2.5” drill press vise with cool handle - $10 at the antique store in Willcox AZ

1 hour ago, Rojo Pedro said:

2.5” drill press vise with cool handle

Great find, I really like the handle and I'll see if I can add one to my drill press vises.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.~ Semper Paratus

Cool finds and follows everyone!

 I am currently in the process of tearing apart an old International #10 grain drill, but partly to make it easier to move, and partly because I am a blacksmith and am interested in old things, a couple things have followed me home including some cool cast iron setting indicators, 13 feet of 1in square and 16 of these, 11 inch diameter wheels for putting the soil back over the planted seed. 
 

The issue now is: what to do with all of them? I don’t want to scrap them, they seem too big to make a decent cart for moving stuff around the shop. Any thoughts or suggestions?

I should add that while I love the idea of making carts like these, with 180 square feet of shop, space is a premium. I thought about making carts like these to sell, but I am not sure what the profit would be, if any.

That pile can be used for all manner of things.  I'd wager the curly parts are HC, and the rest is good tough low to mid carbon. The wheels, can be used for all manner of things, carts, dollys, etc.  Even the ones without the tires can probably be used for something.

A book find via Interlibrary Loan; here’s the title page with some semi-randomly selected plates:

Does the chest have a locking lid? 

Going to make one?

Frosty The Lucky.

Yes, and No. 

There are a couple of other plates of chest locks. 

And this rather cool lock and bolt arrangement for a door within a door:

I can follow how the center lock works without getting a headache. 

Cool stuff, thanks for the look John.

Frosty The Lucky.

Picked up a smoke-eater for the shop yesterday. Long over-due for this improvement.

Matt

How does it "eat" smoke?  Too early to how well it's working.

Frosty The Lucky.

Sucks the smoke in thru the tube and draws it over a series of filters. Uses a 1hp motor; technically more properly know as a "fume extractor." I had it running today while welding and was really pleased with how it worked. 

Sounds good, being on wheels you can let it extract the badness right off the welding or torch table without letting it get in the air at all.

Frosty The Lucky.

Exactly. Usually I would open 1 or both doors in the shop for a decent crossbreeze, but I really like having the fumes captured right at the workpiece. Plus this week temps are struggling to get above 15 degrees - not ideal for leaving doors open! 

- Matt.

Winter isn't a good time for exhaust fans either. The best thing about 15 degrees is it isn't colder, though it can feel pretty warm after a sub zero spell.

Frosty The Lucky.

That's true indeed! Although I will say, one really nice thing about 0-degree nights is when you're standing outside after dark with a clear sky and you realize that you're seeing the stars far better than any other time of year. They look so much bigger, closer, brighter, and tinged with colors that you never recognized before.

Matt.

Also, the closer you get to the poles the thinner (in miles) the atmosphere is so cold clear nights in Alaska tend to have vivid starscapes. Unfortunately things have built up so much around here in the past 50 years's light pollution sky watching isn't as good as it used to be.

Frosty The Lucky.

I use to live in Illinois when i was younger, i dont remember the cold (Wish i did im dying down here now and its only like 23) but it remember the stars, Maybe my eyes were better but ive never seen something so pretty. I did a science project on sky pollution and acording to 7th grade me (& some bad math) if sky pollutions continues as is, our sky will be unrecognizable by 207X

A nice (if small) haul from the Used tool store. Can’t have too many 7/16” or 1/2” combination wrenches or 1/4” drill bits.

I hear you Ebin, I grew up in SoCaL, my buddies and I used to go dirt biking in the desert weekends. We'd lay on our ground pads and count meteor tracks and constellations. You could almost read by the light of the Milky Way. Then in the mid 70s when I was getting the newcomer's "live in a cabin in the woods" thing out of my blood we'd lay on foam pads on the frozen Back Lake in our mummy bags and sky watch. 

Happily the sun is cycling back towards the Maunder Maximum so we're getting better aurora action. Not likely to lay on a foam pad to watch though.

Frosty The Lucky.

On 1/18/2025 at 2:12 PM, JHCC said:

There are a couple of other plates of chest locks. 

  I'm curious, are those all pins or bolts going around the chest lid locking the top?  Spring loaded, turned by a central key?  I'm not a lock expert but like mechanical movements.

  Ahhh, never mind.  I wasn't looking close enough, and have answered my own question.  

From the used book store, a couple more additions to the library.

Join the club Scott, I had to look at those lids for a quite (embarrassingly long) while before I figured them out. Then of course it was another head slapping moment.

That's a nice little haul John. It'd be a fun challenge to combine the two in steel. Welded symbolist art, Hmmm?

Frosty The Lucky.

Which topic to put I will here.

Old file new drawknife 

For those interested in finding more stuff to follow them home, there is a blacksmith shop auction in Vermont ending  on Feb. 13 and the proceeds go to the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum.  Forum rules do not allow me to post a link but I think I can say the auctioneers name which is Thomas Hirchak and the blacksmiths name is Warren Rhinehart who I assume has passed.  240 lots including a Say Mak hammer, anvils, vises, belt grinders, many tongs and other tooling.  I know you can bid online (shipping would be pricey I imagine) and there may be live and in person bidding too.  I have no stake in this and am just posting this in the spirit of things finding the way home.