ausfire Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 I have used a few stones in sculptures, but I thought I would try to make one that looked like a stone-curlew. We get these on our property all the time and they especially like wet weather when they dance around in the rain with tails up and necks outstretched like mad things. They like to freeze and squint their eyes at you if approached, hence the tank screw eye. Wanted to keep things as simple as possible. Head/neck is one half of multigrip pliers. Feet are a bit exaggerated for stability. In retrospect I should have welded a big blob at the bend in the legs, as stone-curlews are often referred to as thick-knees. They are quite endearing things, although they have an unholy scream at night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daswulf Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 Cool curlew Aus. Had to look them up and yeah they have a shreek to them. Reminds me of seagulls in a way tho., from what I heard. The sure have some long funny legs. Nice use of the sickle bar blades on the tail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 Got me again Aus. I did a quick search for Curlew under architecture thinking they were some kind of embelishment. Just like LAST time you posted pics of your curlews. Love the tricky things Aus. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ausfire Posted February 5, 2019 Author Share Posted February 5, 2019 Das, those sickle bar things will make good wings on another bird. They weld quite easily too. And I can hear those curlews wailing as I write this. They love rainy nights. Massive flooding in Townsville at present. It even made the BBC news in Britain I'm told. Frosty, this is the first one I've made trying to make it look like a curlew. I've done others with the stones that look more like fat storks. Maybe I should find some smooth black basalt rocks and make some crows. Stone the crows … or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 I follow the BBC and yes it was mentioned and the danger of food being delivered to your door with a tail and teeth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daswulf Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 I've been wanting to make a crow for a while now, just never get around to starting. A stone and scrap crow would be neat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 Got a lot of basalt out here which would be a nice black...Use a vesicular basalt and you could make a Chia Crow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 8 hours ago, ThomasPowers said: Got a lot of basalt out here which would be a nice black...Use a vesicular basalt and you could make a Chia Crow! And seed it with black tea! Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ausfire Posted February 6, 2019 Author Share Posted February 6, 2019 17 hours ago, ThomasPowers said: I follow the BBC and yes it was mentioned and the danger of food being delivered to your door with a tail and teeth. Yes, the big lizards are loving it. Townsville is just about through the worst of it now, but the clean-up will take a long long time. My son was lucky - his house was surrounded by a sea of water, but none inside. And no crocs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 We had rain last night too: 0.05 in according to the weather sites. Glad your son's place was OK! We put a steel roof on our house as I figure wildfire is probably the most likely natural disaster out where we live---well that and possible earthquake/volcanic action... I know of a house down in the Bosque, (wooded area along the Rio Bravo), where they put up a large quonset hut for shelter/fire protection and then built a house inside of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tonybabilu Posted February 13, 2019 Share Posted February 13, 2019 Quote "Got a lot of basalt out here which would be a nice black...Use a vesicular basalt and you could make a Chia Crow!" Man, I didn't even know the part about basalt. May try that out one of these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 13, 2019 Share Posted February 13, 2019 Florida is notoriously Basalt Deficient while New Mexico has several basaltic Malpais areas and lava flows running along I 25 near Albuquerque. (Do NOT remove rocks from either the National Monument or the Reservation lands!) see nmnaturalhistory.org/volcanoes/new-mexico-land-volcanoes Or I could mail you a flat rate box with a rounded stone from the local arroyo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 13, 2019 Share Posted February 13, 2019 Columbia basin is also a good place to collect basalt though IIRC almost anywhere east of the Sierras has basalt strata, hundreds to thousands of feet thick though a lot is covered by the SunDance formations and visa versa. I can visualize the geo maps in my mind but not dates, I've never been good with dates. Okay, Google fu reminder, Columbia basin flows several miles thick and only contain an estimated 50 - 90, 000 cubic miles of basalt laid down between 17mil and 6 mil years ago. That's a lot more recent than I was thinking. Aren't the Traps on the Siberian plateau larger? Oh wait! The Traps ARE the Siberian plateau aren't they? Darn it's been a long time since I did any reading on the subject. Sorry for the side track, my bad. There are basalt deposits all over the SW USA, mostly east of the Sierras. It shouldn't be a problem getting someone to flat rate a few lbs. most anywhere. Oh G-R-E-A-T! When will I learn to keep out of interesting threads, now I'm reading about the Siberian Traps! Arghhhhhh! Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 13, 2019 Share Posted February 13, 2019 Russian Folk Singers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 13, 2019 Share Posted February 13, 2019 Russian Mail Rock Singers? Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 13, 2019 Share Posted February 13, 2019 Siberian Trapp Family Singers: "The Tundra is alive with the sound of Music..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 13, 2019 Share Posted February 13, 2019 "The oosik is alive in the junk of walrus." Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 13, 2019 Share Posted February 13, 2019 But we don't use it till it's fossilized! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 13, 2019 Share Posted February 13, 2019 COPROLITE! It's not ivory and a couple years in the peat get's it past the fin&feather smell test. IF you're Alaskan Native and polish it that is. Carving is extra. The traditional use is as a war club or fish bonker, it's really dense bone. Don't know why it's so dense though I'm sure there are studies. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Coprolite is dense as there wasn't enough roughage... Oosik never qualified for a coprolite in any of my geology courses...coprolites are indirect fossils and Oosik is a direct fossil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 I was using Coprolite as an adjective that wouldn't get xed out and a warning from admin. Tap, tap, tap, wake up Thomas. I was calling bovine droppings. SHEESH do I have to spell out everything ? Dad was a rockhound, I have sliced, polished coprolite book ends. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 I generally don't have enough space on my bookshelves for bookends. If you need an artificial adjective may I commend to your attention Battlestar Galactica's "Felgercarb"; as it doesn't run the risk of confusion twixt direct and indirect fossils... I like making SCA eating knives from a roll of spring steel I picked up at the fleamarket 100' for US$9 a convenient size for small eating knives and I so enjoy telling folks that it had previously been a used sewer snake. Of course even prions don't survive past the glowing point. For special people I'll throw in a Theophilus Quench... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Hard Sci fi is my favorite genre, I couldn't watch more than maybe 2 episodes of Battle Star G. Ughhh. No useful references for me there. John Ringo uses malk in his "universe." Like powered combat armor stories? His Aldenata series is particularly good. Bun Bun is a favorite character of mine and recurs in a number of his books. Confusing people is a sport of mine, I've spent a lifetime polishing the craft. I don't have room on my book shelves for much of anything Deb doesn't approve. Most of my library is in boxes in the basement. <sigh> Shocking the audience is good fun too. I'll have to remember the sewer snake line, that's a good one. I can visualize the look on folk's face. SWEET. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 I preferred "Live Free or Die" by Ringo; Bun Bun seemed too large for the environment---A Panzer Maus II in an area of 5 ton capacity bridges sort of thing. I did like how the "March" series ended. So hard to get an ending that plays true to a series. How are you on Scalzi's "Old Man's War"? I really enjoyed the first one; less so the following ones. Yes I grew up on Heinlein. I think I have seen 2 complete episodes of BSG in my time; their use of an artificial swear word on commercial TV stock in my mind. I commend to your attention the Fry and Laurie sketch "Swearing" where they skewer the use of made up words as stand ins for the "common" ones. I'm lucky in that I run my smithy at a dead loss and so don't have to worry about profit margins or customer cultivation. It's nice to be able to drop a paying student who is a danger to others and or theirself and to be able to encourage students who don't have much disposable income. (I bought 2 coil springs last weekend to give to beginner bladesmiths. I was young and broke before!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Who could argue with the universal appeal of maple syrup? Oh yeah, Bun Bun reminds me of a scaled down Continental Siege Unit from Keith Laumer's, "Reteif" series. I'm a fan of outrageous tech and unintended consequences in Sci Fi so long as it's well written. Ringo got past the Panzer Maus problem by making Bun Bun the size of a shopping mall. Bun Bun don't need no steenkeen roads, heck can't stop Bun Bun with a mountain! How about the Council Wars series? Deb just bought another "Black Tide Rising" book but I haven't looked, it might not be written by Ringo. "Old Man's War" was worth reading but the others not so much. I know I've said this before but I learned to read because Mother got me started reading sci fi. I even found the first two books I read at a used book store, have them on a shelf by my chair. I can read either in about an hour, took me a whole day when I was a kid. Heinlein was my guy for a long time and I still have a special place for him in my heart. Sometimes I wish I were more of a fan, I might've known he and Virginia lived less than 40 miles from where I grew up. Heck, Dad and I drove within 10 miles on our daily commute to work. I'll check Fry and Laurie out. Youtube? 3 hours ago, ThomasPowers said: I did like how the "March" series ended. So hard to get an ending that plays true to a series. You got me there, it isn't ringing a bell and Google hits on too many titles, authors, etc. to help. Details please? I'm always up for a good read. I'm a hobbyist I don't do much of anything for money unless I want to run you off and don't want to just say get lost. When I teach I like to have the student invest a little and encourage them to bring some steel, doesn't matter what so long as it doesn't come from a big box store. I usually start them on 3/8" sq. hr. mild, basic skills before they mess with higher carbon and then chisels are good starts. Might not the be the best curriculum but it's my shop and I don't really care about outside opinions. The door is thataway. I have springs I picked up when working road maint. All kinds of springs. I have a broken leaf stack it took two of us to get in a pickup, the thinnest leaf is 9/16" and the main ones are at least 5/8". Someday I'll maybe get a couple youngsters to drag it to the shop. When your job involves walking on the road daily you find all kinds of interesting stuff. Picking up road kill was a major downside, worse than risking your life during drunking hour. (closing time) Last summer I think, I picked up a coil abandoned when a neighbor drug their mobile home elsewhere, they were trying to sell two at the yard sale for $20 ea. A friend and I managed to lever it into the SUV and haul it about 1/4 mile home. The "wire" is 2 3/4" dia. the coil 12 1/2" dia. C-C and 32" long. Weighs better than 400 lbs. and there's another one laying in the weeds but I'm not working that hard again I have enough to last me and a few others till it goes in the estate sale. I get more use from roll up door springs and small dia. coil. Spring is good, hard to have too much. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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