Frosty
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Status Updates posted by Frosty
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I thought it better to tell you this one on the side, I'd hate so hear about someone else trying it.
Back when I lived with the folks in S. Cal we enjoyed the occasional BIG red ant colony that were a bear to get rid of. Generally we left them be if they weren't too close. As kids we'd collect black and red ants to watch them fight it out, my favorite was to put the black ants on one model ship and the red ants on the "pirate" ship, pull them together with a little fishing line and watch the battle.
Dad used to spray nuisance ant hills with insecticide that took time but worked. The boys in the neighborhood had progressed to making cannons, rockets, launching balloons, etc. One friend and I had been trying to make gun powder but didn't know it's a wet process ground after it dries so we stole from our Dad's reloading supplies. One of us had access to an older brother that bought us black powder.
Soooo, we mixed powdered sugar and black powder and set a little distance from one of the main red ant trails. We fed that hive almost 3 lbs. of 000 black powder. Before lighting the ant train carrying it back to the hive. We expected (hoped for) an explosion but instead got a jet of smoky flame shooting out of the hole like a rocket. Before long there were flames shooting out of the ground in quite a large circle, in my 14 yro estimate about 120'. We spent the next little while stomping out grass fires till it died off.
Learned later that mixing the black powder with powdered sugar made rocket fuel down to smoke bomb depending on the ratio. Not being quite the idiots it sounds we pulled this one on a hive a long way from people, nearest house was probably 3 miles over a rise.
See why I didn't want to tell this one on the open forum?
Jer
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I picked up a stack of dirty trick explosives books when nobody batted an eye about it, Hi Lo Boom being the most benign. The special forces manual is titled, "Improvised Explosive Devices," and their placement or similar IIRC. It was published shortly after WWII and had some doozies or maybe that's the booby trap manual, that one has some downright silly ones like how to wire a urinal to electrocute the user. The first question we had was, "Who wouldn't see the wires and pee on them? Then, How is the victim grounded?" I've always wondered how many people have been killed by a trick thought up by an office dweeb. The part about "dust exciters" really opened my eyes. It's actually hard not to make incendiaries.
On the other hand it was a pretty standard ranch joke to get new visitors to piss on the electric fence. Brush had grown up on a fence line between corrals and being a "weed burner" the hot wire kept itself a clear path. The horses ate the bushes but stayed about a foot or so ways on both sides. So there was this dense line of bushes and we'd pump newbies full of sodas until they had to pee. There was no WAY Sandy was letting boys use the bathroom in the house to pee, "Go pee on a bush!"
We'd point them to the nice dense bushes, stand back and bet on how far and high they'd jump. Having peed on an electric fence I can tell you from experience that it takes a while to come out of hiding.
Jer
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As I'm sure anybody checking the forum knows, it's under spambot attack again. I wonder if a couple few thousand forum members email bombed the spammers might discourage them? The way it used to work was to insert some huge download so they had to download all of oh say "War And Peace" before they could delete it.
I've already reported them and I'm sure Steve and Foo are throwing out the trash but it'd sure make me feel better if spamming cost the spammers more than it was worth.
Dreaming I know but stinging the criminals back is a pleasant dream.
Frosty The Lucky.
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Background photo? Is that different than your AVATAR?
Frosty The Lucky.
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Take a breath Steve. Who cares if idiots don't like you, I do.
Marc 1 is a dick head though an adequate smith. Jackdawg, I haven't been struck by anything he's said enough to remember.
If you'd like to watch a video of someone who doesn't think rules apply to them let me know I'll link you. Just so you know it'll piss you right off.
Jer
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Mike: You used the term "White heat" in your recent discussion with Wayne. Molten steel isn't "white" hot, it's high yellow, the Sun's surface is only high yellow.
The term "white hot" is a vernacular term with little empirical value. There are too many variables for color judgement to have a lot of practical value.
IIRC, a "white" incandescent light is rated in excess of 6,000f. Sparking dingle berries off a welding arc run around, 3,400f and they're incandescent yellow.
I brought this to your attention on the side as virtually every discussion I've been involved in or watched has devolved into the stupisphere when the semantic punditiots got involved. I'll cop to being too easily tempted into semantics seeing as I prefer to know what folk mean by the words they use.
Jer
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Thanks guys, it's good to be on the road back and you guys made a HUGE difference with all the encouragement and help you gave Deb. Not to mention how much the prayers helped me. You guys ROCK. Frosty
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Alistair: Needing a big fire pot is the exception of course. Most folk who build their first forge tend to make them way too large. I sure did. ;) Good score on the forge and blower, I sure like seeing the old tools in use instead of rotting under a bunch of petunias or something. Jer
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Sorry if I came across as cantankerous, I just calls em as I sees em. I was only trying to help, you weren't going to get very far the way you were going. Apprenticeships are pretty much unheard of in the US but I'm sure they're still available on the continent. I'll bet money there aren't a lot available though so to land one a person would have to stand out from the crowd. In a good way. If you think I was harsh you are NOT going to like apprenticing to a European blacksmith. In any case I'll be happy to help however I can, just give a shout. Frosty
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That's a pretty good price but it's a LOT finer than what's in ITC-100, you could never feel 10 mic between your fingers. ITC feels gritty. Let me know how it works please. Frosty
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Kevin: I'm afraid I don't know what the ratio is. It needs enough zirconia to cover and enough kaolin to glaze it to the surface. Were I to be serious about finding out I'd buy a pint of ITC-100 and run a gradation including a hydrometer if there is enough zirconia passing the 200 sieve. It might even take centrifuging. What sizes of zirconia are they offering? Judging by feel I'd guess ITC-100 is made with 100# or finer particle size and possibly a gradation to much finer. You can't do a gradation by feel but you can estimate the max particle size. What's the price? URL? Thanks for letting me know. Jerry
