Vet Schools

I'm a graduate of CSU in Ft. Collins, though the art school not the vet med school. I know that CSU's vet school is one of the highest rated in the US, along with UC Davis, as I recall. I did take a couple of anatomy courses in the vet school, for my art degree and the facilities were surely first rate. Ft. Collins is a pretty nice little city, and the surrounding countryside is terrific. Of course, it is way different now from what it was when I was a student in the 60's!

Going to art school in the '60's and you ended up a LEO? How very odd...

Hmmmm

Well, yes, that i8s probably a bit odd. I came out of art school and opened a silversmith shop in my hometown and within a year was thoroughly disenchanted with self-employment as an artist. Too many people wanting garbage, not enough wanting high quality work. At about the time I was trying to decide whether or not to persevere, a couple of detectives dropped in to visit. They were a couple of the many cops I'd had run-ins with as a teenager, and they ended up convincing me to try the other side for a bit. Go figure.

You know Rich, I came home from Germany, and quickly found as you did, too many wanted junk etc.
So I did jewelry for family and friends as gifts, not for sale. Still do a piece once in a while.

And to think I ended up in engineering and the safety/enviro field!

You may remember that I spotted a young man some silver and helped him to make his own wedding rings. He showed up last night and paid me for the silver!

Wow I went from broke to having money in my pocket!

I hope the rings do him well in life.

Thomas

Iron City Tool Works was in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh and made all kinda stuff. Last fall I picked up a nifty pair of tongs with the compnany stamp :-)
All 3 of my active leg vises are IC. Not to be confused with ICLight or Iron city beer. (BOG)

Silver ---cut

THOMAS--Silver is worth some bit more than when you spotted the fellow. Did You give him any change.grin

Have been meaning to mention the cut from the head knife. It is for all figure of speech WELL. There is still some wound redness but the scar is almost invisible. The Super Glue with the pressure bandage on top of it must have kept mashing the thing shut, just right. I changed the glue as it got wet and turned loose but always put the pressure bandage back in place.

Worked great Glad I could not get in the E.R. that night.

God Bless

chuck

Since I was willing to just give it to him and it was all stuff that I had paid way too little for at the flea market: he basically paid me several times what I paid per ounce. If it's below spot; well consider it a wedding present!

Now to buy Propane for the weekend and save out a little to buy tools for my Grandson's birthday! (*3* years old---time to start building him a set of tools!)

Today

I bought some supplies in town and then went to the club forge. I rough-forged a knife shape from the billet I had welded up. The bundle for the blank was supplied by Bruce Godesky. I will do some rough grinding before finish forging, touch-marking, grinding and heat treating.

I had four metal toolboxes smashed and rusted beyond reasonable repair in the storm. I junked three of them. One of the four was my first "real" tool box, given to me by my parents when I graduated from college in the spring of 1955.
I couldn't bring my self to junk it, even though I thought it was beyond reasonable repair. It originally contained a set of Craftsman mechanics tools: 1/2" drive sockets, 1/4" drive sockets, combination end wrenches and open end wrenches, and 5 screw drivers. It was on sale for $59. I carried it as carry-on from Washington back to California since it would have put my checked luggage overweight.

I have been gradually straightening and de-rusting it. Yesterday I painted it. It turned out OK. I will put my sheet-metal working hand tools in it. The newer boxes of thinner metal were not worth trying to salvage, and there was no emotional reason to try.

Champions

Some of you know that my daughter is on the Ohio State Womens Rowing team. Here is a link to a video from last year when they won the Big Ten conference championship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNJGA9f5CWA&feature=related

Sis is the one with the black tears. :)

John; I remember back in the days when you could get away with having a 90 pound carry on bag full of metal so as to not make your luggage go over weight---I ran across a scrap pile up around 9000' in the Rockies where the cabin had rotted away to a mound of dirt. Trying to walk carrying that bag like it wasn't over half my weight was fun...I also remember bringing two swords and a guitar back from Spain as a carry-on. Those were the days!

Old days

They are gone for ever. I brought two Katana back from Japan as carry-on in a piece of 5" PVC with caps on the end and a shoulder strap screwed on. The woman at the X-ray machine said "Oh! Katana! Have a nice trip."

Yesterday went to the Southern Indiana Meteorite Mashers meeting in Paoli Indiana. Good time had by all. Had one family group visit, watch and do some, then left for the 2 hour drive home. We started getting texts about how they were doing at home forging with what they learned at the meeting. They have the fire and enthusiasm that reflects back to us and gets us fired back up.

Today I tried to repair our mail box pole. It is a common pole with 3 of the big rural boxes and a row of paper boxes below. I made it in 1996 from boiler tube that had some nice bends. In its life it has done battle with at least the following:
2 school buses, 1 full size van, 2 pickups, a mini van several times and always was repairable. Right before Christmas, a neighbor had a barn built and the construction company unloaded their equipment from a trailer at the street. The mailbox pole finally has lost the war, in the end the superior weight and inertia of a skid steer won out. Welds torn out of the tubes tubes bent, dented and torqued and simply not repairable to any decent appearance.

The construction said to fix it and send bill. I will now inform them to send money for temp repairs to get the pole to hold together till spring, and send enough money for me to build a new from scratch pole. Then they can come back in the spring, dig the old one out and set the new one. I have a 10 bag pour around the old one since it cantilevers up at a 45 from a bank and reaches out to the street to allow snow to be plowed and just slid under.

Today

Today I cleared out the space between the shop and the bank. It was filled with stuff I had stored there and storm debris and sawdust. The drainage was blocked and the mud was deep. I removed the things stored there and then I borrowed a tractor with front-end loader and was able to remove the mud and debris. There was at least 1 1/2 cubic yards of mud and debris. I placed that on the lower part of the place, against a bank, across the creek. The area now seems to drain. I hope the work done today will allow the space to dry out. When it is dry I will borrow the tractor again and grade it smooth and put in Gravel.

on-line marketing

Here's a subject we haven't talked about before; online marketing our wares. Besides Etsy, does anyone have suggestions/opinions on sites or tutorials for doing online marketing?

Tom C

TomC, I have a bidnes page on facebook and pick up a bunch of sales from there.

advice To The knowing

While riding away from the corrals: A horseman can say just a couple of words and put the new hand on RED alert.
#1-He is a light on his front end.
#2 Better keep his head up.
#3 He can't take the hooks.
#4 Don't let him out.
#5 He is tangle footed.

I am sure the above is plain as day to some of you.

The unknowing would just cock head and wonder what the hell did that mean?

It would take two pages to explain the five things above, if you have not punched cows for a while and rode different strings of broncs..

God Bless

chuck

advice

I had meant the above to be like blacksmithing/knifemaking advice. If you don't have a pretty good back ground the one giving the advice has to talk down quite abit and knows 90% of what he writes on a site will never be used and the other 10% of the smiths will figure it out for the selves.

BUT the ones that know ----He can just say a few words and they will pick up what he is telling them.

chuck

Thanks Chuck :-)

Sandpile,

I have to say I agree. My first thought after "hey, it works better *this* way" is usually "so *that* must be what __________ was trying to explain to me." Though I'll have to take your word about the advice in your post . . .

Chuck's post

OK, Chuck explain what they mean:
While riding away from the corrals: A horseman can say just a couple of words and put the new hand on RED alert.
#1-He is a light on his front end.
#2 Better keep his head up.
#3 He can't take the hooks.
#4 Don't let him out.
#5 He is tangle footed.

I am just an ignorant old man that knows nothing about cowpunching.

advice

You want the answer in cow-country or town talk.Grin.

#1--Be careful he might rear up.--OR Better stay out of that S.O.B.s mouth! He'll flip like a pancake.
#2--You need to keep his head up so he can't start bucking. This bastard once he gets started, it is really hard to keep your seat.
#3--He is uncomfortable with spurs being used on him.----Nudge him with a gut-hook and he is liable to down your ass.
#4--Hold him in so he does not get to running.--He is alright up to a lope then he will grab the bits and run over/under whatever is in front of him including fences, rim-rocks, Mesquite trees or whatever.
#5--Be careful he is not very sure footed.--This dink will trip and fall over a cow-chip or fall trying to head a cow.

This is abbreviated but you get the point. Generally if another waddie offers any advice about a bronc--you better open you eyes wide, and sit very still while paying attention, very much so.---Don't go to whipping your neck rag out while holding your reins in your mouth or hawking up a gob of morning snots and blowing it out to the side or spitting tobacco juice out between a broncs ears.

Some of those ole ranch horses will ruin the new crease in your hat

Grin

chuck

Advice

Thanks, Chuck. Pretty much what I had deduced from my ignorance!

And I won't even speculate how many of those Chuck has hear in other contexts *before* he met Helen! (or others have heard referring to him in those contexts...)

My wife has had a couple of recent goes with an Ocular Migraine: Says she is perfectly happy to have just the visual disturbances and not the head pain!

I asked the Doc if it could be due to the cumulative effect of waking up looking at me for over 27 years and did the beard help as it covers a lot of my face. Well according to the Doc I don't have to wear a mask to bed---yet

Today

I had my first adventure back into teaching this afternoon. I spent an hour tutoring a girl from my old in chemistry. It felt good! I think it will all come back. It will be good for my brain and fun besides!

Big Ugly!

THOMAS P. Who ever told you, you were not purty?

A really UGLY man don't have any thing to worry about until he has to sell brushes or vacuums door to door. And then only if he starts in his own house and the dog goes to yelping and runs out the backdoor.Grin

I have heard of some guys so ugly they had to sneak up on their wives to kiss them good night.Grin

Women too if it was before midnight.Grin

Some one said "I never went to bed with an ugly woman but I woke up with a few".

I really was a choir boy, when I was kid.

chuck

Can somebody find out if Artmetal on Forgemagic is really Burnt Forge? He's been giving me some, I think, undeserved grief about a simple inquirey about online marketing.

It's funny because his suggestions are really good but then he calls me a bullheaded jackass. ME?

Thanks,

Tom C

Tom C I see the burnt forge M.O. Don't feed the troll.

Burnt Forge

Tom,

Oh yes, Artmetal is definitely our old nemesis Burnt Forge. He emailed me to that effect, in fact. He's apparently gotten some better medication and seems to be spending more time on is "A side", but the "B side" is still there lurking under the surface, just ready to pounce when he feels that he hasn't been accorded the recognition he deserves. While the meds seem to help some, they don't cure anything, apparently. That's my diagnosis, from a safe distance of several thousand miles, anyway! (grin)

I remember a time when the village idiot only affected *his* village. The internet has created a whole new level of village idiot.

More BF

I do think the guy really is trying to be a better internet citizen than he has been in the past. He still has some difficulty controlling his tendency to take offense, but his attacks are not nearly as vituperative as previous ones, and I think he really wants things to improve. I've been impressed with his progress, actually. I say give him a chance and hope for the best.

I think my sin was not replying fast enough with praise for his suggestions. I wanted to wait to hear what everyone who was so inclined replied. It's odd, but there really are some good suggestions in his posts. I won't be called a bullheaded jackass, however. Neither will I respond in kind.

That is all.

Thanks,

Tom C

Tom

I understand completely. Brande just seems to lack a governor for his thoughts sometimes (I do that myself), and says things that can offend pretty easily. As he noted in his latest post, there is a difference in what we read versus spoken words, and that can cause problems. I'm not sure that that is exactly what happened in this case as much as impetuous posting of uncontrolled impulses, but the effect is the same.

The biggest problem I have with these forums is the lack of any ability to edit a post once it is made - I really hate that. Too often I re-read something I've posted and wish I'd said it differently but I can't change it. I should probably just keep my thoughts to myself and avoid the problem. (grin)

Can I call you a bullheaded jackass if I do it nicely? Just once? Honest, I promise to smile when I say it! (grin)

Give my love to Louise. I may try to get up that way in the middle of March to visit my brother and go to the NC-ABANA meet. If I do, I'll plan a day or two to get up to Richmond, for sure. We'll see what the finances and timing permit.

bad manners V.S. stupid

The reason I come over here was to get away from the very abusive language that was used on me and several more.
I am not the kind of guy that can take it easily.
But I Know how stupid people can sound when they turn the dogs loose(ME). I have been known to float then get hold when their in reaching distance so I need to stay away from people that really pull my chain.

Have to go to my life-long buddys Mother-in-laws funeral right now.

God Bless

chuck

Tom C. I would never, even in a rainstorm mistake you for Thomas. And even though I am prejudiced since both you and Thomas are counted as true friends in my ledger but I did not find you remiss in any way in your response across the street.
Jeff who likes both the hatted ThomasP and Tom C

Across the street

Yes, I think our friend is really trying to be civil, maybe even nice. He does seem to have problems doing so, however.

funeral + stuff

My buddy SAM'S M-I-L had a nice funeral. She had just about outlived all her Bridge playing buddies, most of the church members were way younger.
----SO-- the funeral did not generate as many people as you would have first thought.
MARIE has just about outlived the people outside a small family.
She was 92 and was blowing and going right up to the time she had a stroke Saturday and passed before midnight Saturday.
Way to go MARIE.

TOM C.-- Sorry for you to get the abuse. You handled it very well as everybody that knows you, would think you would handle it in such a manner.

ARTMETAL-- Pard, When you start to rant, Go back, read what you are putting down, thinking all the time that you are writing to the world about yourself. If you would want to receive it yourself as written it will probably be alright to hit post.

If you typing too fast and saying things to demean or hurt some one else, then----- 'DON'T HIT POST'. Re-read and re-phase then post. It may sound like I am talking down to you but I am not the first to tell you to second thought the things you say when upset or think someone has slighted you.

Everyone on all these sites realize you are a very articulate, intelligent, quick thinking individual. Well versed in several fields.---
---BUT WE ALL KNOW YOU CAN TYPE FASTER THAN YOUR MANNERS SHOULD PERMIT---.

No one will slight you if you do not set them off.

I hope this does not set you off---It surely is not meant that way. Just some un-asked for advice that is worth as much as it cost--nothing.

God Bless

chuck

you guys are all pretty kind:-)
In dealing with abusive people, I always thought a jab in the eye with a sharp stick settled things down quickly.
And then again, that's why I live where I live and stay away from the general population (BOG)

Memo to members: *ALWAYS* wear safety glasses when visiting Bruce!

Shucks Thomas, I was thinking safety glasses and a face sheild incase he has a near miss:)

aiming

THOMAS P.---JEFF

Si-sign- You'ns don't understand BRUCE. He'd just aim three or so feet lower---same result stops the fuss.

We missed a nice sized cloud. It went to the Northwest of us. We did get the 3o to 35 MPH wind.

Warm weather is going to screw everything up. The Elm buds have come out several time and we might have lost another Mulberry that was budding out.

60 to 70 in the day and 17 to 38 at night is unusual. It should be freezing every night and the 50s in the daytime.

chuck

Today

Great day today! This morning I bought some supplies in town. I visited RMJ Tactical and observed the manufacture of tactical tomahawks for our special forces. I then went to CSAS and spent over an hour cleaning and calibrating equipment. Much of the stuff I left there has been abused or trashed since I left. I am glad that my help is now welcome. Then after lunch I picked up some physicians samples of medication I need. These samples (which will save me $240!) were provided by a former CSAS student who is now an MD. From there I went to the forge and worked grinding on the billet which I hope will become a knife. Strat Parrott came by and worked a little while. I also observed the forming of the rear wall of the new firebox for locomotive 4501. The Choo Choo Forge demonstrator this evening was Lonnie Farmer, an expert on colonial lighting who made a rush lamp/candle holder. Myrna had desert ready when I got home! Life is GOOD!

LOL thanksd for the smile guys!

Having a hard time getting motivated, burnt out at the end of the yr. Now slow starting.
One good thing about the mild winter, I can work in the closed in forge shop without freezing my butt off and also the hammer hasn't frost heaved much this yr.
I'm building a forge with built in twist capabilities, ala' Gene Osborn, hopefully have it finished by spring.

Today

The morning was not very productive. I got the new abrasive disk mounted on the 12" disk grinder and the new refractory installed on the front of the coal forge/ gas welding table. The original refractory was given to me when I had kids over to my shop for foundry and forge instruction. They cut it to fit the table. Yesterday I went back to the donor, and told him I had retired and was not using my home shop for instruction any more and wanted to buy replacement set of refractory. They cut a new set and said "No Charge. You did your share when you were teaching."

I made absolutely NO progress on the sorting/junking/trashing and putting away.

The ground is still too wet for much yard work.

I did some grinding on the knife billet/blank. The more I grind, the more admirration I have for knifemakers!

candle stand

Tom C.- nice work on the candle stand. Looks very sharp.

stuff + back/neck

First thing--JOHN O.--- When someone out of practice steps to a grinder/sander machine.---THINGS HAPPEN FAAST--- If not anticipated you will have dips in front of the Ricasso. Remedy for lots of 'Gotchas' for a knife maker is the simple 1"x12"X1/4" flat metal piece to wrap you 'whatever grit' sandpaper around. This straight one stroke and lift to return and repeat as many times as necessary, going down in grit as the scratches disappear. This is the greatest thing a novice(experienced also) maker can do. It will remove dips smears and 'Gotchas' of every kind if one will simply get off the grinder before he runs out of room to fix his messes.Grin--Again un-asked for advice.

BONE CRACKER TIME

Have been down for a week, barely made the funeral, today is Friday and the last chance till Tueday to get any relief--might help--might not.

TOM C. Clean and simple great design and work.--congrats

God Bless

chuck

Thanks, Chuck!

I have moved to the file to refine the shape. After the heat treating I'll use your suggestion.

I've started my apprentice on the bader. He's still learning that as soon as he gets tired or loses focus IT'S TIME TO STOP as *disaster* is the next in that sequence. And you're durn lucky if it's just the blade you mess up!

So far nothing a bandaid and neosporin can't deal with---and a few things in a blade he'll have to live with!

Friday night joke..

HUH, DARRELL?
They were having a cattlemen's convention in Kansas City about forty years ago.

The boots, hats , big buckles and pricey cigars were plentiful.

They started blowing about their boots were made in San Angelo Tx. by M.L. LEDDY AND SON.

Another said his hats were special made by JONES HATTERY located at 212 Kansas street in El Paso,Tx.

Another said his shirts were made in Milan, Italy.

Another said his wife just had her new fur coat delivered from an Outfit in Chiasso, Switzerland.

Another little pot bellied fellow that wore his britches above his belly button shoved his hat back on the back of his saying "My ceegars come from the suburbs of Havana, Cuba.

Someone ask 'Oscar' an Amarillo cowman "What do you think about this tailor-made conversation".

Oscar was wearing new Levis and a nice wrangler shirt, pig skin vest with his Justin boots and Resistol hat. (Kinda just Saturday night boot scooting apparel).

He answered "I think that most of the Bull-Shit is coming out of Ft. Worth.

Grin

chuck

Silver Plating

I ask about over on the Forgemagic site but also feel the need to ask it here. Question on silver plating small copper items. I googled and looked at a few ways to go but since I've no experience at plating of any kind I'm confused. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated. LXIV,

plating

ALEX-- I could guess but you can to. Friday is a quiet time on both these sites.
That is why I put the B.S. tale up.

JOHN ODEM undoubtedly knows how but again as we all do, he took for granted instead of going into detail. He probably will take another try.
RICH or the one south of you that resembles a movie star will chime in for you.

Sorry I can't help you.

Joe C. would probably know how to do it right.

chuck

Plating

Thanks Sandpile. Don't know why I didn't think about asking Joe. Thanks again. LXIV.