Who else likes rocks?

[karmakanic]

MJB,

Man, that's a heck of a rock. I wonder how much it weighs,,,75 tons?

Looks like they loaded it in the center of the bed and it fell over taking the turn,,,musta ruined somebody's day.

Dave

 

[karmakanic]

"I like rocks too, but isn't it easier to move your house to the rocks than the rocks to your house?"


Wellllll,,,,after we spent two years clearing the honey locust and ceders from the place, the wife said she'd shoot me if I ever talked about moving.

And we do have one thing on our rockless plot a lot of places around us don't have. A stand of native oaks, some 100-150 years old, which is what drew us to it in the beginning.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Morning Dave, funny you should ask./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Yesterday just after lunch my phone rang in the shop. Ninety nine point nine percent of the calls on the shop phone are solicitors. I answered with my usual blow them out of the saddle to see while they're falling the color of their panties "hello". I don't why but a sharp and excited sounding "hello" just seems to set them back for a minute and then I'm the one in control of the conversation.

Nice female voice hesitantly asked if I was Mr Lacey, Harvey Lacey. I affirmed I was as I mentally sharpened the old smart butt reply knife and readied myself for the first parry.

She explained she was an interior designer from Dallas and was in the area asked if it was all right for her to drop in and visit with me. She had been told I was an artist and she'd like to see just what I did and how I did it.

Now I don't know about you but when folks start thinking I'm an artist I know they've got me confused with someone else. So as nicely as I could I explained to her that I wasn't an artist like you think of an artist. I was just a hairy old man that made things and had more fun than the law usually allowed doing it.

She said she understood and appreciated my position. She didn't really like folks to put her into a box either.

I started laughing and told her that if anyone ever tried to put me into a box that it would have to be one without corners and gave her directions to the place.

Shortly later one of them Mercedes SUVs showed up. This mature lady dressed to the nines got out. I introduced myself and explained that she needed to be very careful around the shop. The mess wasn't actually a mess but a planned attack against potentials intruders. This way the good stuff was hidden amongst the not as good stuff and almost impossible to find. All the sharp pointed stuff wasn't hazards but weapons of self defense against burglers. And they worked real good too. I haven't been burglerized ever.

She just stood there like a five year old looking at the gates to Disney World. It seems she'd been raised in a little frame house next door to a shop a lot like mine. And stepping in meant stepping back and being with her dad.

It took me over an hour to give her the tour. When she first stepped out of the Mercedes I figured the way she was dressed it would be a short and final meeting. But instead we've got a committment for me to come up with some concepts for some tables for a hotel.

Therein lies the ties to your bent pipe. She wants something unusual. I pointed to a piece of two and three eighths that's been around and up. She loved it. I then showed her my old anvil stand that's made with two and three eighths that's hammered and fullered and at the first glance looks like hand carved wood posts.

I have a Hossfield number two bender with the hydraulic kit. If a real weldor can glue anything but the crack of dawn and a broken heart the Hossfield can form or straighten out as needed a rainbow.

Rob Gunter of Sandia Labs fame uses the forge to bend pipe. I saw him do it in a demostration just this year. It blew my mind and gave me a whole new avenue to play on.

Since this hotel is in an old oil boom town in central Tejas I'm thinking of making the tables out of two and three eighths black pipe. In my mind there's this contorted image of two pieces of pipe wound like a little spring together. There will be a pair of these at each end to support the granite top.

I figure I can do it by filling the pipe with sand blasting sand, not silica! Then putting it in the propane forge with the thirty two inch long cavity. And then wrapping the pipe hot around a die I'll make. If I'm lucky I'll only have three of for incredible edibles working out the glitzes before I start having product.

I love the idea of putting the metal accents on the rocks!

BTW my wife just howled at your post. She relates to the part about discression being hand in hand with better judgement. She can relate to that just fine thank you. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I've got a large Harley decal a bud gave me. He's got this magificent boulder in front of his place outside of Denton he brought in from west Tejas. While looking at the rock one day I'd mentioned it would a perfect frame for holding a hand tooled aluminum set of Harley wings with his house number on it.

Now every time he visits I see him looking around to see if I've started it yet. That's another thing I'm thinking I'd really like to get into doing. Working steel and aluminum the same way other folks work leather. Of course I'll have to make my own chisels. But then that's just another fun project I'll have to do so I can do the other fun project.

You see if you work it right it's all fun!/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

The lady yesterday noticed an incredible edible piece of granite from my etching a photograph on granite with sand blaster and asked about it. Now I'll be the first to admit she was in a weakened mind state, place reminding her of her dad and all. But when I started telling her about the process she got a little glassy eyed and told me about a picture she had of her father in his shop with his welding hood on his head flipped back like he'd just finished a weld. She wants to get it to me to see if I can do it in granite.

That process isn't as easy as it sounds. The first thing is since you really don't have the spectrum of greys you do with ink one must manipulate the image. That involves a little more artistic talent than I have. But I do try and occasionally I'll get lucky.

It would be a nice thing to do and fun too. When you add into the mix different I'm interested.

Yesterday was the first day I really got to use my fifty pound Little Giant. I've found myself a brand new world to play in.

 

[riptides]

Neat rocks, there is only one thing worse.....
A gazillion small ones. Quartz hill farms is what we ought to call this place. The greyish, white hazy line in the pics are the problem. They range in size from annoying to tripping. Been raking and picking by hand. Any ideas?

-Mike Z.

 

[MJones]

I really like rocks, but I prefer to have them in masonry like in this wall my father-in-law and myself started at his house last weekend in the photo attached.

 

[MJones]

Here is another picture showing the length of the wall after completion and the rock we are using to build the wall.

 

[pajoube]

Very nice job, you guys sure know what you are doing. Did you have the rocks available in your area or did you have to purchase and haul in?
PJ

 

[karmakanic]

"Any ideas?"

Hmmm,,,
maybe put up a sign "Acient Indian battleground,,,$10.00 for all the arrowheads you can carry"

The tourists oughta lap it up.*G*

 

[karmakanic]

MJones,

That's a great looking retaining wall. Really nice fitting work.
I didn't see a chipping hammer laying around. Surely you've got one hidden away. I can't believe you've got the rocks fitting so closely without a little persuation.

Dave

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Michael I love your work. The problem we have with that method of construction here in norte Tejas is our soils moves, and moves, and moves. The clay moves as it dries or absorbs moisture.

So when I do a wall like that here I always first pour a reinforced concrete wall then the rock is put up as a decorative surface. Of course in other kinds of soil this is not required.

What are you paying for your stone? Couple of hundred a ton?