What do you do in your shop just for the fun of it?

[paul cottingham]

I literally will walk into the shop and sit and stare at my tools. Sometimes, a will take one of my old saws or planes (most of them are 1920's and earlier) and just hold the handle. I feel like I am communing with the previous owners. I find it inspiring.

Strangely enough, I'm not usually like this.

[Gary Cunningham]

Anything?
When I go in my shop I always take my ball peen hammer and whack my anvil a few times. It's not woodworking but I like the sound.

I want an anvil. I have no real use for it, but I want one.

[John K Jordan]

I want an anvil. I have no real use for it, but I want one.

I got one from Tractor supply and another one from a friend. I only see a small one at the Tractor Supply web site now but I notice Harbor Freight, Grizzly, and others have inexpensive anvils at about $1+ per pound. I've been looking for one about 200-300 lbs for years now. Very expensive and hard to find locally - I wouldn't want to ship one.

For general pounding I often use the flat spot on a large bench vise. I made a small anvil from a section of railroad rail - it was "fun" to cut out the shape with a torch.

JKJ

[Brian W Smith]

Our 100#'er has an interesting story.

Was in the cabinet biz with a dear old friend for about 10 years back in the 80's.He grew up here in the mnts. of Va in the early 1900's.During the 30's he started a small foundry.One of their products was anvils.He,during WWII,went to Philadelphia to be the head pattern maker for that city's largest war effort foundry,he was THAT good.

The anvil he gave me was a "mis-strike".What's ridiculously funny was when taking pics and posting it on one of the biggest "blacksmith" forums,to the man,each took their turn at condemnation.The salient point,at least to me?...was the history and the idea of keeping products not up to your shop's stds.

We have it on a big maple stump,resting peacefully on our covered loading dock.It gets used enough to warrant the space.

[John Blazy]

Fun? Not always, but several times I have removed the 1st mirror and cover plate on my laser to burn holes in the garage door, and whatever I happen to grab to put in its path to see what will happen. Hopefully I don't get drunk and bored enough to open the garage door.

In my old shop, I used to sweep up overspray dust from the spray booth, open the woodburning stove and throw in a dustpan full just to see the nitrocellulose go up. Pretty cool. Also acetylene bombs. Those are fun in the summer. Find an empty antifreeze jug, fill it with ox/acetylene, then cut off the female end of an old extension cord, strip and tie the wires together, and thread it in a hole in the bottom. Plugging it in is fun. Then that got me to thinking about detonating an acetylene bomb remotely somehow using my Desert Eagle 357 magnum. Filled a paint can with acetylene and a rock, shot it, but no spark to detonate it. So then I heard from one of my redneck buddies how to drill out a hollowpoint, pour in a few grains of black powder, then press-fit a reloading primer into the hole.

Made several, and to prove that I am not crazy, but rather safe, I hand loaded each into the chamber instead of letting them auto-load from the clip.
Every shot worked perfectly on one gallon cans, as long as you hit a rock in the bottom of the can.

So, being the inquisitive guy I am, I scaled up the fun. I made a "det board" from lexan laminated to 3/4" MDF, cut to fit inside a 5 gallon paint bucket, crimped the lid back on, filled it with the ox/acet, taped the hole shut, grabbed my camera, tripod, headsets, bucket and Desert Eagle and by that time the sun had just set.

At that moment one of my buddies stopped by, and I almost said those famous last words "hold my beer and watch this", except I didn't have a beer then.

Explaining my experiment as we are walking into the field, I set up the camera, set Bulb for a time exposure, loaded one the bullets, took aim, and it went off on the first shot.

As we were yelling and high fiving, and my buddies ears are ringing for a few moments . . . then we hear the lid land.

That lid is still hanging on my man-cave wall at home.

[John K Jordan]

...dust ..., open the woodburning stove and throw in a dustpan full...
Also acetylene bombs
....detonating an acetylene bomb remotely...
...famous last words....

Wow, a man after my own heart! Fire, explosions, noise. I still wonder how I survived as a teen and preteen. My problem was hanging out with other guys who were also physics and chem geeks and the collective ideas got more and more exciting.

I still have vivid memories of throwing a shovel full of coal dust into the furnace at about 8 years old. The fireball singed my eyebrows and hair and almost set the house on fire. My mother put my chemistry set in the closet after an entertaining incident with potassium permanganate and glycern.

We did things all the time that would call down the homey security these days. Ever try building a fire around a propane cylinder than shooting a hole through the side of the tank? E-cord and dynamite cap? good fun. Wrap strapping tape 1/2" thick for around a big Christmas ornament full of black powder and detonate under water? The pressure buildup and the geyser is impressive. Homemade nitroglycerin? How about a pit filled with as many liquid and gas flammables as could be scrounged and set off with a dynamite cap? Amazing fireball. Liquid fuel rocket engine? Homemade brass cannons?

My remote detonation was tossing a home-made glass hand grenade over the hill behind the house - fill with powder, put a potassium nitrate fuse in an oversized hole in the lid, light and throw. Throw too soon and it just breaks on the rocks. Throw too late and it takes your hand off. (I did split a finger once but it was with an entirely different device.)

How did we live through this?

A friend of mine in California took his "hobby" to another level. I say hobby, but he was a ballistics expert with law enforcement training (he and I worked on 3D animation together for the OJ Simpson fiasco.) He made and sold videos about what happens when you shoot things with mostly big guns. He used tracer rounds for extra fun. What happens when you hit a car engine block with a 50 caliber round? What can a 45 do to a car? Will shooting through glass at an angle deflect the bullet? Twig deflection? Myth busting and more. He also wrote "In the Gravest Extreme", about self protection, when and when not to use the firearm against a person, and what will happen to you if you do have to pull the trigger. He sold a LOT of copies.

JKJ

[Myk Rian]

So then I heard from one of my redneck buddies .....

Well, that explains a lot.

[Rick Potter]

John Blazy...........

Let me make a wild guess.

You don't live in a condo, right?

[John Blazy]

Yep, we are the backbone of america! If we didn't have fun like this, we wouldn't be the innovators that we are. I could so have a beer with any of you guys. John K - you represent the tip of the iceberg of so many of us. I think God has "special" angels assigned to us when we were young, so we could survive to this day.

Your brass cannons reminded me of my cannon. When in high school metal shop in 1984, I drilled out a 1" DIA bore from a 3" DIA x 12" solid steel cylinder and told the metal shop teacher that it was a candle holder. Then he asked "so whats the touch hole for?" I had no answer.

Then later another redneck buddy bored it out to 1-3/4" inside DIA at the metal shop he worked at - perfect DIA for a golfball wrapped in patch cloth. Waaayyy too many stories to tell here, but I still have the cannon, and I estimate that I have blown through about eight lbs of black powder throughout the last 30 years - 700 grains per blast. So many sheets of plywood with perfect holes in them.

When I ran out of fuse, I used to actually light it directly sitting to the side of it with a propane torch (why they call it the "touch hole"). The shock wave feels like someone slapped you with a 4 foot wide hand.

Unfortunately, Rick, I do live in a condo due to the circumstances when I got married 16 years ago. However, I am working my *** off now days so that my wife and I can move out into the sticks again and build a dream shop.

Ahhh the smells - cut grass, WD40, smokeless powder, birch bark in the fire pit, Hoppes # 9, . . . (add your favorite man scent here). Sounds like a new thread.

[John K Jordan]

So many sheets of plywood with perfect holes in them...

When I ran out of fuse, I used to actually light it directly sitting to the side...

Did you know you can make a cheap fuse out of cotton string and potassium nitrate (saltpeter)? Soak in a saturated solution and let dry. It's pretty slow and has some limitations (it won't burn under water), but it's all I used being too poor for store-bought. Until I got where I could afford real black powder I used the charcoal etc. recipe for charges and propellant.

As for cannons, a fun thing to do is fill one full of be BBs and shoot straight up. Then wait for the tick-tick-tick of them coming down all around. The velocity at the ground is so low there is no danger of injury but I wouldn't look up.

The science in all this is geek bait. There was a local science club that focused (pun intended) on astronomy but experimented and investigated many things. They once, through a time-consuming effort, got official permission to set off shape charges to attempt to test a theory that some type of piezo effect from underground minerals was responsible for the famous Brown Mountain Lights in NC. They took the opportunity to build a laser communication network for observers widely spaced in the mountains. Good fun!

Some of the brilliant guys I hung out with ended up inventing and building amazing things long before Makers clubs were a thing. This was in the mid '60s. One high-school buddy built a working electron microscope in his bedroom, another made gas lasers with glass blowing methods, another invented a continuous-operation cloud chamber and was recruited by Westinghouse. Two friends made a submarine and almost drowned. Guardian angel was busy. Of course a few, focused on less productive things spent some time in a government correctional institution as a result of a money-making scheme involving some less acceptable types of chemical experimentation.

JKJ