How do you store your metal ?

[Frazer]

So really you were mud log-logging... log mud logging?

There's a math joke in there somewhere...

[ThomasPowers]

Frazer needs to carry a bucket of water up to the water table a time or two!

[Scott NC]

  George, how many people today can read a vernier caliper, let alone a slide rule?  I think a tape measure to 16's might be a challenge.

[Frosty]

Our jr high library had a huge sci fi section I went through it well before I graduated to high school. I bought a slide rule and taught myself to use it as much math as I learned that is, because of one of R. A. Heinlein's characters, "Slip Stick LIbby" in a book I can't name at the moment. I thought it was like a secret weapon at the time, when I graduated high school pocket calculators were starting to come out but were way out of my price range.

Doc Smith didn't write about time travel that I recall, he was more an outer space kind of guy. But a 300' slide rule with the mathematician riding a powered carriage is just his kind of super science. 

Could it have been in a Tom Swift story? Those boys could build anything without asking for an advance on the allowance. I used to write spoofs in typing class.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

HS English had 9 week classes on various genres one year.  I took SF, and found that the instructor was not a SF reader, they had just been assigned to teach that class----most of the nerds in it had read hundreds more SF books and it was full of "But this other book explores that theme much better and in greater depth than the assigned one."  (Mea Maxima Culpa---I started reading SF in third grade and had a good foundation of Verne and Wells before going on to "modern" SF authors.) The fellow running the Friends of the Library book sale says they just got donated a lot of Ace Doubles...

[Frosty]

I don't think I ever had an English teacher who considered Sci Fi literature. Mother started me reading really young. She went to a PTA meeting and found out I was behind the other students learning to read but not to worry there are lots of menial jobs for below average people. Oh NO, MOTHER'S boy is NOT below average.

That started the nightly flash card ritual and one afternoon she came home from work handed me a book and said, "Look Jerry space ships!" It was, "The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree." When she came home the next day I was buried in the book, TV off and she glanced at where I was. I clearly remember the look of disappointment and fear on her face when she asked, "Is that as far as you've gotten?"

I was maybe on page 10 of a 90 page book and I thought I was in trouble, I'd never seen Mother that upset before. I asked her, "Isn't it alright to read them more than once?" I'd finished it off in a few hours and must have been on my 3rd or 4th read through. The look of relief brought happiness back to the world, I wasn't in trouble. She assured me I could read a book as many times as I wanted.

The next afternoon she brought me, "The Dinosaur of Walnut Canyon." "Look Jerry, Dinosaurs! When you want another one tell me I'll get you more"

I learned to read because of sci fi and it really ticked some of my English teachers off when it turned out I had a better vocabulary than they did on lots of subjects. 

A smart Woman my Mother. She didn't care what I read so long as I read, the more the better. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

13 hours ago, Nodebt said:

I think a tape measure to 16's might be a challenge.

Try a ruler that is not only in 16th's, but 32nd's, 64th's, and 20th's and 100th's on the same ruler. That is how my machinist scale is graduated. 

Hard enough trying to get these kids now a days to learn to read mic's.

[Scott NC]

Give them a digital one.  Probably figure out how to get the internet on it though.    I prefer old school ones myself.

[ThomasPowers]

I have a cheap battered Micrometer I got at a junk store for US$1.50----I use it as a clamp whenever I expect a machinist to show up in my shop...

[OuchThatsHot]

I recently went through some organizing of my metal stock. Bought a number of steel shelving brackets and lag bolted them to wall studs. This gets the longer pieces above the side man door. I shouldn’t need to put much more up there.

Prior to getting this up it was pretty much a tripping hazard and prevented wheeling things around.

 

[Dax Hewitt]

As my shop is only 10 foot square I put a rack on one wall, I'm only a hobby Smith so I don't need much stock. 1 rack is for round bar, 1 for square bar, one for flat bar and tube.  Under it are a couple of 5 gallon drums for short off cuts and just outside is a 45 gallon drum full of random stuff I have acquired. 

[Jobtiel1]

Well.. I have a dedicated corner for it to lean against, and a bucket for the small stuff.

I remember HC steel by how and when I bought it, and it works fine so far, most of what I have is in spring form or in long hex or thick round stock. I do want to mark it all someday, but I haven't come up with a good system yet.

~Jobtiel

[ThomasPowers]

So far nothing in the shop; but I did drive into the arroyo till I got to a good loess deposit it cuts through and shoveled 14 5 gallon buckets full and loaded them on the pickup and returned home and carried all of them over to my wife's raised bed project.  Then I found her some 1/2"  mesh hardware cloth to run the dirt and aged horse manure through, did the shoveling/pouring for her and helped layer the leaves, and mixed manure/loess in the bed.  She watered it down and asked me to cover it as the kitties were very interested in our work...waiting to get a fish tape to run my new circuits in the shop. Local place only had a 65' one when I need a 25' one.  At least we are planning to go to the city this weekend and I can shop in better/cheaper stores there.

[Frosty]

That sounds like a goodish bit of work Thomas. Did you get any pics? 

Frosty The Lucky.

[George N. M.]

The reason I never built a sand box for my son when he was little was that the furry folk would have just thought I was building them an outdoor litter box.  We thought about a cover but figured they would just climb in while Tommy was playing and use it to give him something to bury with his little shovel or bull dozer.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Frosty]

I had a sand box as a kid until Dad had to clean the fresh cat leavings off me. Mother just made me change clothes and wash. One time and Dad removed the sand box. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Daswulf]

3 hours ago, Jobtiel1 said:

remember HC steel by how and when I bought it,

I would definately mark it some how. Tape and sharpie, colored paint on an end and written down, etched into it with a dremel,  something. 

I've had some stock long enough that I knew exactly what it was back then but now have no idea or a vague remembrance of what I think it was. 

In those cases you have to test it or check it again.  

Engraving is pretty sure fire since sharpie or tape can come off over time. At least use that for important stock like the known high to medium carbon stuff. 

Worst case I spray paint the end of high to medium carbon stock with orange so I can spot it quickly. Sometimes I remember what it is by what it looks like after that. Other times I can atleast know to spark test it to get a better idea.

 

On the sandbox, we don't have any outside cats that would have a seconds peace to go while the kids are in it so Ill be building a covered when not in use sand box this year.was supposed to last year but things got away from me on some plans. I have a bunch of pallet lumber and the girls Love playing in sand so I need to get it done this year.

[Glenn]

Always mark BOTH ends of the stock. 

Always mark the end of the stock you just cut from, transferring the information to the remaining stock.

[Randy Griffin]

My folks had to get rid of my sandbox when I was little.

Cats kept covering me up. 

[Glenn]

Now that we have several ways to store the metal, there is no reason not to get a little extra metal every chance you have.  If you go to the steel yard, buy an extra piece of metal for stock.  It will save you a trip to town and save you the cost of infatuation on the next purchased. 

If you get your metal by dumpster diving, make two trips.  Otherwise it will not be there when you need just a little more of the same stuff later.

 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I forgot about the aluminum computer server rack that I brought home from work a long time ago, when we replaced it. It has wheels and pass through racks. I had intended to use it for shorter stock. If I can remember, I'll take a picture of it tomorrow, even though it has become sort of a catch all. I really need to clean it up and into the blacksmith shop.

Knowing that I probably would forget to take pictures in the morning, I decided to just go & do it. It is 80 inches tall and the adjustable racks are 24 inches deep.

[BillyBones]

On 3/9/2022 at 10:47 AM, ThomasPowers said:

I use it as a clamp whenever I expect a machinist to show up in my shop...

You trying to give us conniption fits?  

[ThomasPowers]

Yes; works too!

[Frosty]

Like the time I caught one of the highways drillers using my vernier calipers as a wrench? I called him names.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

"As he sank into the bog?"