Retirement Projects
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Both of the new chiefs boys are in hockey. These are gear drying racks I made at his request. The commercial ones are expensive and most rinkydink. These are solid oak, leftover from the big table build. No metal, all fitted, doweled and glued joints. Why? Just because I can.
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Aww. How nice for the hockey boys.
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I got laid off from my hospital job of 15yrs almost 4yrs ago. I didn't work the first year, then I got a part time care giving job for about a year, quit, now I just started again to make more $, but it's only 6hrs a week. I don't really have a hobby. I do love dogs & am a volunteer at our no kill shelter. I also have 6 dogs so I'm busy with them. This was last summer so I was a bit heavier than now2
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You look great. Everybody looks happy.
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Lot of Christmas preperation at the homestead this weekend, but I did manage to get a little work done on the foundry project.
Removed castings from sprue, cleaned up flashing and seperated doubled hooks into singles. Still need to drill holes for mounting bolts.
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@Farback, good to see you back in the shop.
I see a couple of sq ft of exposed workbench top. Looks like you have room for a couple of more projects.
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d_thomas02 wrote: »@Farback, good to see you back in the shop.
I see a couple of sq ft of exposed workbench top. Looks like you have room for a couple of more projects.
Yeah, good to be back at it. There’s four adirondack chairs and footstools ready for assembly and finishnon the other bench, and another kayakmto buod for a granddaughter before spring.
Todd’s boys have put the new racks to use thensame day Imdelivered them.
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JeromeBarry1 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »I am in awe of each of you who do things beautifully in retirement. I have skills, but they are not useful or transferrable outside the semiconductor design industry.
I plan to die on the job. In this industry, there is no forced retirement age. There are a lot of people who die on the job, too.
I heard that the lead layout guy for the Pentium chip collapsed and died in the midst of tape out.
I have a new plan. Actually, a new plan was given me last week in the form of a 2-week notice of contract non-renewal.
I will make my living by trading stock option calendar spreads in my IRA, and withdraw proceeds each week. I'll have one day per week of work, but it's closer to half a day, and all the rest of the time free to engage in actually living. I'm not sure I know how to do that. I've only ever been really good at working.
Retiring "from" something is not a good plan. One needs to retire"to something".
It doesn't sound like you are ready. I bet you can find something if you want to. You've had a shock and it can take a while to get refocused. Hang in there.3 -
allenpriest wrote: »Retiring "from" something is not a good plan. One needs to retire"to something".
It doesn't sound like you are ready. I bet you can find something if you want to. You've had a shock and it can take a while to get refocused. Hang in there.
That's a neat way to look at retirement. I'm sliding toward a pension and most of my post-retirement goals are wishes rather than plans. Life kicked me in the nuts fairly hard and several times so I'm not rushing to run away from a good paycheque...2 -
allenpriest wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »I am in awe of each of you who do things beautifully in retirement. I have skills, but they are not useful or transferrable outside the semiconductor design industry.
I plan to die on the job. In this industry, there is no forced retirement age. There are a lot of people who die on the job, too.
I heard that the lead layout guy for the Pentium chip collapsed and died in the midst of tape out.
I have a new plan. Actually, a new plan was given me last week in the form of a 2-week notice of contract non-renewal.
I will make my living by trading stock option calendar spreads in my IRA, and withdraw proceeds each week. I'll have one day per week of work, but it's closer to half a day, and all the rest of the time free to engage in actually living. I'm not sure I know how to do that. I've only ever been really good at working.0 -
Forge build still in progress but wanted to hit hot metal for Christmas. Used my Oxy-Acetylene torch to heat the metal and knocked out my first forging project, a split cross, for the lady of the homestead. Not perfect but I think its not bad for first effort.
ETA: The cross is about 4 inches wide and six inches tall excluding the loop on top. Made from 5 3/8" of 1/2" square scrap.7 -
Great work with the cross. I'm glad that you included the inches so that
we have an even better picture of what it is.1 -
wow d-thomas02, looks great!!1
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A long overdue shop cleanup.
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Im not retired but I do have time off over the holidays and the weather is miserable and my horse threw a shoe so I have started working on my closet. After 26+ years and a lot of yo yo dieting, it is really sort of liberating to make piles for goodwill and piles for trash and sort thru everything. I mean honestly that dress which looks like your grandmother's curtains?!!!!! LOL. After the closets, then the dressers and who knows from there! Secretly I would like to clean out my "junk" room and make it into a home gym with a rowing machine.3
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Those kind of projects haunt us all... I've still got unopened boxes from my move three years ago. It's clear I don't "need" the contents... At some point, I'll have to decide if I "want" them.1
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SummerSkier wrote: »Im not retired but I do have time off over the holidays and the weather is miserable and my horse threw a shoe so I have started working on my closet. After 26+ years and a lot of yo yo dieting, it is really sort of liberating to make piles for goodwill and piles for trash and sort thru everything. I mean honestly that dress which looks like your grandmother's curtains?!!!!! LOL. After the closets, then the dressers and who knows from there! Secretly I would like to clean out my "junk" room and make it into a home gym with a rowing machine.
In my youth, I literally made a long vest out of my grandmother's curtains, a nice cotton lace embroidered with flowers and vines in faded colors. I also made bell bottoms and a full-circle tunic out of her pink satin ones.
It was fun being a crafty hippie!
Oops, off topic: Not a retirement project, an adolescent project. I still do plenty of misbegotten crafts projects, though, and they're still fun.
Maybe I'll post some of the whacky ones someday. . . .3 -
Cedar for my daughter. She puts simple patterns on them for the toddlers to build math skils.4 -
Been a slow week what with the holidays and family, but I did get a little done.
Foundry
Drilled cast hooks and mounted. Also beefed up patches on broken latches [crosses finger]. (I did layout a pattern for a cast latch but that is going to take a bit more brain sweat before its ready to cast. No hurry there.) This bagger is ready for another season.
Forge
The lady of the homestead loved her split cross and posted images to one of her social groups. Now I have orders for literally hundreds more. [sigh] Guess I better get that forge finished. 4 -
Work called off on account of too cold to work outside...
But the lady of the homestead wanted a pallet Christmas tree for the extended family get-together this Saturday. Guess what I got to do in the cold invigorating outside air... (She did make me hot tea when I got back inside. )
All salvaged wood and hardware. Still needs a little trimming, a green wash, some lights, and a big red bow on top.5 -
That'll be lovely for the Christmas-y gathering.
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Final product, ready for today's gathering. (Lady did the painting, lighting, and bow on top. I moved it around for her.)
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d_thomas02 wrote: »Final product, ready for today's gathering. (Lady did the painting, lighting, and bow on top. I moved it around for her.)
Now everyone's going to want one.
Warm up your saw.2 -
New toy for the smithy. A used portable metal bandsaw (thank you e-bay). Set up as a bench top vertical bandsaw with a custom shop-built table (did that yesterday) in a soft-jawed vise for now. Eventually will fabricate a stand for it.
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Milwaukee make good quality tools in my experience. That's a nice addition to your workshop!2
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Fired the forge up for its maiden flight.
Still needs some tweaking. Using a salvaged gas furnace inducer or combustion blower on a dimmer switch to give heat control to forge currently temporarily mounted using 3" dryer duct.
Ash dump detail, lift counter weight (salvaged CV knuckle from that same F150 4x4 front drive shaft) with foot. Have a steel bucket to catch hot ash but currently tasked with a different job. Shouldn't need to dump ash for a while.
Fire started. Using lump charcoal.
Five minutes later. Steel in the fire.
Two hours later. Getting too dark to see.
Two small (3") split crosses, one large (6") split cross (didn't get to the second one I had prepped), 3/8" Round bar now with tapered end (Valentines Day gift, more on that later), 1/2" rebar with one end flattened and bent 90 degrees for a forge rake to manage the fire.
Not seen, 4 pieces of garage door spring coil and 2 pieces of car coil spring heated to light orange (non-magnetic) and buried, in that steel bucket I mentioned earlier now full of, vermiculite to anneal so they can be worked into other smithy tools. (See first photo)
I wanted to try coal this morning before bottom falls out of the weather, but got a call to come in to work. (Stupid work, always interfering with fun.)5 -
JeromeBarry1 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »I am in awe of each of you who do things beautifully in retirement. I have skills, but they are not useful or transferrable outside the semiconductor design industry.
I plan to die on the job. In this industry, there is no forced retirement age. There are a lot of people who die on the job, too.
I heard that the lead layout guy for the Pentium chip collapsed and died in the midst of tape out.
I have a new plan. Actually, a new plan was given me last week in the form of a 2-week notice of contract non-renewal.
I will make my living by trading stock option calendar spreads in my IRA, and withdraw proceeds each week. I'll have one day per week of work, but it's closer to half a day, and all the rest of the time free to engage in actually living. I'm not sure I know how to do that. I've only ever been really good at working.
I will be going back for another 3-month gig 1/22. It may be 3 months, it may be 15 years. I don't know.4 -
Two inches of snow today and another two expected by sunrise tomorrow (more than we've gotten last few years combined) before temps drop. Highs next couple of days in the low teens (F), lows zero or below. Looks like smithy is frozen in for the moment. Silver lining, should give me a chance to work on the smoke hood for the forge in my semi-heated basement/garage.
Looking at highs near 60F come Saturday. Welcome to the Ozarks in SW missouri.3 -
Turns out my semi-heated basement/garage wasn't as warm as I thought. First winter I haven't fired up my central wood furnace. Have relied on the propane furnace only and that doesn't leak heat into the basement like the wood did.
Deep freeze is over and tweaked the forge a bit. Added cross bracing to the frame and heavier duty wheels so now it doesn't threaten to collapse at the slightest touch.
I've replaced the rotor in the forge as the original wasn't deep enough (you may have noted the fire bricks I had set around the rotor in the previous pics). Also lined the pan with old broken fire brick from that wood furnace (which is getting new brick installed). Wood ash spread over all to fill in cracks.
Also trying some new hacks to the duck nest (i.e. brake rotor) to improve fuel efficiency. First one is just scrap sheet metal and probably won't last long, but should help for now. Second is a mockup in cardboard. Plan to fabricate it out of those leftover 3/8" and 1/4" plate scraps.
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