Just got back from my 1st physical therapy appt. They have an anvil there. Small one about 10# or so they use to set rivets in splints. Was not expecting that. 

 

My wife just asked me for help when her usual technique for removing the pit from an avocado half failed.  I was at a loss until I opened a drawer and found a corkscrew.  Somewhat to my surprise, it threaded right in, and it was almost too easy from there.  

As you might expect, a quick search revealed that I wasn't the first to "invent" this.  But I didn't see any hand-forged avocado pit removers.  Maybe an opportunity for someone who sells to the right crowd?    

Went mushroom hunting today with a new friend. Bit of an adventure - made friends with the local yellowjackets the hard way but came home with 3 lbs of chanterelles. I like the knife technique for avocados - quick chop down to embed it and pull. I'll have to try the corkscrew.

 

I use the knife method to pull avocado pits myself. Separate the halves imbed the blade in the pit with a chop but I give the pit a twist to loosen it.

I'm thinking an entrepreneurial blacksmith could make a killing selling hand forged avocado screw pit extractors. Of course you'd need to make right and left handed avocodo pit screw extractors. 

Anybody who's made a cork screw knows it's almost obligatory to turn the first couple backwards making left handed cork screws. Hmmm?

Frosty The Lucky.

Well, they're a thing, and some of them are bloody expensive. I never got the idea though. Left-handed scissors make sense, but a twist is just as easy in either direction. About like a left-handed screwdriver, seems almost...(wait for it) sinister. I can imagine the conversation now. "Hey honey, you know how you thought blacksmithing was cool, but it wasn't niche enough? Well, I figured it out, from now on I'm only going to forge left-handed artisanal kitchen tools. We're doing bread lames next."

What about the left hand monkey wrench? 

Seems everytime i have made a cork screw i have had to make at least 2 after turning the first the wrong direction. What really gets my gears grinding is when i turn the 2nd one the wrong direction. 

You get it Billy, hang tight while I explain it to Nobody in particular.

Two arguments for making left handed cork screws Ben, #1. It's more easy for a righty to twist things clockwise and lefty to twist counter clockwise.

#2 and here's the real secret. . . Can you spell "marketing gimmic?"

In truth there there already are kitchen and other tools made for the lefty, ever try to skin a critter with a skinning knife? Dedicated skinning and flensing knives are directional single bevel edges. If you use one made for the other handed you tend to cut hide instead of just flensing it. 

It's one of the things I don't care for about traditional ULUs, they are single bevel and if you accidentally use it flipped over they dig in and seeing as they tend to deflect they suck for slicing and dicing. 

I've often considering forging a large hook knife for cleaning squash I hate scraping the seeds and fibery stuff out with a spoon.

Frosty The Lucky.

I've skinned a few things over my career, but rarely in the kitchen, except maybe some rabbits and a chickens. Never tried with an ulu. For pigs I mostly used a carving knife or for close in work, any short knife, preferably with a curved edge. Pocket knives sometimes with numerous short back and forth passes rather than the scraping motion. A scorp might work well for squash - I've never tried. I have thought about sharpening the edges of a dedicated spoon though.

I've only ever skinned a couple few critters, once with Dad who told me to get out of the way. He used his pocket knife for everything but cutting steaks and chops. Years later I was helping on a bear and my friend stabbed me in the hand flailing with his knife. Seem I wasn't going fast enough to keep out of the way, I think I was supposed to time my strokes with his. The only thing I've use an ulu on was a roast and it made weird slices and forget slicing cheese! 

I've never skinned a fish though gave thought to skinning a shark once though but that's about as far as it got. 

If you know someone in a shop that has a large bandsaw with blades over 1" wide you could make an adjustable scorp for custom pumpkin carving. A wooden grip with a set screw that let the user slide it up and down the blade. Hmmmm?

Frosty The Lucky.

Well, I can tell you that Google and my wife are both appalled at the idea of using a hoof knife...even one that hasn't been used before. I've seen a lot of bear, never killed one. Never stabbed in the hand on a project either, but  when I was about 20 I worked at a Waffle House in Caddo Valley, AR during college and had a waitress kill a perfectly good belt - she turned around with a 10 inch chef's knife and went to throw it in the sink at waist level all in one go, and drove it straight into the buckle hard enough that it left a bruise and then slid off into the belt messing it up. I got very, very lucky that day.

You'd like skinning a catfish. It's as complicated as making a diddley-bo...actually it largely resembles making a diddley-bo. You take a large nail and spike the head to a plank. Place the plank firmly in a vise, under your foot, whatever - you're going to apply a lot of force. Make a horizontal incision just under the head, the get a pair of very grippy pliers under the edge and pull fiercely, adjusting if needed so you don't tear the skin (I like my old pair of heavy line dikes for this - wider jaws). Swear frequently as needed.

It's a feat of strength and will, but still not as bad as getting the skin off of a small sole. 

I usually leave the skin on fish and cook. 

The steel band we get our stock wrapped in at work is hardenable and about 1" wide. I made a fillet knife out of a piece. Basically just stock removal then a very careful heat treat. When i was finishing it i had it clamped in the vice by the handle sharpening and finishing the business end. I turned around to do something and the blade went about 3" into my arm. It jabbed in, hit the bone, bent a bit and slid right along next to it. 

Reread what I wrote Ben, I've used hoof knives many times back when we raised horses but I've never used one for anything else, even opening a bale of hay bound with twine. 

I said HOOK knife. They're used by all the Native Alaskan totem pole and mask carvers though I expect the design came across from where ever during the last ice age, they're everywhere. Image below.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Good evening,

I know hook knives. I seriously was suggesting a hoof knife, at least one of ones with the more serious curves in it like a shallower hook knife (although most I've seen are usually single edged). There's another one they make too with end that looks kinda like an old vegetable peeler that would probably work well for scraping down the inside.

For good reason, hoof knives are hook knives with a pretty small radius on the hook Around 1/8" IIRC, it's been about 54 years since I cleaned Banjo's hooves. I carried mine with a hoof pick and hammer puller and a dozen nails with me when I rode. Had a horse half throw a shoe once and spent the next few weeks rubbing his leg with vinegar a couple times a day. Horses seem to love vinegar.

I looked up images for hoof knives to see what's current and darned if a number are scorps of various radius. Makes me wonder how one feels cleaning a hoof. My old one was single edged but the loop type are double edged, some anyway. The feel in use has roused my curiosity. 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

During the week I noticed a puddle under the water heater.  I picked up a new one last night, installed it this morning, and spent much of the afternoon scaling off urethane foam and cutting up steel for future use.

Interestingly, there is little or no pitting.  The leak seems to have been from the threads on the relief valve, or just possibly the inlet nipple.  Not sure it would have been worth fixing on a 20-year old unit, but that could be sour grapes.

Does anyone know what the strip that hands down in the internal flue/fire tube and does a fair impression of a wind chime might be made of?  It must get pretty warm.  It's magnetic and looks a lot like stainless, but I haven't tried a spark test yet.

Two significant achievements today. The second was unclogging a backed-up sewer in the basement and getting rid of all the raw sewage down the drain.

The first, which was distinctly less odiferous but much more satisfying, was FINALLY finishing a month-long project to detangle and rewind a skein of yarn  that a beginning student at the yarn shop had tried to knit without winding it to a ball first.

That’s quite a yarn. 

wouldn't that put a crimp in your pipes!

Frosty The Lucky.

<insert joke about high-fiber diet>

Bikini Atoll butt floss?

For you youngsters out there Bikini Atoll is in the Marshal Islands and was the location of multiple tests of the atomic bomb which was big news in the USA. I don't recall just who and am not going to search but the new French style 2 piece swim suits were making a big hit here and designers needed to call them something to get in on the mood. Hence a gal wearing their suits made an impression at the beach like an A bomb on Bikini Atoll and quickly got shortened to Bikini.

String bikinis are often called butt floss. 

Frosty The Lucky.

The wife tasked me on Sunday morning to do something about the upcoming early freeze that would kill her succulents.  I thought for a moment to say to her what some crusty old senior enlisted Marine told me --as a fresh 2nd Lt--when I was in a panic for him to save my buttocks, "Sir, your lack of planning isn't my emergency."

Okay.  That lasted a microsecond.  I spent all day Sunday and several hours today finishing up this thing.  The lean-to started off around 2005 as a cover for our hot tub.  Then, after I had my hip resurfacing and no longer needed the hot tub, it became my poolside smithy.  Then I gave the space to my wife and her succulent habit, and started working on my new smithy. 

I got some brownie points, fer shur.

Installed a switch in the power cord of the new in-sink garbage disposal. 

(The switch was cannibalized from an old radial arm saw I salvaged the other day.)

I put the switch for our garburator (for you Red Green fans) on the wall above the sink in the 4 plex box with 2 outlets. It didn't occur to me to put it in a cabinet.

Frosty The Lucky.

The original disposal plugged into an unswitched outlet in the cabinet under the sink; it was turned on by inserting a handle into the opening and twisting to engage an internal switch. The makers of the new one apparently assumed that the outlet would be switched, and the device would be turned on and off there. Adding this switch to the cord enables us to use it without having to rewire the wall.

I watched a short kind of documentary on garbage disposals a few days ago (yeah boredom makes you do strange things) and back in the 1950's you could get one that would turn a glass bottle into powder. They do not do that anymore becuase the glass powder would clog up sewage lines.