Hobby

[hausdok]

Yeah,

I got a Daisy B-B pistol for my 10th birthday and my brother had a B-B rifle. So didn't every other kid around.

We used to go over a dozen or more of us at a time to the Knufke house and have B-B gun wars. We'd split up into opposing armies, divvy up our ammo and go at it for hours.

I remember one time I ran out of ammo. While I was reloading, Russ Sharpin ran up, knocked me on my keester, straddled my chest and then "executed" me by shoving a B-B pistol into my mouth and shooting me in the roof of my mouth. It hurt like hell!

Lloyd Woodcock had an old Crossman, pump-up pellet gun. He couldn't get pellets for it, so he'd pour about 5 B-B's down the barrell after pumping it up and then shoot a fan of B-B's at others. The thing was about 3 times as powerful as a B-B gun and when you got hit it was like someone was shoving a hot poker into your flesh.

We used to go home covered by little blue welts where we got hit by B-B's. Nobody every lost their eye, nobody ever was crippled, nobody ever went home crying to Mommy and no parents had other kids arrested for "playing" with their kids.

If you misbehaved in my home town, whichever parent got his hands on you first would whup your ass with a belt before taking you home to turn you over to Dad for a second whuppin'. Today, kids play on video games. instead of getting out and doing kids' stuff, and parents call the police for the slightest altercation between kids. Yet, kids will talk back to adults, use profanity toward them and then go out and, like little cowards, shoot each other with real guns when they've got a beef, instead of just duking it out with one another.

So, why is it that kids today are supposed to be so much superior intellectually and emotionally than those of yesteryear?

Like I said, it ain't the same anymore.

End of rant.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Richard Moore]

Even nostalgia isn't what it used to be!

[kurt]

Nope. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. Sometimes though, I think it's DejaVu all over again.........

Never was in a BB gun war; sounds fun, but I would have gotten dismantled & parted out if I'd done that. My old man was a "sportsman" of the old school; any messing around w/ any firearm like that would have been my death act. We weren't even allowed to talk about guns unless it was strict hunting & technical discussion; it was impolite to do so.

Anyone remember Benjamin air rifles & pistols? Those babies had stopping power.

And what is this w/swing safety? Sheeeeite, jumping off the swing was the only fun thing; we still go down to the public beach in the off season, build snow mounds as a landing pad, & see who can jump off the swing the highest & farthest.

Chris, you did the right thing w/ the electric bike; look @ the shine in that boy's eye. [:-magnify

[Jim Katen]

Originally posted by chrisprickett

CAUTION... more thread drift. Mt boy turned 4 a few weeks ago. I bought him one of those electric motorcycles from Fisher-Price. It actually has 4 wheels and goes about 5 mph.

Tell him I said, "Bitchin' fine ride, dude." (It's never too early to start them on a power vocabulary.)

I sent the following pic to my family members.

With the responses I got back, you have thought I strapped a rocket to his a$$ and shot him to the moon! My mother-in-law will barely talk to me! (maybe not such a bad thing)

Oh, hell, she's just jealous. Now you're gonna have to buy her a bike.

This PC safety crap is getting out of hand. At my daughter's school, they sent home a memo regarding swing safety. Among the no-no's were twisting and spinning, jumping off the swing, and children pushing other children. I'm waiting for the "helmet required" memo!

On the other hand:

We had a tire swing in our backyard when I was a kid. We'd put someone in it and spin 'em around till they'd puke. We were doing this to a neighbor girl when her long hair got tangled up in the twists of the rope. When she fell off, her hair remained on the rope with a little chunk of scalp attached. We were sad and somewhat horrified, but we still craned our necks to try and see her brain.

When I was about 4, I was arguing with a neighbor boy about what would happen if you drank gasoline. He promptly drank about a cup's worth. I later heard that the emergency room staff was highly amused, but his parents were not.

This same kid's mother's washing machine didn't have an interlock to secure the lid during the spin cycle. She reached in (I have no idea why) while it was spinning. Her hand got caught and her arm was pretty badly mangled by the time she wrenched it out again.

My brother, Paul, was playing tag with a friend. The friend thought it would be funny to close a sliding glass door at the last minute as Paul ran by. This was in the days before safety glass. On the ride to the hospital, I remember the terror in his voice and face as he stared at the exposed bones in his arm and leg where the flesh had been sliced away. I tried to cheer him up by pointing out that the arm bone was actually called the radius and the leg bone was called the femur, but for some reason it didn't help. His screams, from when the docs were working on him, are, for all I know, still bouncing around the ionosphere over New Haven. Though, I must say, in return for his agony, he's got some very impressive scars that have served him well in the subsequent years.

Then there's my wife's side of the family; farmers from southern Illinois. I particularly remember the one who fell of his tractor while disking up a field. His body was run over by the disks. They said that the largest part of him that they could find was about the size of a milk bottle.

And I won't even mention the PTO accidents. . .

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[Chad Fabry]

Anyone remember Benjamin air rifles & pistols? Those babies had stopping power.

I still have mine. 1100fps. For an air rifle that's honkin.

And I won't even mention the PTO accidents.

I won't either because it's too gruesome, but I saw a very nasty one.

[hausdok]

Yep,

When I was just under 5 my parents got a set of those new washing machine/dryer combinations like on the Lucy show. Mom was next door at the Akelmann's house when I put my little brother Hugh (3yrs 9months) in the dryer to see how well he'd spin. Dang! I couldn't reach the darned dial to turn the thing on and then I couldn't get the door open again.

Man! My backside was sore for a week after that one!

Hughie and I still wonder what that ride would have been like.

I'm from a farming community. Like Chad, I don't even want to contemplate PTO accidents and I was terrified of combines after one of the local farm hands went into one. Operating farm machinery must be up there with Crab fishing in terms of a dangerous occupation.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[kurt]

I thought everyone got in the dryer to see what it was like spinning around (?).

[Brian G]

You people needed closer adult supervision. [:-bigeyes

I never blew anything up that didn't involve widely available fireworks myself, we had more mundane entertainment in the country for the most part. Fishin', shootin' guns and mud ball fights at the swimming hole were the order of the day when school was out. Ah youth....

Brian G.

The Most Feared Right Arm on MacBee Creek [:-mean]

[Chad Fabry]

Sissy

[Brian G]

Originally posted by Chad Fabry

Sissy

Yeah, I know. I'm a sissy with only a few small permenant scars though. [^]

Ever get hit in the head by a high-velocity mud ball with a rock in it? [:-boggled

Brian G.

You Can Call Me "Thor" []

[charlieb]

Ever get hit in the head by a high-velocity mud ball with a rock in it?

Brian G.

Well now doesn't that explain a lot![:-magnify

[monte]

My brother and I used to have thoses B-B gun (Sorry about gun, for like the Army says "This my rifle and this my gun this is for work and this is for fun") wars until my brother got hit about a 1/4" above the eye. Parents took away the B-B rifles. Brother still has a scar over the eye after 50 years. I can not even buy my grandkids a cap pistol now, with the way my kids think. No wonder they say kids have no fun.

[Brian G]

The BB gun thing is interesting, culturally speaking. I grew up down here in what our liberal friends would say is one of the prime "gun culture" regions of the country, yet I never even heard of such "wars" as a kid (not that it never crossed my mind to cut-loose on my older brother). It was more like what Kurt describes, a serious business no matter what kind of gun or projectile you were talking about. If I had been found to have some much as deliberately pointed a BB gun at another kid my stuff would've locked down for months (while my butt healed). Most kids I knew had a real gun or two by 9 or 10 years old, us included. 22 caliber shorts were $1 a box (100 count) and you could get those at the country stores. BB guns just couldn't compete.

So Kurt, where did you grow up? Or better yet, where did your old man grow up?

Brian G.

Thinkin' About Plinkin' [:-wiltel]

[kurt]

The old man grew up in Lorain, Ohio. His father grew up on a subsistence blueberry farm in northern Ohio; he left the farm like everyone else to pursue the industrial age.

I grew up in a series of boring Midwest industrial towns; Plymouth MI, Rock Island IL, Kansas City Kansas, Dayton Ohio, Jackson MI, etc. We always lived in the furthest out housing development; we were the houses that backed into the cornfields. The old man hated "cities". High school was spent in Concord, MI, current home of Ted Nugent. We lived on a 120 acre farm about 2 miles from the nearest intersection; you drove to the middle of nowhere, then got off on a dirt road & continued to our farm.

"Vacation" meant hunting, or fishing; period. After school activity was squirrel hunting in the early fall, gamebirds in late autumn, rabbits & fox in winter, then it was time to start fishing. There is a mill pond in Concord that was/is a great place to get bluegill, pike, & various northern gamefish. My dad had a buddy that owned about 2 miles fronting the South Branch of the AuSable river where we would seek the elusive Brown Trout in season. I made money in High School tying flies for the old man & his cronies. My grandad owned an island in northern Ontario, purchased for $100 in about 1927; stone fireplace, peeled logs, bearskins on the wall kind of place. It was a real cabin, built by a woodsman who made his living trapping; my Gramps got it because no one else wanted it. No electricity, ice house, & outhouse. Once a year we would go up there for real fishing & outdoor activity.

At the time, it seemed boring stuff; we were "stuck" in the country, & everything everywhere else seemed infinitely more interesting. Of course, I now realize that a childhood spent in nature is as close to God as most of us are likely to get in our lifetime.

[Chad Fabry]

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About the only two things that aren't plain obvious is the tube inside the fire chamber and the thickness of the door.

The tube at the top of the fire chamber is water filled and the outlet for hot water going to the home will be inside that tube just above the door opening. The plan is that the increased area for heat absorption by adding the tube will help efficiency, and the small volume inside the tube will speed recovery times. It's my theory and even if it doesn't work, I won't admit it, so consider it a good idea.

The door is thick..about 3 1/2 inches, is made entirely out of 1/2 inch plate steel and weighs about 320 lbs. The plan is to have all the combustion air run through the cavity on the door to keep it cool and prevent warping. The last boiler I built has a door of 3/4 plate steel and it warped. I'm hoping better engineering rather than heavier materials will solve the problem. The hinges are made with busings and pins I had lying around and the door moves easily with one finger pressure. It feels so good I stood there for about 5 minutes just opening and closing the door.

Current weight of unit is about 4,200 lbs including 120 lbs of welding rod used to date.

[Erol]

Of course, I now realize that a childhood spent in nature is as close to God as most of us are likely to get in our lifetime.

Yes indeed Kurt. Not a single day goes by where I don't drift back to my younger days in the Colorado mountains. I return frequently, but it's much diffrent when you're 40 something.

Erol Kartal

ProInspect

[Brian G]

Just looking at those heavy welds makes me smell the rods burning. Work though I'm sure it is, you gotta be having fun with that project. There's always a certain thrill in stepping off into a big project like that.

Brian G.

Never Seen a Boiler in Real Life [:-magnify

[Chad Fabry]

I finished the boiler in December and have been trying to get the XP power toy re-sizer to work since then. Grrrr...still doesn't work. Here's the finished product. The cage looking thing is the stand.

Final weight is just under 4,500 lbs including just under two hundred pounds of rod.

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[mgbinspect]

Great work and hobby, Chad!

I'm jealous! I used to detail steel and relied on blacksmiths and welders as a mason.

I purchased a welder years ago and one of my good friends (a full time hog farmer and shade tree welder) was supposed to teach me. He built some sweet wood stoves, racks and side rails for pickup trucks, etc. He was even teaching himself to weld aluminum which is apparently a challenge.

I lived in the mountains back then and we all heated with wood to the tune of about 7 cords a year or more.

Just last week I saw what appeared to have been a commercially made wood fired forced air furnace.

At any rate, I finally sold the welder having never learned to use it.

[kurt]

Fabry, as a start, that is not a hobby. "That" is a career.

How many folks do we know that would build a 2.5 ton wood fired boiler to "save energy"?

What are those little elegant swan curvy things in the last photo?

[hausdok]

Feng Shui talismans to ward off evil home inspector spirits.

OT - OF!!!

M.

[Chad Fabry]

It's the door handle in a flame motif

[mgbinspect]

So, are you using any type of guide regarding the overall design such as metal thicknesses, tank size, pipe placement, etc.?

[hausdok]

So,

Here is a fellow who rivals chad for biggest do-it-yourself welding project:

Here's a guy who's welding project was bigger than Chad's

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/1 ... s_sub.html

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Brad Manor]

But can he shear a sheep?

-B