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I Forge Iron

Tiny Buffalo


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Really?I didn’t know that. That’s good to know, I’ve wondered why some of the old cast iron rivet forges had three legs and some had four legs.

I’ve got a couple of these pans to work with now and these cheap little pancake compressors are easy to come by, maybe I should build a couple of each for different applications? 

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I can get the parts to fix almost anything but since COVID hit it’s been taking a lot longer, But the problem is the cost of the parts and labor normally scares off the customers on major repairs, the average homeowner riding lawnmower cost $1400 to $2500 new and after they get some years on the them people just won’t pay a lot to repair them anymore. 

the people who own higher end machines $3500 to $10000 are the ones that normally pay for major repairs. Also the people that use their machines to make a living like welders, air compressors, high end zero turns, high end hand held equipment, ect.. those people usually also take better care of their tools in the first place, but when they do brake down they will pay to repair. And a lot of the older generations will bring stuff to repair but younger generations won’t unless it’s an expensive machine.
 

But Glenn is right little repair shops like mine can’t compete with big fancy dealers that just keep selling people new machines on credit. Some People don’t want to wait for me to order parts and then wait their turn for me to get to their machines when they can go down the road and get a shiny new one same day. 
 

that all being said I still stay pretty busy with general repairs, I just don’t really have many major jobs anymore. Don’t laugh but here’s some pictures of my little repair business. 6298EA3A-BA5D-4974-BC35-990E53587D3F.thumb.jpeg.6846ab5cd7a35cd9d631e328f0785ae1.jpeg


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For my travel forge; the legs were made from pipe that would slip fit into lengths of pile welded to the forge table with a washer welded on the top so they wouldn't slip through. 

To make them adjustable; a hole was drilled in the outer pipe and a nut welded over it.  The "bolts" were ones taken from scrapped Christmas Tree stands so I didn't need a wrench to tighten them up.

I don't have to worry about screw threads on pipes getting mucked up or rusty.  I did have a nut break off once. I just used duct tape to hold that leg in position.

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I haven’t welded anything up yet because I keep going back and forth on placement and style, everyone has a lot of good ideas and I’ve also been cruising through pictures of other peoples designs but like I said maybe I’ll just build a few different designs using a little bit of everyone’s ideas and them try them all out. 

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6 hours ago, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

my little repair business. 

HAH! You're a breeder and have quite a little herd going there. 

Not that this is going to turn into a side business but I used lag screws to attach an old ATV tire to my splitting block. It holds wood while I split it, I don't have to bend over and pick it up and missed blows just bounce off the tire. Then never ricochet and the axe doesn't get dinged. 

When this wood block wears out I'm going to cut slots in the next one so water will drain and I can pick the chips and such out before it thaws.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Lol it’s my busy season Frosty so this time of year I’ve always got quite a few machines to repair. Sometimes that herd seems to stampede! 
I’ve probably got 10 axes and another 10 splitting mauls and they all just hang out and collect dust. Since I’m busy fixing small engines year round I let them do the work for me when it comes to firewood I just use my engine drive hydraulic splitter!

(Yes I know that’s cheating to some people) lol 

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Start small, and grow the business as income allows.  One thing you never want to do is over promise. You want to under-promise and over-deliver.   I learned that with my machine and fab shop. Tell them it will be done in a week, and deliver in 4 days, not tell them 4 days and take over a week to deliver.  If you are up front with the customers they will be a lot easier to deal with.  We also learned that some jobs were not worth doing, and some actually cost us to do them.  Some customers are just a pain to deal with, and you are better off letting the competition deal with them.  We had a couple like that.  The one thing we didn't learn early enough was properly pricing the work we did.  We charged a shop rate that paid the bills, but we didn't charge the going rate.  I found this out when I worked for the Jelly Belly Candy Co. when our parts guy asked me how much I would have charged to make a part. Easy part to make out of aluminum plate. 1 hour to do once set up for the 20 pieces. I said I'd have a hard time telling you $100, and probably would charge more like $60 each. He said they just paid $300 each, and the factory wanted $1,000 each........

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Yes I know what you mean I’ve been slowly bringing my shop rates up to match all the big shops within driving distance. But several hundred of my yearly customers I have been fixing their machines for a decade so I have just been going up a little every year so I don’t scare off my regulars. But I also contract out to local stores and do their warranty work on what they sell as well as I fix stuff for quite a few municipalities, water, fire, schools and street departments ect.. so I’m finally after 3 years getting to a more comfortable place  and I’ve learned how to manage the money so the shop is still well funded during the off season. As far as bad customers go I’ve delt with them for years and I learned a long time ago it doesn’t matter with some people you won’t be able to make them happy so the money isn’t worth the headache and I send them down the road. 

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Using a hydraulic splitter isn't cheating, the good lord gave us a brain and thumbs for a reason! The ATV tire on the chopping block if for splitting kindling, I rent a splitter and let them maintain and repair it.

Since the accident we have our wood delivered, split and stacked in the wood shed. I haven't felled a tree since the accident, I'm not stable enough on my feet to be felling trees.

We did have a load of birch logs dropped, a friend and I bucked and split it. I was okay running the chain saw bucking but we get a good deal from the Nolans. They build houses and have lots of wood from clearing land.

Frosty The Lucky.

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That’s the way I like to find firewood, when people are dozing off a road or a pad, I hate to see all the oak and hickory just go to waste so I ask if I can come cut it up.
   Last year I got the bright idea to ask a logging crew about buying a truck load of hardwood but I didn’t think it through very well, as I don’t have any way to unload a semi truck of green hardwood logs, they quoted me $50 a ton and when I got to thinking about it that’s ruffly a $50 a Rick and it would still have to be cut, split and stacked so it didn’t seem like it was really worth it. 

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There are some lumber places near me in Cleveland that takes old city trees and cuts them up into boards. One of them called "Metro Hardwoods" has this amazing machine for drying wide planks (for them fancy-schmancy furniture makers) that sucks a board flat on a powerful vacuum table and then dries it in a special kiln. 

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14 hours ago, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

started this business 3 years ago after the repair shop I worked for sold out and closed.

That's a similar story to how I started my assembly business putting bikes, grills, furniture etc together for a bunch of Walmart locations. The company I was working for didn't want to compensate me for all the added responsibilities I had taken on. With the help of the Walmart regional manager I decided to bid the job myself when the contract expired with the company I was working for. Walmart eventually went in house with all assembly. I tried to roll with the punches and switched to installing mailboxes for Mailboxes Etc. and a few small contracts with the local Lowe's stores but I eventually gave it up. It was fun for the five or so years that it lasted and a good experience all around. Hope you have a longer run than I did. Sounds like it shouldn't be a problem though. Good luck is synonymous with good planning.

Pnut

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2 hours ago, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

that’s ruffly a $50 a Rick

How much wood is a Rick compared to a cord? 

The company that delivers logs uses a self loading log truck. It has a hydraulic boom with a claw. I don't recall the price but after paying my friend $15/hr. we came out under $100/cord about half the going rate at the time. All but two logs were birch which is our best BTU/cord wood.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Depends on the length of the logs  If they are 2' long then that's a "face cord" which is 1/2 a 4'x4'x8' cord of wood.  If they are 16" long then it's more like 1/3 of a cord.

Out here wood is generlly sold by the pickup or trailer load and everybody has a different sized hauler!  Folks selling by the "cord" are not too happy when they see my 2 log racks each sized to hold half a cord...

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A cord is indeed 4' x 4' x 8'. A "face cord" is 4' tall x 8' long, but doesn't have an official depth; depending on the provider, it could vary from 12" to 24", sometimes within the same batch. There is some regional variation on this; see Thomas's comment above.

A rick (from the Anglo-Saxon "hreacas") is technically just a stack, usually in reference to crops as in "hayrick" = "haystack". Since the late 18th century in the US, it has also referred to a stacked face cord of firewood.

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JHCC that’s interesting background history, around my area everyone calls a face cord a Rick. The wood generally is sold in 16” to 18” lengths in a 4’x8’ stack here. Most of the time it’s red oak, white oak, hickory but some other types of oak get sold sometimes, no one burns soft wood here and even some other woods like elm and sycamore are considered garbage so no one really ever bothers cutting or splitting it unless it’s for self burning not resale. 

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A cord is 128 cu/ft. tightly stacked parallel firewood. No matter how long individual pieces are. There's actually an official Federal standard with regulations and fines to go with. 

A search covers ricks and face cords. It'd be easy enough to pay by the cu/ft and get or pay a consistent price.

I built our wood shed to hold 8 cords stacked 5' high. Leaving room to get in the doorway and move gives us about 7. The next time I build a wood shed:rolleyes: I'm putting a doorway at each end. Using wood from one access point has us burning the newest wood first leaving the driest wood for next year when it'll be buried by the next winter's load. 

For all you thinking of heating with wood I HIGHLY recommend a wood shed to keep it dry. A warm day and you end up having to chip ice off your firewood or bring it in to thaw. Tarps get hopelessly pinned down by even a light snowfall let alone a dump. 

Wood shed, you and a couple friends can build one in an easy day. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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