What did you do in the shop today?

[SHC]

My own fear of spiders started when I was about kindergarten age. I was digging around between the couch cushions for something I’d dropped and got bit. 
Spiders are great teachers though. Anybody who walks into a web immediately learns Kung Fu AND a new language!
I actually like black widows because of their perfection. Shiny, black, splash of red. Nightmare fuel in art form. A friend of mine got a tattoo of one on the back of his shoulder, and it was a big one. The first time I saw it, let’s just say I wasn’t thinking straight. I took off my belt and was determined to kill it. But that sucker was latched on good and I really had to give it a good walloping, numerous licks before someone convinced me to stop.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

I can tell you from personal experience, if a brown recluse bite gets through the skin and reacts, the necrotic venom will give you a new respect for the critters that share the same space with you…

im not an arachnophobe I leave most all the spiders be.

so they can do their thing and keep the bug population down, 

but fiddle backs, black widows are torch bait in my shop! 

also whe have copper head, cotton mouth and rattle snakes here so just another reason I don’t go stickin my hand where I can’t see, 

SHC, if you do some research on those shiny black an blue mud Daubers you’ll find they are the primary predators of black widow spiders, 

they purposely will pull on the spiders web to make it think they’ve caught something, so the spider runs out to get it, but when they get to the edge of the web the wasp grabs it an stuns it, then carries it back to the mud nest for the larvae to eat! 

red wasps will eat spiders to! 

needless to say I leave ALL the mud dauber and wasp nests alone in my shop! 

they can have all the spiders they wanna eat lol, 

[Donal Harris]

My Granny would tan our hides if she saw us kill a spider. They serve a purpose. You leave them alone and they will usually leave you alone. Just shake out your boots and gloves before you put them on, and be sure to check your sheets before crawling between them.

I was finally able to get out to the forge today. Got the bowl ready for a coffee scoop. Had trouble with the handle though. Same noob mistakes as always, but magnified because I was using WI. Forged the handle too thin and also tried to work it too cold. It split and cracked on me. 
 

I also cut a piece of leaf spring for hatchets.   I am not sure what that particular piece is called. It is the thicker, bottom spring. I had cut a 5” piece, thinking I would make another boy’s axe, but then decided on hatchets instead, and cut the piece in half. I may should have cut it into a 3” piece and just wasted the other two inches. At 1.6 lbs I didn’t leave much room for loss due to scale and screw ups. 
 

I also looked at proportional dividers on eBay. I wasn’t sure which to buy. Those with gears were not cheap. As for the rest, not knowing much about them, I couldn’t tell which were just cheap and which were good buys. 

[Rojo Pedro]

A friend at work said he needed a center punch. I said thanks and made him this.

5/8” coil spring quenched in oil and tempered at 450 in my toaster oven. Works great, there are 21 additional test punches on the other side.

Lots of fun to make. Thanks for looking

[jlpservicesinc]

Nice.. He'll appreciate it. 

[Rojo Pedro]

Thanks Jen. I have come to the realization that I like making tools more than anything else. 

[Chad J.]

It's not just spiders that like dark places.   In Okinawa I was on an airforce base for rapid runway repair school.   We were moving some corrugated steel when I turned and froze because there was a Habu napping on the piece we were about to move.   We ended up tossing it over a fence but until we were ready to do that we moved really slowly. 

[ThomasPowers]

Whn my youngest was in HS out here she once did a "spider roundup" around the outside of the house. She counted 32 Black Widows.  They are welcome as long as they stay outside; but I too don't reach where I can't see.  I know they are in my shop as their webs have a very certain sound and feel if you run into one; they are extra strong!

I have been known to "hammer" my gloves before putting them on and ALWAYS check the ear cups of my hearing protectors.

John; 2 words: "Climate Change"  Our winter has been so mild so far that I expect a large wee beastie population this year.

Last night I was trying to fix a shelf on my moving storage cart; wife got mad at me when she couldn't find me in the house and madder when I asked if she had looked out the door to see that there was lights on in the shop.  Not used to me being able to work out there after dark...

[Jobtiel1]

Reading all of this I'm happy I live in the Netherlands, there are no venomous animals living here, apart from a snake. But that snake's habitat is nowhere close to where I live. There have been wolves around again after years of being absent though.

~Jobtiel

[ThomasPowers]

Sad, no training or experience for when you travel to other climes...

Gary Larson's The Far Side classic take on that!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_LWWPMEJgmUs/Sr-8E_a412I/AAAAAAAAA-U/tQ0X_gY_Ry4/s1600/Far-Side-4.jpg

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Locally here we have 3 types of venomous snakes 2 venomous spiders, 1 scorpion, a bunch of wasps, bees and hornet species, and quite a few poisonous plants 

no wolves though, I think they got wiped out over a hundred years ago,

theres black bears but they are pretty rare to see one, I only ever hear about a bear sighting maybe once a year, 

 

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Scorpions, Desert Recluse, and Black Widows here. The recluse gets the boot, the others are left alone or tossed outside if not in the basement.

We have the Giant Hairy Scorpions here, largest in N.America and they can get to 6". The biggest I have had in the house have been around 4".  They are very interesting critters.

[Jobtiel1]

Yeah the lack of practice can be a challenge if I ever move abroad. Concerning poisonous plants, I was always told: "If the birds don't eat it, neither should you!". We don't have a lot of deadly poisonous plants, but you can get quite sick if you manage to eat poisonous stuff. 

this is a picture of the wolf in question, barely a few kilometers from where I live:

It's a young male looking for a place to live, livestock farmer's weren't too happy about that one.

~Jobtiel

[ThomasPowers]

Quail, Coturnix coturnix,  can eat some plants poisonous to people and "pass" the toxin on...

We have a lot of Coyotes out here, you hear them yodeling at night.  Black bear are a problem with garbage in the mountains nearby, also mountain lions.  Wolves were re-introduced.  Dominant predator is still two legged.

BigGunDr; got any centipedes?   For some reason, my wife has a phobia about centipedes. She will have me catch and release scorpions and spiders, even millipedes found in the house; but centipedes must be made into pâté.

[Donal Harris]

I’ve seen a few coyotes which I thought were wolves around here, but my Dad told me they were just large coyotes or mixed. AFAIK, there are no coyotes in Oklahoma. We have a few mountain lions. Even in Grady and McClain Counties, but confirmed sightings are rare. Dad has come up on them a few times when quail hunting. 
 

Cold here in the house last night.  Lost all of our propane to a leak. Plumber may be able to make it out tomorrow. Hopefully he does. These milder temps won’t last long. I can shower at work, but sitting around with an electric blanket over me isn’t something I want to do. 
 

I wish I could find a non-Facebook link to the video, but can’t. It is at this year’s Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. My nephew, Zach Phillips, is currently tied for 2nd in Bareback going into the second round. He scored 88 points. He missed a spur, but other than that it was a very clean ride. The horse performed great. Really gave him a challenge. 

Zach is currently 15th in the world and was for a time I think 2nd in the nation. Really a quality man. His rookie season he finished with a spiral fracture of one of his leg bones. I didn’t think he would come back from that, but he has. He and his wife live outside of Gillette, Wyoming. 
 

 

[JHCC]

We've got coyotes around our neighborhood. I do wish they would do a better job taking care of the feral cats that are such a plague on the native bird population.

[ThomasPowers]

They have Coyotes in NYC; much less OKC.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

We have coyotes, coy wolves and bobcats captured on our game cameras. I love to hear the wolves howl and the coyotes yip. I get concerned when they get too close to the house and our dog thinks he needs to join them. He doesn't realize he would be dinner, so I fire a couple of blank rounds from the starter pistol and they move farther away.

[ThomasPowers]

We have a grand chorus when the train goes by in the night; now if we could get the LGD's next door to only bark when the train goes by... 

[SHC]

We got plenty of critters. Coyotes, black bear, alligators. Venomous snakes. I’m not worried about snakes for the most part, they don’t bother me. But I killed a couple rattlers at work just because they’re too dangerous to be left to their own devices in my working area and too dangerous for me to feel comfortable moving them. But if they ain’t in my way, have a nice day. 

This big old chunk was caught on camera about a mile from the house. Fattest black bear I’ve ever seen. I believe this may be the same one I’ve seen raiding deer feeders.

 

I did actually get out to the forge and knocked out a small project yesterday evening. My boss requested a knife made from a crescent wrench. It’s a little disproportionate, he wanted “crescent” to be clearly visible which left the handle a bit long and not much steel for a novice to work into a blade after chopping off the wrench part, but I think it turned out alright. He specifically requested a “fresh out of the fire” look. I just got off the phone with him after dropping it off at his office this morning and I’m happy he’s pleased with it. I told him I have no idea how good a blade it will actually make but that sucker got hard, I had to use my diamond hones to sharpen it, and it took a wicked edge. 
 

 

 

 

[Buzzkill]

I was wondering if anyone else had experienced increased coyote vocals when the trains were near.

[bluerooster]

We have Coyotes, Copperheads, Black widows, Brown recluse, Scorpions, several species of rattle snake, cotton mouth, water moccasin, poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, Night shade, and various other things that'll get ya.   But no worries.  It's perfectly safe around here. it keeps the city folk at bay.  :D

  Went to make a head and neck for the dragon project. Got the head well under way. Went to open his mouth, and split his face off.  I guess the weld didn't take as I'd expected. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

We don't have any trains near, but boy howdy, let an emergency vehicle pass with it's siren going on the hwy a mile from the place and every critter joins the chorus.

[Daswulf]

Nice knife SHC. 

Thats where we get the welder out or try again Blue. 

[Donal Harris]

Welder, Blue. That head looks nothing like a hippo and you aren’t in a competition. Even if you were, you could enter it in the open instead of traditional class. 
 

That bear looks to be a happy fellow, SHC. Nice knife. Too bad a USA made Crescent had to die though. They were good tools to have in a pinch. They would round off nuts if you weren’t careful, but nothing like the foreign made ones do today.