Bummer Billy.  It sucks to fall when you get older, things I used to shake off maybe tend to put me in the ER now. 

I like Judge Judy's wisdom on the topic. "To live a long happy life don't fall."

The last time I fell I ended up with a bum knee and I really don't want to have it replaced. I don't need another year + of recovery and worse therapy. Still it limits what I can do without careful planning. 

On the other hand losing more than 30lbs. has made getting around a lot easier. 

Frosty The Lucky.

After reading the novel "One Second After," I decided that I needed to add to my skill set in order to be worthy of living behind the protective perimeter amongst the useful and civilized.  I can fix practically anything.  I know how to garden.  I'm an expert shot.  Needed more for my post-apocalyptic resume, so I decided to learn how to make moonshine. 

I bought a copper still kit (legal if it is just a box of copper cutouts).  I made a really great batch one time.  Aged it with several alligator-charred white oak bourbon barrel sticks for a couple of weeks.  Accelerated aging.  140 proof uncut.  Wife (not a whiskey fan) said it tasted like butter and bacon.  If I could have replicated it, I'd be rich right now with an underground bunker full of 25 year survival food.

At least I've got a pretty good chance of being allowed in if there's an EMP attack, my advanced age not withstanding.

20 hours ago, Nobody Special said:

Best to stay away from the snake whiskey. It's not always vodka, although it's usually some sort of high-test clear liquor or grain alcohol,

Doing a little rebound here. I've been a fan of the webcomic, "Doc's Whiteboard" ever since Thomas Powers mentioned it being his favorite, along with "Schlock Mercenary." 

Anyway, Doc's Great grandparents are polar bears who immigrated to America just after the American Civil war and ended up homesteading a township(?) sized parcel somewhere E. of Fairbanks so he could experiment without endangering everything within 20 miles. He powers the place with a home made and fueled Thorium reactor and that wasn't one of the dangerous experiments.

One of the regular features of Grandpaw's table is Herring Vodka.

One of these days I plan on meeting Doc Nickle the author for lunch in Ninilchik and herring vodka is one question I have for him.

Yeah, I know that's a lot of backstory for a bit of silliness but it was on topic, provided some happy memories of Thomas and hopefully primes a member from somewhere on Earth to chime in with a regional animal addiction to distilled liquor.

Frosty The Lucky.

Now I’m imagining smoked salmon-infused vodka….

(The traditional Alaskan stuff made in the villages, not the delicate stuff you get at the fancy deli.)

The State of Alaska was pushing some salmon vodka a few years ago - it wasn't moonshine, but I wouldn't have called it delicate either. Went good in a Bloody Mary, but I'm wary of the celery salt these days in them. Never drink anything that you'll regret the taste of the second time around.

About 12 or 13 years ago, I was teaching interrogation down at Dobbins, and the head of the schoolhouse had everybody over to his lake house in Alabama for a four-day weekend. I thought we had drank hard the first day - bourbon mostly, some rye, honey liqueur and I forget what-all. Played a jam session until about 2 am then woke up at 6:15 to find my very, very Irish Catholic platoon sergeant manning the grill with two gallon-sized pitchers of put-hair-on-your-chest-and-then-burn-it-off-again Bloody Marys, already about three drinks in. Have a tall glass as hair of the dog with your breakfast and it went downhill from there. I had a...call it a celery salt and tomato juice flavored technicolor yawn at 2:30 the following morning and have generally avoided them ever since. I can still remember small portions of that weekend with great fondness though.

Bacon bourbon (and vice versa) is pretty good too and I occasionally infuse fruit or other stuff - although a Gummi Roy is just awful. Maybe I'll get brave some day and throw in a little garum. How bad can it be?

Saturday I forged out the stems of four candle holders and a mandrel for candle cups. Today I forged the candle cups and forge welded the first stem and cup together:

The stems are from 8” of 1” round mild steel, the cups are just some seamless pipe I had laying around, and the mandrel was from the hex shaft portion of an adjustable length drive shaft (sparked a lot higher carbon than I expected!). The weld left more of a seem than I prefer, but it a little thin (1/4”) to try and blend it in more. The next time I think I’ll grind a thinner skate on the cups.

Next forge session I’ll try to get the others welded up and I may see if I can get some round drops off one of the smiths in my group for the bases.

Keep it fun,

David

Someone in the state may have been pushing salmon vodka but with our alcohol problems I guarantee the state of Alaska wasn't. 

Those are going to be some large flowers David. What was the power hammer you used? If you hand forged those I'll try to remember to be really polite.

Frosty The Lucky.

Turn out weak point was not at eye of flatter but on handle itself, handle was just prototype I used to se how it will all go.

 

Everything is polished, eye goes in come shape tapering from bottom to top, and I attached handle opposite of that.

This showed that eye is not too "small"

7 hours ago, Frosty said:

What was the power hammer you used?

Frosty, no, I don’t think I’d do this by hand! I have an Anyang 88. I find it handles a pretty wide range of projects. (Have to be really careful on delicate items like the candle cups and a little slow on the big stuff like the 8lbs sledge I forged a while back…)

Keep it fun,

David

I'm reminded of the summer I spent at a craft camp studying woodworking. I was in my "hand-tools-only-power-tools-are-EVIL" phase, and when the instructor had us design and build a stool, I decided I was going to make the legs by tapering the legs from 2" square down to 3/4" square with a scrub plane. Well, it took me a day and a half to make the first one, and then fifteen minutes with the bandsaw to make the other two. Lesson learned.

Billy. Sorry to hear. Hope it grows quick together

Hazlenut works good as a handle, where you live nat, i think you can find those.

4 hours ago, JHCC said:

I'm reminded of the summer I spent at a craft camp studying woodworking. I was in my "hand-tools-only-power-tools-are-EVIL" phase, and when the instructor had us design and build a stool, I decided I was going to make the legs by tapering the legs from 2" square down to 3/4" square with a scrub plane. Well, it took me a day and a half to make the first one, and then fifteen minutes with the bandsaw to make the other two. Lesson learned.

Well you could used drawknife, hand tools are not bad if you know right tool to use

 

John's real lesson was to really get the most from a tool, you need to learn to do it by hand. Operating a power hammer is an excellent example. Without knowing how hot steel behaves under a hammer, how to get it to go where you want, what order of operations to use, etc. all a power hammer is really good for is flattening hot steel, pennies, full beer cans, etc.

That's a nice hammer David.

Frosty The Lucky.

Good morning, all.  I decided it was time to clear out the scrap bin and start a gate panel for our shop.  There was enough pieces that I only had to make 3 cuts for the frame.  1-1/2" -.085 square tube. 

During the few hours using a die grinder and file to clean up the welds, I decided that I needed to add some forging to this so I'm going to add a few doors that will hide 'treasures' like an advent calendar.  Our stained glass guild is going to make pieces to go in most of the larger panels.  Not sure which hinge style I'll go for, but so far the general consensus is to make the effort to try to make identical pairs of the fancier hinge.

That's a nice looking hinge plate, it'll be an interesting dichotomy on a fabbed gate. What are the general dimensions of the gate?

Frosty The Lucky.

3 hours ago, Frosty said:

What are the general dimensions of the gate?

Frosty The Lucky.

This panel is roughly 30" x48" IIRC.

The frames were already made (abandoned project by a member), which is why I don't know the exact dimensions. 

"Waste not want not," is a proper blacksmitherly attitude. Even if B. Franklin never was a blacksmith himself, he got the saying right. 

Yeah, speaking from chamber 16 of the B. Franklin rabbit hole. Just the wiki article is beyond impressive and loaded with links.

Frosty The Lucky.

2 minutes ago, Frosty said:

"Waste not want not," is a proper blacksmitherly attitude.

Reminds me of the gate I made from a railing chopped into halves which were then stacked on each other with a piece of another in between.

I finished the new chandelier. All that's left is to pack it and ship it.

I don't quite know what to say Alex, seeing it assembled and hanging brings it to life so to speak. I can see how the 3 rings and levels work together with the vertical support elements to make a complete piece. I'm a little short on sleep so I'm not expressing myself very well but I had to say something.

Another masterful piece of art Alex, thanks for sharing it with us.

Frosty The Lucky.

Spent a good part of yesterday making some brackets to hold 2 water tanks under my caravan. I made them out of 32x5mm flat bar so I had to heat them in my charcoal forge to bend them. I also took advantage of the forge to punch and drift the bolt holes instead of drilling to leave more material around each hole. Having recently bought a new anvil that actually has a hardy hole and pritchel hole, I love how much easier and more efficient punching and drifting the 8 holes was!

Cheers,

Jono.

You ARE familiar with the Iforge tradition about projects and pictures aren't you Jono? 

Without pictures we won't believe it. Not really anyway.

 How does it work?

Frosty The Lucky.

5 hours ago, Frosty said:

I don't quite know what to say Alex, seeing it assembled and hanging brings it to life so to speak. I can see how the 3 rings and levels work together with the vertical support elements to make a complete piece. I'm a little short on sleep so I'm not expressing myself very well but I had to say something.

Another masterful piece of art Alex, thanks for sharing it with us.

Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks Jer ! This is the first time I've made a chandelier like this.

 

I installed the cabinet in place. I've been working in this office for several years. I think there will be more work to do.

I remember seeing a lot of your projects in this office. It's nice to have satisfied customers isn't it?

Frosty The Lucky.