonal communications weren't as cordial or refined as the standards of today. It's my honest opinion that it's far less insulting to get cussed at sometimes. At least you're getting a sincere and heartfelt message from another person. This weaseling game of control-freak "keep away" diminishes the humanity of all concerned.

Thomas, I hadn't heard that but it's not surprising. Whether the deal gets made before court or after, there's a public interest in making technology compatible with commerce.

JeepinJoe, Right now there's a crisis among higher ed graduates because they can't find employment sufficient to get out of school debt. I have a big issue with "collaborative learning" being presented as a replacement for conventional teaching. As a student, I'm paying the university to teach me things I don't already know. This would make a group of fellow students an obviously poor replacement for a qualified instructor. I think people have bought into higher ed marketing to where they think it's an "experience" that magically imbues professional success on participants. That's always been a vicious lie. Over the time I spent in academia, it was pretty clear that universities were reducing the instruction, as they increased the administration. Currently, the majority of universities literally have more administrators than faculty. When you've got more salesman than makers, the product declines and the marketing improves. How many schools promise to cater the education to the students learning style? What proof is there that any of this exists, or that it's effective? I'm not talking "studies show" nonsense. I'm talking about hard facts and figures charted over time. Those numbers aren't so encouraging. It's virtually impossible to earn a four year degree in four years. Some published statistics suggest that only 40% of freshmen will graduate with a degree in six years. These same statistics suggest that less than half of them will graduate in the major they initially pursued. During my time in higher ed, the tuition rose every single year. Heck, the rate at which my tuition rose, went up every year. My senior year tuition cost over 15% more per credit hour than my Junior year. By some standards, my experience was downright frugal. I think it's dreadfully unfair that an entire generation has been handicapped by this nonsense. We all need the next generation to be successful. If it was truly possible for students to collaboratively learn what's needed to succeed in life, then higher ed should be cheaper, shorter, and smaller. Just to clarify, most of my classes involved group work that probably fits your definition of "collaborative learning". One or two people in the group did the work, the rest got credit for "participating". I never heard of a group that got a failing grade, but I did see my grade impacted by the shoddy work of a group member. I'm fairly sure that the dead-weight students in my groups considered themselves "collaborative learners".

Thomas, you might be surprised to know that the physical designs of electrical devices like switches, and receptacles, are uniform standards created by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association. It's my understanding that NECA started as an entirely voluntary organization. If everyone made their own thing, there would be no way to coordinate consumer devices with the installed systems. There are elements of this already in phone design, for example the USB and headphone ports, not to mention that huge legal deals required to allow so many manufacturers to cooperate on how call systems will operate. As a society we often pretend that fear of liability ties all hands in a way that "just so happens" to make it a lot easier to lower the average level of quality, while increasing the average level of price. That's a scam we need to quit accepting. In 2019 there's simply no excuse for phones that aren't universally water resistant, drop proof, and cross carrier compatible.

This is very true.

Buzzkill, I kinda got the impression you weren't the sort to just stop at; "it depends"! Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I sometimes wonder if people feel obliged to define themselves as introverted for simply wanting privacy and quiet to do their best work. I'm extroverted however I passionately hate noise, especially people talking around me. I spend very little time face to face with my colleagues and clients. Phone conversations are much more nuanced and personal. The last thing I need is a halting murmur because one side of the conversation is justifiably worried about being misheard. Most of the open office floor plans I see have "phone booths" which are usually tiny little rooms with a transparent door. Even in a room ostensibly designed to allow a private phone conversation, there's a penal aspect to the design. In fact, many of them have built in chairs which force the caller to face the glass door. A lot of conceptual pricing is done off of architectural concept sketches of the space. These sketches typically include humanoids in the renderings to make the office look sufficiently collaborative and spacious. It really stands out to me how open offices are always depicted with 1/16th their total occupancy.

Marc1 and Thomas, you're both hitting on one side of an idea that's not universally true. Let's take the craftsman is easily copied argument first. I've been a journeyman electrician for eighteen years. Last winter I had to pinch hit for a foreman who was out sick. There were three panels that needed all their wiring terminated. When I got there, an apprentice had been working for a full day and hadn't gotten halfway through the first panel. The work had to finish that evening so that the roof top equipment could be turned on to heat the building. Temp heating was being removed during that day. If we didn't make it, there would be damage to the floor, wall, and ceiling finishes. I noticed that the apprentice was making a lot of waste motions. I took a moment to teach him. He didn't want to learn. In a few hours, I'd finished the first panel, and moved to the second. He wasn't done with his first. A few more hours went by and I finished the second panel. I told him to stand aside because we weren't going to make it unless I finished that panel. He was very frustrated because he'd been working hard the entire time. He's half my age and earns 1/3 of my wage. At that rate it would cost over twice as much to have three apprentices each working on a panel because he couldn't finish a single panel in two days. What I did would be typical production for any capable journeyman. What he did, would be typical production for an apprentice. Now let's take the "hard work is done during design" part. A whole lot of concepts/ designs only convey intent. I won't dispute the hard work and occasional genius involved there. However I would argue that means and methods are often much harder than. "Copy and paste". Consider something really utilitarian like a retaining wall alongside a highway overpass. Once it's built, the whole thing seems rather obvious. The wall keeps the sloped earth from collapsing. OK fine. Now consider how you'd go about building that safely. I suspect most of us can find a local example that would be seriously difficult to build safely. Further, I suspect that most of those retaining walls were built AFTER the huge mound of dirt was piled up. Driving along a highway it's easy to think some low-paid people were tasked with copying all those walls. Even worse, there's an easy assumption that the quality is dodgy because it was built by the lowest bidder. Yeah right. Most the falsework necessary to support safe construction is calculated, designed, and executed by craftsmen, not engineers. The penalties for failure are incredible. Entire government agencies exist solely to ensure that safety related malfeasance is punished. None of those agencies provide help with calculations, engineering review, or advice on means or methods. They simply wait for something to go wrong, then they punish accordingly. Most of the connections between structural steel members aren't detailed or designed by the structural engineer. That's farmed out to the steel erection subcontractors who have to hire their own engineers to do that math. Demolition plans calling for massive structural overhauls rarely if ever provide an action plan to execute things safely. "Design" in my experience is rarely the "hard part". Copying a craftsman's success is much harder than it appears.

Lots of interesting replies, Buzzkill, sorry if I came across the wrong way. In business school there were a lot of lessons about management quandaries that invariably ended with "there are no wrong answers". I suspect that anyone with a few years of experience could think of lots of moments where a poor manager came up with the wrong answer to a problem. "It depends" was the other placeholder answer. I don't believe the class could or should teach the correct answer for every possible situation. That being said, it's possible to teach people how to prioritize effectively. With the right priorities, the best answers are more obvious. In my experience, "it depends" is an easy way to stall things out. It simultaneously rejects and responds to a question without moving anything forward. I suspect it would be difficult to name a time where "it depends" was the answer that solved your problem. Marc1, I never considered the boss overwatch angle. That's a good point. I've worked in a cube farm, a "fishbowl" ,and private offices. The cube farm had a lot of "prairie dogs" who would pop their heads up over your cubicle wall to talk. It was unnerving. The fishbowl was set up so the boss could see your monitor through the window. Any time I had to walk to the printer, I could see screens flashing in my peripheral vision when coworkers thought it was the boss. Thomas, I'm not an introvert but I can't "tune out" background noise. I used to work at a place where we would set up a "war room" for hard bids. Five or six people working the phones, one person working the computer, everyone doing their best to get all the subcontractor bids reviewed before the deadline. I couldn't hear anything on my first try. Everyone had to repeat themselves because it was so incredibly loud. The guy in charge placed great emphasis on hand written notes transcribed via telephone onto the faxed proposals. I implemented an emailed bid checklist which was uniform for a specific trade. It asked all the pertinent questions in a yes/no/ Add/Deduct manner and provided a place for people to sign. I could send maybe twenty group emails, and have 150 responses in ten minutes without waiting on hold even once. Kozzy, that's a great point about shared resources. How much would it cost to get a set for each person who needed them? How much do you potentially lose in productivity bickering over who's got them? This is a bit of a double-edged problem though. The "cloud" based systems facilitate constant change and enormous files. That took away two of the largest incentives to provide concise information at "hand-off" points. I used to get an organized bid package containing all the documents I needed. Now I get access to a cloud account with several iterations of the plans that have no bearing on todays work. Vital information is buried alongside useless information because the file management is dumped on an intern who doesn't know what they're looking at. About half of my meetings will involve a moment where someone asks a question, and someone else claims "it's on the cloud". Most of the time, neither party checked the cloud account before speaking. In the last five years, I've seen a noticeable decline in the completeness of documentation. It's pretty clear that the goal is to deliver a place-holder document to check it off their list. Then, as time permits, they surreptitiously update the documents without admitting that's what happened.

Interesting replies all around. I have to admit I'm not familiar with the study referenced above. That being said, out society has a lot more half-baked "studies show" nonsense than we have peer-reviewed science. A year or two ago, the Department of of Agriculture and Health and Human Services dropped their longstanding recommendation that Americans should floss their teeth because they couldn't find scientific research to show that it made any difference to a persons health. A completely unscientific car show on BBC challenged the braking distances recommended by their government by testing the distances of various vehicles. The worst performing vehicle in their test needed less than half the recommended distance. The hosts suggested that the regulations were never changed to reflect the reality that brakes have improved in the past eighty years. I'm not saying that talking on a phone has no affect on a persons driving. There were probably "studies" done to suggest that CB's, FM radios, and flashing billboards were detrimental to driving as well. I think the distraction of talking is nothing in comparison to the cognitive load of operating a poorly designed smart phone. Every "smart" phone I've ever had was subject to periodic "updates" which invariably made subtle changes to the size, location, and appearance of operational controls like "talk" or "end". My current phone locates "Talk" and "end" at the bottom of the screen, however the screen goes into power save after a minute or two so it's not easy to hang up. If a call comes in while driving, the "answer" button is inexplicably 1/3 the size of the "talk" or "end" buttons, and it's located at the top center of the screen with "dismiss" immediately below it. The "button" is so small that it's actually easy to miss. There's no actual reason that the incoming call screen couldn't have been divided in half with green for answer, and red for decline. Honestly, an industry design standard for this stuff would help immeasurably.

I had a weird thought. Kids have always ridiculed adults who were slow to adopt technology that made things better. We're currently in a very strange situation right now because many kids would prefer to text rather than talk on their phones. There probably aren't a lot of people who would admit it, but the main advantage of texting is the social control over the sender. The recipient is free to read without reply, which is the most common social punishment for displeasing messages. The recipient doesn't have to admit they were punishing the sender if it later proves advantageous to claim they were busy. Now consider this. A car was driving erratically on the highway the other night and nearly struck me. I timed my move carefully, and passed when it was safe. The drivers face was lit by their cell phone which is why I suspect they were texting. If they were using speakerphone, or a headset, they could have communicated without having to stare at a tiny screen at 70 miles per hour. Then it struck me, they're risking everyone's lives on the road using antiquated technology because they want to control their friends.

Right off, I'd like to dismiss the stock business school reply; "It depends". That's neither helpful nor useful. To help clarify, I think it's important to recognize that collaboration is traditionally defined as "cooperation plus leadership". If we can accept that definition, then most traditional businesses would have to be collaborative. However, that doesn't appear to be the consensus view. In my experience, "collaboration" in the working world means meetings where leadership is intentionally downplayed. For example, collaboration software will typically merge email, file sharing, and teleconferencing. Everyone has equal access and visibility. Titles and other markers of authority aren't generally visible so there's no clear leader. Some software will flag issues that go unresolved past their deadline, but a little red box is the limit of your exposure for coming up short. Many of the offices we build out are "open concept" floor plans where a single sneeze stands a good chance of hitting at least four co-workers. The design narratives suggest this creates a "collaborative" atmosphere. In real life, I see a whole lot of people wearing earbuds doing their absolute best not to make eye contact with passersby. I bring all this up because I believe there's a serious flaw in this approach. The open-office floor plans, and the constant connectivity generate social pressure to be seen as a congenial participant rather than a prepared and productive individual. I think a lot of people prefer to work in a less hierarchical environment so I can see the appeal for them. That being said, a successful business needs stuff to get done. If the idea is to motivate workers with social pressure instead of hierarchy, then it seems pretty obvious to me that accountability is a vital ingredient. What do you think?

Angiolino, If you're still considering a digging/demo tool, you could check out a burke bar. They're made out of rectangular tubing with a forked tongue on them to provide a blade and fulcrum. Lots of leverage, and the hollow stock reduces weight.

Very well said Exo313! The construction industry is still largely managed by Tradesman which heavily influences how business is conducted. Many of these firms require their office staff to have extensive field experience so they will understand what it's like to be a tradesman. It's basically unheard of for a firm to require office experience from their tradesman. I worked for a unique firm that cycled their college interns through both the field and the office, however this policy didn't extend to estimating. There were a couple of occasions where I had to commandeer the interns to help get a bid done. They struggled with basic stuff like measuring the length of a wall. It wasn't because the measurement was tricky, it was because they suddenly realized that there would be consequences for getting it wrong. I think it's currently popular to promote a collaborative, and democratic approach to complex work. In my experience, that doesn't work out too well. If five individuals bring five elements to be successful, it doesn't make sense to dilute the expert's work with the mediocre consensus of the other four. Cooperation doesn't require collaboration, or consensus. If that sticks in your craw, it's probable that you don't trust the experts in your group. The admittedly cynical answer to such a situation, is to arrange things so that it's profitable for the wrong people, to do the right thing. "Profit" in this example is whatever matters to the party you're trying to motivate. To answer your last question I have an example; we pursue "prestigious" projects to keep our "Artist" happy which is necessary to build a portfolio to market the entire firm. I have to win the work, and the "Artist" needs to knock it out of the park so that we get invited to exclusive opportunities.

Anvil, Thank you for your kind words. I'm glad to help wherever I can. Your post shifts this towards a topic I've been trying to find time to fully address on my blog, business growth. I believe a lot of entrepreneurs would be surprised to hear that poorly managed growth is a bigger threat to survival than starving for work. That's as true for day one as it is for the diamond anniversary. Knowing your market is critical for everyone. People often tell me they wouldn't want to be an estimator because they wouldn't want to compete for their job. I think that's largely an illusion. If you can't see what makes the difference to your continued employment, you can't reasonably act in your best interest. That sounds very stressful to me. This whole debate concerns stratified markets. Being a market leader requires a tremendous amount of business acumen that's completely independent of producing goods or services. Wherever there are low barriers to entry, you'll find more competition. Entrepreneurial types often struggle to see how this means there is less market share for them. Startups have limited resources to establish themselves. For some, it's absolutely critical to quickly gain access to higher market strata. This is entirely different from a "big job" on a lower market strata. A whole lot of people go out of business every year because they took on a "big job" that they couldn't complete. I suspect this comes down to a fundamental problem with perspective. The cost of a "big job" on the open market might equal a "smaller one" on a higher strata. However, it might take double the workforce to do the "big job", whereas it might take a handful of very special people do do the "smaller one". Each opportunity would require a different type of growth for the firm to be successful. Any resource that is committed, brings the potential loss of an opportunity. During booming economies, a lot of firms chase exponential growth to secure a larger share of the market. When it's easy to win profitable work, there's little incentive to worry about minor losses. If a job doesn't go well, you can always hike up the price and win two more to make up for it. Of course to do that, you'll need to grow. Every expansion multiplies the losses when the core problem was never solved. Eventually this pattern leads to a situation where the slightest reduction in available work triggers financial ruin. Markets ebb and flow. Strata ebb and flow independently within their market. I've seen situations where only a handful of market strata had any work going on. Long term survival in such a situation requires compromise and commitment to the realities of that market strata. Everything this far is just business, no emotion. While it's easier to discuss these topics within the confines of science and fact, the reality is that people act on emotion. Trust is an emotional counterbalance to risk. I was recently awarded the largest contract my firm has ever won. This job is a huge step up in market strata for my firm. Only a handful of very qualified contractors were invited to bid. A lot went into the clients decision, but in the end, trust, is what won that job. I didn't know it when I interviewed for that contract, but over the years there were quiet people on the sidelines of meetings I've attended, or copied on email exchanges about problems we were solving. They never said or wrote anything at the time. I recently learned that one of them is the head of the department that awarded me this job. Several months ago, I ran across a familiar face at a charity event and was shocked to learn he was the vice president of this 5,000 employee company. He knew my name. Over the years I've eaten a lot of humble pie as an estimator, it's just part of the job. Moments like that are really awesome.

George, I've never had much luck using vice grips for forging. Pliers in general tend to do better when they're perpendicular to the long axis of stock. Drawing stock out square is easier holding the stock in line with the long axis because I can rotate my wrist 90 degrees every other blow. It's a lot harder to control everything with the "handle" mounted perpendicular. Whenever I've tried grabbing stock endwise with pliers, the stock wants to pivot whenever the jaws are horizontal. Any sort of taper to the gripped area tends to work vice grips loose. Everything is fine until it's suddenly not. I've had limited success holding drifts and punches with them. They seem to work better with tools that have no tapers. Of course, all of that assumes that we're strictly talking about stock vice grips. There's no reason a person couldn't weld "bits" to the jaws to overcome these setbacks.

George, I think there's a watershed moment for any given business that moves from commodity level to "elite" clientele. While there's certainly some element of prestige that needs to be maintained, I think the biggest factor against fence-sitting is the risk to your elite projects/commissions. It can be very painful to decline low-effort money-makers when there are big jobs on the books. However, anything you can get done on the commission is progress against the risk of coming up short. As I mentioned before, "elite" clients introduce many challenges as the project is underway. Commodity level stuff is less profitable which means there's little reward in pursuing it, especially when there's an unannounced change in the big job that will not wait. It's difficult to make this transition when the "old reliable" commodity work seems so easy, and the elite clients have yet to throw a wrench in your plans. There really does need to be a transition because the differences in cash-flow can be survival level serious. From the commodity side, it's easy to see "elite" projects as snooty and over-priced. However, once you've worked on the "elite" side for a while, you get a new appreciation for how expensive risk really is.

#24 Starting with stock that's way too big or too small for the project, the forge, the tooling, or the smith #25 Starting with high alloy steels that make everything harder to do. #25(a) using high alloy steels because salvage makes them "free" . #26 Use the right connecting means for your application. Bolts and glue might not seem "old timey" but there are applications where they're better for the project, the shop, and the smith. #27 Use the right cutting method for your application. Lots of projects end up in the humble pile because it seemed more "authentic" to punch, and drift a hole in a precision application. Same thing goes for sawing. Lots of nearly complete work gets ruined by trying to hot-cut something that needed the precision of sawing. #28 Beautiful and entertaining demonstration videos are usually edited for time, to cut out mistakes, and to conceal rest breaks. There's one very popular video about making hammer eye tongs by hand where it seems like it took roughly an hour. In the comments below the video, the smith wrote that the whole process took 8 hours! Most of what was shown was only one half of the tongs, and the drawing out sequence was edited to make it look incredibly fast.