Thursday, August 22, 2013

Homegrown Things

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Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Homegrown Things, come check out our shop.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Painted my grandfathers old axe


Since the axe head was originally painted black I thought it would be nice to paint it again.  The entire head may have been painted originally.  It was hard to tell due to the amount of rust.  If it is a Collins axe I think most of them had the entire head painted.  I'm not a fan of the way having the entire head painted looks so I only painted part of it.  I am pretty happy with how it turned out.  I am interested to see how the paint holds up to use.

I only took one picture of the axe taped up and in the process of getting painted.  The rest are the finished product.  The last photo is of another project I am getting ready to start.  It is beside the Estwing hammer for scale.  It is pretty rough.  I foresee a lot of filing in my future.  It wasn't my grandfathers but it will be a fun project nonetheless.






Old hammer found in my grandfathers shed


In the group of tools that my mother found in my grandfathers shed was this hammer.  It appears to be a straight pein hammer.  It has had the crap beat out of it.  The flat face is a complete mushroom.  There are no markings on it other than a "3" stamped on one side of the head.  I'm guessing that is the weight. 

The handle does not have a wedge.  The head is simply friction fit to the handle.  I have not ever messed with this type of hammer so I have no idea if it should be wedged or not.  The eye is slightly larger at the top of the head than it is at the bottom that leads me to think it should be wedged.  The head is so beat up that the difference in eye size may be due to damage. Any ideas or direction on whether or not it needs a wedge would be appreciated.  

Below are some pictures of the hammer before and after.  I used a wire brush in an angle grinder to take off the rust.  I don't think I will grind off the mushrooming unless there is a compelling reason to do so. I will oil the handle with BLO and mineral spirits, but I want to decide if I need to wedge first.












I cleaned up my grandfathers old axe


My Mom found this axe in my grandfather's shed.  I don't know anything about it at all.  He died in 1999 so it has been sitting in the shed at least that long.  It was in pretty bad condition but the head was tight and there was no major damage to the haft or head.  I don't see any markings on the head so I'm going to guess that this is just a no name hardware store axe.  If anyone happens to know anything about this axe I would appreciate if you would share it.

As you can see there is a wood wedge and a round metal wedge.  The head also appears to have been epoxied on.  My grandfather may have done that.  He was known to use epoxy on everything.  I have a Plumb hatchet that was also found in the shed that has nails and epoxy all over the head.  That is a story for another thread.  The head was also painted black or a really dark navy blue.

Below are a bunch of before and after pictures.  I have more but I figured the amount below was sort of overkill.













Thursday, April 18, 2013

Flowers from our garden

These are all flowers growing in our front garden.  There is also a photos at the end of our maple stick, also known as a red maple.









Friday, November 25, 2011

Cherry Mushroom

Finally a short video. This will be the last mushroom video. At least for a while.

Dogwood Mushroom

This is the video of the Dogwood mushroom I turned. It's super long so click around in the video to see the different angles. I watched the whole thing but I don't expect you to. Let me know what you think.

Paduak Mushroom

I have not posted in a long time, so I decided to do a few videos. The first is of me turning a Paduak mushroom on my Lathe. This wood is really pretty and has an interesting texture. The mushroom turned out nice. I ended up making two of the Paduak ones. I will post videos of the other mushrooms I made also.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

HOT Sauce

As I said earlier we have a lot of peppers.  What do you do when you have a lot of peppers?  You make hot sauce of course.  This is the first time I've made hot sauce so I had to experiment a little.  Below are some photos of the process.  The sauce is not done yet.  It will "age" in the fridge for a couple of weeks then I may filter it to have a thinner "store like" hot sauce.

From Hot Sauce


From Hot Sauce


From Hot Sauce


From Hot Sauce


From Hot Sauce


From Hot Sauce