aaamax Posted December 4, 2020 Share Posted December 4, 2020 I don't often dump out the water from the slack tub, but it was getting a bit murky. How often do you find critters that didn't make it out? I got the 3 Blind Mice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 4, 2020 Share Posted December 4, 2020 Nope they still have their tails! As I don't use a slack tub; in 39 years of smithing I haven't found the need and have found problems with them so if I need water for a task I just fill a bucket and take it to the forge and dump it on the tree shading the forge when I'm done. A-36 does better with normalization than quenching and all the HC steels I use I use with oil; Parks 50 for the stuff needing a fast quench. Warmed vegetable oil for things needing a slow quench. I have old ammo cans and seal them when not actively in use. (Also a truncated gas cylinder with a lid.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluerooster Posted December 5, 2020 Share Posted December 5, 2020 What about cooling tongs, and punches, and watering the coking coal? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 5, 2020 Share Posted December 5, 2020 Laying tooling on a handy anvil cools them sufficiently; especially as my punches and slitters are high alloy steels that DON'T GET STUCK IN WATER, EVER! Tongs I try not to let heat up too much and I can cycle them for cooling; or use the bucket I mentioned before. I find very little coal coking in my propane forge and the coal I use in my solid fuel forge cokes nicely with no water. When I use the cheap stuff, well it's stored in a bucket of water and is added to the forge wet. I like bladesmithing and hot high carbon steels are like lemmings when you have open water nearby! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daswulf Posted December 5, 2020 Share Posted December 5, 2020 I just emptied my mostly evaporated slack water tub and refilled it. No mice or anything, just get moths on occasion during the summer. I have mice tho. They eat my candles grr.have cats too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluerooster Posted December 5, 2020 Share Posted December 5, 2020 Sounds like you feed your cats too much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daswulf Posted December 5, 2020 Share Posted December 5, 2020 There are two old ferals we give some food each evening. They seem pretty lazy lol. I think they are retired. My cat Sophie indoor/outdoor does bring home mice often. Unfortunately when the mice get in the shop they are pretty much safe from her unless they venture out of the shop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted December 5, 2020 Share Posted December 5, 2020 When Deb and I got together and moved here she brought her three cats: House Mouse, Puka and Whiskey. After we built this house and moved in they made it theirs. Knock on wood we've been pretty rodent free for the past 23 years. However Deb and I came home one afternoon to discover all the cats sitting on window ledges staring at one location on the floor. A squirrel had gotten in and was investigating briefly and was looking for a way out when we arrived. Vicious predators that they are the not very large even for a MatSu valley squirrel had them cornered on 3 different window ledges. Of course the squirrel was surrounded and frozen in the middle of the floor. Poor thing was so terrified I walked right past it and opened the sliding door to the not built deck and as soon as it was open a few inches it was gone. Have you ever seen how fast a squirrel running for it's life can go? It didn't stop running for the 14' of open air to hit the ground running. Straight to the nearest tree and up like a rocket. It stopped level with the door and started scolding. The cats didn't get off their ledges until I closed the door. Only one was an indoor, outdoor cat. We never were gifted with rodentia. The barn cat was a different story, Snicker Doodle was a terrific hunter and would bring us proof of her prowess. The only time she came to the house was to present a mouse. We'd hear her yowling, open the front door and she'd have a live mouse pinned to the deck by the head. We'd look, say good job Snicker and she'd pick it up give it a crunch and head back to the barn. She didn't eat shrews or present them to us. The freaky kill was a full grown cotton tail rabbit. The house cats though? They kill kibble though Damascus's full name IS Empress Damascus Bug's Bane. She loved killing bugs, especially flying bugs. She's about 14 and doesn't spend time jumping at flying bugs anymore though she does examine the firewood for crawly ones. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted December 5, 2020 Share Posted December 5, 2020 While my late wife was taking chemo and had a very compromised immune system our indoor/outdoor cat brought in several bats and left them on the floor on my side of the bed. And, no, I didn't find them by stepping on them. I had learned to look before putting my feet down. Not knowing if the bats were sick when he caught them we called the health department to ask them if it was a problem for Martha to be in the same room. They didn't know. So, they called the state health department. The state health department didn't know either. They had to call the Centers for Disease Control in Georgia. The answer came back that she was OK as long as she didn't handle them. It was another example of things happening to the Monssons that don't happen to other people. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyBones Posted December 6, 2020 Share Posted December 6, 2020 When i was a yungun my aunt had a rabbit for a pet that the cat decided would be tasty meal. My granddad beat the tar out of that cat. About once a week from then on out that cat would bring a live rabbit back home with it. That same cat could also work a door knob. I got 6 or 8 feral cats in my barn, i put just enough food out so they do not starve to death but they keep the rodents down pretty good, except the skunks. Is it just me or are the skunks getting thick here in the midwest? Had 2 by the house when i came home from work the other night. Got 2 house cats, 1 is about 230 years old, half blind and cripple, she is my buddy. Sleeps with me and is always by me. The other is actually my granddaughters cat she found half dead under a car's tire at walmart. Real timid little thing that likes to hide. Sometimes we have to roust her just to make sure she is still alive. My mom rescued 2 cats after hurricane Katrina. One was this black female that liked to leave "tootsie rolls" in the hallway in the middle of the night, right in the exact spot my dad would put his foot on the way to the bathroom. Almost every night he would get a squishy between his toes no matter how careful he was. Never the same spot, like she would watch and calculate were to put it. Squirrels, when i was a kid in school in Latin class we had a squirrel. One spring we were in class with the windows open. The room was half sunk so the bottom of the windows were at ground level. One day a squirrel came running into the room. In the window, up my teachers left side, over his head, down his right side, towards the hall door, which was close, circled the room and out the window in the back. We all just sat there with that "what the... just happened" look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul TIKI Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 Our old dog Ellie use to love to chase squirrels. There was one that loved to scold her as it ran back and forth along the top 2x4 of the privacy fence. One day I heard the normal ruckus and smiled. Then the ruckus stopped. I looked out side and saw a Squirrel tail sticking up out of the grass. there was no squirrel attached. Ellie looked mighty please with herself. Ellie also brought us a couple of huge rats when we had to move in to a not so nice trailer for a time. She was awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 My Daughter the Veterinarian told us that we should think about worming our pets after "wild food consumption". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 On 12/4/2020 at 3:59 PM, aaamax said: I got the 3 Blind Mice. A cover over the slack tub takes care of this and the pieces that inevitably jump from the anvil into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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