BIGGUNDOCTOR

I'll have to swing by one of the casinos and see what the odds are for your project.

A knife is a basic tool for me, and I have carried one since high school...back when it wasn't a crime to do so at school. I usually have a multi bladed folder type of pocketknife with me. My Dad taught me wood carving, and I was also in the Boy Scouts, so a knife was needed for several tasks.

I get the text scams... No Amazon account, rarely shop at the evil empire (WalMart), etc.. Friends hacked FB profiles. Etc... I long for the days when I would run to grab the phone to see who was calling, now I rarely answer my phone, or just turn the sound off.

Arkie, I would have to dig to see if I can find them. I think they are on an old tablet I have that needs a new charging cord. Right now they are stored away in back of the house. I'll pop a couple of pictures if I can get a good view of them.

TX will be withing 1,200 miles of me, so....maybe. I missed the one in Salt Lake which would have been within 400 miles of me.

Shear the profile out of sheet metal and weld along the edges. Less expensive, faster, lighter, and far easier to do. Do it in two pieces, bend in the middle, and weld the two halves together. Depends on how sharp of corners you want on the final piece if you do it with two or four pieces

Halloween is my absolute favorite day of the year. I get dressed up and go out and about in Fabulous Las Vegas NV with friends.

Don't be afraid to look at a new path. I was trained as a machinist, but since I entered the workforce I have worked as a machinist , owned my own machine and fab shop, worked in a foundry, worked as an automotive lift tech, worked at the Jelly Belly Candy Co as all around plant maintenance, warehouse manager for a machine gun dealer, tool maker for a CNC shop, plant maintenance for a commercial bakery, and currently plant maintenance for TH Foods a division of Mitsubishi Industries - we make the Blue Diamond and Crunchmaster snack crackers and go through around 70,000# of rice a day. I am making the most I ever have pay wise, have really good benefits, yet I have this urge to start another business. It has been tough punching a clock for others since I closed my shop in 93 when I was 28 years old. Wow, typing that just hit me...that was half of my life ago, as I am 56 now. The business I wanted to get started here before the building was sold was totally unrelated to anything I have yet done. It was to be somewhat of a social hub for my small community. Whatever you look at doing, make sure you will be happy doing it. I don't care how much you are making money wise, if you are not happy , it isn't worth it.

A 55 gallon drum weighs 33# so my walls (18 drums) weigh almost 600# each empty. I have the tongs separated by type, hammers, extra blowers, vises, metals by type, etc.. One wall I had some pipe pushed through the triangular openings created from offsetting the drums - mine are stacked 5 drums on the bottom, then 4, then 5, then 4. The pipe extends out the back and I used it to rack longer pieces horizontally. To weld them together I used my 8x18 deck over trailer as a welding bench as it was the only flat surface I have - no concrete driveway, just sand and gravel. Made the first row of 5 and used a metal channel to make them straight. MIG welded where they touched top and bottom. The next course was 4 set into the valleys of the first. I did these one at a time so I could get the welds in the bottom done without moving the wall. Repeat as necessary. Once done, I used my forklift to stand them up and move them into place. I believe there may still be some pictures on the show me your shop thread, if they were after the "update" that wiped out the pictures.

I used 55 gallon drums for my smithy walls. They are horizontal with the heads cut out so they double as storage. Self standing, portable, and have held up to 50+ mph winds. They are approximately 8' tall, 10' wide , and 3' thick. The drums were free from a shop I worked at.

I went through a forklift fork in less than a minute with the horizontal bandsaw at work. A porta band would also do it in good time. Adding a tank only adds capacity, not volume per minute. The ONLY way to get more volume is a bigger or faster running compressor head. Doubling the tank size just means the compressor has to run twice as long to fill it back up.

Well that sucks about your job. What field are you in? Look around your area for a niche that you can fill. A local pottery studio made plates for a local restaurant. I have another potter friend who has made coffee mugs for a local business. Where I am horses are a big deal as well as other livestock, so items geared towards them might sell well. Being in OZ - if the stereotypes are correct -anything beer related could be a good seller. Try some forks with the tines about half as far apart, as they are a bit more useful all around. BBQ skewers are an easily made item that doesn't require a lot of stock. Flatter works a bit better as the food does not spin when flipped like with round ones. Campfire forks are fun, the type used for cooking hotdogs, marshmallows, corn. Maybe decorative wire covid mask hooks that go around the back of the head, and take the strain off of the ears.

My forge is outside as well. Here in the desert I have sand and gravel to work on, so I used a stack of RR tie plates I had for a floor. Flipped them upside down and laid them down like tiles. Swept some sand over the top to fill any gaps, and it works great. We went from sweating like racehorses to needing long sleeves in the mornings in like a week. I had a couple of inquiries about smiths in the valley from a couple of moms whose kids are interested. One is 11 the other 16, and you guessed it....knives and swords LOL. I had a chat with one family so far, and let it be known that those are not beginner projects. I am not set up myself for teaching-forge is still not set up since the county incident a few years ago that took the wind out of my sails - but I'll see about getting them set up at their homes. The 11 year old is already somewhat set up, just needs some help with the details. It has been almost 4 years since the county ravaged my property, and I have been in a deep funk for awhile. I need to get out and do something other than hang out on the net all day. There is more than just the "incident" that is weighing on my mind , and I need to get my head back in the game. I know something is off, but I just can't get the motivation to make the needed changes that I know I need to make. Things that would have been no issue when I was in my 20's and 30's are now a huge deal in my head. I have spurts of activity which are usually when loading or unloading my most recent purchases from estate sales, or auctions. But other than that I am just a web potato. I really do appreciate seeing the work that you fine folks do, it is very inspiring to me. It is nice to know that someone is being productive.

On the welding helmets, I still prefer the old single shade flip down hoods over the auto darkening except when I am under a car, and room is restricted. Even with the auto darkening ones at work I find myself flipping my head before I start... My biggest issue with them is when I am in tight areas and the arc light gets blocked by something and the lens goes normal again while I am still welding. That doesn't happen with my old helmet. I have had a ton of things follow me home recently, but none is smithing related. Aircraft, auto, home, firearm, but not smithing.

I wasn't paying attention at a machine shop auction and a couple of Rockwell testers will all of the attachments went for under $200 ea. Thought about it later and realized how bad I had screwed up.