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What did you do in the shop today?


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Macleod; the barbwire basket icicles have quite a bit of variation in them as the old barbwire was not very uniform.  Walking the arroyo; I ran across some old barbwire that has round barbs. I'm going to see if I can get it and try one with it and one with alternating pieces.  It's really pitted so I will need to soak it in vinegar for a week or more...  The current ones were painted with a metal flake silver spray paint and I made the hooks for them from nickel silver wire---the hooks they sell nowadays are not worth going into town for!

My wife has reminded me that I need to hang our icicle Christmas lights; as we are in a rural area, she wants me to hang them inside our great room in front of the clerestory windows so we get maximum enjoyment from them.  Now to maneuver the large ladder inside the house. Outside I would just lay on the metal roof and roll over and put a hanger each time I was back on my belly.

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36 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Outside I would just lay on the metal roof and roll over and put a hanger each time I was back on my belly.

Taking appropriate care when turning corners. Yes?

We have a 4 1/2 : 12 pitch, steel roof it's hard not to slide off it wearing grippy soled shoes. When we hang lights we hang them from the deck railings. Might dig them out this year, a little cheer would be nice and folks can see them from Vine Rd. about 1/2-1/4 mile out.

Frosty The Lucky. 

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As my house is passive solar; we have clerestory windows in the "great room" so the roof is more of a shed roof in that section.  With low snow and rain levels out here; roofs don't need much pitch. (Unlike our slate roof in Ohio---I *paid* professionals to work on it! Still a metal roof is slippery when wet.)  As I would have to hang over the edge to mount the lights I found it easier to roll than to get up move over, get down, repeat until done.

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I didn't think you desert rats would have steep roofs, it'd be more hassle than they're worth. 

We like to have the snow slide off before it gets deep. I haven't gone up on the roof since the accident, the eaves are 24' from the ground and I'm long past my bounce by date. What REALLY makes it slippery is dust, I used to hose it off good before going up. There was a forest fire (remember "forest fires?) and the invisible layer of ash made the roof scary slippery. Walking wasn't bad but stand still and you started slowly sliding down the pitch. Standing on a screw head was the only way to stay put. 

Years ago I'd spray it with car wash/wax and you could watch snow slide off as it fell, a constant sheet of snow. It worked great and lasted a couple years per application but I came to my senses when I thought about changing the china caps on the vents. 

We hire pros if we need anything done on the roof. 

Frosty The Lucky. 

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I love high winds as a method of clearing my lawn.  The next door neighbor spent 2 days carefully raking and bagging leaves.  I waited for a windy day....

This weekend I hung some christmas lights on the front porch, made a huge pot of green chile stew, met the boys and hung out with the grandbaby, and even got a little forge time in.  Still trying to learn how to make a basic leaf.  Did get some more practice on drawing out some rebar using the S.O.R.S method.  That went better than the leaf attempt.  I went back to a black bear forge youtube video on making a leaf and now understand what I did wrong.  Next time....

Now here are some pics of a future shop helper :)  He's 6 months old.

 

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Haven't been on this forum in a while but the other day I made my first knife sale image.png.1afe6f30932ba7d84ebbd317219c5158.png

I've also gotten better at forging I used to forge the tip and cut in a tang this was the first knife that I forged in the tang and forged in the bevels (which is a huge time saver on the grinder) this knife is also the sharpest knife I made with the most acute edge. And my first forged guard. 

PS I'd like to mention I did not make the sheath I bought the sheath for a different knife a while back and it didn't fit but it happened to fit for this knife. 

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On 12/1/2020 at 11:27 PM, Daswulf said:

Those are some nice evenly twisted handles Aus! 

Thanks, Das. Haven't been putting up much on this site lately. Seems I just do a lot of the same thing - mainly tourist stuff like bull head bottle openers, billy lifters, ram heads, troll crosses, fire pokers and the like. Still doing demos every day at the Village, but it's getting very hot here now. I guess you are preparing for some cold. Have been trying some different twists on the billy lifters. Here's one with a  stairway twist. 

Anyway, Cheers from Australia and hope all is well with you and family.

stairway long.JPG

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Aus, that stairway twist looks great. We still love seeing your work. I think you've about perfected those bull heads. 

Yup it's getting (is) cold here. I'd gladly mail you some colder weather for some warmer weather but postage would be a bit pricy. 

Family is doing well. Thanks! Try to stay cool.

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22 hours ago, aaamax said:

Rasp knife looks good.  

did you grind the scales flat, or leave them in?

aaamax, thanks for the kind words, Its a hidden tang If that's whats your asking I'm not exactly sure what mean by leave them in

and to Paul TIKI thank you and yes It is farriers rasp my neighbor recently moved and he gave them to me before he moved.

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I've been pretty busy with end of semester school stuff, and with ROTC I haven't forged for a week and today I got to the shop from 2:00-6:00 and made a trail riding knife for my mom for Christmas. This was my first one day knife, also one of the best fit ups I've ever done. I used a farriers rasp because she loves horses and an antler that she found while trail riding and gave to me for the handle. If you notice there isn't a pin I didn't use one because i haven't really seen it done before and didn't wanna risk it because it was the only antler I had. However I didn't want epoxy to be the only thing holding it together, so I worked up a design that may exist but I've never seen done before. I put a swell in the tang cut some wood in half and used a chisel to carve a groove that fit around it then put the two halves together so it locked it in place and pinned the wood to the antler. I included my design to show you what I mean.

 image.png.0b76805a07b5b07c0c95d0a9173f90ee.pngimage.png.d87e17160fbe047d0de382fec0d3d458.png  

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Nice knife Jeagers. 

Finished up this chopper for my nephew for Christmas. I usually dont make knives but it's what he really wanted and his dad approved.

Chopper styling with a nice point. False edge on the back of the point seems lost in the picture.

Lightly sodablasted finish. Linseed oil on the mystery wood handles. (Oak?)

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Das, that sure looks like oak. Looks great! I love that sodablasted finish.

Got all my stuff together and moved into storage. Most organized my tools have ever been. The devil on my shoulder is telling me to get more toolboxes :wacko: I feel like I know how this story ends... IMG_20201208_181519.thumb.jpg.655554ca86ff477e8ef1c6c3a9f9b0f7.jpg

Also plasma cut exhausts and drilled a burner hole in my new forge shell. Starting the insulation and refractory tomorrow. No forging til that's done.
IMG_20201208_224049.jpg.639047e072221ae90c7a5ed1617cab06.jpg

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On 11/8/2020 at 1:44 PM, MacLeod said:

:)Thanks I swore a little while doing it. 
. At the right temp the brass brush is like alchemy love the effect it gives.

Beautiful work. I want to try the brass brush. Do you put any kind of finish on after the brass like paste wax or linseed or oil or just leave it? I’m assuming any of that stuff on top of the brass would dull the color and make it look more black. 

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Twigg; when you get to my age along with a couple of cranial-concrete bounce tests; you find that you do better with stuff clearly visible.  So I've been picking up garden rake heads at the scrapyard and making tool holders from them for the walls of my shop and other places as well.

rake2.jpg.08a36d0f01578634643498da5b471a11.jpgrake1.jpg.423e3fccd0ebbe3ca543ee53082989d1.jpg

  They do a great job holding files with golf ball handles!

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