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Son in law has a 2004 Duramax four door 4X4 dually. He wants a brush guard. I presented him with an idea last night. He looked back at me like I'd stepped in something and we were on his carpet. Imagine this. Four inch pipe wrap around bumper. Then instead of using smaller pipe to...

Seven or so years ago I built a dump trailer for some buds. It all started when an old boy had a seventy something chevy one ton frame drug in with an eight by twelve steel flat bed dump on it. He wanted me to put the dump bed on a truck he was yet to buy. He did construction site clean ups...

Why that thread up in "do it yourself" I've got going on the outbuilding is getting so many views. Since yesterday afternoon it seems to me it's pushing twelve hundred views. Isn't that a little high?

I do things a little different from most folks most times. One of those things is the way I build an out building. This particular project is a twenty four by twenty four foot horse barn whatever. The principles are the same whether the building is a garage, a barn, a shed, whatever. Here's...

I\'ll bet Ibrahim did it I have to login each time. There have been a couple of computer crashes for me and each time there were passwords I'd forgotten. That made things difficult getting back online and conversing. So now I reject auto recognition and do the manual login. Memory excerise...

That's the guy driving this rig on Interstate thirty through Garland when........

Yesterday I went to a bud's granite shop and picked up a rock for a table. Yesterday I also picked up over a hundred feet of one inch schedule forty pipe. Today between showers I'm going to hopefully start forging the pipe into shape for a small table and two stools. The rock not only has...

A good rock auger is expensive, very expensive. So I try to buy components and then assemble it myself. Retail on this kind of auger usually runs about twelve to sixteen hundred dollars. Buying from the manufacturer but at an individual's price will run eight to nine hundred. Buying through...

I've been making these for almost twenty years. They're simple most of time to make. Easy to lock. And if they're made right, relatively horse resistant.

Okeedon and help me out here. I got a call this morning to meet with a restaurant--country club manager about a cooker. Supposedly they've bought a killer grill. And they want it mobile, unique, and western killer style. Something about wanting to be able to cook in the restaurant, or on the...

I know we have a shiskeepotfull of forums. And each has it's own wonderful purpose. But I'd like to see one more, a product review of related stuff we use. I bought a pair of Fiskar post hole diggers the other day at a box store. They were cute, nice curves, good feel, I'm easy. I'd like to...

There's some close ups of them in "photos". But they're just some holes cut in three quarter bar stock with an offset ring welded in. When you slide them over a pipe post and lift with a chain it all comes up.

Here's a matched pair

I visit and post on four or five forums reguarly. This is without a doubt the most user friendly and friendly for the users one out there. Last night I did a just before bedtime check of the forums and noticed a recent post that was a personal attack. It was a newbie so I didn't notify the...

it should go

Well, close. We've got two power poles left from an old service feed on a bud's place. So Iris and me decided to pull them and then put one down by the pond. First I put the sixteen auger on Iris and dug holes besides the poles and then one down at the pond. A little perspective.

Yesterday I got to play for a minute on a new Cat 416 backhoe loader. Joy stick backhoe controls, tighter'n Dick's hatband, and turbo, love the sound and power of that turbo. She was a delight. And I'll bet a the hole against the donut that I find an excuse to take her out on a "date".

Yup, watched Monster House one time too many. I sent them an email application along with a picture. If the application doesn't make them run and hide, the picture will. It would be fun. But I doubt I'm their kind of fish to fry. I don't always play well with others. But I will do most...

This subject comes up often. I do a lot of it. These observations are my own and this is only the way I do it. I have my reasons for just about every part of the process. Some of those reasons might or might not be important to anyone else. From a professional's point of view I like the...

Here's the situation. Customer has came up with the idea that when the new house is finished he doesn't want anyone laying another trench across the place. So we're building in a cabinet out near the gate that will be the access point for the telco, cable tv, etc. It will also be where the...

Into every life a little sunshine breaks through now and then. At 6:49 pm CST we were almost blinded by an explosion of light.

Yeah, I know ya'll ain't into that but............... sometimes..... Customer points out to me the pole barn is history. Twenty four by thirty six with a galvanized tin covering and waterproof from umpteen coats of paint. I mention it to a bud. A deal is made. Free for the taking. So...

We put up six hundred foot of five foot nonclimb yesterday for a quickie fence. Bud just picked up eight acres and needs a corral to hold the ponies (eighteen hands) and goats while he builds his fence. We dug eighteen inch holes six to seven feet deep and put in telephone poles for corners...

Some time ago I needed a wagon. So I went to TSC and picked up some of their cheapo wheels. I decided to go with four wheel steer, easy way. Four wheel steer lets you hang a ninety degree turn, literally. The rear wheels will follow in t he path of the front ones. Simple to do.

Some reason I like spring at Harvey\'s House Texas This one only gives me about six blooms a year. But each one is so special.

I have to pull posts probably a little more often than most folks on this forum. Being a little lazy and really not interested in picking up others and their problems to help me do things I've had to come up with an idea or two. One of the handiest is my post pulling attachment. It's so...

Yup, 625 for the Freightliner, four of them SRT-10's at five hundred a piece and gawd know what that Healey packs. For the inquiring minds those SRT-10's carry a sticker of $54,000.00. Definately all about bragging rights.

This is a project I'm starting. Every now and then I get lucky and get to be involved in a project that's unique or at least a little different. This is one of those. The project involves about two hundred and seventy feet of pipe fence with a gate. There will be an automatic operator of...

A couple of TBN members are working with me on www.harveylacey.com It's already set up and running thanks to Leo. And Ron here in norte tejas is close and willing to help. Leo's got it started but we're wanting space so that we can give each gate it's own story. Sorry, but my gates all have...

http://www.whitecap.net/ This outfit sent me a catalog. They have all the tools. I could drop twenty grand in a heart beat on things I really really really could use. But what got the clock to ticking was their requests for tricked out trucks for a catalog! I think Lucy is going to be...

It seems like it was only a couple of years ago when Brandon's mom and us were laughing about everything on her place being pregnant but her. That was before Brandon. Now he's sixteen. They had a new building put in and want to redo the fence in the area. We decided that since Brandon was...

There are two very serious, make that three, problems with good old used drill stem or casing. First of course is one is never really sure what passed through it and what kind of residue is still about. Saving a couple of bucks might mean poisoning your land. Second is so much of it's heavily...

On occasion I get to take on a project that's challenging enough to be fun. It's a fact of life that when the challenge escalates to a certain point it's no longer work. I guess it's maybe kinda sorta like that silly giggle you get when you're down as far as you can get and life gives you a...

One of the reasons I do what I do the way I do it is for times like today. I got to go back and look at a project that was fun beyond words. Here's something to look at first (the beginning) Then look at the attachment.

Sometimes a man just has to get away from it all and have some fun. Today was one of those days. I took the day off and had some fun at a bud's rock store, er, uh, stone sales yard. We'd talked awhile back about how to make somethings different customers had asked about. I told him I had...

Here's some pics of the finished V Mesh fence in Parker Texas. We didn't want to get too crazy with the gate. So I did a little dressage silhouette in a rolled piece of quarter by three bar stock.

Comcast had an installer ring my bell last Tuesday a little after nine pm wanting to install digital boxes on my televisions. I'm sure he left with the opinion that a old bear is one thing you don't want to wake up. Then last night on my way home after a hard day my cell rings and there's...

I need you to post a picture or two of your Belltec auger you've been using. I've got about two hundred and fifty holes to dig in limestone. I dug about thirty five or so the other day and found out a couple of things. The most important was this monster of a bit that I'd assumed would kick...

I've got a deal for you. For about six months I've been working on a couple of different things. One of them is a way for the less experienced but just as energetic homeowner to do their own pipe fence. I had a great idea. It was wonderfulemousosis. Then a bud had a better idea. Here's...

New Year\'s Day traditions We have one. Dinner must have cooked cabbage, cornbread, blackeyed peas and pork. I think it's a southern thing. But my wife's a little cajun so she always adds Extra Hot Rotel to the peas and sausage. That makes it a real southern thing. How about ya'll...

I don't know if any of you are planning on Santa bringing you a cordless drill or cordless tool combo pack in about ten days. But if you are I was reading the fine print on Home Depot's ad on their new Rigid line the other day. They are offering free battery packs for life on sets sold until...

It\'s the little things I\'m thankfull for.... They say the difference between a man and a boy is the toys. Well, I'm still a kid.

Yup, don't look like much here though. Bud wants a twelve by twenty one three sided shed for his horses to be able to get out of the weather. Here in north Texas we have a lot of rain and even more clay. A shed for two horses will become a bog in no time at all. So bud asked me if we could...

Check out this elevator!

What\'s this world coming to? One of my pet stops every morning (after TBN of course) is NASCAR.com. I can't believe this. flakes in my world I guess that's what you get when you get a wannabe-movie-star-because-daddy-is-a-cookie-cutter-house-builder to invest in a NASCAR truck team. It's...

An attorney friend was trying to explain patents to me. The way he put it was along the line of skinning cats. There are lots of ways to skin a cat. If you have a unique and innovative way it's patentable. These are not patentable ways of fitting pipe. I have a Vogel pipe notcher that...

When I built the new truck I put on a new Tekonsa Sentinel brake controller. It puked. I've noticed that sometimes with a trailer on the gain lights wouldn't work. But the brakes were working. And sometimes the monitor light wouldn't come on like it used to when I hit the truck brakes...

Last year I told the story here about the little kid playing with the plastic pipe and some sticks while I was welding up some fence at the high school. Little round fella about seven years old doing some interesting stuff while his brother and their parents were fixing up the old kid's pig...

Yup, Lucy, Miss Glenda, and me are pulling out of here Monday for points west. We're heading for Arizona where I was born and mostly raised. I'm taking along a bunch of samples of some products we're wanting to peddle to the steel suppliers. We'll hit them as we go through and leave some...

One of the advantages of having a welding machine is every now and then you need something now when only a something will do. It's a ............

Bud bought a new piece of commercial property for a satellite yard for their business. It needed a fence across the front. He decided he wanted a forty foot double gate. Problem was there was an old circular drive and he wanted the gate in the middle. He asked me to put in the new culvert...

I need a little help here guys. A bud has the above tractor without a FEL that is cleaner than a whistle, runs like a top. What would be a fair market price? I know, a man can't have too many tractors. Thanx, harv

Some questions for TBN\'rs in Texas, OK, etc The other day while visiting a fellow tbn'r here in norte tejas the subject of a loafing shed came up. I told him that I would think about helping him lay out a do it yourselfer. That conversation initiated an evolution process. I'm to the point...

Iris, my tractor, is quite a lady. Here's one of my attachments I've made for her. Can you guess what it is?

Actually because of the rain I went to the shop and made something I've needed for awhile. Can you guess what it is?

Lucy\'s tail of \"whoa\" poor girl

I just had another adventure with the utility locate gawds, fickle things. The number one rule to remember when dealing with buried utilities is that you are guilty and will never be proven innocent. If there's a doubt in your mind consider all the bad things that have happened recently in...

One of the regular haunts I hit at least weekly is http://www.vietvet.org/army216.htm For the Nam vet it's an interesting cruise. For the human nature fan it's a very revealing place. For the father of a daughter it's a window into just how important a father is to a daughter. Some of the...

The end of the month, 30, 31, and the first of June will be Ironfest in Grapevine, Texas. Bird you'd better show up. I would tell you that I'd be easy to identify, nice looking portly guy with a beard, but about half the guys there will fit that description if it's anything like two years ago...

I live in a subdivision surrounded by country. The goats and chickens are less than a half mile away at the shop. But the area is growing, I mean growing. We got a new neighbor this week. The old neighbor was a neat guy who did great bodywork. We did some trading and got along just fine...

One of the problems I have in life is some customers just turn me loose to make their dream come to life sorta kinda. It is fun, usually complicated, and always evolving. This is an example. Customer had a six thousand square foot metal building made. I had nothing to do with the original...

The other day my steel supplier referred me to an old boy way out in the country as maybe a source that could do me good. I was looking for someone to break me some three sixteenth's plate. My bud warned me that I should had oughta be careful. "James is a little like you" was the way he put...

It's not so much of a problem of whom but of what. First there's Scrapper, the rooster. His problem is he's convinced he's the boss and I'm here to entertain him. Yesterday would be a great example. I came home early from the job in the country. When I got out of the truck at the shop to...

Have you ever used a set of manual post hole diggers and found it very frustrating when the hole is deeper than two feet and you can't get them to close because the handles hit the sides of the hole? I look at manual post hole diggers different from ya'll. If the digging isn't super hard I...

And tractors were tractors

Today I had some real fun pulling cedar posts, just limbs put in the ground many years ago that had barbwire and field fence nailed to them. The old boy next door to where I'm working let me know them posts were in there forever and wished me luck. I explained I had a trick up my sleeve and I...

A couple of years ago a company gave me an auger that they no longer needed. It had originally been a twelve inch with a Pengo head for a Bobcat two and nine sixteenths round coupler. Some sorry son of a southern siberian sheep chaser had used the auger to the point where it was now a ten...

Professional fence men have been mixing good concrete for decades and decades out of a wheelbarrow. A decent crew, foreman and helper, can lay out, dig, and set sixty to eighty posts in a day if the digging isn't horrible. That equates to about two to three yards of sand and gravel mixed with...

I happen to love old things that serve a purpose. Of course anything to do with gates really gets my attention. Johnny will be ninety this year. He's a little hard of hearing. Heck, he's a little hard of head too. Here are some examples of the treasures I'm finding on the old place...

I got a start on making a pad for a new building. We're pulling in about three hundred cubic yards of material from the berm of a drainage ditch. Of course we thought a bud's beater dump truck would make more sense than repeated loads with the loader backhoe. Then the dump truck got stuck......

lovin\' can be boring Here's two hundred pounds plus ridin' for grins

I thought ya'll might want to see <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.hendrensfarmtoys.com/>this</A> Scroll down to the bottom of the page and drewl, drule, and drool

Not even two thousand on her and she got stucker'n, well, she got stuck.

You know a tractor's work is never done. I've been working on Lucy this last week. Iris decided to help, nest instinct at work I guess....... And you thought I named her Iris because she was so cute and a little heavy in the backside..........

Tuesday morning a bud took me to the dealer and I picked up Lucy. Then Tuesday afternoon I went with another bud and visited his factory and laid out where I'm going to put in about a thousand to twelve hundred feet of ornamental fence. It was a full day. I'd left Lucy at the shop and taken...

I have a question for you. Would it be okay to take my digital camera and do a walk through of my bud's factory? They make lawn edgers, the old fashioned gas powered walk behinds. What blows me away about the place and I suspect what might interest my cyber buds here is how they make all the...

These are like the ones that ate my grandpa's fingers. Notice the one on the left has the guard and the cradle....

and today we think a six horse mower is a minimum

I found this in Hillsboro New Mexico

I found this in Camp Verde Arizona about five years ago. I thought I'd share it with ya'll to figure out just exactly what it is. It'll never be mine. But we do have a kindred spirit.

It\'s just a week....... But we're going to enjoy it. In about an hour we're out of here heading west. We're heading west of Phoenix to visit my dad. And then we're going north of there to the Verde Valley where I was born to visit relatives. And then it'll be back to the grind the...

darned if I do, doggoned if I don\'t This is an ethical kind of thingy. This morning I called my shop to see if I had any messages. I've been out of town since Tuesday morning early early. And so I thought maybe I had shoulda oughta touch base. Of course the shop is where solicitors and...

It's sorta funny how it all works. You take a look at a truck and she just tugs hard at the old heart like it had strings, lots of them. My dealer has <A target="_blank" HREF=http://adcache.trucktraderonline.com/4/7/0/34427770.htm>one of these</A>. The first time I laid eyes on her "Lucy"...

Boy I bet that's got the woodwork shaking. Here's the sitchyation. My tractor's a JCB165HF. I call her Iris cause, well, my grandma on my mama's side was called Iris. She's a skid steer sorta like a Bobcat if someone capable of thinking out of the box had designed her. The problem with...

A father has his moments. Today was one

Last night at a shindig I got to talk to a nice young man who'd once worked for me a couple of weeks. He'd just graduated college and was waiting for a job to start and being friend of a friend he came to work for me. One of those help him out while helping me out kind of things we get into...

If you look closely at the photo in the article you will see the individual sitting in the middle. This happened because someone closed the gate and didn't put in the supporting posts that hold it in place. <A target="_blank"...

Since we've been having so much fun with some of the discussions I thought I'd add a favorite topic I have for discussion. Is there this thing called "evil" and is it a force in nature? And is it, evil, balanced out by this other force of nature called "good"? I'll start this subject off with...

Some time back Don (centex) designed a trick weight thingy for his three point post hole digger. It has kept me thinking. I think I've figured out how I'm going to do the one for my JCB skid steer. The quick attach plate allows the auger motor to hand down with two pivots integrated so that...

I've been working some long hard ones. You know the kind. You hit the motel and your tail is tucked so firmly between your legs you forgot you even have one. Sometime back I came to the realization that the reason I work like that is because I like it. Actually I love it. It kills me and...

Today as we said our goodbyes I went into the men's room by the lobby. As I stood there looking at the wall mounted urinal I couldn't help but notice and smile at the wet area on the tile floor just below the urinal. It seems we start off as not always being able to hit the target area as...

I\'ve found where the heroes have gone We sat across from a frail old man in a very warm to hot house last evening. He was wearing shorts and slippers. It was hard to communicate because his hearing is almost totally gone. A neat as a pin house in a neat as a pin neighborhood in Ardmore OK...

For years now I've thought what would make a trick single axle dump trailer would be to use chains and reverse instead of hydraulics. Think about this if you've considered having a small trailer that could dump on it's own with minimum fuss and without hydraulics. To dump it you pull the...

My Miller Trailblazer with it's twenty horse Onan engine has got the punys, big time bad. It's blowing oil up into the breather which gets into the carb and into the fuel oil mixture. It only has less than eight hundred hours on the machine. I thought I had it figured out but that ain't...

I got my new welder. It weighs dry two hundred and seventy pounds. Then you add a hundred and sixty for the bottle of gas. Plus forty four for the wire. Heavy in a nutshell. And you see there's this problem. Shop's for storing tools not working with them. The work area is full of projects...

I found this while surfing my passion and thought of <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.metalsmith.org/gall/marciamc/johndeer-chairs.jpg>you</A> and your passion.

Yup, you read right. I'm sitting here at this puter instead of being down at the shop over a little hen peck. You see I've got thirteen chickens down at the shop. And three goats. Seven are roosters and six are hens, not a good combination but I've done butchered twenty two and that's it...

This is long story or I expect it will be. So if you're not into stories scroll on I'd say. In my youth I wanted to drive a street stock at the local dirt track. One of those things boys like to do I suppose. So I spent all the money on a 67 camaro with a three twenty seven and an old slip...

This is something I came up with cause I'm probably lazier than the average bear and like to take things the easy way. Look at it close before you skip to the next post. Check out what it's made of and figure out if you know what it's for. If you guess correctly wregular harv promised me...

well, actually Ron F. is at work.

My wife\'s pot garden.... I figured some of ya'll might be interested........

Since the other thread was getting off on welding, a great and noble subject close and dear to my heart, I decided to start a new thread back on the original subject. This is the ultimate simple bending jig for half inch and three quarter inch square tubing. It consists of a piece of four inch...

Awhile back I built myself a backhoe attachment for my JCB165HF. Just for grins kind of thing to do. But after I finished it and found out just how great it was I felt like it might be something I could make and sell. Most of the folks that've seen it in action have been friends. Heck...

If there's an interest I can maybe do a little photo-tell on how to make your own square tubing bender. The benefit of using of bent square tubing versus round tubing is that you can attach braces and covering material to it so easily. Then you can fab up that rack for the four wheeler or...

In late January or early February TSC had a sale on chickens. So I bought some dominckers, reds and a red dot cause it was the only one. Then a bud came by and told me that TSC had the remainders of that bunch on sale three for a dollar. I called another bud and he picked up the last twenty...

By now you think I probably spend all my time at the puter. You figured wrong, er, not correctly maybe. But I do have fun, more fun than the average bear I guaroantee. This is Iris and me moving a little table around. Check out her back wheels. You've heard "light in the britches?" BTW the...

This gate is at my local steel supplier around the corner from the shop. They're a part of Eagle Steel. They wanted a gate but cheap and they'd supply all the materials. The problem with doing cheap is you don't want it to look cheap. Sorta funny how that works. You can charge the bedevil...

I don't do much of that. Just no call for it around here I guess. But the other night I was thinking, character flaw. But if I was in a situation where I had to pull a lot of stumps I think I'd try something. Using a FEL works. But using it at or just beyond reasonalble capacity shortens...

Awhile back a bud with a medium sized Kubota wanted to find a way to use his front end loader to move the trailers around the place. He didn't want to cut a hole in the bucket for a ball so he hit me up for ideas. At the time I didn't have any, doesn't happen often, but then it did. But after...

I thought ya'll might like what my little JCB165HF can do when she sets her mind to it. I've had her a year and she's pushing a hundred and seventy hours, gonna wear her out before I die. If you go to http://photos.yahoo.com/wroughtnharv and look down to the album called Iris you might see...

The alternative to having a mixer on my JCB165HF was to make a concrete dispensing bucket. All it cost was a days labor and about fifty bucks for a four by eight sheet of new three sixteenths plate. I have a nine cu ft Stone mixer. The bucket holds twice that. I decided I didn't want to have...