[TheForge] Re: test

[Mike Spencer]

> dead?

Not altogether, Dan. But blame it on the apples.  I was hoping to have
a whole bunch of Big Air Hammer bragging to post by now but I got
side-tracked.

This was a spectacular year for apples.  Trees that usually bear were
nearly falling over. Trees we regarded as little more than
blossom-time ornaments that usually bear a few wormy little apples
were loaded with huge apples rivaling those in the supermarket.  And
they're all "heritage" varieties, healthier and more flavorful than
most modern, store-boughten varieties.

I've had a cast iron beam and square-thread screw from a cider press
for years.  This was clearly the year to get a Round Tuit so I built a
cider press.  Got about 2 oz. of cider from a bushel of hand-cut
apples so I had to build a pulper.  Plywood, threaded rod, old pipe,
scrap metal, ball bearings somebody brought me from an ice breaker
engine room, old washing machine parts and JB Weld.  Works great!
About a gallon of cider to the bushel.  The least-promising-looking
tree made 4 gallons of the best cider.  Up to about 10 gallons now and
I have two bushels more to press.  Yeee-haw!

And yes -- to stay very loosely on topic -- some parts in the pulper
and the bands for the pomace basket were forged a bit.

Got back to the big hammer tonight, making linkage so that the
control-valve pawl can be operated by a pedal instead of with a hand
that is usually wanted for something else. It's promising to be even
more Rube-Goldbergian than the apple pulper.


So not dead, just distracted by apples,
- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^