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What did you do in the shop today?


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Chimera, that's a sweet looking knife. 

Shocking day at work today so I decided to unwind bashing some steel. 

I had a go at my first cube twist (well rectangle twist). We are going away for a long weekend to visit some friends who have a fire pit but no poker.  The twist isn't as consistent as it could be but I'm very happy for a first go. PXL_20210811_175258475.thumb.jpg.829c691b7776a0e847bca3cb41829ee2.jpg

PXL_20210811_175303138.jpg

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I made it back home today.  My Daughter drove a friend of mine  that can drive a standard transmission out to Oregon and we caravaned back to NM.  Dr appointment tomorrow to see if my Back needs fixin' after the "incident".

No sign of electrical work on the shop.  How to drive a standard lessons coming up for the kids AND my wife figured away to fit behind the wheel; she can drive stick; but wasn't able to reach the release point on my clutch last time we tried.

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Looks good Dax, I'm afraid you're going to have to make up a name for that twist. I like it.

Teach her to drive without the clutch Thomas, it's easy if you don't try speed shifting. Start it in first and brake till the engine dies. EZ. PZ. That IS assuming your pickup is new enough to have a syncromesh tranny. If not, tape wood blocks to her feet like Dad did, teaching my little sister to drive a stick.

What I really like is watching someone who's spent a day learning to drive a stick when they get back into a car with an automatic. Stomp that power brake pedal to the floor like it was the clutch. :o

Fun times.

Glad you made it home Thomas. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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When I was 9 my dad taught me to drive our junky old standard chevy truck so I could help out around the farm, i picked it up fairly quickly and was okay working around the farm with the truck,

 but there was two times I took out a barb wire fence in the same place! lol, first time was during a ice storm and I stomped on the brake and just kept going on the ice, the second time I had cut my hand pretty bad and was bleeding all over the steering wheel and it slipped outta my hands and I went through the same fence in the same spot! 
 

my dad didn’t really care about my hands and made me get out and fix the fence that time lol, 

I didn’t take out any more fences after that last one

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My Father learned to drive a farm truck while in single digits; no synchromesh and large wooden blocks on the pedals. His job was to drive it in the hay field while the adults bucked hay.

When my youngest Daughter borrowed my truck and backed into a concrete filled post; I didn't get mad at her; but she had to help pull off the bumper and take it in the smithy and use the screwpress to straighten it back up and re-install it during her Christmas Holiday.    Much more careful after that than a yelling would prompt...

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Spying? I think everybody saw that episode of America's Funniest Home Videos.

Our driver education teacher was insistent we NEVER brake with our left foot. In class; out on the road he wouldn't say a word until a student tried slamming everybody in the car through the windshield. Our driver Ed. car was a big old station wagon too. I think it was the only way to get 8 students and the instructor in one car at the same time. 

One clutch stomp on the brake pedal was more than enough to convince everybody to wear the seat belt. 

Good times. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

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Well I didn't do anything but I am impressed with my carport slash shop. Got a nasty storm at home while I was at work 18mph winds with gusts of 80 about 2 dozen trees down on just the rodes I took to get to my house so I thought well there goes my carport. To my surprise when I pulled in driveway carport didn't move an inch and not a single tear in the material. Wooohoo

That twist is amazing I really want to try that.

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Thanks guys. 

If it needs a name call it a lazy rectangle twist. 

Mainly because I was being lazy. It's 1/2 square bar and I was going to cube twist the entire thing but I realised how many cuts that would need and decided to just make a cut every 1 inch. I also did the cuts too shallow at only about 1/32nd deep and went for 1 full twist every 4 inches. 

The combination of over zealous twisting and shallow well spaced cuts gave me the off set individually twisted sections. 

 

Re driving, autos are the work of the devil. 33 years driving a manual means a sore forehead if I jump in an auto. 

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Very nice twist i think there Dax.

I did not learn to drive a stick till i was in the Army and those old deuces the clutch was kind of optional and if you did have to use it always double clutched. I then got a job in a machine shop maintenance department and one day had to drive an old Dodge that had a 3 on the tree about 30 miles, through town and up a highway. The battery was bad in the truck so if i let it die there was no restarting with out a push or jump. That was may first time really driving a stick. 

My daughter when she was 14 learned to drive a stick. Her mom had one that a guy did some work on but did not have a license so it was my daughter that drove it for a test drive. Provably one of the few 25 year old around who can do it now a days. 

I never stomped the break myself but i was taught to use my right foot for the gas and break...unless waiting for the Christmas tree to drop that is. 

I always thought the worst part of teaching some one was the bunny hopping. 

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I learned to drive in a stick as well. Dad took me out and while going up on steep hill on a back road that had little to no traffic, killed it and said well be here until you can get this going without rolling back or stalling it out. We were there for a bit.

I just traded in my 2014 Fusion back in March and it was standard. I like my new automatic Acadia but man, the first few days I nearly put myself through the windshield hitting the break trying to shift lol. I was just so used to shifting that when I would hear the motor reach a certain rpm, I would just instinctively shift. Wife never could understand how I knew when to shift by simply listening to the motor. 

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Doing collision repair I'm in and out of all different makes and models of cars pulling them in and out. I'm almost surprised when the car has an actual key start anymore. It's harder to find the car in the lot on the rare chance it doesn't have a remote fob. Manual transmissions are rare and we often have to move those cars for the young kids that do detail. The biggest annoyance is when the manufacturers play "hide the start button". Then there are the goofy styles of electronic shifters, turn knob, push button..... I'll take the old hand shaker any day. 

I learned to drive manual on my brothers 91 F150 that had the sloppiest shifter I've ever dealt with. You knew you were in certain gears when your fist hit the radio. And once in a while you'd accidentally hit the wrong spot while trying to up shift and drastically down shift. Ah the good old days. Never had an issue with accidentally hitting the brake instead of the clutch but in some small cars my foot is almost on both. 

Took my drivers test in my moms mid 90's caravan. 

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After my incident on the trip nobody would let me drive on the way back home and so I had 2 different people "who have driven stick in the past"  taking it out on my poor little truck; just when it was hitting 100K miles...and I had to keep quiet as they were doing me a favor.  Dr's office overloaded so they are sending me to the ER to get the staples out and look at my back.  Not impressed with a medical group that tells you there is a 3 month wait for an appointment!

My father taught us that we should hear the "thunk" of the clutch hitting the floorboard of his mid 1960's VW---it ended up with a dent under it!  (Also had 100K miles on the original clutch!)  Made it more exciting switching over to Mom's auto auto!

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49 minutes ago, Daswulf said:

The biggest annoyance is when the manufacturers play "hide the start button".

I was just watching a video the other day about the history of LeMans. Since the drivers had to run to their cars and start them at the beginning of the race, Porsche moved their ignition to the left side of the steering wheel. This allowed the driver to turn the ignition with his left hand as he got into the car and engaged the transmission with his right, saving a few tenths of a second. 

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Our 2015 F150 has the gear shift lever on the column  and the 2018 Escape has it on the floor console. I have no problem in the F150 with the  shifter that lets me select the shift mode from auto to sport to towing and manually shift gears all without looking at the lever.

It's when I get in the Escape and start the car, then shift the windshield wipers on the column on.:D

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Keyless is the work of the devil. The sales guy pushed hard for me to go keyless on my last bike. Being capable to put a key in a key hole is not something I find difficult and there is a massive down side. 

I don't know about the rest of the world but in the UK the bike won't cut out if you ride away from the key for safety reasons. I guarantee I would leave the key in my porch, ride for 2 or 3 hours and stop for a brew and discover it won't restart. 

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Had a friend in high school that had one of them truck things with a van front end that Dodge built, i think Ford built one also, it had the 3 on the tree but the shifter was messed up. If you went into a certain spot it would spin all the way around the steering column. 

When i was doing transmissions if the clutch was out you could sometimes push the pedal just enough to get by the clutch safety switch, put it in gear and drive it into the shop with the starter. If you could not use the pedal a paper clip in the back of the pig tail did the job. 

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Well, after a few months out of the forging world thanks to a pinched nerve in my neck (and work and extreme heat and rain)  I have finally been able to do a few things around the forge.  I redesigned the forge to be a bottom blast rather than a side blast.  I used the top of a 55 gallon drum and a section of handrail from an old dead treadmill.  I cut some channels into the handrail and peeled them out  so I could have some tabs to bolt to the oil drum lid.  Once attached, I drilled some holes through to allow the air.  Folded the lid to fit inside the grill body.  made the fire pit with bricks and filled the remaining gaps with sand.  Was Losing the light so I haven't lit it yet to test it, but I have high hopes.

I also drilled out the holes I drifted in my tongs project and dropped a bolt through  they need tuning and aligning.  they are also UGLY, but they ought to hold things nicely.

IMG_20210811_195720648.jpg

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How do you make the torches Alexander? Not the basket and bracket parts but the rest. 

Every time you show us one of your table tops I see the contrast in wood colors and every single time I wonder if you're tempted to place them in symbolic or amusing patterns. Something like a smiley face or eye. I'd find it nearly irresistible myself.

When we were growing up we lived in the San Fernando Valley in S. Cal. so there wasn't any opportunity for driving lessons before we were legal. However, we had a circular driveway and a "breezeway" between house and garage. The driveway went through the breezeway to the back yard and the entrance to the garage. Dad had us driving in the circular drive, the backing around it, then pulling the boat trailer around, backing it into the back yard and parking it beside the laundry(?) outbuilding. 

When were around 13 he started having us launch the boat and pick it up. Shannon wasn't tall enough to see to launch or pickup so she drove the boat while I drove the pickup and trailer. Dad would sit on the dock, have a smoke and talk to folks trying not to fall off their trailer tongue.

By time I was 14 I was making $5/boat to launch and pick boats, Shannon made $2 for driving their boat off and onto the trailers. 

We were a deal and a half at $7.00 in or out. We didn't forget the drain plug or to untie the hold down straps or winch and sink the boat. Shan NEVER rammed the trailer and had using the boat drive to help push the tow vehicle up the algae covered ramp. We wouldn't do either if the owner wanted to "help," they could wait on the dock or parking lot or do it themselves. Shan got to drive some of the hottest ski boats around S. Cal. in the 70s.

Have you ever watched people launching or loading from a boat ramp? It was better than water skiing some days.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Good old 3 on the tree once mastered easy before that utter confusion. Learned stick in my driveway which was a hill for 2 months before had license dad found a car was cheap and said better learn got 2 months before you can hit the road. Next 8 weeks all I did was drive up and down the drive way and sit in it shifting gears.

 

Storm Gods are on my side this week spaired my carport and brought down a tree 2 doors down that magically the tree service cut a piece exactly 25.5 inches which is what I need to have my anvil at the right hieght.  Getting closer now just need time to set it all up.

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