It followed me home

[JHCC]

When I was a teenager, I helped build a timber-framed house in the Vermont woods. The contractor (Dick Adams, a real old-school woodsie) had one just like that, and we used it for everything from digging for the foundations to lifting beams into place to hoisting slate up onto the roof. One heck of a workhorse.

[Gazz]

My Kubota is my favorite power tool.  A friend had his radiator get trashed because mice were storing hickory nuts inside the fan shroud!

[ThomasPowers]

You can lift heavy anvils with it => it has to do with smithing!

[JHCC]

And if the forklift attachment breaks, you can make it into anvils!

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Lol, I stand corrected, I guess it could have something to do with blacksmithing, no more moving anvils across the yard with a dolly! 

if nothing else it’s going to be handy having a front end loader around, none of the tractors ive ever owned had a loader on them, 

And this will be awesome to unload and move metal around, 

[ThomasPowers]

Just think; now you can put the anvil on the stump and smash the anvil up and down on it!

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

It’s also gonna come in handy cleaning off my pad and building my lean to for my smithy! 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I found another use for the front loader on my Massey Ferguson 255. I finally decided to swap out my very large oxy/acct tanks for smaller ones. They are so heavy, it takes 2 men and a boy to load them in the truck. Hydraulic assist is the way to go when moving/loading heavy stuff sure saves the back.

[USANewbie]

I have a big oxy tank that i want to trade in for a small one. That would give me two small tanks. When i was younger i didn't mind moving that  big tank around but now it seems to by quite a chore

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

On the welding helmets, I still prefer the old single shade flip down hoods over the auto darkening except when I am under a car, and room is restricted. Even with the auto darkening ones at work I find myself flipping my head before I start... My biggest issue with them is when I am in tight areas and the arc light gets blocked by something and the lens goes normal again while I am still welding.  That doesn't happen with my old helmet.

I have had a ton of things follow me home recently, but none is smithing related. Aircraft, auto, home, firearm, but not smithing.

[Donal Harris]

Firearm?

I could use one or two. 
 

He isn’t afraid and looks sickly. 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Just put out a bowl of cat food everyday and he will get fat happy an healthy in a month or two! Lol 

 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Then he will go and get his extended family and other friends.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Lol an once they have all assembled you’ll  have a full blown raccoon jamboree on your hands, 

then you can rename your smithy to the (Gaze iron works) 

[ThomasPowers]

Cat food and a havahart trap and it can go on a long journey to restore it's health.  Perhaps to Missouri....

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Another option to think about is Winters coming soon an you wouldn’t want him to be cold…

so you could always turn him into a cap that way you both will be warm!  just saying lol

[USANewbie]

My old lady puts cat food on the porch for a stray cat  and the racoons come up to eat it. I had about half a  dozen of them on my porch one time. The big one was just chewing food and looking at me like nothing was wrong.

[Purple Bullet]

6 hours ago, DHarris said:

Firearm? I could use one or two. He isn’t afraid and looks sickly. 

Firearm not required. If grinning (a la David Crockett) doesn't work I find that a .22 caliber pneumatic sufficient. Not as quiet as grinning, but quieter than most firearms.

[arkie]

Hey!  That picture looks like my avatar!!!  Don't shoot!!! LOL

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Then of course you don't have to put food out, just leave the hummingbird feeders out at night. This guy has a sweet tooth and would drain the feeder. Took this to find out why I had to fill it every morning.

[JHCC]

I just have deer that eat my wife’s lilies.  

[Randy Griffin]

Coon hash is good eating. 

[Frosty]

Might be fun to mount that feeder on a release mechanism so when a raccoon leans out on it like that it flips out and drops him/er on the ground. Won't hurt the critter unless that porch is on the 4th floor. Maybe connect a trigger so you get video of the fun. Hmmmm?

That's the thing about hash, you can make almost anything "taste" good in hash.

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

We have cats in the barn and put food in there for them. I get the occasional racoon or skunk but usually the ground hog keeps them away. The cats keep the mice and rats out though and i found that ground hogs and cats do not get along very well. 

Anywho mail call, 3 tomahawk handles and some wedges. I bought the handle becuase i am lazy and do not feel like making one and the wedges becuase, well you know always need wedges. The handles are from CRKT so i figured they would be decent since my pocket knife is made by them and i like it purty good. Well they may be with certain hawks, however, they are oval to start not a tear drop and they are small, about the size of a fresh engineers hammer hand if not smaller. I put a head on one by flipping it upside down and grinding the swell into a tear drop. And becuase of the taper no wedge needed, like a mattock fit. Also it came in a coat of polyurethane or something so i had to sand that off and put a coat of teak oil on it. 

 

Then my neighbor came over. Said he was cleaning out his car and had a big chunk of metal in the trunk if i wanted it. I figured it would be something around the size of a tire iron or so. I was wrong, 12" x 12" x 1 3/4" chunk that he said is tool steel. He did not know specific alloy but said him and his dad bought it for some project and never used it. My dad was over when he came and asked. My dad asked what in the world would you need that for? I said i do not know right now but i sure aint turning it down. 

[Les L]

Billy, I would make a stand to hold it and use it as an anvil for small projects, like leaves, grind different radius on each side and flip it to the one you need