I now know what a Caboose is.  Always know a little bit more after a visit to ifi.

Now, look what I found half buried beside an old road last week when out feeding sheep.  What a lovely lump of steel.  Not sure what to do with it, but I couldn’t leave it where it was. 
 

I'm thinking of cutting a few slots in it to hold my most used stock for twisting and maybe some holes where I can place pegs for bending. Any suggestions welcome apart from what Mrs MacLeod already told me to do with it.

Edited March 22, 20224 yr by MacLeod
Added photos :)

I got to ride in the caboose of an old steam train. It was a real fun experience. The steam engine broke down halfway on the ride so a diesel engine came and hooked up to the caboose and pushed us the rest of the way. 

My most recent memory of cabooses is when my son was little we would take him to see Santa at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, CO.  They would have one of their engines steamed up and pulling a string of cabooses.  You would board and ride it around to the other side of the museum grounds where there was another caboose where the kids would see Santa.  You'd then reboard and return to the main part of the museum.

My childhood memory in Chicago of going to see Santa is going downtown to Marshall Fields Department Store.  My son's memory of how you go to see Santa is in a caboose behind a steam engine.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

This caboose by the beer distributer is turned into a weigh station. There are tracks laid under it but are hidden by the scale. Honestly I never paid that much attention to it and just realized it has been sided by what looks to be tin roofing. 

  Das, I made a trip to Aberdeen, NC just to photo this. It's in the city center at the interchange of CSX, Aberdeen, Carolina and Western, and Aberdeen & Rockfish RR.  They have a depot and museum.  There is a lot of rr history here.  It's very well preserved.  I wonder what the "warm morning" contraption thing is on the side.  I better google it.  I wish the depot was open when we got there.

Warm morning is the name of a stove, heater manufacturer or line from a brand. I'd guess either an inlet or exhaust for a wood/coal stove. The caboose was a living quarters for crew. 

  Yes, you are right.  I am a railfan and should have known it.  Or at least googled it FIRST like I said above.  I suffer from getting in a big xxx hurry all the time.  I'll probably be that way until they plant me.....   It is a nice caboose though.....

It is. No worries. I just knew I heard the name before when I read it. 

There is a caboose next to the Stone Mill Bread & Flour Co. restaurant in downtown Fayetteville Arkansas.

Another one in Rogers AR.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Centennial_Caboose_in_Rogers_Arkansas.JPG

  I saw that one in Rogers on my way to Apache Flats!  I didn't stop though.

They sold off a lot of cabooses when they went to just using the sensor box on the back of trains.  I remember seeing a lot of them being converted to guest houses and other uses back then.

I remember car trips when I was little where my brother and I would watch at RR crossings to see who would be the first to spot the caboose as it passed. Fortunately, we outgrew that pastime before the cabooses went away entirely.

Scrapyard this morning, only 63# out and a lot of that was gutters for my wife's rainwater collection project and a gate for a friend at church.  I did pickup several pieces of 1/2" metal conduit with 12 AWG wire still in them and a boatload of fittings; seems that the Bureau is switching out fluorescents for LEDs and all the old lights are being dropped at the scrapyard, minus the bulbs thankfully.  Also a couple of lug wrenches to make tongs from, another small toolbox for the grandkids, a drift and a couple of license plates for my SiL to make bird houses with---got a nice Utah plate!

There were two automotive coils springs there that still had the tag on them; never been used as far as I could tell.  I took the one more suitable for bladesmithing home and dropped the other off on my small pile of loose springs that I have there for new smiths who can't seem to find them in the "pile".

  Nice haul Thomas.  Tomorrow is Flea Market Friday.

  I just wanted to correct something, I was on my way to Apache Junction, not Flats when I passed through Rogers and saw that caboose from the road.  Down through the Tonto National Forest.  Spent some time poking around the Superstisions.  110 degrees in September and no air conditioning in the caprice classic.  I could smell rubber at every stoplight.  It came from my tires melting on the asphalt.

I was gifted a couple bars of wrought iron recently. I tried a break test and it looked clean enough that I was convinced they were actually mild steel. I would have taken then pieces anyway because I could have used the 3/4" square stock, but it felt unusually soft and it hot cut like butter. A spark test showed few sparks with little bursting compared to known mild steel (and high carbon as a sanity check), and a long etch in strong acid showed the telltale grain, albeit much finer than the few samples of wrought I've seen.

 

The finer grades of wrought are nice for highly worked ornamental items where the extreme softness really helps.  Folks who want it for the visible grain when etched do better with the coarser grades.

Yellin used to specify triply refined WI for his projects.

Mail call!

Also a fresh cylinder of O2 and some twenty pounds of drops from my steel place. 

I think the 11” square of 1/8” plate is going to end up as a smallish frying pan. 

This freebie from the List of Craig just followed me home. A tree branch landed on it, crushed the axle and hyd tank. Ram and frame untouched, 5.5 hp Honda runs like a clock. The possibilities abound. They even helped load with their Kubota loader. Woo hoo!

Steve

Nice! Fix it up and have a nice log splitter! I've been wanting one but the price puts me off. 

SWEET SCORE! What's an axle reservoir replacement going to cost? I tried looking for a parts list but didn't find much in the time I spent.

Frosty The Lucky.

Probably won't worry about the axle reservoir- might just get a cheap box type and set it on blocks by the woodlot. Cold windy and snowy and I don't feel like being outside today, so I still need to roll it off the trailer, drain the tank and do some triage. I already have a forging press, so I don't think a conversion is in the cards.

Steve

The trees finally fought back! Be very careful!

Down hearth cooking stand.  Made from 3 pieces of real wrought iron and 3 forge welds---just like the ones I have been doing for years.  I estimate that this one is around 150 years old if not older---low grade wrought iron!  (Found at scrapyard for 25 USCents a pound.  (Sure wish Frank Turley was still around to get his take on it!)

I picked up a saw makers anvil today for 50$. I got it from a sawfiler who was moving shop and didn't have any use for a flat topped anvil. I weighed the anvil when I got home and it came out at 96.5 lbs. 

I'm not sure what the make or age of the anvil is but if anyone recognizes it that would be great.

That's a great deal! Whoever made it it looks in great shape.