[TheForge] Frozen down/helve hammer

[Mike Spencer]

Jerry wrote:

> I do prefer inside plumbing but I do have to wonder about folk who
> go to the toilet in the same house they eat in.

Forty-five years ago, my then-sixty-something neighbor had given up
farming for truck driving but still kept a team of horses and a few
head of cattle. So he let me have all the manure from his dung cellar
that I could load with a fork.  And he apologized for the occasional
piece of toilet paper that turned up.

The explanation: He had installed an indoor bathroom only a few years
before.  His ninety-something father said, "I never done that in the
house in my whole life and I ain't goin' to start now!" and continued
to use the outhouse. In an attempt to persuade him to the contrary, my
neighbor stored some heavy farm machinery parts in the outhouse.
After that, Pop just went out to the barn.

ObIronwork: I recently got a couple of scrap-yard air actuator
cylinders working.  I'm toying with the idea of using one to power a
helve hammer.  Present candidate is a railway spiking hammer with its
original wooden helve -- long head with a narrow face, 7 or so
pounds. Fasten the helve to the spring-lift part of a defunct abrasive
cutoff saw.  Might serve about the same as a treadle hammer?  Just
have to jigger the air valve to be knee-operated, auto-release at
impact and protected so's not to risk accidental, finger-eliminating
blows.

Gee, do all old blacksmiths end up tinkering with tools instead of
beating iron? Just last summer I turned an old gas station sign post
into a jib crane for the A&O air hammer, got an ancient chainfall
fixed so's to adjust workpiece heigh just right.  Have a piece of
truck helper spring machined to become a bolt-on die, fixed up a
portable forge to take longer-length heats. Still haven't *made*
anything with the damn monster.  RSN, eh?


- Mike

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