Hey LeChat, What Are You Working On?

[Box Burner]

hey LCN,

Check these guys out...

America Longrifles

they know a little about patina since many of them are trying to make their stuff look old.

BoxB

[unjonharley]

hey LCN,

Check these guys out...

America Longrifles

they know a little about patina since many of them are trying to make their stuff look old.

BoxB

\/
For a lamp black look on metal, Use a flat black that has a mat to it.. Wait a little not more then a min. Then polish with #0000 steel wool..Works great on old tools, stoves, non working guns and fire place tools.. With a little more elbow gresse (different color) I restored a suit of armor.. Saved the insurence co 5k..

[unjonharley]

The Chat, Farmal aka International Harvester colors were bright yellow and a toned down red.. John Deer was bright green and yellow trim.. Sears made a tractor (silver King) painted a bright silver.. Our farm had Alice's and Macormic Deering, Bright orange and dull red w/yellow trim.. Mostly rust colored.. Some times the rust would damage the bundle knottiers..


Macormic Deering become part of Farmal then International Harvester..

Side note.. The first hay balers were hand tie.. Every so far a sloted wood block was inserted into the bale way.. Two people rideing on the sides would insert wires and twist tie.. The wires were cut to lenght with a loop on one end.. Each guy would pass a wire, hold the loop and return a wire.. If you spent a day sitting on a board hanging off the end of a machine in the middle of Aug.. Well you went out chasing girls that night..

[gyre]

For mild steel rusted-
Mix sawdust with salt.
Add a 10% muriatic acid mix.
Pack around the areas to be stained.
You can feather some of the old metal if desired.
You can use cloth or whatever to keep in place.
Manipulate for different effect in some areas if desired.
Continue to keep wet with water or saltwater.
You can also use cloth for an etched effect, tshirt, burlap.
Terrycloth will almost eliminate a pattern.
Repeat for three months or until effect is achieved.
Remove yellow and orange finish carefully with fine steel wool leaving desired finish in place.

Degrease before naturally.
If the original equipment is silicon wrought iron it may be difficult to match.

Do not add acid to the original mixture.
Add salt as desired.
This only works when wet.

[LeChatNoir]

If the original equipment is silicon wrought iron it may be difficult to match.

Interesting that the source for this patina mentions this. Most folks don't know about actual wrought iron. Thanks for the recipe, by the way.

Contraption update:

This weekend the progress was slow, but important. Chaba came down and Saturday night (until quite late) we got a start on the steering mechanism and another one of those DPW hooligans (a good guy named Kevin) showed up Sunday to help get it all but finished up. It took a lot of trial-n-error to get the geometry worked out to an optimum setup, but it was worth it. Monday evening I finished forging out the linkage arm that connected the mechanism to the pitman arm on the axle. This had to be tweaked numerous times, but the end result is, while sitting still, a full range of steering with reasonable effort.

Here's a pic of the gears that will allow this machine to dodge staggering darkwads. These came off a scrapped piece of textile machinery from the Carolinas. I was rummaging through the scrapyard one day when I live in North Carolina and came across a handful of these gears. Knowing the value of such things, I scooped them up and bought them for the outlandish price of $2 or so. I've held on to them for about 12 years and sure enough... just as I suspected then, they had a use.



Earlier today, while a large piece of steel was coming up to heat in the forge, I turned out the wooden tiller handle. I don't have a wood lathe, but do have a small drill press that I mounted horizontally (this is a very handy way of using this tool by the way). So I cut a piece off a chunk of maple burl that I had laying around, drilled a hole in it, then mounted it to a carriage bolt. Then it was chucked up in the horizontal drillpress and turned to shape with an angle grinder & flap sandpaper disc.

Progressively finer sanding and a dab of linseed oil later and this is what I had:



And here's a drivers POV pic showing the gears and completed tiller.

[LeChatNoir]

The Chat, Farmal aka International Harvester colors were bright yellow and a toned down red.. John Deer was bright green and yellow trim.. Sears made a tractor (silver King) painted a bright silver.. Our farm had Alice's and Macormic Deering, Bright orange and dull red w/yellow trim.. Mostly rust colored.. Some times the rust would damage the bundle knottiers..


Macormic Deering become part of Farmal then International Harvester..

Side note.. The first hay balers were hand tie.. Every so far a sloted wood block was inserted into the bale way.. Two people rideing on the sides would insert wires and twist tie.. The wires were cut to lenght with a loop on one end.. Each guy would pass a wire, hold the loop and return a wire.. If you spent a day sitting on a board hanging off the end of a machine in the middle of Aug.. Well you went out chasing girls that night..

I love the stories this thread is teasing out. This is making this art project even more fun for me. You guys are helping to turn it into something even better than I'd planned.

[karine]

The handle is beautiful Le Chat -
It's nice to know when the rest of the world is out there digging through rummage piles, you're recycling your own!

I betchy'a I could do that with my dirty laundry pile- there's gotta be something handy in there somewhere.

[Tiahaar]

LCN and CO wow that's super! I love how you are combining all those found and salvaged bits with newly creatively forged bits and getting it all to meld. I vote for you to lead the Kinetic Kontraptions Parade

[karine]

There's a Kinetic Kontraptions Parade?

[LeChatNoir]

I vote for you to lead the Kinetic Kontraptions Parade

WTF?!?

How did I not know about this?

[Box Burner]

LCN How big is your mutant vehickle? And about how heavy?

[LeChatNoir]

LCN How big is your mutant vehickle? And about how heavy?

Outside of wheel to outside of wheel is just under 5' and it's about 13' long. I'm guessing it'll weigh in at around 1000lbs dry weight.

Four of us sat on it this weekend and it still rolled easily with just a little hand pressure on the wheel rim.

[Tiahaar]

I vote for you to lead the Kinetic Kontraptions Parade

WTF?!?

How did I not know about this?

Gonna be its innaugural year, any and all krazy kinetic kontraptions, details to be determined, I'm also voting for UnjonHarley to be the Grand Marshal

[LeChatNoir]

I vote for you to lead the Kinetic Kontraptions Parade

WTF?!?

How did I not know about this?

Gonna be its innaugural year, any and all krazy kinetic kontraptions, details to be determined, I'm also voting for UnjonHarley to be the Grand Marshal

I whole heartedly second that motion for unjon to be the Gand Poobah!!

And please post details as they become available!

[robotland]

Dammit, STOP RAISING THE BAR!!! Now I'll have to make that I.D. plate outta...hell, I don't know- Platinum. With hand-engraved cherubs, no doubt.
Isn't that rewarding, to have something on your pile for years and years, even moving it from place to place as I have had to do, and then FINALLY to have it find Its Place? That's IT. I'm never throwing ANYTHING away again.

[LeChatNoir]

Hand-engraved cherubs, you say?

Hmmm....

[gyre]

CAUTION
THIS MACHINE HAS NO BRAIN.
USE YOUR OWN.


Black on yellow.



I have a scrap of unobtainium you could make it out of.

[LeChatNoir]

The flywheel rim has been assembled!!

And DPW rocks. Mr. Kevin and NotIt came down to the shop again today and we forged out the rim for the heart of the beast. And let me tell you, these two are workers. Working in the desert for two months isn’t enough.. no sir. They have to come and sweat in a blacksmith’s shop on a lovely April Sunday just to sooth their need for heat.

We started with a cast iron wheel from a scraped beltline conveyor pulley. I found this while retrieving the hayrake wheels on my earlier adventure to the secret rusty museum out the road. This casting was way too thin and brittle for me to feel safe with it as an actual part of the flywheel, but it would more than serve the purpose being a mandrel to form the flywheel rim around. I removed the wheel from its junked drum and wire brushed the rust off the outer edge . This would insure an accurate circular form to bend against.

I wanted the rim to be 2â€

[unjonharley]

Hot damn, Gotta get my hayseed outfit on and ride on that bad boy.. Bib overalls and crushed straw hat be ok?

[unjonharley]

Maybe I should leave my feeble (art) attempts at home..

Been feel better last few days.. Got the art table cleared and a little work done.. Wearing weights on the wrists to cut down on the shaking.. Might get good enough to do surgery on the Toolmans toe.. Can I get Steve to stand on his neck while I fix him up?

[LeChatNoir]

Hot damn, Gotta get my hayseed outfit on and ride on that bad boy.. Bib overalls and crushed straw hat be ok?

Damn right it'd be ok. And don't you stop workin' on any art projects, either. Talkin' like that will not get you sittin' in the rumble seat of this here machine.

[unjonharley]

A little blacksmith story:

When I was in pre school at about 5 ..I only went half days.. The orphanage I was living at the time.. Locked me out until late afternoon when the older kids got out of school.. My shoes would get wet and feet cold.. The local blacksmith would let me come in and stay warm.. But only if I did not speak to him or others.. I found a place behind the stove.. There I could take my wet shoes off to dry them.. He threw me a burlap sack to stand on..


From that vantage point I could watch him smith horse shoes to size.. He had a rack of blank shoes.. Just like the keys at a locksmith.. He would heat and rework all sorts of things that farmers would brake.. His muscles unbeliveable.. All the while, Old men would come in and spin storys
sitting around the stove..


Then whe I was 8, I hung around another shop.. It was the only place I could go and not be found.. The home I was in would beat the hell out of me.. Then throw me in the basement until the marks were gone.. So some times I would hide out for a week or more.. Eating out of gardens.. The people at one cafe would put food out in the ally for me too..

Any way the shop.. This one was a machine shop also.. There was a WW1 fighter plan against the one wall.. The bi wings were hung in the rafters
.. I will never for get the part he was missing.. A magneddle.. A Bulling D3-18.. This guy would let me sweep and ask questions..


Then I went to live with my grandmother on the farm (long story) There I learned to fix everything that broke down.. Even did some smith work with a fire in the driveway.. We had a wood turning lath also.. Oh yeah!! Got my ass kicked good for taking the model A motor down to nuts and bolts.. JUst wanted to see how it worked.. After the ass kicking I learned a new trade.. I had to put it togeather again


As teen I holed up in and old tarpaper trailer across from a body shop.. I watched and got to try and worked with heat and water.. It's amazing how a bent up fender can be brought back.. Then the small dents were leaded in.. From there I went to work in a clock shop.. They realy fixed watches and clocks.. Here was my first experience with a metal lath..

After I got married and had to keep a job, I went to work in big steel.. For about a year I worked on the rivet gang.. One day they brought in some four foot tall and 30 feet long Ibeams.. They were worped from welding and the heat treat was not big enough to hold them.. I held the torch in the places the oldman marked in chalk.. He would wave me off at the right heat.. Then he would put wet rags on the beam.. They would draw right into shape..


From there I went to Id. to work in a shop.. Most of my job was turret and gang laths.. But there was a forge and all the hammers.. The owner took on all sorts of jobs depending on me to do them.. Bet you didn't know a farmer could twist a 4x4x16ft bar.. We also had 100 ton press (navy surpplus)..


After working in a shirt and tie for a few years I took on a job as a gray iron smith.. All the light post base and light arms in Portland old town were penned by me.. When gray iron comes out of the mold, Slag and sand mixed hang in the corners of the design.. So, after grinding off extra head metal it came to me.. I had six hammers.. each three lb.. Five had a shape on one end.. I would strike with the shaped hammer in my left hand and follow with a blow from a 3 pounder in my right hand.. As I said: I had not worked hard for a few years.. By the time I was done with the job.. Well, if you saw me coming you steped aside..

Telling the truth: Non of these job lasted to long.. But I learned a bunch..And there were many short job between.. Until I fell into restoring art (and any thing else worth saving).. There I stayed for 25 years.. Now I just fuck around with what ever I please.. Boy this story got away form me huh?

[gyre]

Good story so far.

[LeChatNoir]

I’ve said before that I love the stories this thread is teasing out. And I could keep saying it and mean it. But that simple statement really doesn’t convey the emotion of what I’m trying to say with it.

I approach art with a slightly different take than a lot of folks I’ve encountered who were university trained. They (and I know I’m stereotyping here, but…) they are taught to take an emotion and try to express it with their chosen medium. I often come at it from the other direction. I think that we are drawn to make something for a reason, and that latching on to an emotion can sometimes be putting the cart before the horse. So I’ll take off and start making something and later try and flesh out the meanings behind it… try to understand the emotions encoded within the lines and textures.

And The Contraption is a good example of that. I had a vague understanding of the form, and a vague understanding of the feelings that were driving me to create in this way. But it was sort of like seeing something six inches down in murky water and realizing that it was just the tip of something bigger.

And unjon… your story… I cannot express enough how important it was or me to read that, because it strikes at the very heart of this art piece/invention/thing that is evolving here. Behind each of those pieces of equipment are similar stories. And like yours, not always carefree. Life is hard and it was physically harder on a larger scale when this equipment facilitated a days work. All these stories are engrained within these things. And along I come, stumbling into them so that I may assemble something from what remains. So I take these rusty metal pages from a book now gone and weave them together with new stories. Stories of what it means to be alive right now and all the effort it took to just make it here.

It's beginning to seem that this porject is about struggle and beauty on multiple levels…

It’s about what it means to be an individual.

The farmer who prepped the fields for planting.
The morning sun on your face at the start of a day

Its about family struggles

The harvest and communal effort it required.
Feeding a husband and children first and eating what they don’t when they’re not watching because its simply all that was left.

Its about American struggles

The vastness of this land and the desire to dig into the earth and make a life.
The dust bowl and the bringing of unions to the coal mines of Appalachia.

It about human struggles.

The fact that the effort to simply live transcends any imaginary border or line on a map, or group of people.




And these things, as romantic, as they might sometimes seem, are not without their darker sides.

One of the key pieces of equipment of The Contraption is a tobacco setter. And I feel that the abuse of that plant has led to many problems for many people.

That rock drill that forms the tiller is at the root of why I will never see the valley from some of the high rock points that I used to climb as a child, because the do not exist any more. They’ve been destroyed and pushed into the streams so that I may turn on the lights at night or post this message.

And that farmer who exists in the mist of my mind owed his ability to have a field to tend, not only to the fact that Native Americans were violently expelled from it, but also the idea that such a temporary creature as Man can own something that was here millions of years before him.

Its all about dichotomies, hypocrisies, and juxtapositions. And it seems to me, that's what it is to be alive. Balancing those things. And sharing words about the human condition shows that and validates it.

So you see? The stories told here are very important to me. They help me try and understand why I’m doing this project in the first place. I’m still not sure, really… Not yet putting my finger on it… but I know I appreciate each word.

And I encourage anyone else who wishes to share, to please do so because you're really helping me here. And all those stories will be woven into this machine and make it even more interactive.

Ok... I GOT to get back to work now.

[Bin Noddin]

You're building an American time machine, LeCat.
Here's why I like blacksmiths: Until I was 11 we lived in a rural part of Israel where horses and mules were still commonly used to plow and haul cargo. Every place had a smithy, usually at the edge of town by itself. Our father's rule was that if the sun was shining and our homework was done, we had to be out of the house. So we always roamed pretty far. One day we came out of some unfamiliar woods to a clearing where there was a smithy. The old smith, built like an oak barrel, was outside with his three tall sons, all in their leather aprons, taking a smoke break. When they saw the three of us, the smith asked "what's this coming out of the woods?" One of his boys answered "I think its little rubber balls." So they grabbed us and started playing catch, throwing us from one fellow to another, yelling "little rubber balls! little rubber balls!" and laughing their heads off.

[gaminwench]

unjon, sounds like you've got a serious autobiography in there...

[robotland]

I approach art with a slightly different take than a lot of folks I’ve encountered who were university trained. They (and I know I’m stereotyping here, but…) they are taught to take an emotion and try to express it with their chosen medium. I often come at it from the other direction. I think that we are drawn to make something for a reason, and that latching on to an emotion can sometimes be putting the cart before the horse. So I’ll take off and start making something and later try and flesh out the meanings behind it… try to understand the emotions encoded within the lines and textures.

Having worked all around that world, I'd say your assessment's just about right. And when you work that way, a LOT of things start to look VERY similar and new, unusual and remarkable art becomes rarified. That's one reason that I fell so hard for this little camping trip that we all go on.
Often, those in the frou-frou gallery community mock and belittle the makers, the gadgeteers, and the eccentric putterers because they envy that those fringe-folk actually possess the skills to create things...I have nothing but contempt for the "conceptual artist" that can draw up a lovely blueprint for some grand vision or another but either can't or won't swing a hammer, invest a mold, carve a log, wire a circuit or whatever else the REAL work requires. REAL art comes from having dedicated the necessary time to truly, really understanding the materials and processes. And then, when you just start fitting parts together, you're NOT just spitballing. On some level, you know EXACTLY what you're doing. And it shows.
Tonight I go to inspect the big Spring Gallery Hop in nearby Kalamazoo- (Don't laugh- There are LOTS of artists in these parts-) But most of what I expect to see will be derivative, moody, poorly executed flatwork. There are a few exceptions, including some of what comes out of the Smartshop (our poor cousin to SF's Crucible), but for the most part it's meager fare. The conservatism of the region does play a part, though. Every once in a while something crazy happens, like ? And The Mysterians playing at the local microbrewery or a strange visitation of illuminated spacemen downtown...but hardly often enough. I get my Real Art Fix once a year, after a 2000-mile drive.

So I take these rusty metal pages from a book now gone and weave them together with new stories. Stories of what it means to be alive right now and all the effort it took to just make it here.

.

I'm getting a weird idea for a literal interpretation of that concept...Rusty steel pages with hand-stamped text, the whole book perched atop a flaming forge so that fire-protection gear is necessary to read it.....hmmmmm....Yah, ANOTHER project!

[LeChatNoir]

I approach art with a slightly different take than a lot of folks I’ve encountered who were university trained. They (and I know I’m stereotyping here, but…) they are taught to take an emotion and try to express it with their chosen medium. I often come at it from the other direction. I think that we are drawn to make something for a reason, and that latching on to an emotion can sometimes be putting the cart before the horse. So I’ll take off and start making something and later try and flesh out the meanings behind it… try to understand the emotions encoded within the lines and textures.

Having worked all around that world, I'd say your assessment's just about right. And when you work that way, a LOT of things start to look VERY similar and new, unusual and remarkable art becomes rarified. That's one reason that I fell so hard for this little camping trip that we all go on.
Often, those in the frou-frou gallery community mock and belittle the makers, the gadgeteers, and the eccentric putterers because they envy that those fringe-folk actually possess the skills to create things...I have nothing but contempt for the "conceptual artist" that can draw up a lovely blueprint for some grand vision or another but either can't or won't swing a hammer, invest a mold, carve a log, wire a circuit or whatever else the REAL work requires. REAL art comes from having dedicated the necessary time to truly, really understanding the materials and processes. And then, when you just start fitting parts together, you're NOT just spitballing. On some level, you know EXACTLY what you're doing. And it shows.
Tonight I go to inspect the big Spring Gallery Hop in nearby Kalamazoo- (Don't laugh- There are LOTS of artists in these parts-) But most of what I expect to see will be derivative, moody, poorly executed flatwork. There are a few exceptions, including some of what comes out of the Smartshop (our poor cousin to SF's Crucible), but for the most part it's meager fare. The conservatism of the region does play a part, though. Every once in a while something crazy happens, like ? And The Mysterians playing at the local microbrewery or a strange visitation of illuminated spacemen downtown...but hardly often enough. I get my Real Art Fix once a year, after a 2000-mile drive.

So I take these rusty metal pages from a book now gone and weave them together with new stories. Stories of what it means to be alive right now and all the effort it took to just make it here.

.

I'm getting a weird idea for a literal interpretation of that concept...Rusty steel pages with hand-stamped text, the whole book perched atop a flaming forge so that fire-protection gear is necessary to read it.....hmmmmm....Yah, ANOTHER project!

I freakin' love it.

[gyre]

Here's an art car approach for those of us without a metal shop.

http://filer.case.edu/~jsh28/drew/bodykit.html

[unjonharley]

Hay hay,, Hope some one got a little work done this weekend.. I sure didn't.. Went to an alternative fuel picnic/race..There were full size models to make bio diesel and methane.. All kinds of electric bikes.. Even a motocross that was hitting 42 on the home strech.. A screaming hot electric skate board.. All the different elecitic cars, trucks and SUVs..

I was getting mobed every few yards.. I was on my Zappy3.. It was the only one there..So i just put on show and tells.. The crowd was way into alternative..


Story: My father in law (John) as a child rode with his mother on the cattle drives.. She was the cook/chuck.. While his father was a cowhand on the drive.. Each morning John's mother would get up in the wee hours and have breakfast ready.. Then the drover would tell her where he wanted to set camp that evening.. She would pack up and head out in a 1920's Chevy and set up for the evening meal..Not no roads..

Yestrday John told me this story: The wooden wagon wheel is so important to the cowboy.. When he is young he pee's behind the wheel.. So it don't splash back on him.. As a young adult he pees through the spooks.. Again so it wont splash on him.. AS an old man he hangs it on a spook and pee's.. So the pee wont run down into his shoe..