Hidden treasures - Before & After the Fire

Had a split with a buried screw. As noted in "The Gear" the screw showed where it abused the landscapers chain. Expected to find a loop or hook of some sort.


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This is what I found in the stove this morning...


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Gotta be careful with those urban scrounges.

KaptJaq

That's a big piece.

Week before last my kids called me down to come look at the cool green and blue flames in fireplace. It was pretty impressive. I told the kids there must be a piece of copper wire (found it in the ashes later) that was in one of the splits. Gave them a brief chemistry lesson and now my 7 and 9 yo. boys want to toss all kinds of stuff in there to see what colors show up. Gonna have to watch them like a hawk.

These are the same boys that saw a demonstration of a cannon fire and later told me that they wanted to build one. According to them all we needed were matches and a big bag of gunpowder. I did not ask what we were going to use for the cannon.

Be careful, kids are quite resourceful. I remember taking apart .22 bullets with a vice and pliers to get the gun powder out when I was around that age. I don't remember why I was doing it, or what I did with the gun powder. I just look back and shudder a bit, and say a quick thanks to God that I'm still alive

LOL! I also remember doing the same thing. And unforetunitely, I DO remember what I did with the gunpowder, and don't care to repeat it!

Could always make a potato cannon with some PVC pipe & hairspray... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spud_gun

KaptJaq

Those things are fun, dad built us one when we were young. Would put a potato through a sheet of OSB!

Noted! But.....

I'm working on quite the cache of nails and screws out of my firewood when I clean out the stove......I've decided to make a chain out of them and each year by heating the nails/screws up in the forge, pounding them square, and making links out of them. I'll then tack weld the seam together.....each year, I'll add that seasons' accumulated 'links' to it. Someday when I get time........

Haha! The closest we have come so far is blowing the lids off of used Pringles cans. They enjoy it because I do it in the house. Mom hates it.

1. Empty out a can of Pringles. (Snacks!)
2. Poke a hole in the side of the can with a pencil just above the bottom.
3. Pour a capful of rubbing alcohol into the top of the can.
4. Put the lid on and shake the can for a few seconds.
5. Place a lit match near the hole your made in step 2. (Keep your hand to the side of the hole and head away from the top of the can.
6. Boom!
7. Lather, rinse, repeat until the rolled paper edge of the can top starts to fail. (I miss the older style cans that had the metal lids.

how much melted plastic?

Gona have to try that now

Cool find Kaptjaq

I put hardware in the stove to "antique" them a little for wood projects. This is a set of brass-plated steel pieces sitting in the coal bed right now that will be rustic hinges. The heat removes any plating and varnish and makes them all sexy looking when done.

Any "after" pics?

Found an eye bolt in my last cleanout. It was wood I had processed so I guess I got lucky to not hit while cutting. Willow tree that landed on my house after sandy had a few in it. The crew working on it had some rather choice words after finding one buried the hard way.

They will be in the stove all night, I just reloaded it. I put some solid brass pieces in the corner of the firebox for another project.

I knew this hobby and site were a thinly veiled cover for pyros!

We used to get the powder out of model rocket "engines" and light them on fire, until I burned a good amount of skin off of my right hand... Luckily it healed well and you'd never know.

Very cool find in the wood, so far I've found 1 nail but I don't really spend a lot of time going through the ashes or anything...

You should see what you find in coffee going into and coming out of the roaster, tons of metal objects, bullet shells, glass, lots and lots of rocks, coins, cigarette butts, I even found a picture of a little boy once.

We've been playing with one of these golf ball black powder cannon/mortars since last year:
http://www.blackpowder-cannons.com/

Seriously, they're relatively inexpensive and we pick up the golf balls cheap at second hand stores and they're a real blast. I got one like the one at top but built my own metal base.

Top left is the brass plated steel piece. Below it are similar pieces after burning through in the stove overnight. I hammered the pieces on my anvil to distress them beforehand . The pieces on the right are solid brass. They were very shiny out of the package.

The piece of oak they are sitting on is actually part of the project, so the bottom left hardware is the winner to go on the piece, it matches the aged look of the oak. Rustic baby.

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I was going to try and put the neighbors cat in the stove to try and "antique" it.

Whole new meaning to CAT stove!

That'd be the only good place for a cat anyhow!

I second that note, and don't use it anywhere else either. It's not just explosive, it can be extremely unstable. A longtime friend of mine blew out both his eardrums last year and was lucky that the damage was limited to just his ears. He's been doing explosives demonstrations for years, without incident. He was showing how metal salts affect the color of the flame, but acetylene in the presence of metal salts can form unstable acetylides, which can explode spontaneously and ignite the oxyacetylene...

Back on topic, all I've ever found was nails.

TE

I found a wedge that I lost years earlier in a white oak stump. Found it with the chain saw.
That stump and that wedge are a good part of why I don't bother with wedges anymore.