By now you think I probably spend all my time at the puter. You figured wrong, er, not correctly maybe. But I do have fun, more fun than the average bear I guaroantee. This is Iris and me moving a little table around. Check out her back wheels. You've heard "light in the britches?" BTW the table weighs a tad over eight hundred pounds and when it's out at the end of the backhoe attachment...... But I'm hammer toning some steel. That means hitting it severely, repeatedly, and often with the steel cold. So the heavier the table the better it all works.
I conned wannabesoninlaw to take some photos for me. I've got this supertrick new tool to bend heavy steel on edge. Here's a before and after picture. The finished piece is in my left hand and another piece to be done is in my right. If anyone asked you can tell them a finished piece starts out as half by one and a half bar stock.
Yesterday morning started off like a typical day, different. It got more that way the more day it became. A crew has been clearing the windrow in front of me. But they had to pull off to regular work for the customer. The last tree was a big old Hackberry. I had a couple of problems. First I was by myself. Second they had pulled all the shrubs and trees around the Hackberry and then backfilled. Then overnight a nice floater had came in and it was now a mud hole. There was also the thing with the telephone cable two feet over on the one side and the water line about three feet away on the other. It was interesting I must say digging a four foot deep trench on on all four sides of the tree but I got it done. It would have been easier on the nervous system with a spotter. The good side on that equasion is panic does make the heart work. Sorta like running.......with a bear on your tail. Then I pushed it over with the front loader. Actually what happened was I pushed. It started a nice slow fall. Then the front of the tractor fell into the hole where part of the tree once was. Now some things can make your heart just stop for a second or three. Stone gorgeous member of the opposite sex giving you a come hither look is one. Fifteen thousand pound Cat 416C on it's nose is another. But sheer terror and no blood pressure combined to clear the reaction system so that a little FEL work and I was clear and back on level ground. It's amazine how quick and accurate the reactions can be when they're cleared to do what they're trained to do after the brain freezes.
This is the tool. It started out as a piece of two and a half round hot roll that was bent by an uh oh. The bend happened to look like what I wanted for a die.
This is that trick bender getting after it. Half inch by one and a half inch hot roll bar stock being bent on edge or as they say in France when it's spring and the grass is real green, the hard way.
In the old days about the time when a trio of guys came by on camels talking about astrology I found an antique wagon wheel roller. It was at an auction to get rid of the stuff accumulated over the hundred year lifespan of a blacksmith shop. There were only two of us there that knew what it was thank gawd. He wanted it. I wanted it. After we'd both decided that money wasn't the criteria necessary to define ownership we ended up finding who had the hardest head. He lost. It's manual which most folks don't like. But if you look at the web site and see the dome, well I did it with that machine. The wagon wheels on that overhead, that machine and elbow grease dancing the night away. The good thing about manual machines is they can give you goose bumps even on a hot day watching something common and everyday transform itself into something uncommon and really wonderful right there before your eyes. Yeah, I know, I'm the second luckiest guy in the whole world. The luckiest just died giggling.
A different angle of the dangle
This is the big project at hand. I'm building a set of iron doors for a seven thousand square foot home. Yeah, I know seven thousand square feet, but they do have a kid. This is part of the door frame. The exterior is gonna be stucco. this edge you're seeing is going to be the arch over the top. It's all hammertoned and the stucco is gonna come right up to this edge. I'm cutting in flowers and assorted other stuff you can see at my work in progress album. That's right flowers countersunk right into the jam. Craziest thing you ever saw. Well not really. I'm working on getting to do the craziest thing you ever saw. A developer called me wanting to have a unique sign for his new subdivision. As we stood there looking at his picture and him being nervous as one of my chickens on harvesting chicken day. The mess bothers some folks. That's okay. Neatness scares me so we're even. I guess the look on my face let him know what his architect had drawn up was nothing new or interesting. So he left me with instructions to think about it and that he was open for suggestions. We talked this morning. I think we're gonna dance. He was a little tentative until I fibbed a bit and told him I'd talked to graphic design artist bud and he'd thought I'd out done myself. I had talked to a bud. He is very graphic, he can be designing, and he really is an artist. And he thinks I've stretched a bit on this one. Oh well put on your imagination. Bolt it down tight. Think of seeing a galvanized metal wall with a ripply kind of top edge. The wall is twelve feet long, five feet high, and white limestone columns at each end not to regularly shaped. The letters are cut out of copper plate. They are set out from the galvanized wall. In an irregular pattern behind the letters and sorta along the outline of the irregular shape of the top of the wall yours truly had taken a grinder and here and there removed the galvanized finish to let the rust out to run wild. I'll muriatic acid the whole shebang before I take it out to install it. That way the letters will start to green up, the rust stains will (stain). And it will be the only one this side of town cause I've never seen one like it before. And like some folks the more it's in the weather the better it'll look. Keep your fingers crossed for me. It would be fun and different. That's the criteria for me.
Here we go hand forming the concept for the vase. It is so neat to take the half inch round stock and using different things there available, like two pieces of inch and a half bar stock stuck in the hardy hole of the vise or one of the receiver holes on one of the tables or just a handy hammer and with the two hands move and shape it. It never ceases to blow my mind the way it just seems to lead you into manipulating it. It's almost like this straight round rod has wished it's whole life to be bent at this kind of a radius at least once. And you're giving it the opportunity. There's no guarantee this is the finished product. This is concept time. It's sorta like quality time with your mate, a lot of give and take going on.
This is a shot of the finished top.
Another shot of the top. I mean does this look like fun or what? Now I wish like heck I had the talent and time to make each piece of these flowers and such. But what I do is buy them and then heat and pound them a little here and there and then try to find the most unlikely place to put them. I guess if I wanted to paint a picture with words to describe the pleasure I get from making stuff like this I'd have to study awhile. Then I'd figure out how to tell you'd it's like doing something really great with your tractor. As you're sitting there almost flush with the rush of satisfaction having someone come up and telling you how great an operator you are. And in your own mind you understand that you were only along for the ride. That ain't bad
Here's a trial fit of the vase in a door. I'm just not happy with it. I don't know why but I'm not happy with it. This morning my wife explained to me the reason I'm not happy with it is it needs some stuff coming up higher to help balance out the boguet against the size of the vase. I think she might be right. Sorta funny how that works. When you have it right you know it. And when you don't you know that too. The hard part is figuring out sometimes just what's wrong.
What's the pet chicken's name. That's Dubya. I have seven roosters and six hens. They are more fun than if I had monkeys. I've seen five mice in their grips for dinner over the last week. They are heck on the local grasshopper population. Yesterday we had a floater roll in for about ten minutes. Scrapper, a red rooster, came over to stand by me. I picked him up and was consoling him about the weather. My bro in law who was down this week to help out a bit went into a fit of head shaking one oh one. He was spurred pretty good when he was about three years old. Never has really appreciated roosters ever since. And here he is down at my shop where Scrapper will block my way and just about demand to be picked up and have his chest rubbed. I've got three of the roosters who will crow for pretzels. They've got me trained pretty well for an old man. I've got one hen who will come around when we're taking a break and hop up on my lap to help out with the sandwiching. She's quite good. But gawd, I'll never understand why she always has to carry on so after each purloined bite. She'll sit there and grab a bite and then talk about it. If it was a rooster I'd call it Hemmingway or Carlin depending on the age of the person I'm talking to. Another hen named Stubby is also a talker. She likes to just hang out close and pitter patter and this and that. I'd accuse her of being a gossiper but then the others might find out. But Scrapper is the frosting on the cake. I was at the welding jig the other morning and here he came with a big grasshopper. He dropped it there between us and did a little dance and talked about the hopper. I guess he was maybe a bass fisherman in a previous trip around the world. I tried to ignore him but he'd brought a snack for me. No, I didn't eat it. But I acted like I was going to and that satisfied him. Like I said, I suspect he was a bass fisherman in a previous life here. He likes to hang out close. And if I have company he's a nosey bugger bear. He'll come up and crow. I explain what he's saying is "pretzel" in cockatese. That usually makes the company nervous. But not near as nervous as when he comes up and stands there as I rub his chest and tell him how smart he is. I've heard telling them they're pretty will make them change. Dubya? According to one bud whose dad raised show chickens he's that kind of quality. Prettier than a bug in a rug by just about any standard. But he's an absolute coward. I'll toss him a pretzel and any one of the other birds can head for it and he'll run pretzeless. Hence his name.
Here's the boquet with about a foot added to it. This isn't the final modification but it's the last one I have picture of. Thanks for the input. Ya'll and the boss were right. I think I figured out the glitch though or rather how it came about. You see I built everything with the frame, boquet, vase, lying flat on it's back. I guess it's sorta like some other things we have in life. They don't look quite the same standing up.
The door jam has the inset flowers like the corners of the door frame. But we're caught in that terrible bind between bucks and but's. The customer is putting in more and more of their design into the assembly. The last time this happened on a project I backed out and did it like they suggested and disowned it. We're almost there here. If it happens you will know because the subject will be dead as far as I'm concerned. There will be no more pictures cause it will cease to be mine to claim or blame. I've just about decided that the best thing is for me to make something and if someone wants it then they buy it as is. Because otherwise we end up with something that isn't just what they want and it sure as heck isn't what I want. So it ends up being closer to an off colored step child that stutters and walks with a gimp than family.
To accentuate the patterns in the vase I decided to try to make a chisel and then see what the result would be. It's not really what I had in mind. But you have to learn to crawl before you run. First picture is heating the steel to be punched in the coal forge.
This is what it looks like after chiseling. I think I'm gonna like this. When I learn how to make the chisels then hopefully I'll beable to tool steel like my grandpa could tool leather. Now that would be something.
Here's some real fun.
Another shot of a grin generator one oh one.
I'm sure we'd have some fun. I do like to make things. As for retirement, well I can't see it. So many ideas, so little time. I don't in any way want to defame the honorable trade of blacksmithing by being associated with them. That'd be like saying I'm a carpenter because I have a saw or two. I like working iron. But I love wood and rocks too. And I'm sick enough to take wood carving classes cause I'd like to cut rock and mold steel. You know things work in funny peculiar more than funny ha ha kinds of way most days. First a bud called me wanting to unload a bunch of surplus counter top granite. I accomodated him. Then I mentioned that it would be neat to figure out how they did that neat stuff carving the granite. A bud pointed out it was done with a sand blaster. I had a sand blaster. A little checking here and there and I found I could deface this granite big time. One thing let to another and I eventually came up with this picture. Another bud framed it. It really is simple. You just blast away all the polish that is in the way of the picture. I can do a lot of black and white photos. It isn't easy but it is fun. The kick in the shorts is you're working from the inside out. So you're spending all this time and effort and you're never really sure it's gonna be right until it's done. Then you're as surprised as anyone when it comes out okay