In reply to Crackers :
You have been moving steel for long enough that the concept should be intuitive.
I tell people to think of the tin as if it were play-dough and all the wheel does is squish it. That gives them the general idea of how to get the shape. But god is in the details if you want to go down that road.
Anyone heard from Crackers lately? I'm wondering if Uncle Ben still has a chance at a second life.
Damn... I thought he was back.
Damnit, me too
He doesn't live too far from me I could pay him a visit.....just sayin'
Bump.
Crackers, I see you're back around again on the forum. We all missed you. How ya been? Any update on Uncle Ben?
I was wondering how long it would take for this to get bumped.
Not to bury the lead, no. No new updates on Uncle Ben, just yet.
TLDR, I got married, bought my parents place, and had a kid. Simultaneously building up a YouTube channel for my blacksmithing practice and making fabrication tools for when I get back to working on my car projects. /TLDR
Not to bore everyone, but most of the last 4 years I've been on the injured list for one stupid reason or another. Mostly minor-ish sprains, but as a self employed new homeowner I don't have the ability to take much time off for recovery, and with a physically demanding job I kept getting compensatory injuries.
Most of my able-bodied free time has been focused on either maintaining the house/property (lots of "deferred maintenance" and almost 20 acres of land) or outfitting my blacksmith shop with the goal of eventually switching to blacksmithing as a full time WFH job.
Having my shop setup hasn't been without benefit for Uncle Ben. I've made a bunch of tools and equipment for sculptural work that have a lot of overlap with panel making/coach building.
I built a special pneumatic planishing hammer to solve a specific problem with another project car, as well as heavily modifying a Vevor deep throat shrinker/stretcher so it actually works. Between those, my English wheel, and my (still unmodified) bead roller, I'm pretty well set up for restoration work.
I also got into making YouTube videos for my blacksmith shop (@strangeblacksmith) and intend to make a video series for the other project car I mentioned above on another channel. I'm currently on a video making hiatus while I enjoy being a new dad and work behind the scenes to come back with better production and hopefully better videos.
It became apparent that my tool collection had far exceeded storage/shop space, so the last couple weeks (with the wife's blessing) I've been cleaning out one of the barns with the goal of converting it into a fabrication shop.
It's a 24x40 pole barn that's in serious need of repair, and even though it will still be a dirt floor for the time being, I'll have space to set equipment up permanently and not lose precious free time shuffling my tile puzzle of a workspace to get anything done.
The plan is to limit it to one bay inside, and have 1-2 spots outside under a carport for more ambulatory projects. I could probably make 2 bays, but I want to reserve some space for potential production work if my blacksmithing business works out.
Timeframe to get back onto car projects is fairly short. Aiming to get the wagon inside for my birthday in 2 weeks.
Once it's inside and I get organized I'll be working on it and my other projects regularly.
Man, im just glad you're back!
You've been missed. Please hang around as much as you can, even if you're not playing with the project.
In reply to Crackers (Forum Supporter) :
That's a great update 😁
Congrats on the marriage (it's the best thing that ever happened to me) and the arrival of little Crackers Jr.
I'll have to check out your tube of you's channel. Thanks for sharing 👍
Ahhhhhh....So life happened.
Nice update.
Pete
Dusterbd13 said:Man, im just glad you're back!
You've been missed. Please hang around as much as you can, even if you're not playing with the project.
I've been checking in pretty regularly, just haven't been posting because I knew it would end up rearranging my priorities.
My priorities are in transition back to car stuff for a while, so here I am.
Indy - Guy said:In reply to Crackers (Forum Supporter) :
That's a great update 😁
Congrats on the marriage (it's the best thing that ever happened to me) and the arrival of little Crackers Jr.
I'll have to check out your tube of you's channel. Thanks for sharing 👍
Thank you! We had been together for a while, marriage was mostly a formality and this point. I do consider myself quite lucky.
My blacksmithing channel on YouTube has been targeted to other blacksmiths. I'm planning to pivot the channel to be more entertainment based to appeal to a larger audience when I start making new videos. The blacksmithing community is pretty small, so it's hard to get traction without making knives and mostly interested in ornamental/architectural blacksmithing, and sculpture.
This is a commission job I'm working on right now. Holds a copper sphere (I'm also making) that my client will eventually paint and engrave as a globe.
The TV show "Forged In Fire" grew the blacksmithing community quite a bit (because knives) but I'm kind of anticipating it shrinking again now the show has been cancelled, so I'm trying to adjust.
NOHOME said:Ahhhhhh....So life happened.
Nice update.
Pete
It most certainly did.
It's been a remarkable feat of self restraint to keep my hands off it in the meantime.
Nice work, Crackers!
On all fronts, not just car/metal.
Uncle Ben's time as a storage unit has come to an end. He got a quick bath with a blue Scotch Brite pad to scrub the moss off and parked in his new home.
Laid some equipment out to get an idea of how to layout the workspace, but it isn't really ready to get set up yet.
Going to spend a couple weeks being happy it's finally inside and organizing the rest of my junk, and then I'll get back into it and my other project car.
I've been spending a lot of time watching Adam Savages Tested and his shop organization ethos really speaks to me. Will have to see how much I can emulate that with basically no budget to work with. 😅
Exciting news 👍🤯
So much potential in this crossbreed. I really want to see it on the road.
Remember when you started this way back when, and chassis-swaps were a rare thing? Seems like the idea has caught on.
In reply to NOHOME :
Yeah, for better or worse they seem to be everywhere now.
Unfortunately I see a lot of people abandoning or scrapping projects because they're in over their head or chose a poor donor, and I think we're losing a lot of cars to it that could otherwise have been saved.
Or to throw stones... People choosing cars with no real value and realizing a swap is still more expensive than it's worth to finish. 😅
You ever have this nagging feeling you have forgotten something and can't figure out what it is?
Well earlier this week I realized I was 4 weeks into my "week and half, tops" side quest of barn renovation to buff my "willpower" stats so I can get back to this commission job I've been doing.
Did a bunch of hustle work this week and can finally mock up the major pieces of this project. 
It's an 18" sphere made from 0.040" copper sheet. All hand shaped with a forged stand.
Once I finish a few details, patina the stand and finish sand the copper to 400g it will get shipped to an artist in Oregon that will paint and engrave the copper in a sort of mosaic style with numbers and letters describing climate and surface temperatures. I'm excited to see where she takes it for her client after I'm done with it.
A couple photos of her work
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