Long time, no entry...

So, just realized that I haven't put up an entry in a little while so thought I would drop in some notes.

Two weekends ago, I did a demo for a local town.  On Saturday, I made a trivet which is a three legged platform placed over a campfire that is used to hold frying pans.  I also made a shovel for moving my coal.  And finally, I decided to make a new circle for my main clock gear.

The first circle I made was a bit two small and also I had made it at another demo and my welding wasn't pretty.  I had overheated the metal and had some burn damage..  So I decided to work on a new ring.  This one came out pretty well as well but I did make a somewhat significant mistake on the weld as well.  I had not allowed for enough overlap and the area of the weld was a bit on the thin side.  I also noticed after I got it done that I had used 1/4" stock instead of 3/8" stock.  Don't know how that happend but oh well...

Sunday of the event was a no-go for me.  The winds got too high for me to start up my fire.  So I packed up on Sunday to head home.

I made a surprise visit back to Ohio a week ago for my parent's 45th anniversary so a lot of last week was non-productive.

This past weekend I did another demo for a railroad festival.  It was a bit of a drive for me but I was doing it for a friend.  On the way to the event, I came across an accident where a vehicle had struck a power line and started a fire.  I used up my fire extinguisher before the fire department arrived so I need to get that recharged.  No one was hurt.

I set up at the festival on Saturday and had a lot of fun.  I did another trivet (this one had twists).  After that, I had a gentleman who was involved with civil war reenactment and he requested a specific style of S-hook for his coffee pot.  Essentially, the design of the coffee pot did not allow for it to hang easily from a basic S-hook.  I came up with a design that looked like an upside down "Y".  It had two hooks on the bottom for the coffee pot.  I tried to give it to him for free but he insisted on giving me some money for it.

Finally, I started another ring for the clock's main gear.  This is larger than the first ring by about 1" on the radius.  I think when I made the frame, I made it a touch larger that I should have so I am bumping up the gear size.  Also, I made sure to use 3/8" stock this time.  I got that circle about 75% done before the end of the day.  That was fine, I had already decided I would not weld another ring closed in front of the public.  I tend to rush it and it ends up not as nice as I would like.

If things go well, I should be doing some more smithing this week...