Today was a bust

[BorisTheSpider]

I'm just going to spout off a bit. Had a little frustration today after some successes, and I kinda wanted to vent.

 

I've spent the last several days putting together the shop. The community garage sales a couple towns away were very lucrative for me. In fact, even with two pickup trucks, I still only had to stop shopping because I was out of space for hauling stuff home. I got hold of some workbenches and some more junk. The garage was full of probably 30 years' worth of crap - not much good, mostly just trash, dirt, and ruined wood. After a lot of lifting, rolling, sweeping, can-crushing, trashing, grunting, and cursing, my poor, leaning garage resembles a shop. So that's great.

 

So today, I proudly strode into my new shop, lit the forge and started banging things. I didn't have much of a plan, mostly just trying out the forge and test-driving some hammers. May need to tune the forge (may have to get some help there), but it does work. Steel got hot, I found a few hammers I like, and I developed a plan. This took maybe 20 minutes. So I grabbed my steel, and mentally went through my plan, and stuck the piece in the forge. Naturally, that was when the propane tank ran dry. Dangit. Looks like I will be filling two propane tanks after work tomorrow.

 

Also, my shop is far from secure. We're out in the boonies, but theft is not quite totally unheard-of. I now fear that if someone learns what I have in there, it would be a prime target. I've got an old fridge (never got around to scrapping it), so I'll probably put a hasp on it and stick the small stuff inside. I can't imagine the bigger or heavier stuff walking off so easily. Still, I am concerned.

 

It's bittersweet that the newfound fear is due to the newfound windfall. It's also bittersweet that the last few days (and to a lesser degree, the last few months) were spent setting up for today, and then...nothing.

 

I guess tomorrow will just have to suck less.

[oddtodd]

I have the same type of days too boris. Yesterday I got to the forge at 8:45 getting ready for a tour at 9. I couldn't get the bellows to pump air! I had to take all the ducting apart again and clean it out. I barely had a fire going by the time the first tour came through and I was hard pressed to get a piece of metal hot enough. It was work that I don't like! I hate rushing because I always make mistakes.It still isn't right so I am going in at 8 today to be ready by 9. I want to clean out The piping in the hot box before today's tours start. I'm dealing with my Theresa's hip surgery too, and going in at 8 means I won't get to see her this morning. This really makes my day really stink because talking to her in the morning makes my whole day right, and talking on the phone just doesn't even start to do it. So my day will stink too. Don't get me wrong, I love being a blacksmith, but days like this make it really hard to keep going. If it wasn't for all the wonderful people on here, and knowing that they put a lot of time and effort into me learning to become a proper blacksmith, it would be really hard for me to go in today and show all all of those wonderful kids what the past was like. It just makes it a lot easier to work hard when I have my Theresa there to back me up. THis bachelor stuff is for the birds. With My Theresa I live. Withouther I just exist. I just have to make it till thursday but it is so hard. Just one more day. That's all.

 

So I will make you a deal. You pull for me today and I will pull for you. And whoever else wants to pull for us today is more than welcome.

 

Oddtodd out

[Wayne]

Hi Boris,

I am afraid the risk of having stuff nicked is the same all over, locks and chains may deter the opportunist but if some one really wants your stuff they will have it :( .

Look at having your your tools insured if you can, mark them with paint or stamp them with your name/post code and photograph them that way it helps to track them and harder for the thieves to sell - wave the pictures around scrap yards,flea markets the police etc.

BUT!!!! above all dont let this stop you or stop your enjoyment, it may happen, it may not so no use worrying unless it happens...

 

Oddtodd,

we all have days were what we want to do clash with what we would like to do, working extra time to pay bills instead of being at home with the family for example.

One thing you will find out in time with your fire, is that it is not always the bellows or the pipe work at fault but the fire itself - some days you will get a fire that will not work regardless of what you try, I call it a sulky fire that will just sit there and just not want to play.

On these days you can flog yourself silly trying to get some where when the best thing is to just sit down, close your eyes and take three or four deep slow breaths and then go do something else.

One thing, when you get chance sit down and make a small list of what you would like to do,and at the end of your working day use the last of your fire to cut and prepare the work for the following day, that gives you a head start on the day and you are not wasting a new clean fire.

Wayne

[Michael]

my stuff, quite the pile now, anvil, forge, blower, swage, two leg vises, lots of hand tools are all out on the covered patio next to my woodworking shop in the back yard. Perimeter of the yard is sort of secure, but someone could hop the fence if they wanted.

 

I also worry about someone trying to do just that and walk off with some of my stuff, so when I'm done forging, I put a car drip pan over the forge when its cold, pile some of the many buckets on top of that. Tuck the anvil up against the tool table, pull the vises on their stand next to that, throw a tarp over everything and pile some tar paper rolls, more buckets and scrap lumber up on the tarp. Some more random junk leaned and piled and before I know it, I've got a patio full of junk that no one would want, from a distance.

 

A dedicated, lockable space would be nice, but is not in the immediate future. So artistic subterfuge/camoflage to make my stuff look like a pile of junk. At least until I can build a timber framed little shop in the backyard.

[SoCal Dave]

I found that when I'm not hammering during the week, I get weak, spiritually.  There is something about even the simplest projects with some hammering that will help us get through the week and weak periods. So, don't delay, go play, and I bet you, you will feel better.  Or, take on a big project that will take up that spare time of yours thinking of how you are going to do that difficult bend or make a difficult tapered leg.   Good luck.  

[BorisTheSpider]

Michael, that's the same basic tactic I've relied upon until now. The garage appears ready to fall (actually the tree pushing on it is probably doing as much to hold it up now), and the house is a rental that's been on a downward swing for some time. In fact, there are no garage doors. The whole county probably just expects a bigger pile of trash in there than before. Once I started putting a couple things in there, I slapped some tarps up over the openings. I still only had a few hammers, the [broken] anvil, and some really basic tools in there. After some good fortune in the way of finding bargains and making friends, I've actually got what resembles a shop (once you get past the tarps). The exterior looks the same, but now at night when I'm working, I have some lights on in there. Also, anytime I have a "door" open, I park the truck in front so as to obscure the view from the road.

 

Despite all that, it would only take one nosy kid to poke his head in there and see a multitude of old tools and other potential scrap steel.

 

I am getting to know the guys at the local scrapyard pretty well. I intend to mark my tools with a specific color or color scheme just as soon as I come up with something unique and buy the paint. There are no pawn shops in town but most people find their way to the next major town with some sort of regularity, and there are a number of pawn options there. Not sure how much you can get for an old, unmarked ball pien hammer though. I think I will take the advice of waving around some pictures of my paint scheme at the scrapyard. Those guys seem to see everything, even when it's hauled in by the truckload.

 

OddTodd, I didn't welcome you in your thread, so I want to take a moment to say thank you for your service, and to let you know that I have been and will continue to pull for you. What you've done is admirable, and your current position enviable. Chances like you have can be quite rare, so I'm happy that you're making the most of it.

 

Wayne, for the most part, I'm not a worrier. I do procrastinate for fear of failure sometimes (working on that), but I'm pretty laid-back mostly. I think the gravity of it just set in. I don't have a ton of $$$ invested in any on thing, or even everything as a whole, but I spent a lot of time and energy putting together my dream and the realization that someone could walk off with half of it just caught up to me suddenly. What's the old saying? "If you don't worry, you die. If you worry, you die."

 

Dave, that's about the long and short of it. I've been stuck in a bad place for years and finally getting started properly down this path has been a huge improvement to my mindset. I guess I'm just a little worried that it's going to get screwed up either by me or by an outside force.

 

Thanks all for the tips and encouragement. I'm going to go back out there and get back at it the first chance I get.

[Frosty]

Don't you guys have a dog? A big friendly sloppy jowelled love bug is as much deterent as most thieves need to pick another place. A secret to avoid criminal problems isn't being the strongest, most secure, etc. place around, you only have to be stronger, more secure, etc. than someone else.

 

I like mix working breed dogs and prefer rescues, they never forget you saved them. No fooling they don't EVER forget. You don't want some slavering vicious monster dog, a big friendly brute is perfect. Dogs are pack animals and a prime tenet of the pack is: "you don't mess with one member without messing with the whole pack." If it's your stuff, it's the dog's stuff and s/he will guard it when you're not around. Hopefully not outright attack an intruder, that's a BAD thing, some kid could just be poking around and you don't want the liability nor weight on your conscience of hurting kids. All our dogs love people and other dogs, we raise them that way but nobody, NO BODY comes up the driveway without us knowing.

 

Nobody opens our front door either, not without one of us waving them in. If we're home the house dogs are real pests saying hi to folk, Falki often gets kenneled till he settles down.

 

Then again I AM a dog guy, the more dogs I love the more I love dogs. Oh yeah, 15 years and nothing gone since we stopped building and that might have been one of the subs.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[macbruce]

I'm in the boonies too and I always leave the radio playing in the shop 24/7. People generally assume there's someone around and or working late when they hear it.....Dog YES!

[oddtodd]

My day has gotten better guys. I got all the piping cleaned out to the hot box today and I can REALLY geet some heat going.I think it may be too much air, but I don't know how to tell yet. I don't cool the fire down and I can get it started really easily now so I must have had some very poor air flow. I made a garden tong thing out of a railroad spike today! I really need a camera to take pictures of this stuff, but not enough money yet. I didn't realize how long you could get a railroad spike drawing it out. You can get some really long tines going on. I split them with the hot chisel that The Miss. Forge council made me, drew them out even longer and thinner, and Evened up the front to back split by pounding down the slit with the hot hardie courtesy of those same fine gentlemen. I left the black finish and gave it to my dad's girlfriend as a thank you gift because she got me all my furniture. I made my dad a beer opener as a thank you too. I still have 2/3 of a 55 gallon drum of railroad spikes left. lol When they did the rails to trails conversions here somehow we ended up with a bunch of them. It works for me. A lot of them are bent and deformed, but I just toss them aside for use later on when I am hard up for something to do.

 

I got to see my Theresa today and helped her through her Physical Therapy. Since I don't have to work tomorrow I am sleeping there tonight.That was when my day finally became a great one. She has walked over 500 feet so far. They may keep her until friday because she is having a lot of pain and seepage. As long as I get to sleep there I don't care. Have a good evening guys!

 

Oddtodd out

[metalmangeler]

I have been up Frosty's driveway without him knowing, his dogs just were not loud enough to alert him in town or where ever he was.

[Frank Turley]

Trust in Allah, but tie up your camels at night.

[BorisTheSpider]

Today was better. Didn't have time to go fill the propane tanks today, because I spent most of the day with my kid. After that, I went to an auction a little ways away. Not much there to speak of (aside from a flatter and some punches/chisels I missed out on), but I managed to grab a few things. Got a new hand sledge and a couple really small ball piens. Somehow came home with a few more electric motors and a couple of sturdy canvas tarps. And of course, because it was there, I just had to grab yet another propane tank. So now I'm up to three. Best yet, this one is about full so I can play a little more before running out and refilling them all.

 

Regarding dogs: I do have a couple but they stay in the house. I have a lot of yard besides the driveway wherein someone could lurk at night. I do tend to keep strange hours, and I don't have a regular work schedule so it would be awfully hard for someone to plan a time when I'm not letting the overly excitable dogs run out into the yard or coming home, leaving, or otherwise have a reason to be outside.

 

How do you guys typically mark your tools? It seems most smiths use one or two colors so they know which is theirs in a shared shop situation, but is that all you do (in regards to marking the tool itself) to aid recovery in the case of theft? I think engraving is excessive but I suppose paint should hold pretty well assuming the tool isn't perfectly non-porous (and not a single one among them is).

[Frosty]

I have been up Frosty's driveway without him knowing, his dogs just were not loud enough to alert him in town or where ever he was.

 

True Mark but they love you. I'm pretty sure they'd help Becka carry stuff to the truck, they're silly in love with her.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Wayne]

Boris,

Over the years I have been steadily marking my tools and stuff up using a set of metal stamps, putting on my name and post code ( which over here locates your area to about 15- 20 houses)

My anvils have the stamps in multiple places, I am working on the idea that if it goes there will be too many marks to make it worth while grinding off which hopefuly make it easier to track them down.

If each time you go down your shed you just stamp a couple of tools it soon gets them done.

Recently I have aquired a stamp with my name on it to stamp into wood...

It is a pain, but anything that makes it harder for them and easier for you is worth trying.

Wayne

[Quarry Dog]

Just because it's heavy doesn't mean it can't walk off.  My guild had a donation box (for the local historical society that we're part of) mounted to an anvil.  I hear that said donation box with said anvil dissappeared in rather short order.

[BorisTheSpider]

I swear I won't make this a daily journal, but today was pretty great too. Here's why:

 

I went to Rogers (big area flea market) this morning and got a few pairs of tongs (my first). I chose pairs I thought would fit my most abundant stock - rr spikes and horseshoes. I got a couple for other uses as well. Should be a lot easier to make more [tongs and other things] now. In fact...

 

In preparation for tomorrow's joint WRABA/PAABA meeting, I decided to make a Brian Brazeal style horseshoe heart for the iron-in-the-hat. I chose a small shoe (need to tweak the forge design to allow a larger one) and went to town. I made several mistakes, literally from the first hammer strike on, but I learned SO much and it still came out fairly well. Honestly, because it's the first thing I made completely in my forge, on my anvil, with my hammer and tongs, and from my stock, I may just keep it.

 

So I'm working on my security, and having more success. Awesome stuff.

[oddtodd]

Good for you Boris! I am so glad you had a good day. I was pulling for you. I am still making a lot of mistakes too, but nothing yet to where I had to start over. I hope you have many more good days in your forge. They are putting cameras up in my forge so I get more security. He promised me a good view of my toolbox. I can't wait till tuesday for my next tour so I can work in my forge again. I may go in monday depending on how my Theresa is feeling. Anyway. I wish many more good days to you learning a wonderful craft. Have a great day!

 

Oddtodd out

[John McPherson]

We have dogs, which is why I think our house has never been burgled. (The mere sight of a 120 pound Malamute will remove peddlers from your porch without even touching the steps.) We are only 50 feet from the street, with a big street light out front in a cramped neighborhood. Every few years one of our vehicles still gets broken in to. The last time they got a bunch of hand tools and a small MIG welder that I had just bought. I had marked it with my name and drivers license number and Federal Safety Purple paint, like all my tools. Still never turned up. The dog barking is what woke me up, and I called the police as soon I checked out my van.

 

Around here, property damage and theft has been pretty much decriminalized unless it is over $10,000, or guns are stolen. Forget that CSI stuff, my jimmied windows were covered in fresh fingerprints. The police will not even show up, just take a phone or internet statement, and give you a file number so that you can claim for insurance. It was only by looking at the crime stats in the paper that I found out that a dozen cars in my neighborhood had been broken into that night. And that was just the reported cases.

 

The local home repair columnist was checking out his roof, and two guys pulled up to his open garage in broad daylight and started loading up his riding mower. Good luck finding your stuff at the local places, one ring here was fencing all the goods at out-of-state flea markets.

 

My new Expedition came with an anti-theft system.

[Frosty]

One thing I like less than thieves is a police force that's "too busy" to take care of business. Twice when I lived in Anchorage I had firearms stolen, once out of my pickup and once from my apartment. In both cases the police wouldn't even write a report but told e to let them know f I recovered them so they could. In the second case I knew exactly who broke in and stole my rifle and a pistol.

 

Things have changed up here but law enforcement is still too occupied with finding killers and stopping folk from killing themselves behind the wheel. I can accept people's lives are more important than finding my stolen stuff. Sucks but . . . On the other hand Alaska is a concealed carry state and you are allowed to shoot thieves under the right circumstances. No, it's not 1870's Dodge City but you can defend yourself and property.

 

In the last 14 years our problems have been really minor, the worse being butt heads who rather drive up our drive and dump garbage than drive the 8 miles and pay $5.00 at the transfer site. for them I've been thinking about upgrading our wireless router for better range and installing a couple WiFi video camera to get license numbers and face shots. In Alaska there's a &1,000.00 reward for evidence leading to convicting litterbugs and it comes out of the butt heads' pockets.

 

Boris, Todd: Mistakes are good things, it means you're pushing your limits, learning. I've been making mistakes as long as I can remember. Being good at this craft in articular and any in general isn't about no mistakes it's about how you recover, how you make lemonade out of lemons and what you do with it later that counts.

 

You guys are doing better than alright.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[K. Bryan Morgan]

Hey Frosty, just get a hunters game cam.  They have infrared ones too.  Works day or night.  They are motion sensors and even camouflaged.  Set up two.  One coming in and one going out.  Then you can see faces and both plates.

[Frosty]

Hey Frosty, just get a hunters game cam.  They have infrared ones too.  Works day or night.  They are motion sensors and even camouflaged.  Set up two.  One coming in and one going out.  Then you can see faces and both plates.

 

Oooh, perfect! Can they be made WiFi? It'd be a pain to have to keep rewinding, deleting, etc. days nothing hap . . . Oh, motion sensors, THAT'S not an issue! Oh I like it.

 

Later, gotta do some shopping. <grin>

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[K. Bryan Morgan]

I don't know about WiFi .  It would be worth looking into.  They are digital.  Just a little card you put in and pull out.  like for a camera.  SD card I think. Not sure though.

[Cdworks]

Be sure to chain it to the tree and put a metal cage around it curious bears and thieves like em