Frosty

Makes sense Scott. I can imagine trains rubbing sounds pretty gnarly.

Frosty The Lucky.

Did you know a dash of coy sauce goes well in chow chow? 

Were there any farm produce stands? We were almost surrounded by truck farms and produce stands. About the only thing we never bought locally was olives in spite of living in a city named Sylmar, "Olive Sea."  There was a local dairy with a stand if you like REALLY fresh milk and home made cheese. 

Spectacularly good farm land and it's virtually all covered in subdivisions and pavement. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

You probably surrounded by fields! The only "fields" around us were either truck farms, orchards or vacant lots. My graduating class was 1,013 and those were the ones who graduated.

Deb and I were visiting her Sister who lives about 6 blocks from where I used to work in Burbank and her son's girlfriend now wife graduated from my old high school, Sylmar Hi. Her graduating class was close to 3,600 but it had been split for the last semester and her graduation was held over 3 days. 

When I found out Thom the minion of Thomas, grew up maybe 3-4 blocks from where I lived in Sylmar I took a look at satellite pics of the old place and school. Sylmar high used to take up a 4 block lot site, in the mean time it had absorbed the park's 4 blocks and Olive Vista Jr. high's maybe 4 block site. And that was just N-S, it had expanded at least one block E-W too. 

IIRC my old high school was surrounded by 3-4 much larger than my old one Jr. highs and there are larger middle and high schools in the valley. 

It was really hard to grasp how much it had changed in the 53 years since I moved here. 

Anybody out there who wants a little shell shock check out your old neighborhood if you've been away a couple few decades! Heck, there's a good chance I used to ride horses with Thom's grandmother! 

Frosty The Lucky.

Yeah, making the front wheels turn like an automobile is more stable but holy COW is it more complicated. We used to build go karts in high school shop class and getting them to steer properly was always a challenge. I never built one of my own but I helped on a few.

A way to make the entire axle stable turning is to put bearing plates at the pivot point. One connected to the top (cart) and the other attached to the axle. A zirk fitting to give the space between a shot of grease every once in a while makes it pretty functional. 

Frosty The Lucky.

High school sure has changed since I graduated, field trips for us were an evening at the theater (The Mikado) or the athletic field to watch the school balloon club launch a package. Yeah, walking to the athletic field was counted as a field trip. 

Are your students in an exceptional group or are you guys just really lucky?

Thanks for the look Jono.

Frosty The Lucky.

Yellow jackets are a bane and a sting can put you on your butt sensitive or not. We had a number of nests around here but one day while clearing some ground near the house I found myself in a swirling mass of angry yellow jackets holding a running chainsaw. The smoke pushed them back a ways and they didn't come back but I was still in the swirl. While looking for a clearish direction to take out I noticed the ground nest maybe two steps back. I was less than 6' from a nest I'd stomped on with a tree and they were really angry. I'd never been stung by a wasp but "knew" that 25 or so can kill and I was looking at a couple hundred. 

Smoke from the saw was just barely keeping them off me but I was screwed. Then I had a brainstorm, took the bottle of mix gas out of my shoulder tool bag and squirted maybe 1/4c on the nest opening. They stopped coming out and any that landed near the nest went all quivery and died.

I knew of a couple more nests and tried a squirt of gas on them and it worked WAY better than wasp and hornet spray so that's how I've dealt with yellow jacket nests for the last 25 years. 

Ones that build a paper nest in a tree, eves, etc. succumb to a squirt of WD40 or another penetrating oil spray. Just get it on the nest and it dies quickly. Once again better than wasp / hornet spray.

Thinking you're going to die PAINFULLY makes you creative.

Frosty The Lucky.

The closest I've ever been to a screw machine was helping the people who bought Dad's shop building move their's in. Dad new them, heck he knew most everybody and I'd met the new owner a time or two myself. I've only ever seen one in operation in online videos and that isn't very informative regarding operating one. What I could see looked like a clockwork machine, lots of set up but once it's running, keep it fed and watch for problems.

Having set up work in lathes and mills I realized setting a screw machine up was WAY more demanding. Even if you get to kick back and sip coffee once its doing it's job, nothing is ever that simple. 

While I can find the front of my lathe and do basic operations I've never called myself a machinist and never had the job. Used a lathe at work yes, but never a machinist. 

Frosty The Lucky.

That sounds like a screw machine with electronic controls. When were they built?

I don't think any of Dad's lathes, punch presses, shears, etc. were designed in the last century, most were built before 1930 except the newest one built sometime during WWII. Dial indicators were new fangled but he was converting. I THINK I can still read a vernier but it's been quite a while. 

I'd love to have laser instrumentation but will probably not do enough lathe work to justify any. 

Frosty The Lucky.

You're trying to tempt me into finally cleaning and organizing the basement aren't you? It IS tempting, I'd love to get some of my texts dug out and organized.

Frosty The Lucky.

When you say one set of axles "can rotate," do you mean turn as in left or right so you can steer the cart? 

Like this? You can see the pivot the front wheel assembly turns on in the picture. By turn I mean the front wheel assembly itself, not the individual wheels. 

Frosty The Lucky.

I wish I had something like this a long time ago! I didn't open the link to check the price but I'd have to but into the unlimited version. I don't know if I have the energy to sort through the hundreds of boxes of books in the basement and then organize them so I could locate them. Still it'd sure be nice to know just what I had down there and on the book shelves.

Thanks for the link John!

Frosty The Lucky.

I have to agree with Larry, your sculpture conveys a sense of sorrow and misery in an attractive way. The rough welds fits the feelings well. 

I really like it Pedro, I think making the welds pretty would diminish the effect. That's just my opinion, it's your piece you should make it how you like.

Frosty The Lucky.

Starting with slices of pipe is so MUCH better than turning the wheel rims manually. Is the cart only for rolling in a straight line or do you have plans for a way to let it turn?

Frosty The Lucky.

You got it Billy, that sort of situation is probably what they're used for most often, another that comes to mind is reproducing antique molding. 

You use instruments good to a hundred thousandths! Thank you for reminding me I'm more than 50 years out of the biz!

Frosty The Lucky.

Which video? The one I watched made perfect sense but there are a number out there.

Frosty The Lucky.

When we start snow birding in the RV I'm sure we'll both keep our online friends up on where we're going. I'll be checking IFI when we're near wifi and I'll be my usual talky self so suppose everybody on the planet will know about where we are headed. 

All we'd need is room to park a small RV and we're golden. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Hobbieism, hobbielity, dishobbility? . . . Uh . . . Hobbangley, Hobbangler?

One of the how to videos shows it being used on H beam and that just works the one 90 angle so I imagine using it on angle iron would be the same. 

Better exercise a LITTLE control, I'm probably playing HOB with the mods.

Frosty The Lucky.

That would be handy alright, bummer I don't work with pipe more I'd have to get one. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Oh MAN, I'm a hobbiest, should I be sorry too?

Thanks for the video, I remember the things now but that was in high school. All we did in the welding school was run bead and study the book and that was to earn my pipe and structural cert! 

Frosty The Lucky.

ANOTHER place for the bucket list! I want to see Sturbridge too, guess we'll be close enough to see both and whatever's in between. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Dad had one clamped to his drafting board, like a modern drafting arm. He kept it locked so I wouldn't mess with it WHILE I was practicing my drafting. He insisted I knew how to draw and read prints. Another home run Dad!

Frosty The Lucky.

Okay, I'm unfamiliar with the contour marker in the top right of the gold pans but I found pics online. Don't have one of those, how's it work? I would've had to jack the mobile home at least 5' off the ground to slip the small lathe under it and lay the mill on it's side. 

Uh, I got Dad's plan turned around, he didn't want me to become a metal spinner? Or it WAS his plan and I swum upstream? 

Frosty The Lucky.

Yes, that's the one I was referring to, mine is about 2x as wide and cost a bunch new, I got mine at a shop liquidation sale along with a wraparound and more. I got to shooting the breeze with the old fellow who was holding a retirement sale. Neither of his kids wanted to get into the business so he was selling it off and going to Europe with the missus. We got to talking and he threw in a bunch of other things gratis I could've bought a lathe or mill for scrap if I hadn't lived in a mobile home in S. Mountain View. He was royally ticked at his sons.

I understand their point of view, I certainly didn't want to become a metal spinner after spending the 1st. 17 years of my life working in a spinning shop.

Frosty The Lucky.

An admirable trait you are well known for. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Starretts are good, I've been using Starrett instrumentation since Dad's shop was in the garage and was the only Jr. Hi kid  with his own mic in metal shop 101. Unfortunately that gave the instructor the impression I actually knew how to USE a machine shop. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.