I've had low light levels and rain ever since I got back.  My archaic phone camera does even worse in low light levels. I haven't forgot!

Photos speak a universal language.

Okay thanks Thomas, I was just curious to see it when you get a chance. 

Is the cottonwood cotton carpet of fire like the fresh chamois shirt fuzz burn off flame?

Uh huh John, nice try. You didn't threaten to correct everybody's grammar you threatened me directly. Giving ME a hard time isn't likely to drive off anybody. Heck they'll probably start keeping score and laying bets.

What do you think Thomas is there 50 states worth of wool at wool gathering?

Frosty The Lucky.

I offered; there’s a difference.

Oh I must have misunderstood frosty I thought you meant you was gonna gather wool along the way, is there a event called the wool gathering? 
JHCC why did they call you the grammar hammer? Are you an English teacher? 

That’s an honest question I’m not trying to be smartelic 

A previous version of the forum software allowed you to give yourself whatever description or title you wanted rather than the system-generated “newbie”, “expert”, etc. A bunch of us gave ourselves humorous titles, and that’s what I gave myself — we’d just had another discussion of linguistic pedantry, if memory serves. 

I really miss my "Nearly Normal" title, hope we can get that part back.

No; not all in one place.  Of course there is the Taos sheep and wool festival, the Maryland sheep and wool festival, etc.

Yes the whoosh is a lot like a flannel shirt fuzz burn off.

Mr. IDFACW,

I agree with you. The site has just got a lot more impersonal.

The site improvements are hardly improvements.

They are  "schlimbesserungen".

I miss all the old pictures that got erased a few years back.

Saints preserve us from further such improvements.

Respectfully submitted,

SLAG.

I miss being styed a "junior member". It took years off my life!

 

 

How much pectin do you need to add to saints preserves to get it to gel right?

Mr. T. P.,

Lots of pectin AND calcium ions.

You might be able to buy some of them ions at the drugstore.

SLAG.

17 minutes ago, SLAG said:

They are  "schlimbesserungen".

Yep... If it ain't broke, they will fix it, until it is.

Went out in the rainy dark and got my small benchmount vise and threw it in the truck so I'd get to work with it.

 

Jaws are 2.375" wide  Note: it has a mortise to hold the upper mount (missing) and the hole in the bottom mount is threaded.

My travel coal forge has a hole in the bed that I can stick a bolt through and through the bottom mount and attach it. I also made a pallet strapping spring for it.  Works for twisting 1/4" sq stock if I don't have my travel post vise to hand!

 

That’s pretty cool Thomas 

Wool Gathering is an annual event where spinners get together and do spinner stuff. Same idea as Quad State is for blacksmiths. 

Deb's never to been more than local spinner's guild gatherings same as I've never been to a blacksmith's conference. Wool Gathering and Quad State take place about 30 miles apart on different weekends. 

I expect to see Thomas at both, we're both members of a steel wool couple.

I'm sure Deb will be collecting wool from different people's flocks, processes, etc. Her spinning wheel's place in the RV is a more secure than mine. I'll be lucky if she lets me buy anything in the tailgating area, maybe a T shirt or cup. My space in the RV is strictly accounted for. Of course I could maybe hang something really good from the RV's frame with bailing wire if she's not watching. 

Frosty The Lucky.

There is a group of spinners that meet at cane hill Arkansas every year for the festival. But that’s the only time I’d ever seen anyone doing that. I didn’t realize that it was a bigger thing. 
   maybe you could sneak an anvil out in the ice chest without drawing to much attention? 

Anvils are what you bring HOME from Quad-State. Fred Moore bought 30 anvils the first year he went---and a trailer to haul them 1500 miles home in! 

Quad-State is a blacksmithing conference so along with multiple simultaneous Demos by skilled smiths there is a monumental amount of tailgaing going on---if you have paid the entry fee, you can sell stuff as well so a lot of folks clean their shop. I'm taking some stuff I ran across since the last one!  Usually around 5 demos going on at the same time including a beginners class, bladesmithing, historical, contemporary, and usually something off the wall.  You can camp onsite.

Here's a picture of *1* fellow selling anvils the last time I attended and he had lots more not on the trailer!

 

Wow!!! And here I am digging through junk piles in old barns…. That looks and sounds like a blast, I’ve heard that the steam power show in Pawnee is kinda like that with lots of vendors but I’ve never been. 

Of course Quad-State isn't the cheapest place to buy stuff, I've watched prices triple and quadruple on some things over the years I've been attending. 

Junk piles in old barns could pay for your trip!  Just don't price anything till you've walked around and seen what other folks want.

     I do really well finding blowers, smaller anvils, forges, and post vises because of the long farming history around here. But I have yet to find any swage blocks, floor mandrels, swage tools or anything along those lines. It seems every farm had a basic setup back in the day but all the actual blacksmith shops started closing down sometime in the 50s to the 70s from what I understand and most of the big stuff has been gone for awhile. I can find 100 pound anvils all day long but I’ve only been able to locate a few of the big ones and they can’t be bought. But I’m always searching so maybe one day I’ll trip over a swage block in a run down building 

I found swageblock in the OKC "Thrifty Nickle" paper around 1982, cost US$1 a pound too.  Might ask how many 100# anvils to trade for a mandrel to someone selling stuff.  I finally got my floor standing one this last year as part of the hoard, so my end price was $0, I sold the 248# PW anvil as I didn't need an medium sized anvil in my shop.

I don’t really need it but I’d like to find a 400 or 500# anvil, a large swage block and a mandrel, but for now I’ll be content with what I’ve got. Maybe I can trade a truck load of forge blowers one day for what I want lol. 

That's why I sold on the 248# PW; I already had 2 anvils over 400# and 2 around 165# and didn't need a "medium" sized anvil. Most of my work is done on the 165#'rs.

There’s a blacksmith that’s been up in westville Oklahoma for 40+ years that has a big 400 plus pounder in his shop and he has a foot operated hold down contraption built into the stand that I’d like to replicate. But he would never sell it. The only other 400 plus pounder here locally I ever found belonged to a man who ran one of the local junk yard owners he told me he bought it new in the 60s if I remember correctly. But after he closed down his salvage yard I lost contact with him. I’ve been sniffing around trying to get hold of him to see if I can get it.