4 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

well unless you have a bee suit and a smoker I'd say it was "take the honey and run".  I had a student once whose summer job was removing hives from oilfield equipment---he said the africanized bees would chase the truck down the road!

I have neither smoker nor bee suit, but it was still raining when I made my initial raid, and that kept the bees under cover. 

I went back the next day in the hope that the colony had swarmed out, but they were still there. I did snag a section of mostly empty comb that had fallen on the ground, but decided to leave it at that. I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid. 

My son when a teenager would help the old "Bee Man" down the road from us "line Bees" following them into the woods to find their tree to capture the hive and bring back to one of their hives.  Nor sure what they had for equipment but sure it was minimal at best.  The old guy never seemed to get stung.   Nice score JHCC nothing better than  wild honey.   Very defiantly blacksmith related, handle material!

Might want to hope the bees don't "follow you home" from the tree their dispositions just might be a little on the sour side.

7 minutes ago, notownkid said:

My son when a teenager would help the old "Bee Man" down the road from us "line Bees" following them into the woods to find their tree to capture the hive and bring back to one of their hives.  Nor sure what they had for equipment but sure it was minimal at best.  The old guy never seemed to get stung.   Nice score JHCC nothing better than  wild honey.   Very defiantly blacksmith related, handle material!

Might want to hope the bees don't "follow you home" from the tree their dispositions just might be a little on the sour side.

I never lined bees, but I was a teenager in Vermont back in the day. Must be a thing.

@ThomasPowers  Hood, smoker & some driving gloves are all I have.  Usually just the smoker is sufficient to open a hive, so long as it's not too hot. 

@JHCC     Are many of your wild colonies Africanized?

Just now, aessinus said:

@ThomasPowers  Hood, smoker & some driving gloves are all I have.  Usually just the smoker is sufficient to open a hive, so long as it's not too hot. 

@JHCC     Are many of your wild colonies Africanized?

No clue. I just know that I only got one sting on this raid, and that was because I tried to brush a bee out of my hair rather than letting it fly off.

Probably not that colony then.  They could have been really miffed with hitting the ground & popping the side off

3 hours ago, JHCC said:

I never lined bees, but I was a teenager in Vermont back in the day. Must be a thing

he did it till a few yrs. ago but when the bees started dying off and he thought they would do better left alone so all his hives are stored in the bottom of my barn at the moment.  He also harvested ginseng in the fall which I never have been able to find.  Not sure if he still does.     

quite a bit of shoes and rasps from a farrier I know, and some 2 inch thick pieces of A36 from a fabricater I know along with a large sawblade railroad spike for scale. oh, he also gave me some 2" angle iron that had been welded together at the corners and then filled with weld, for a student course requirement, is what I think he said it was for. not really sure what to do with them, was thinking it would make some neat decorative Damascus??Now time to make them something awfully nice!

                                                                                                            Littleblacksmith

Depending on what type of smithing you plan to do; I'd use the weld bead blocks as bases for sculpture

Hi Littleblacksmith,

Good haul! Those rasps get you out of the hot rasp need for a while. My first choice hot rasp is always the used farrier's - it's big and coarse. And look at those shoes! You can make a small fortune if you find out and make something pretty horseshoe item. There's 50 pcs of them at least - I hear people over there like the horseshoe photoframes. 

Bests:

Gergely

The things that follow you home

 

Found on the way home from work  140 lbs of truck brake drum 17 inches across and a foot deep (Can I Make a FirePot out of this?!?!) just kidding.
 It was being used as an outdoor firepit, someone had bolted rubber casters thru the holes and they'd melted.  Rolled it up the board I keep in the back of the station wagon for just such an opportunity. Angle ground off the fire seized bolts to remove the wheels.  It'll still get used as a backyard firepit, and who knows, maybe in a decade it might get turned into a base for a post vise or a swage block. It's not likely to wear out before then.

A fire pit is about the best use I can think of to do with a TRUCK brake drum outside of stopping a truck.

Frosty The Lucky.

Yes  a firepot *could* be made from it. It would take a lot more work and not be nearly as usable as one made from a much smaller (car or light pickup) brake drum; but it could be done...  What I would use it for is a base for something like a tong rack or a hammer rack.

2 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Yes  a firepot *could* be made from it. It would take a lot more work and not be nearly as usable as one made from a much smaller (car or light pickup) brake drum; but it could be done...  What I would use it for is a base for something like a tong rack or a hammer rack.

I was only kidding about using it for a forge firepot. I did the car brake drum forge for years and have since moved onto a nice centaur forge firepot and table. 

Try balancing it, on a thin tee bar and see if it rings. I have had some brake drums that had a nice tone. 

oh yeah, something worth mentioning about used horse shoes that is a amateur thing, so I guess I'm an amateur:) if you have a used horseshoes lying around, remove the nails (also because after they have rusted a bit they are a pain to get out!), bend them over, or have the shoe with the nails facing down, cause they go through crocks and feet quite well! Time to go wash the blood out of my crocks. man I hate washing out blood.......

                                                                                                                  Littleblacksmith

i get used horse shoes on a regular basis and the first thing before using them is removing the nails. i had enough cuts and scrapes when i was shoeing to last me a long time.

With some advice from Frosty, I acquired my first true anvil today.

It is a beautiful 168lb Soderfors Paragon.   I purchased it from a gentleman in the Philadelphia area off of Craigslist.

Rebound is excellent 90% or better and she rings like a bell.

Here are a few pics

I had the priledge of helping out in another department at work today where I found a nice little supply tumbler media. In the mix was small flat squares, some slanted cylinders, and some of the ones that look like UFOs from Roswell (balcones?) and a bunch of steel shot. I'll take a picture tomorrow after cleaning them up a little, right now they're coated with dust and contaminated by cast aluminum flash. I'll be visiting that department on a regular basis for a while to see if I can get enough to fill up a small tumbler. I might even take my small shop vac to clean out the part bins cause I'm just that nice.  

Scored my self some more reinforcing steel to play with, cost me nothing!

 4 x 2m lengths of Y16 and 2 short lengths of Y28.

One of the Y28's looks like it might have been painted with cold galvanising or similar zinc based paint, will probably give it a bath in something to strip it before adding it to my steel pile.

On ‎9‎/‎25‎/‎2016 at 5:10 PM, Jackdawg said:

Scored my self some more reinforcing steel to play with, cost me nothing!

 4 x 2m lengths of Y16 and 2 short lengths of Y28.

One of the Y28's looks like it might have been painted with cold galvanising or similar zinc based paint, will probably give it a bath in something to strip it before adding it to my steel pile.

From what I have read on IFI the quality of reinforcing steel in the US is a real mixed bag unlike here in Aust which seems quite good.I personally would not bother with that gal one.

Yeah Stan, from what I can see as long as it is Australian steel, it is usually 500 mpa unless it is special order.

This stuff has the Australian mill marks on it..

 

I have some research to do...But I just wanted to post this and get a little input on the missing feet. If you don't mind. Thanks in advance.          Life is good               Dave

 

Edited September 28, 20169 yr by Dave51B
duplicate pic

Are there missing feet? Never seen one of these before, is it from a farriers field tool box for holding shoes? is it meant to have spikes to anchor it?