Hard sellin’ a hot idea
Talkin’ the rocket mass stoves here. I really think that this is going to be something of a feature in homes in the future. The downsides to it right now are that everything going into a new buildin , must be “approved” and Listed, as in UL listed or one of the other testing places. That is expensive and the real problem in getting RMH stoves tested being they are also rather ‘artsy’: each being built on site for the particular home they are going into. No one is going to build the stove then dismantle it to send it Underwriters laboratories for testing, to the tune of 25grand or more. Not each and every stove.
Luckily, there are states that are making exemptions to such things. (I don’t recall which ones, though I seem to remember one being New England: shocked I was!)
Permies has been doing research into different builds techniques and materials, and even does particulate testing on their stoves. Their stoves, again, not mass produced therefore untestable by a standards company, have been besting the EPA recommendations on orders of magnitude. EPA suggests .4% particulate matter on a running stove. Permies has been producing less than a 10th of that.
And they use 1/4 the fuel of a standard wood burner for the same result in house.
There are all sorts of reasons why some people want this style of stove. They may be buying into the Carbon Myth, wanting to reduce carbon and particulate emissions. They may be trying to do similar to me, going off grid and want as efficient as you can get. Or the other side of the coin, that I am on, wanting the heat, but no one makes a stove that fits my house. It either runs too hot, or won’t put out the heat I need and ends up creating soot issues and always ends up pumping more heat OUT of the house than what remains in.
And then there are those that just want to supplement what they already have in place to help reduce costs overall. IE A heat pump that works, but want to reduce its duty cycle and use less electricity.
https://youtu.be/QY4mnYc0Mgc?si=ZHUkt0GxPV6qlIjZ. (One the groups trying for a modular unit, no affiliation, but a good explanationof function.)
And the choices are growing fast thanks to the internet and curious kittehs like myself. Rocket style stoves (J-tube top feeding downdraft stoves) Batch style heaters (typical front loader like most accepted wood burners). Russian and Swedish styled ceramic tile stoves (similar concepts of re-routing hot gasses through a maze of brick to collect more heat for slow release)
The concept is simple. Capture as much heat as you can before it leaves the house. Thats the whole purpose of these stoves. The Rocket stoves produce incredible amounts of heat, running at peak efficiency reducing emissions to base components of CO2 and H2O with minimal particulates. They generate ash in the ash bin, and some fly ash that accumulates over time in the chambers (and why they have clean out ports.) Everything else is normal and IMO non-pollutants. (the CO2 was gathered by the trees, and will be again. Perfect circle!)
Imagine the actual fire pit being close to 2000F and by the time the exhaust gasses leave the building, they are around 100F and clear with no particulates (or nearly so). Thats 1900F thats been captured by the stove to release out over time. No need to run a fire in the stove 24-7 to keep a house almost warm. Radiant heat feels better than forced air heat (and yes, thats a subjective statement) that definitely lasts longer. Load the hopper once every 12 hours or so, burn hot and fast for a couple of hours and forget about it. Better than waking every couple of hours to feed a beast that only sort of does the trick.
So here I am, Not in consideration mode anymore, but active ‘I’m doin’ this’ mode. But I hit a snag, one I need to resolve. Do I cut out the floor and run the stone all the way to the ground instead of ‘pumping up my floor joists’, or just reinforce. It really doesn’t make a difference in the performance of the stove, but I am thinking longevity of the building. Were I to build again, I already know, Build the base for the stove FIRST, and sort of build the house around it. Much like they used to do hereabouts. I have found three old fallen down houses built back in the early 1900’s and ALL of them had a chimney dead center of the house that went to the ground and the house was built around that. Some had two fireplaces on opposing sides, but all went to the ground.
And despite the word on the nets, all of them were built with locally gathered sandstone and slate, and only one had any firebrick in it. That fire brick was the ‘floor’ of the fireplace, No lime mortar though,,, That I can see. They did use the refractory cement over mortar except on the outside where they went with the cheaper stuff. In one case, no mortar at all: they used Cobb, clay and sand mix. And thats cheap around here if you are willing to do a little digging or swinging a shovel. River sand is very clean after a flood and usually piled several feet deep before you hit the mud. Clay is readily found near any creek, and like in my case, my house sits on a clay formation thats almost 2 feet thick and several hundred feet wide.(and it’s only 2′ down to it.) For the record: I will be using fire brick in the main combustion chamber as the temperatures get quite a bit higher than a normal fireplace would see.
Really, not counting labor times, building one of these should be doable by even the poorest of people, and work 10 times better than a UL listed store bought EPA approved steel and brick monster.
Ah, but Dio,, that means less money flowing and the money has to flow to keep the economy together.
Yeah,, that’s true, but what happens when the economy is no longer functional, but people still need to keep warm? One summer of some hard work and little expenditure but a warm house for years after, and repairs can be done the same way it was built: locally furnished material.
By the way, this is a DEEP deep rabbit hole if you start digging. Some people building J-tube rockets that don’t feed a box, but run through tunnels under the house, venting on the opposite side. The original ‘floor heating’ arrangement. (and that idea is OLD! Korea had a system like it, as did the roman bath houses.). Seriously, if you are thinking of building, consider how you want to heat and cool the house before you ever lift hammer or push saw. That will make the rest of the build so much easier, unlike where I am, thinking about dismantling part of my floor.
Go, be creative, learn something new, and fly the birds of freedom at those that want us to buy systems that need replaced every 10 years or so. (but be advised, getting homeowners insurance might be tricky!)
LIVE
LEARN
LAUGH
LOVE
LOAD
BLoo update: Good tidings at that. took her for a run Sonday to the tune of 150 miles (152 to be exact) and did a fill up on return. 9.98 gallons. 15mpg on a 25 yo SBC? No, I ain’ta complainin’! (and roughly 40 of that was here in town the day prior so its likely closer to 13/16 town/highway. Still no complaints.
Gettin’ grubby in the rafters (unrelated addendum below ))
I promised a post for the readers with already standing structures. That would be the majority of us, I’m sure.
But I have to start with a little highschool science lessoning, or much of what I am going to tell you won’t be adaptable to your situation. I want to push a new mantra at ya too: Insulate Insulate Insulate!!! More on that shortly, first the lesson.
AIR is a great insulator, seriously crappy conductor. In the Electronic world there is a term “air gap insulator” and it takes huge power or high frequency to bridge the gaps, more so as the gap widens. Now, thats not to say air won’t conduct ‘heat’. We heat air and move it around in our ‘modern’ homes enough that it is considered a conductor. Only that isn’t correct thinking. Its a transporter, It does pick up temperature differences and can be used to relocate that difference to somewhere else, but it does not do so willingly.(in the out of doors, we call this ‘wind’: just mama nature moving things around, the same way we do indoors.) And there really is no difference between ‘hot and cold’, except in degrees, and we call those differences degrees for a reason. Hot is just an absence of cold, or to put it another way, Hot is just a higher energy level than Cold. Those ‘degrees’ of difference are what we want to capture, store, and move around, or isolate from so we don’t require mad levels of energy to remove that higher energy level. (Do you see the problem of modern homes now? That last statement says it all.)
Termperature energy moves through three methods: Conductive, Radiant, and convective. Conductive requires ‘contact’. Radiant is what you get sitting next to a fireplace, and Convective is in air movement (heat rises, cold falls, or specifically, the density of the warm/cold object changes and is effected by gravity differently.). Its why a room can be cold and hot at the same time; hot at the ceiling, cold on the floor.
Now, I don’t know how your current structure is set up, but I can make some assumptions from the last 50 years of building code. Stick frame home, some sort of sheeting on the outerwalls, rafters of 2×6 lumber (not timbers) and a sloped roof using similar lumber covered in 3/4’ sheeting (or that 13/16” particle board popular lately). Actual roofing could be asphalt shingles, tin/sheetmetal, some sort of tile etc. BUT, there is likely one constant in that factor. THE INSULATION. More than likely the ‘pink stuff’ if your home is older than 30 years. Might be blown in, or laid blankets, could possibly be the Polyurethane stuff but thats more recent and mostly in walls. Chances are, that insulation is ONLY in the ceiling joists, not up in the rafters. And thats a problem. One addressed by vents and ventilators, and my all time favorite “Ridge vents”, (yes, there is some snark in that statement.)
What this does, and you may not have thought about it, but you HAVE experienced it, is it creates a solar oven right on top of your home. Solar ovens heat or COOL by what energy differential they are exposed to. You can use a solar oven at night to make ICE from less than freezing conditions. Many people are not aware of that. This is great when you want to cool your house down on hot nights, but not so much when you are trying to KEEP a house cool on scorching days. That insulation just laying up there in the attic joists slows the heat transfer into the living areas, but it can not stop it. Recall I mentioned the term ‘Thermal Creep’ in my post on Mud castles? Same thing applies here, the dead air spaces in the insulation don’t readily move the heat around, but it DOES move through the medium. (and thats why you want thick walls in a Cobb styled home. To ‘time’ that creep for proper parts of the day.)
Vents help keep that solar oven’s effeciency low, but they don’t all work as well as you might like. RIdge Vents in particular; and this is my opinion, I am no engineer, but experiance tells me that ‘Those don’t work!”. Let me clarify why I say that, and see if it meshes with anything you may have seen. When I had my home in Sin-Sin-Nasty, we had a new roof put on, and chose to run with the Ridge Vents, thinking it would help pull the heat out of the attic better. What we found was our electric bill went up about 10% instead. Our HVAC was working even harder after the vents were installed. What happens (purely emprical thinks here, no math on my part) is that the shingles heat up, and create convection currents up the roofline. Where is that ridge vent located? Right at the top on the peak and right inline with those HOT currents of airflow. They are literally pumping hotter air into the attic space, NOT pulling it out. On.windy days, they may actually work like they were designed, that whole venturi effect thing happening, but on still days, with the laminar flow of air along the roof, BAM! More heat, and your hovel is getting COOKED.
IF you have ridge vents, don’t freak out, there is a solution to make them work, its not highly expensive, though it does require some labor (all of this stuff is labor intensive: anytime you are trying to compensate for engineering failures gets labor intensive.). You know that mylar coated bubble wrap they sell at the local brick and mortar place? Yeah, that stuff. What you will want to do is get in the attic (early spring or late fall when you aren’t cooking your brainium) and staple that to your ROOF JOISTS, not the sheeting that makes up your roof. You want that barrier between the attic and the roof as its going to be doing some work for you. Don’t put the stuff all the way down to the soffit, you want about 6” of joist exposed down there. You DO want the barrier to lap the ridge though. What this will do is reflect the heat from the roof back at the roof, and it will create a heating area that creates a pressure differential to force that hot air out that vent, When the pressure differential favors the heat outside over the inside, it creates a space between your living quarters and the roof, slowing that radiant exchange that cooks the attic. With that gap at the soffit area, any cooler air (cool air falls) has somewhere to go and its nearer the outer walls where it can be drawn off. This might only gain you a small percentage in difference, but even a few degrees difference in the living quarters will be noticeable; especially in how hard your climate controls work.
For further assist, you can do that HOT Stand pipe thing I mentioned in an earlier post. (south-southwest facing wall for maximum effect at the hottest part of the day.) This is just a metal pipe 4-8” diameter, painted ultraflat black for maximum heat absorption. This will have a duct into the house that draws off air from the interior. You can duct this to the attic, or you can duct it to the living spaces, your call, I suggest living spaces myself. FYI,, that duct work needs to be at the higher part of wherever you run it. Ceiling in living areas, peak of the attic,,, you get the idea.
BUT, that pipe doesn’t work alone. You want to draw in cooler air while you pump out the hot. This is where basements and crawl spaces come into play. You can put a floor vent in and cooler air is drawn in as the air in the pipe gets heated up and expelled out the top. I suggest putting the floor vent at the opposite end of the house so you get a draft effect. I would also suggest having some way of shuttering BOTH the vent and the ceiling draw as at night, that air flow WILL reverse direction. One scorchers, this is a plus, in winter months, bad ju-ju.
Another thought: A small 10watt solar panel powering a fan in the soffit. When the sun is shining, it will power that fan to push air INTO the attic,,, That may be enough pressure difference to force the ridge vent to do it’s job. Mostly passive (still a mechanical process of moving air, so parts can/will fail eventually)
Now,,, INSULATE, INSULATE, INSULATE! I’m gonna toot my own horn here for a minute. When I built my house, I already knew the ridge vent scam and I had an idea in mind. One, I didn’t put in an attic. My ceiling is vaulted to the roof truss. I used 2×10’s not 2×6’s for the truss. That gave me MORE room for insulation. I used the 3/4 11ply sheets for the roof, thats covered in the 80# tarred felt, and on that is where my TinRoof sits. No gap between as I didn’t want to hear my roof (its sounds romantic, but try living in a tin-roofed house during a hailstorm,,,). Inside, I ran 1/4” mylar faced styrofoam boards between the joist (small air gap made by using strips of the same) and then I ran a double layer of the pink stuff in blanket form. Slightly compressed (shoulda used 2×12’s) but alternating layers so any gaps between blankets are covered by the next layer. Then the internal sheeting, which I used was 1/4″ paneling. I wanted to use the tongue and groove stuff but the costs were already reaching past my budget.
Walls I used Rockwool: at the time, it was about the same costs for sq/ft, and I wanted the fire resistance of rock wool. Its only slightly lower R value over the pink stuff, but does not give you the itchies like the pink stuff. (don’t breath any dust though, Silicosis is real.). I did not insulate my floor joists. My reasoning was “critters”. I have access to my crawlspace that critters can get into easy enough.(and try to make a place critter proof! HA!). I decided the lack was in my benefit. Just make sure to keep the air flow under the house limited.
It was 90 outside at three this afternoon when I returned from the J.O.B. My interior was 71. NO A.C. My only consolation to air movement is a 12v ceiling fan that only gets turned off for cleaning.
And guess where I found the Cozzie? Right smack dab under that ceiling fan, looking quite comfortable on a hot day.
look at the time on each. steady state climate in the house over a 24 hr period. Insulate, insulate, insulate!
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I hope this helps some of you. I know “gotta spend money”, but hey, if it cuts your bills down enough in one season to pay for the ‘fix’, then next year, it pays for itself again, but thats money in your pocket, not the utility companies.
LIVE
LEARN
LAUGH
LOVE
LOAD!!!!
ADDENDUM: IF, like me, you are something of a music afficianado, Get over to BOM’s blog,,, jump into the conversation we have going.
I can talk now,,,,
Was feeling a tad frustrated chasin’ “Truck”: was only able to pull together $800 and that would have left me in deficit, unable to do much more than pick up the truck and watch it rot in my presence for a several months as my finances recovered.
STILL, this is gonna put a little bit of tension on the finances, but not as deeply or as suddenly. Spread the damage out and have a little room to wiggle for stuff like tires and brakes.
What did Dio do?
I talked to Son of Bossman,,,,
I owe him now,,, and that’s completely fine. He knows that I bring my tools to the table, and that is (large) part of why I am an asset at the J.O.B.; not just my brainium,,, I’ll be pickin’ “Truck” up this Friday, towing it home using a car dolly (another of those fringe benefits I will oblige myself to). Talked to the owner this afternoon, and he is cool with a Saturday pickup if’n Friday is too mucked up. Dunno which it will be, don’t care: the deal is working towards completion and that makes me quite happy.(update: MUST be Friday,,, forgot about an planned event that can’t be missed,,,)
Fact: I tossed and turned on this all day today, ready to let the window slide closed on me,,,, THEN, I kept thinking about something I say to the boys now and again; “Hard choices, easy life. Easy Choices, hard life.” The hard choice in this case was approaching the Son of, ‘hat in hand’ and ASKING. And he had been waiting for exactly that,,,, He wasn’t gonna offer, but wanted me to make the choice of my own free-will. Yeah, there is some humbling aspects goin’ on here, but that might be needed on my end. (IS needed on my end, it makes me appreciate the deal that much more.) I SEE a future for me in that truck, and one that is NOT at the J.O.B. per-se. One where I have more say, and don’t need to watch my efforts be rewarded by a small percentage of the margin. Had I let this slide closed on me, without asking, I would always be haunted by the fact that I LET it close without trying: thats a hard road to travel and one I have no intention of taking. The hard choices made, Time to get bizzy and make the future easier. (FYI, Son of Bossman and I are only 9 months apart in age: him senior to me, but he has been much more successful in the financial world, being a business owner and what not. I have just done more and seen more of the world,,, so it balances.)
‘Bout damned time I take charge of my future instead of relying on someone else to provide the opportunity of ‘income’. Granted, there is a lot of headache involved on their end, the headaches I will have to take on myself if I wish self-employment,,, I know those headaches from my producer days, my Tour manager days, etc etc,,,, Won’t be new territory,,,,
And the future looks a little brighter for your faithful blogger/podcaster,,, Won’t slow me down a bit on the blogging/casting stuff,,, Though my days will be busier for a spell, I still take the time to let y’all into the workshop for ‘chill time’.
LIVE
Learn
LAUGH
LOVE
LOAD
Guts, starvation and the reality of poverty
Yah, that title is clickbait, LOL.
Lets face one fact though, POVERTY was the norm for millenia; our recent reality where even the poorest in our country get too much of the wrong foods is the outlier. But that’s not the point of this missive,,,
Talking about my ‘Diet’ is more in line with what I intended with that title, at first. I couldn’t resist the clickbait call,,,
(more…)This too shall pass, right?
Yay, Four day weekend!!!!!
NOT!
Long story, but plans that were made back during the early parts of summer (say three months back) have been hulled below the waterline by Bossman.
IF, I don’t use that lever of mine and tell him to FOADIAF.
He “generously, gave us” Monday the fourth off, (without pay,,,) but to make our hours back up, we get to work that following Friday. Umhmmm,,, Well, I had made plans to be at the camp on Thursday eve, since we have been working Mon-Thurs the last month, and have two full days/three nights with friends, and NOT have to inconvenience the work environment.
NOT SO MUCH NOW.
To say that the last month or so, my frustration with the J.O.B. has started stripping out any benefit I receive in Monetary compensation. I fought tooth and nail with myself the last week, maybe two weeks, to get up and go in.
And the key point is this one.
And when you find out, inadvertently, that said person makes the same rate as you,,,,
As happened Thursday evening, on my way out,,,
Makes me think that I may be taking a Vaca week, without warning, and spending some quality time getting my head in order, and damn the finances for a bit.
Maybe this is the nudge I need to get off my ass and walk away permanently from a VERY Toxic relationship/Job.
Is the timing optimal? Hell no! Is it EVER?
But one thing I am is resilient,
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ROAD SIGN, SHIFTING LANES AHEAD.
Sat on the porch yesterday as I was tapping that out, dusk coming down fast, and suddenly Mama-kats’ ears perked up and she was all attention towards Unc’s garden. First glance all I see are the usual 5 rabbits playing and eating my yard/weeds. (I really need to mow that section, but I like watching the bunnies,,,). Well, that wasn’t it, Mama never gives the Buns a moment of attention (with the exception of that one she tried to adopt 2 years back.) OOOHHHH!! Now I see it. Ear flicks from the bean patch; Three Doe wandering through the garden. Unc is on vaca in Floriduh and that section of our little hollar has been VERY quiet the last week, AND, my Cuz moving into the hollar on the other side of me has created a disruption in their usual pathways.
While I like watching them, what I thought was “well, I know when things get tight, where dinner is coming from”. Between Thumper and Bambi, the kids n I are not going to starve, but gonna have to be a stealthy hunter and keep the bangy bangs subdued.
It’s funny, I have a dog for security, but its Mama-kat that always warns me when wildlife is on the move. The first time she did that ear perk thing from the porch was when the Bear was eating up the corn patch, and she went all growly about that one. Voo? notsomuch,,, Even with the breeze blowing bear stink his way, the most noize he made was a snore. Great security eh? LOL. Love the mutt, but other than companionship, he is about the most worthless,,,,,
Today, to get rid of some of my stress from the opening subject, I did my usual therapy: I Went kayaking. Did some exercises I picked up from “Dancing with the Sea” and while I am still shaky on that whole edging thing, I did see improvement. Just have to keep at it. Will say that my confidence in waves is better, and not just because of the exercises, but because of a boat that was designed for that stuff. Blue Jean is one hella boat and I would be even more ecstatic about her if she weighed 30# LESS. She runs right at 70# empty, which means nothing much ON the water, but that transition between transport and the waters edge is beastly. And most of my put-ins are not at boat ramps where I can use a dolly/cart.
I was out in a shallow spot, wedged between two spits, the water is only 3′ deep and its along a route to a wider area that the power boaters love to get to, usually bow up making lots of noise and waves. Well, those waves focus into that little bay and being shallow, the waves even whitecap. I sat out there, about 100′ from the shore, and those waves were hitting me from all directions and I never once felt ‘tippy’. Mostly the boat, but there was that ‘paddle’ thing Paulo talks about in his course, and it DID change the game. One set of waves washed my decks off, from the side, and I never wobbled.
I paddled back to my put in with a shit eating grin on my face.
Im knee deep in water, to show how shallow this part is.
I love this boat!!!
I have some serious thinking about what I want moving forward, and there is a set of ears I need to borrow, real soon. Some things just don’t translate well in blogging and when you need to bounce ideas off someone else, blogging lacks.
(and a lot of this transition thing with the J.O.B. is why I have been dropping the ball with the world at large. I have to live my life as best I can, and right now, I feel like that has been way more difficult than it should be, and NOT because of the inflation hitting us sideways. No, this is at the spiritual level and I need fix that before I can ‘fix’ the world, if ya know what I mean.)
Dark Holes
Not Black holes, just dank and dark holes that appear and drag a psyche towards despair and apathy. recent events with Sarah’s community of ‘Odds’ raising the bar on “How IT’s Done” let me take a few in introspection on my desires of the blog. Ain’t gonna change a thing, and live with the lack of commentariat: I get feedback of a sort by the numbers, though I never know if its GOOD or BAD, just that the traffic flow is either up or down. And occasionally I do get a Tamalanche (any one remember that term and how it came about?)
Clotshot strikes again? Bosses Son had a “bro” that passed recently. It coincided with the clot shot perfectly and surprised the hell out of everyone around them, including the docs; but not me. When SON was telling me the details, I asked “He got the shot recently, didn’t he?” and the answer was ‘within two weeks”. Interestingly, even with the Flu season upon us, what I am seeing and hearing is more heart attacks, like many many more, and usually ‘out of the clear blue’. In the last month, I know of 5 peeps that have passed over, all heart attacks, and only one was ‘expected’. And not all of them were of that age when you expect shit to go sideways with a quickness. And to whit, every single one of the vic’s, had received the clotshot at least once; one was on his third round. Not sure if this is a valid data point or not, but every single one was male. Haven’t heard of an women getting the shot and then dropping of heart issues, but that may have more to do with the ‘patriarchal’ bent of this area. Yes, there is still separation of men and women in information (IE Gossip) that you won’t see in other places. That male thing appears to be similar to how the younger demographics are playing out with the shot as well. Most likely to have issues with the ‘side affects’ are the younger males. Not trying to raise alarm here (thats already done) just trying to gather as much intel for people as my little world gives me. Maybe I am paranoid, but I am far closer to the point of “am I paranoid ENOUGH?” and I am trying to keep from crossing the line of “enough” to “straight jacket”.
Toss the dawgs a bone to keep ’em quiet. I hadn’t said much about the revent (S)election Cycle, and what I do have to say about it is one anachronism: TINVOWOOT!!! The turnover in Virginia was not a win, and those that started crowing about ‘the tides turning’ need a good slap upside the head. This was the bone to shush the dawgs for a spell while the steal continues on behind the scenes. THEY GAVE UP VIRGINIA TO TURN DOWN THE HEAT,,,,,VA votes still rigged but ‘surrendered’ to ease the growing heat. VA was rigged, but not to win, but to lose by the closest of margins, Rigged voting was caught live in internet JPGs with time stamps, and they still ‘lost’. WHY? To keep the heat down on the frogs to keep us IN the pot. JMO of course, and that leads me into the next dark hole,,,,
Aint nuthin’ new: people are people and desire to survive is hardwired into us. Others more than usual, but survival of the fittest is not just a postulate. In some, that desire to survive, or more specifically PROSPER sometimes takes on a life of its own and can be interpreted as GREED. I don’t like using that word since any disparity in outcomes can always be interpreted as ‘greedy’ by the ‘have-nots’, but when I start seeing the “Pee-lousy-ees” and “Screw-more’s” in the world,,,, IMO, anyone that would knowingly work to make a slave class for their bidding is no longer human and needs removed from the equation. Sure, maybe there are some people in this world that are too dumb to get out of their own way: that’s what the Darwin Awards are for.
We haven’t hit the bottom yet, but its getting close, I can feel it. Not even going to try and prognosticate a time-frame, but its coming. But like Sarah says, They lose, we win. They don’t account for the tenacity of a people that are not hardwired for monarchy.
Junk
I thinks, if memory serves me correctly(and lately, thats questionable with all the gaslighting crap and Mandela effect taking place) there was only ONE show (besides most of Mike Rowe’s stuff) worth me watching in the last 20 years.
Junkyard wars.
Loved that show. Took a TON of inspiration from it. That show reinforced sumpin my Da taught me: there is not a whole lot out of reach if you’re willing to bloody a knuckle or two. A few tools and a well stocked brain and a pile of “junk” and what you can come up with is purt amazin’. May not be the purtiest, but functional and robust make up for a lot of esthetics.
Toss in a couple skills like welding and machining (I did not use a lathe this go round, but it opens up even more possibilities.) and imagination opens wide.
And it comes in handy more than you’d guess.
Bossmans Son had a crazy idea for a cooler hauler, (prolly sumpin he’d seen out-n-about) and found some used high powered go-cart tires. Asked me to come up with a way putting them on an old Radio Flyer wagon.
(will update with Pics when I can get a decent signal. Apologies up front)
Those are just the steer wheels, and I will be making the drag axle soon. But, it ain’t gonna break easy, and every part in it was a cast off from something in the lot outside the shop. Coulda handed Son a list of parts needed, but I like to flex my FRUGAL SQUIRREL muscles everyoncewhile. Redneck? Mehbe a little, but who gives a shit if it works, eh?
I didn’t ‘need’ the lathe for this, What i did to make the hubs concentric was to set up an axle bolted down to the bench and used the grinder cutting at an angle and driving the hub at the same time. Crude? Yup! but it works and is “good-nuff” in this case. Its not like this thing is going to do much more than walking speed, ever! so who gives a damn if the hubs are a little off. They roll smooth enough that, when I pulled the grinder away, that hub kept spinning at high revs for at least a full minute. “Perfect is the enemy of GOOD” and I like to keep things as simple as I can. My only grump building these parts was lack of drill press. But, cordless drill worked well enough, even if my thumb is a touch sore from when the bit caught once. High torque setting, low speed and that thing wrenched the hell out of my thumb,,,
Any whoos, this is one post today. The other will be up shortly. I started it this morning but didn’t want to hit the publish button ‘cuz I felt there was a lot more to go into it yet.
Dio's Workshop 