February 22, 20224 yr 1 hour ago, Pat Masterson said: And just realized it’s supposed to rain tomorrow. It just keeps getting better. It's snowing here now. It hasn't snowed for TWO WHOLE DAYS! The drought is finally over, thank goodness! Truth is it's actually behaving almost like a normal winter this year, except for the really warm spell a couple months back and even that wasn't a rare thing. I was asked by a first winter, new comer if last weeks warm melty and rainy spell meant spring was here. "Sorry no. This is FEBRUARY, breakup can't be counted on to be occurring until April but May isn't too late for a good spring dump of snow." He seemed to be less than cheered. Frosty The Lucky.
February 22, 20224 yr Scott, Got welders flash aka sandman once and yeah, Unforgettable. Atleast Three days of absolute misery. Welded up a friends exhaust. Couldn't fit my head in there with the helmet. Thought I wasn't in danger. I was. Ugh.. sunburnt eyes. Never again. And try to warn others. We get the false spring here too. And if not snow then rain. What a soupy muddy mess. We already have had 50-60° days after freezing days followed by rain then more freezing and snow then back to the 60's.
February 22, 20224 yr I was welding in a tank car with another guy for 8 hours and his arc flash reflecting in the back of my helmet got me. Just the reflection. Sandman is right. I never heard it called that.
February 22, 20224 yr A couple of weeks ago, our weather guessers said we would get about an inch of snow. We actually wound up with 10 inches and I shoveled it for three days, because Debi didn't want me to use the tractor with front loader. Tonight they are predicting a winter storm, starting with dangerous thunder storms then freezing rain with an inch of ice possible, then turning to sleet & snow. I bet if that happens I'll use the tractor for sure. Just got another bulletin a tornado watch just issued. When we get ice like that, we are stuck at the top of our mountain till it melts. The old saying holds true. "If you don't like the Ozarks weather, wait ten minutes and it will change". I wouldn't be a weather forecaster here for love nor money.
February 22, 20224 yr About sounds like here IronDragon. Scott, I always heard it called sandman. Tho it is scratchy I called it sunburn and it felt as such in the eyes. Awful thing. I just wanted to close my eyes and sleep for days but had to go on. Yes, reflective flash Is harmful too. Funny, I now wince at watching welding in video.
February 22, 20224 yr If your welding put the animals outside away from the bright light and arc reflections.
February 22, 20224 yr I learned that the hard way. Years ago my dog would stay in the shop when I was arc welding. He developed cataracts as a result. At the time they didn't do anything for them and he was partially blind. He got along fine, but had a tendency to bump into things. I had to put a barricade around the deck so he wouldn't step off and fall 10 feet to the ground. It's important to keep pets safe when working.
February 22, 20224 yr I've never had welder's flash myself, but I have one friend who is a fabricator for a racing team and another who is a mechanic. The mechanic got the fabricator to do the TIG welding on the motorbike-engine-powered-go-kart he was building and spent the day looking the other way in the shed while each weld occurred. Similar to NoDebt's story but this was reflection from the wall on the other side of the shed and it was still so bad his wife had to drive him to hospital when he woke up at 3am sobbing from the pain! Cheers, Jono.
February 22, 20224 yr Quality weather here at the weekend. Heavy wind and it didn't stop raining on Sunday, On Monday morning I had to re arrange a load of work due to the number of waste water sites that I was supposed to visit but they were under water.
February 22, 20224 yr Made a set of tongs yesterday. 18 years of smithing and I'd never gotten around to making a set, start to finish, from scratch. Started with 12 inches of 1/3 by 3/4 mild. Followed some printed instructions from a 2001 article in The Hammers Blow. sized for 3/8 square. Not bad , the hang of the reins could be better, something to focus on the next pair. Took a little under 3 hours. Eventual goal is a set of spring steel tongs, quench hazards acknowledged. A friend has a set of the strongest, lightest spring steel tongs I've been envying for years now.
February 22, 20224 yr I've made a set from the "L" shaped lug wrenches from cars and pickups. Good steel and cheap at the scrapyard. I cut half the end off and the tips are already halfway shaped for round stock. I'm happy with them normalized. I remember the ice storms in NW AR staying at home is the absolutely BEST thing to do! We have storms moving in; expecting over a foot of snow in the mountains, a couple of inches in Santa Fe and *nothing* here---down in the valley, the valley so low, (4700' altitude). (When we start worrying about sea level rise, I expect it will be too late!)
February 22, 20224 yr In the 50's today and yesterday. Temp is supposed to drop tonight. Oh what joy, i get to drive home from work at 2:30AM on icy roads. Also with the snow and ice we have had, all the rain and is now raining i will have to find a way back and forth to work. Most of the roads i usually take will be closed due to high water.
February 22, 20224 yr It's interesting to see all the Farmers out here tuning into the ski reports on the radio. Snow pack is what provides irrigation water for the farms! No precipitation so far in Feb according to a local weather station; however winds may gust to 60 mph tonight. High straight line winds are common in the spring out here, an old joke goes "You can tell it's Spring in New Mexico when your neighbor's concrete blocks start blowing into your yard!" When my wife was planning her raised beds she was reading all these web sites discussing how to drain water out of the raised beds. I pointed out that any water in her raised beds would be bought and paid for by us and here in the desert drainage wasn't the issue, moderating the sunlight was the issue.
February 22, 20224 yr Mercury is reading 30 degrees here with some light flurries, I’ve been bouncing back an forth between the work bench and the wood stove in between repairs lol tomorrow it’s supposed to get down to 18 with freezing rain probably won’t be working on lawnmowers tomorrow… lol
February 22, 20224 yr Can't you bring them inside the house? (HMMMM, TW has a toddler & Wife----don't forget to leave your smithing stuff to me as a codicil in your will *first*!)
February 22, 20224 yr Lol, after having a toddler I don’t think I can fit anything else in the house! It seems 90 percent of the floor space is now dedicated to trucks, trains and Sandra Boynton books! The wood stove is on the other end of the shop from my benches, I thought about moving my main bench but it weighs 1000 pounds without the 200 pound bench vise so it’s just easier to go de thaw my fingers by the stove an then run back an work for another 30-40 minutes lol, ive got a bottle top heater I use by my benches but I’m saving the gas for when it’s down in the teens an single digits any lower then that an I just stay by the stove! Lol
February 22, 20224 yr I recently moved my workbench back in place, (it was moved away from the wall for the electrical work.) I jacked it up with a car jack and put steel bars under the feet and rollers under those and it was still a pain trying to move it back in place. Next time I am going to get some of those refrigerator rollers and try them!
February 22, 20224 yr I imagine that was a pain to move, don’t you have a dirt floor? How heavy is it? last time I moved that bench I called a friend of mine that lives a few miles away to bring his 100 horse tractor with a front end loader! If I’d had any sense I would put some casters on it lol
February 22, 20224 yr I have a 1000+ Lb. bench I got at an auction. When I last moved it, I used a rolling floor jack to get the one end and middle legs off the floor (concrete). Then a long pipe for the leverage to shove the two floorbound legs around. The wheels on the jack helped it to move.
February 22, 20224 yr we have finally cooled down to -20s at night -5C in day after 1.5-2 weeks of little freezing and now we have tons of ice every where caught the water on the floor before it froze and cleared most of it out with a shopvac MVI_0330.MOV working on a knife for a friend also my belt grinder causes the material to skip on the plate if i use 2in belts (all my grits above 60) MVI_0351.MOV and i finally got a bottle opener that turned out half decent M.J.Lampert
February 22, 20224 yr My shop was built in two parts, both 20'x30'. The first part was done by a professional builder and has a concrete floor. (My wife had to agree to that to get the house she wanted rather than the place with a massive shop and a 900 sq ft house...) I added on the dirt floor "dirty shop" My main work benches are in the "clean shop" with concrete floor. I've never weighed the workbench though all the stuff loaded onto it is the big weight part, (farm bell, 3 bar roller, slab of soapstone, etc and so on. Biggest problem was the lack of space to be able to use levers and rollers efficiently. That and the wall of the shop has a thin sheet metal angle iron down at floor level and trying to pick up the bench to set the back legs on top that when there is no access to the back or the sides was an issue. I had a friend who came over and we did the you want me to push down on the lever while you push or vice versa. At least I had removed the 100# postvise from it when it got moved out! (The 4" postvise stayed on). The "dirty shop" has a squarish workbench over 100 years old that spent that time in a car repair facility---probably qualify as a superfund site all on it's own. It has a 6" and a 4" post vise on it and is stacked with large blocks of metal and my "wall of shame" anvil collection (badly abused anvil "pieces").
February 22, 20224 yr 19 hours ago, Frosty said: It's snowing here now. It hasn't snowed for TWO WHOLE DAYS! The drought is finally over, thank goodness! frosty we just got our second warm snap and now cooling off again after the fields have cleared a lot a of snow we have a tradition where every winter after Christmas one house puts a tree on the river and every one guesses when it falls through its changed hands 2 or 3 times as the house was sold and new people took over. only once in almost 50 years has it not happened due to the ice not having built up but usually 2 weeks after it falls through we have break up (when the log trucks are longer able to go on the bush roads due to the damage caused ) prior to this they go to nights as the road is less likely to be damaged by the heavy loads M.J.Lampert
February 22, 20224 yr Sorry to hear that about your mom, SHC. Haven’t done much at the forge the past few days. Just doing little piddly things to a knife I am making. Got the bolsters pinned and cleaned up. Decided to add some copper and brass strips between the bolster and scales. Am now thinking I might should skip them and just go with scales. I cannot get the J-B Weld to hold. Tried both Sunday and Monday. The J-B Weld is failing but it isn’t due to temp. Unlike most epoxies, J-B Weld is stable up to 550 degrees F. Plus I was cooling it in water the minute it seemed warm to the touch when grinding. Rough the surfaces up more and perhaps drill a few holes for the J-B Weld to flow through between each piece?
February 22, 20224 yr D, I’d go with silver solder, if you know how to do it and have the equipment. If you have to use the JB, I’d rough the contact points and clean with a degreaser before gluing
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