I'm pretty sure Jared would agree your way is way better than mine. He had to put the old cord on the new disposal because my switched outlet was well above the sink in the wall so "just" plugging the new one in wasn't realistic. He said he was going to rewire it next time it needed replacing. Switch on the wall = good. Outlet IN the wall = B A D.

If we ever build again I'm hiring professionals, this do it yourself is for the birds!  Especially now the MatSu valley has actual building codes. 

I remember those bottle grinder commercials, I'm pretty sure they were discontinued because there wasn't much market for grinding bottles good for a deposit. We have a "bone grinder" which is a pretty good way to clean it.

Frosty The Lucky.

1 hour ago, BillyBones said:

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. 

That's one way to fritter away the hours.

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

I'm pretty sure they were discontinued because there wasn't much market for grinding bottles good for a deposit.

There was a minor scandal in my town a few years back when it was discovered that the city was paying a premium for glass recycling, when the waste management firm was actually crushing the bottles to use instead of gravel in the road surfaces of the landfill.

The state of AK applied for and got Fed grants to build and implement a glass recycling program as an aggregate additive to a cold weather asphalt. Glass being more abrasion resistant than most available aggregates was to be incorporated. 

True to form the state absorbed several years and several more grants "studying" it. It was cheaper to just buy asphalt from the lowest bidder that was in compliance with haz mat spill regs. Tar macadam IS petroleum so it's absolutely NOT allowed to touch the ground!

The new flexible macadam doesn't crack with frost heaves or wear like tar macadam does. What it is is so soft the mix actually gets pushed off the road, like stepping on . . . putty. 

Solution? Ever see a paver that applies a screen mat between layers of asphalt? 

We haven't gotten "advanced" to actually fiberglass driving surfaces but it's getting close. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

 

When i was in the Army one year at NTC in California we had a tank that leaked a small amount, 3 or 4 drops, of hydraulic oil. We had to have the engineers come out with a backhoe to dig out the "contaminated" soil. Something like 2 cubic yards had to be disposed of. 

My dad, who was still in at he time, the following year went to NTC. He was an engineer in the Army and they went out and built a road. 

I remember him telling me about it and while we had to remove a huge amount of soil for a couple drops of oil, they went there and laid miles of petroleum product without so much as a how do you do. 

Also a couple years later they had complaints about the road they built. From what i gather when they built it they compacted the soil too well and had to much runoff or something like that. I am not an engineer and my knowledge of roads is they go from point A to point B. So thats about as much as i know. 

Edit: For those that do not know NTC, or the National Training Center, is in the Mojave Desert. Not to far from Death Valley. 

HUH, I thought NTC stood for Naval Training Center so the Mojave was exactly where I'd expect the Gvt to put it. 

We had to deal with the same thing when I worked for the state. Virtually any spill required an all hands response. One spill was large enough, maybe half a cup we had to hire a company to use their dirt burner to safely ameliorate the contamination. 

At the same time many shops in Ak were saving waste oil and spraying on dirt roads as dust control. All legal and above board, especially if a village did it. 

I've been one of those guys scrubbing an asphalt shoulder with a brush surrounded by absorbents to collect both Dawn dish detergent CONTAMINATED water and a little spilled hyd. oil. 

I think the level of reaction is largely determined on who is in charge at the time. 

Don't expect logic, it isn't taught in college.

Frosty The Lucky.

First, I made cornbread for tomorrow's dressing.  Then I made a pastry crust out of Sicilian ancient grain flour because my wife has a gluten sensitivity.  In fact, she can eat anything--pasta or bread--made from Italian wheat. American wheat flour makes her back hurt.  I think it's the glyphosate that U.S. wheat farmers spray on their crops to ripen them, but I tell her it's all in her head, which always goes over well.

I made my Mam'aw's fudge pie for the wife and her sweet potato pie for me.  The fudge pie will get Cool-whip tomorrow.  She always made the best desserts...and fried chicken...and biscuits.  The latter two I haven't been able to successfully replicate.  I even bought an antique (made in USA) GE electric aluminum skillet off eBay because that's what she used.  Helped a little, but just not the same.  On the biscuits, I gave up and just buy Mrs. B's frozen buttermilk biscuits.

Tomorrow I'll be using my Charbroil Big Easy for the first time to make a turkey.  It's marketed as an oilless turkey fryer.  I mainly use it to make Buffalo wings.  It makes the skin really crispy.  There's nothing grosser than Buffalo wings with chewy skin.

Everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving!

I started looking for my Christmas present from my wife (know what I mean?).  Went to a website that has nice $200 blacksmithing aprons.  Then I remembered that when we got rid of our German shepherd's old leather chair, I cut off all the leather and tucked it away.  Ten years later, I'm finally putting it to use.

One of my best eBay scores was a Sailrite industrial walking foot sewing machine.  I used it to reupholster a bowrider boat and later, a center console.  I don't dare get rid of it.

Lottie was a great dog.  At 13 years old, we had to put her down. Poor girl. The whole family cried.  So taking this leather and making an apron will ensure that I think about her often, not just when I'm look back in time on iCloud photos.

Hardware will be here Friday.

I was reading earlier today that American wheat has more gluten than European wheat. 

Easiest biscuits i have ever made is 2 cups self rising flour 1 cup of heavy cream. They turn out pretty and are quick.

4 AM here and i have to get up early to make muffins and bread. 

Happy Thanksgiving. 

My grandmother (mam'aw) was the one that, as a young girl, who had to get up early and make biscuits for the family.  Her older brothers worked the farm and eat biscuits for lunch as well as breakfast.  She didn't measure anything.  It was all look and texture.  Into a big wooden bowl, she added self-rising flour and cut-in lard or Crisco.  When it was coarse and crumbly, she added buttermilk until the dough was right.  Then after minimal kneading, she rolled out the dough and cut out the biscuits.  Quick bake in the oven and they were ready.

I had to sit her down and interrogate her to get a recipe with actual measurements.  I corroborated with my dad on the recipe he pried out of her.  It checked out.  Mine just aren't as good as hers was.

As my USNA graduation present from her, I requested all her family recipes.  She presented me with a denim binder and dozens of her favorites, all hand-written.  Family heirloom right there.

Good Morning,

I add Cottage Cheese to my Pancake Mix, It makes the Pancakes like Sourdough. How much? A couple tablespoons for 1 Cups of Flour (you will find out how much YOU LIKE and adjust). I also add a little extra Baking Powder, to keep it bubbly.

Enjoy, Neil

2 Cups of Flour

1/2 tsp baking soda to 1tbsp baking powder eliminates that slightly bitter taste the "cream of Tartar" in baking powder leaves in quick breads. The baking powders common in the USA that is, there are lots of different quick rising dry leavening agents.

I've never heard of adding cottage cheese in pancakes, might have to give it a try. I used to put almost anything in pancakes from chocolate chips or raisins to bacon and one accidental inclusion of onion. I'd made sourdough breaded onion rings the night before and some onion got put back in the crock. OOPS!

Frosty The Lucky.

We did not have biscuits, heck i am not even sure my grandma knew how to make them. We had what we called a Johnny Cake. Look for recipes of this and you almost always get corn cakes so i do not know if the name was regional or what, but it is a basic biscuit, i guess, made with flour, water, and salt. I think. Either made in a cake pan so you just ripped off a hunk or could be made like drop biscuits. The dough a bit thinner and they would get hard on the outside but the insides were soft and fluffy. All my aunts and stuff made them. 

I actually did not like biscuits when i was little becuase i was so used to eating Johnny Cakes they tasted weird to me. 

From what i have gathered over the years though Johnny Cake came down from Journey Cake, but even looking that up you get corn cake recipes. I have even asked others who were born and raised in KY and they have given me corn cake recipes. The closest i have found is an Australian recipe that is cooked on a rock next to a fire. 

I didn't see any simple minimalist recipes searching. One didn't have baking powder, egg or butter milk but the site was so much flowery gum flapping it was hard to read. I don't need descriptions of how yummy in my tummy a dish will be when ALL I want is the recipe. Oh I don't mind a little background but holy moly that's 90% of what most of the recipes were. Most were basic pancake recipes with some cornmeal in them.

I don't think I found a reasonably accurate  hoe cake recipe, then again there were probably as many as there were cooks. 

Then I flashed on "True Grit" and Rooster Cogburn's corn dodgers and thought AH HAH!! Looked corn dodgers up and Nope, similar but different easy corn cake like food things.

It was fun searching though I didn't see much I want to try for a light hot yummy in the tummy dinner. Even one would be more starch than I should eat at a time. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

Frosty, many of those websites with the whole story and kit and caboodle before the recipe are designed that way to deter robots from ripping the recipe out and posting it somewhere else. Or, that’s the story I’ve been told.

it IS annoying, though. I have been going back to old cook books. Better photos and just the recipe.

I do not mind a paragraph or 2 going down memory lane about grandma's biscuits, but yeah when it is 3 pages it gets old. Usually most of those sites have a button to click that says something like "go to recipe" so you can skip all the nostalgia. 

When my grandma was older she took a job in a restaurant. She ended up being the head of the deserts and salad making, a lot of the recipes used were hers that she brought with her. Like her bread pudding. One year the restaurant put out a cook book and a lot of the recipes in it were my grandma's. So at least we got a few of her recipes in writing.  

Grandma grew up deep in the woods of KY during the depression. The classic so poor they could not tell wall street fell. So all of her cooking was simple and meant to "stick to your ribs" meals. No lemon chiffon pie or anything fancy like that. Fried apple was one of my favorites.  

Today i attempted to find some 42” Bowsaw blades, I thought it would be easy just hop on amazon and have them in two days!

nope lol, ain’t nobody in the US has 42” bow saw blades apparently.

i found a Small business in France that makes racing bow saws and blades, (I didn’t know racing bow saws was a thing) am they said they can make them and carried new old stock but had nowhere I saw to add them to a cart and order. 

i found a Swedish company that manufactures 42” bow saw blades with several different tooth styles to choose from.

I found one similar to what I have an I googled the part number and I found that Grainger Canada has them.

entered my zip code and it said no…

so I called Grainger US and gave them their own part number and they no that’s in Canada we don’t carry that.

im like dude! You’re the same company!!! They said don’t matter they don’t carry it and told me to keep googling online! And that importing is would be a hassle. 

so back to square one I guess.

i have these two huge old metal framed bow saws I was gonna restore and put new blades on them but it would seem that’s gonna be easier said than done. Lol

so if anyone happens to know of a US based company that carries or imports 42” bow saw blades lemme know! Lol

US Grainger dude was not very helpful at all maybe i should call the Canadian Grainger and see if they will export me a couple blades lol 

like good grief it can’t be that hard to import a couple of $10 blades! 

 

I think I remember someone (perhaps Thomas) saying that they had cut and punched bandsaw blades to fit bowsaw frames.  I think that was for metal cutting, but perhaps you can find a suitable wood cutting blade.  

Or maybe someone north of the border with a Grainger account would be willing to help?

Maier Hardware came close at 36". I'll look some more, living on the other side of Canada might make a difference. 

Not Bahco either. <sigh>

Grainger is closed I'll try in the morning.

Until places opening tomorrow I'll just have to hang. If however the trend in bowsaw blades holds then 36" is it.

Makes me think finding a roll of Wood Mizer bandsaw blades and doing the Thomas Powers trick cutting and punching your own. 

If I find something on the phone tomorrow I'll post it or give you a call.

Frosty The Lucky.

I found this page about bow saw racing:

https://www.sylvanstimbersports.com/index.php/timbersports/physical-events/bowsawing

They say that they typically use 42" blades and that they can be difficult to find, but they do give a couple of contacts.

 

 

Good job Brian, they're literally "Racing Saws". I think I've even watched a couple championship "Timbersport" events on TV a few years back while looking for curling.

I seriously doubt a Wood Mizer blade will work well at all, racing blades are the indy cars of bow saw blades.

Too cool. I'll keep looking though for something local. That is "Alaska local" which is a thing all it's own.

Frosty The Lucky.

15 hours ago, Mike BR said:

had cut and punched bandsaw blades to fit bowsaw frames

I think I recall something like that as well.

12 hours ago, Frosty said:

If I find something on the phone tomorrow I'll post it or give you a call

Thank you sir! 

2 hours ago, Brian Hibbert said:

found this page about bow saw racing

It’s always funny when I go looking for something and discover a whole new world! Until yesterday I didn’t know tha bow saw racing was a thing! lol 

I’ve had these two huge old saws for awhile now and i had just assumed that 42” saws were still something that was produced today.

apparently these things have been hanging in a barn for more decades than I thought! 

they have two different style mountings for the blades

one had an old square nut on one end so I guess it could be from the 40s or earlier. 

19 hours ago, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

like good grief it can’t be that hard to import a couple of $10 blades! 

Hi Billy,

With tariffs and customs, it can get very expensive, I found that out looking for some old gun parts from Canada.

I can’t control the wind. All I can do is adjust my sails. ~Semper Paratus~ USCG 1964-1970

Good luck getting a racing saw blade for less than $400, it's a very small market so there isn't any serious mass production anywhere. Places are just starting to open, I'll get to calling soon as morning chores are done. 

One way some folk get goods into or out of Canada is having a friend mail them. I have no idea what kind of liability that might carry, both gvts. want their cut no  matter what.

Frosty The Lucky.

Jerry

im definitely not looking for a racing saw blade lol 

I’d be happy with the $10 one if I could find a seller in the states 

I broke out one of my saw vises today and torn it apart and wire wheeled the rust off it and oiled it up an I got to run down to my other shop tomorrow and dig around to see if I can find one of my old set tools 

I wire wheeled one of the saw blades to knock the rust off and it seems to be in decent condition so I’m gonna try sharpening it and resetting the teeth. 
never done it before but I’m sure there’s plenty videos online about how to do it. 

the other saw blade is in bad shape it’s pitted pretty bad and has a few missing teeth so it’s a lost cause. 

as far as importing a $10 Canadian blade I don’t mind paying duties or import taxes or whatever. 

Ill have to look into what kinda paperwork is involved with importing and how much hassle it would be.

if I lived closer to Canada I’d just drive over and buy it myself and then pay the duty tax on re entry lol 

it so silly that it’s that complicated, it not like I’m wanting to import a container load of them! 

I just want maybe two for green wood and two for hard wood. 

The racing saw blades is the only ones I found reference to but I was looking in the lower 48, not Canada. 

No luck here either, special order for racing blades was all. I didn't insist even a little though so they might have ordered regular types. I figured there wasn't any break  involved and you could order under the business name and maybe get a break.

Canada and the US have had a bit of an escalating biggest butthead contest going since the first time I crossed the border. 

Know anybody living near the border? Maybe you can make contact through Canadian First Nations organizations or acquaintances. 

Just thinking about it is probably harder than just paying the duties and picking it up at the UPS store.

Still, thinking of ways around barriers and annoyances is a Thing.

Jer