What did you do in the shop today?

[BillyBones]

DHarris, i wanted to complement your bolster last night also, unfortunately i could not recall what it was called. So special thanks goes to Chimerae for naming it.

  

[ThomasPowers]

Slept late;  had breakfast and then worked on the deadbolt on the back door.  Filed out the piece it goes into so my wife could open and close it without having to body check the door.   Going for Ashes at noon.

[BillyBones]

Made a set of tongs for small stock after Mass today. Isn't pretty, kind of lumpy but they work so good enough for me.

[hheneg]

Took out the temp ships ladder, put in the spiral.  Not much shopwork other than cutting ballisters to fit and drilling a bunch of mounting holes.

[Chimaera]

That's lovely! What an incredible room (and I assume house) all around!

[Frosty]

That's beautiful and I thought the ships ladder was beautiful. I can see the tax assessor wringing his greedy little sticky hands now!

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

While the insurance agent breathes a sigh of relief.

[hheneg]

yes the tax man loveth us.  the shops ladder was the only exposed  dimensional lumber in the house.  Everything else, walls floors ceilings from the sawmill.  Outside, board and batyon cypress.   My wife moved with me 13 times this was her retirement gift.

[Chad J.]

Told myself I'm going to finish up some projects today.  Three projects finished before I get distracted is my goal.  So we'll see how well that works,  last night I wandered aimlessly between projects.   There's a little artisans market in town that I've started stocking finished items in, so far is a mixed variety to see what sells in my area.  There's also a supper club up by my family cabin that has a store aimed at its camper park and they are more than happy to stock fire pit tools. 

BTW Jennifer, your chain making and destructive test video popped up on my YouTube Recommended Playlist.  Very well done,  and I thought you'd like to know.

[JHCC]

The inside of my forge was rather chewed up:

So I decided to take a couple of tubes I had kicking around of this stuff:

And patched up a lot of chips and cracks:

We’ll see how well it holds up (it’s rated to 2,300°F), or if I’ll need to completely reline the whole thing. 

 

[Chad J.]

I managed to stay focused today.   Got the finish on the pokers,  made a new large s hook from some squared off rebar, modified a pair of tongs I found in an antiques shop a while back, started in on a pair of yongs from rail spikes, and then a neighbor brought over a little claw hammer.  Asked me if I could do anything with it.  I took my shot at the gardening tool.  

[Rojo Pedro]

Very nice repurpose Chad. I will have to try one

[Jobtiel1]

Some stuff I've been working on the last week.

~Jobtiel

 

[Arthur210]

Didn't do much in the last couple of months, but yesterday I welded together a bottom swage to make 90° angles. I plan on using it to make some V-bit tongs that I'll need soon.

The stem is made from a thick-walled square tube that I collapsed and hot-fitted to my anvil's hardy hole. It was then welded to a piece of plate with a hole to fit the stem, and the swage built on top of it.

The swage itself is formed around a piece of angle iron with some small pieces of square bar welded on to support it, then everything was welded together into a solid piece.

That seemed like the easiest way to make it with the tools and materials that I have.  

[Les L]

Chad, Jobtiel and Arthur, great looking projects 

[BillyBones]

Made a hook rack for the kitchen this weekend. The one hook needs replaced, the hole for the rivet went off center and it is just a bit shorter than the rest. It was supposed to be a 2 piece design mounted on wood but my board is not big enough to accommodate 2. The other was to be about half the size, 3 hooks and mounted flush on the board. That is a piece of zebra wood i was going to use. Man wood has gotten outrageous. That little piece of board, 4" x 24" x 1/2" was almost $16. 

Also hoping that welding and a bead of silicone will seal up my slack barrel for at least till next winter. The silicone is the white stuff in the bottom. The water froze and pushed the bottom out a few weeks back. 

[Scott NC]

  2"x10"x8' pine for the raised beds last week were $17 each.  I expect they are $20 now.

[Fire plus Bird]

I'm framing sheet metal raised beds for my wife with cedar. Lumber sure ain't cheap these days. Just finished replanking my back deck last month. I ended up buying rough sawn 2"x6"x12 boards (well, one face was planed) from a guy I know who owns a forest in order to save big... Milling all that wood to dimension took some time, especially since I had to go to a friend's house to joint it. Maybe it was worth it?

[ThomasPowers]

2"x12"x8" cedar US$0  when my mother had their old shade structure took down,  Wood is sun blasted but to fill it with dirt it's fine.  8 brackets to  hold boards together, 20USCents a pound for steel, a fun half hour bending them, another drilling holes.

I can't afford to buy new but have a lot of levels in scrounging!

[Donal Harris]

Learned yesterday evening to keep my digits well away from the spinning blade on my table saw. My initial thought (well the one immediately after “Do I still have a thumb?” was “jeez that blade is sharp! I didn’t even feel my thumb move!”

So, no hammer time for me today. 
 

This is my pot. It is too deep. I considered building it up with clay, but decided against it. It is 1/2” plate. If I cut it all around at the level of the chalk line, how close to my desired 3” - 3.5” do you guess I might get. 

I am thinking I could drop the bottom down into the top and it wouldn’t be as deep as it is now. 

[JHCC]

DO you still have a thumb?

[Frosty]

You JUST learned to keep fingers and heck any body parts away from spinning blades? How old are you? I learned that one before I was 10, Dad showed me what happened to a hot dog that touched a table saw blade. 

How much thumb do you have left?

If you cut that firepot at the chalk line I'd say it'll be less than 2" deep, maybe 1 1/2". Do you have a machinist's combination square? Set it to 4" and mark the pot using the flat base to rest the square. 

Measuring 4" will give you an inside depth of 3 1/2" after subtracting the thickness of the plate. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

I have a friend who has managed to cut both index fingers off with a table saw---11 years apart.  Both have been reattached; though the Dr didn't want to do it for the second one until my friend said "See the Dr re-attached this one 11 years ago and it works---are you not as good as they were?"   Afterwards he was no longer allowed to own or use a table saw; so he tool up brass casting as a "safer" hobby.

[Frosty]

One kid I went to school with from 3rd. grade I think through high school till we moved was a real loose canon joker. One of his favorites was to turn the oxy off when you were welding or brazing giving you a nice blast of acetylene smoke in the face. Another was to lift and drop molds before the instructor poured. On and on, he got himself banned from about every shop class he took. 

Finally in wood shop he couldn't get a board to feed into the table saw and lifted the guard out of the way so it would. Of course, good student that ALWAYS paid close attention to operating and safety he was feeding the table saw backwards. The blade grabbed the board and drug him across it. Push stick, what's that?

Embedded the board in a wall above the class room area across the shop floor. 

Took almost all the fingers off his right hand from the last knuckle on his index finger and split his hand, wrist and cut a groove in his arm to his elbow. He even managed to lose part of his thumb. 

We didn't see Danny again in a shop class. Not t hat I think he learned a lesson I believe he was banned from any shop class in the California edu. system. That was the quiet word that came down from the metal shop and craft shop instructors. 

He was on his way out of the craft shop for sniffing various solvents and adhesives anyway. 

Sometimes the equipment or tool you're using isn't what you have to be watching to stay safe.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[ThomasPowers]

Had a story about a guy in HS making a low grade pipe bomb with "bad lab technique".  I just deleted the details. He had a scar that went all the way around his thumb...