powered by SignMyGuestbook.com

Recent News... Just for Pope Gregory... Finding the nativity An accelerated rate To tell the secrets of my prison-house House and a shelf

2001-07-31 - 2:44 p.m. Brute Force and Bar Stock I have a complex about hammers. Just like most metalworkers, Roland owns many different hammers. Each has it�s own special place in the tool pantheon and should never, never, be misued. Once, while trying to hang pictures, I went to get a hammer from the shop. Tromp, tromp down the stairs, retrieve hammer, tromp back upstairs, pick up nail, .. Roland: No! Don�t use that hammer! It�s a [insert description of particular armoring application and how driving nails with it will harm the face and ruin it] Tromp back downstairs, put away hammer#1, pick up hammer #2, tromp back upstairs� Roland: NO! You can�t use that [repeat previous description with a different metalworking application] Tomp back downstairs, pick up hammer#3, but you know what coming next� Roland: That�s for planishing and you can�t� Arghhhh! Tromp downstairs, pick up the car keys, drive to the Home Depot, buy a $5 regular claw hammer. A normal hammer. A hammer I understand. A hammer I�m qualified to operate. Now there is one lovely claw hammer that lives in Roland�s shop. It is my hammer and it�s the only one I�ll touch. I tried to get sympathy from James or Kymber once about my hammer trauma, but the metal artisans all stood together. Yesterday�s adventure was the new anvil. Well, new to our house. It�s actually quite old, but it�s bigger and better than the two anvils we already own, so Roland bought it from his squire brother. Maybe that�s why Roland married me. I came with two anvils. A simple 40 pound railroad tie anvil and a hundred and something pounder that Roland�s been using for years. There were three in the family, but my mother lost my grandfather�s 250 pound anvil. I know, I know, how do you loose a 250 pound anything, but there you go. Roland picks the anvil up from Thorbrandr�s garage on Sunday. There is some debate whether that much mass should be plopped on the Tahoe�s tailgate, but Tbone points out he and Kevin have sat on the tailgate at the same time, so that settles the weight issue. Roland brings it home, but it still needs to come into the house and down the basement stairs to it�s new home in the shop. I am so not helping with this. I have back problems and no upper body strength. But Alan is willing to help. Alan decides moving the anvil to the basement as an intellectual challenge. I decide to stay out of the way lest I stand there and fret at the boys about injuring themselves. Stage 1: To the front door. In the first stage, the boys are fresh and enthusiasm is high. There is a lift from the Tahoe (grunt) followed by a very fast shuffle to the front door. They set it down just inside the doorway and pace around for awhile discussing what to do next. Wendy: How are you getting it down the steps without killing yourselves? Alan: That�s stage three. Right now, we�re just thinking about how to get it to the top of the stairs. Wendy: I think I should go back upstairs and not watch. Stage 2: The Foyer. To protect the lovely hardwood floor, Roland builds a plywood runway, cushioned by carpet, from our front door to the basement door. There is discussion of using a �sled� method (putting the anvil on the board and pulling the board along over the plywood), but that�s nixed because of differences in plywood sections. Wendy: You know, ancient Egyptians didn�t build the pyramids with sleds. They used rollers to move along those ton blocks. Roland: Like you want to see the lovely hardwood floor after we trying using rollers under something as heavy as the anvil. Alan: I thought you weren�t watching? I go back upstairs to pack Pennsic gear. In the end, they brute force lift is in a couple easy steps to the top of the stairs. Stage 3: The Stairs. I don�t know how they did this. I really did stop watching. There is a bite out of the top basement stair, but a tad of sandpaper and paint will fix that right up. They seemed to be lifting it down each step and leapfrogging it. There was some consideration of the ramp method which led to me asking if they�d called Jeremy for anvil moving suggestions. Alan: You�re not very good at this not watching thing, are you? Stage 4: The Basement. In my ongoing packing activity, I�m darting around the house, locating various objects. I pass the open basement door and notice there are no boys on the steps. There are no holes in the wall and no blood on the floor, so I deduce they made it to the basement. There�s also this strange sound of steel dropping on concrete. I peer down the steps and notice the boys have fashioned rollers from thin bar stock. Roland is sliding the anvil forward while Alan swaps the rollers from back to front, keeping the anvil on a smooth glide path. Hey, I�ve seen this technique in an Egyptian movie. Laugh at my history quotes, will ya? This annoying head cold has really dug in. Can�t sleep, can�t stay awake, too much to do to be sick. Can we please go now? � � Scribble to Theo previous - next �