Back to the foundation

[Nicholas]

I'm making a couple of steel wedges here right now. I took a block of steel and cut it at an angle, then Ill try to harden and anneal them a bit. I want them for splitting wood, sometimes its easier to use a wedge and big hammer than an axe that keeps getting stuck and not going through.

You mean This?

[phil]

I'm making a couple of steel wedges here right now. I took a block of steel and cut it at an angle, then Ill try to harden and anneal them a bit. I want them for splitting wood, sometimes its easier to use a wedge and big hammer than an axe that keeps getting stuck and not going through.

You mean This?

funny they show up in bellingham at 10 bucks but then in Canada they are 25 bucks apiece..
https://www.lowes.ca/axes/garant-splitt ... 92211.html

or 26 bucks at home depot
https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.steel-splitting-
wedge.1001025018.html
this one at amazon is 5 lbs and $86.54
https://www.amazon.ca/Ludell-11605-Grad ... Y1JKJKF0KR


I guess the one you found at lowes was a made in china one or something.. but quality costs.. Ill continue on since its free to make but Ill have to try it to see how well my hardening works.. really I want the cutting end hard but not too brittle and the end you hit shouldn't be super hard Its dangerous to hit two hardened surfaces together as they can shatter.

I have a nylon one. It works if you start the split with the axe btu these steel wedges save a lot of stress when chopping the big rounds. the nylon one didn't fare too well I think it was intended for cutting trees down not for splitting wood.

i guess same with axes if you can find a really old one you get decent tool steel or if you buy new you get chinese crap steel... and you can probably still get good US made ones if you pay lots more.

[Nicholas]

Well, the items seem cheap enough if you got some use out of them, but craft is fun.

I am tinkering with a rat rod right now looking in junk piles for car parts....so its either house and foundation or that depending on what I feel like

[Gothichome]

A rat rod and an old home, a man after my own hart. It involves my two favourite things, old home dust, and old car grime.

[Nicholas]

A rat rod and an old home, a man after my own hart. It involves my two favourite things, old home dust, and old car grime.

Cool! I have gone back a little to my roots.

As I have mentioned in the past I was old cars for many years, as my wife would roll eyes over some of what I dragged home. But of course house always came first.

And now that I took on this new project I can tinker with both and it keeps me busy and never bored.


PICS AND INFO HERE

[phil]

Fun stuff .. it kind of looks similar to my car. My baby is a 66 Volvo.. Ive had it since 1985 and in my younger days I rebuilt everything at least once, balanced the engine polished ports. bigger valves, hotter cam, bored it from 1800 to 2000CC I used the heavier crank from one engine and lighter rods from another engine. it really goes nice. I put an overdrive in and lowered the rear end gears..but it looks original.. I went as far as I could without obviously changing originality too much. I did the bodywork and painted it Never could really afford the perfect paintjob but I replaced a lot of the metal. compared to the new cars, the performance changes pretty much made it so it can keep up. sometimes I can even race people without them knowing it

Got in this spring and the hydraulic clutch lost it's fluid so I have that to fix and a window fell off it's track but otherwise it should be ready for summer thrills again.

Like yours it's just fun and something to sink time into. It'll draw a crowd at a gas station but it isnt' so valuable and perfect that I can't drive it. Lots of the show cars are neat but it's fun to be able to actually drive and enjoy them too. It had a radiator blind that you can move from inside via a chain that you pull. I used about a foot or so of copper tubing about 3" diameter and soldered a neck from a brass rad on it then mounted it near the rad. so I fitted a rad cap to that, its best if the rad can hold some pressure. I even took the rad right apart and cleaned all the tubes out. it worked!


Here's a rather amusing original ad.. It really did stand up to a lot of abuse. I really went out of my way and proved it They did quite well in rallys since they really were robust.

I like the line at the end of this video.. "You can drive a Volvo like you hate it- cheaper than psychiatry"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9c2Y8_2TH4

[Manalto]

Great clip, Phil. It reminds me of those great VW ads from the 60s, created by the Ogilvy & Mather agency.

[Gothichome]

Well, I won’t post my car pics, it is an old home forum after all. But I did upload a couple of my restoration projects into my gallery if interested.

[Nicholas]

I thought this was The District Common. You know, it don't have to all be about the house/home. But just in case I removed the pics, its all in the blog.

Fun stuff .. it kind of looks similar to my car. My baby is a 66 Volvo.. Ive had it since 1985 and in my younger days I rebuilt everything at least once,

Phil, you seem to know what you are doing, enjoyed the read, hope to see pics. Yes, the Volvo there does have the boxy 53-54 Chev look. A friend of mine had an 84 coupe. Same basic lines. He babied that thing.

Well, I won’t post my car pics, it is an old home forum after all. But I did upload a couple of my restoration projects into my gallery if interested.

Gotghichome, I remember this Chev that you posted in another thread. Great rat rod potential, four doors are very popular in that genre. The Vette...wow. A co worker has a red and white 62. I started out looking at Vettes, the early 90's vintage, but they are a bitch to get in and out of.

[Lily left the valley]

Mick did add the Antiques Emporium for not directly house stuff, even though it includes in house antiques.