DaQo'tah Forge
Banned
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2002
- Messages
- 1,333
The DaQotah News
Last weeks trip to Las Vegas was a blast! I got to examine up close all the knives that had been used on Star Trek, and I was amazed at how well my Bat'leths stood up in comparison to the Official Batleths.
It hasn't been all good news here at the DaQotah homestead, though, for I've had to permanently park the old Dodge behind my shop. The poor girl just has suffered enough. I felt a bit of nostalgic sadness when I draped the tarp over her and cinched it down with bungee cords.
I'll miss that old car, but this year I have experienced an unusual number of engine fires with the Dodge. The worst one happened the day we returned from Vegas, let me tell you about that...
While I was preparing my shop for my absence during our Vegas vacation, I got nervous about leaving all my tools in a shop with a door that doesn't shut all that well. So I decided to leave the Dodge outside of the garage, to give the impression that someone was home. I hoped any burglars would see that the car was home, the light was on in the kitchen, notice the attack cats in the window, determine that someone was home, and perhaps go next door (my neighbor has a better drill press than mine, anyway).
So I came back from vacation. The poor Dodge had been sitting outside getting snowed upon for two weeks, and oh did she complain when I stuck the key in and turned it. The engine just groaned in its attempt to start. I didn't want to have to jump it, so I stopped running the starter before the battery went dead. I sat in that frozen snowed-in car watching my breath crystallize on the dash, wondering how I was ever going to get this thing started, when I noticed a can of starting fluid down amongst all the empty McDonald's bags on the floor.
We use starting fluid at work to convince the reluctant John Deere backhoes to start in the winter. I had never used it on the car before, but I figured it was worth a shot. ( Don't it sure "sound" like a great idea?) I grabbed the can of starter fluid, ran around to the front of the car and popped the hood.
Okay, maybe "popped" is not the correct term,I "untied" the hood and raised it up, jamming it open with the special hood-raising 2x2 I had stuck in the grille for this very purpose.
To get at the carburetor, I took off the top of the air cleaner. It was easy to see the carburetor then, because I had never installed an air filter for the Dodge since I owned it. I sprayed in a shot of starter fluid right down into the throat of the carburetor, scurried back to the driver's seat and gave the key a turn.
It fired once. I knew I was on to something, but obviously the engine needed more starter fluid. I sprayed a whole bunch more starter fluid into the carburetor this time, darted behind the wheel and turned the key again. WHOOOMPF! WHOOOMPF! WHOOOMPF! Came the sound from the engine compartment "Well, that's a new and interesting sound," I remember thinking to myself.
I was still turning the key; the engine was still firing and almost catching.
By now my foot was getting tired from pumping the gas pedal. I remember looking down at my foot as it was pumping furiously away, when I noticed an eerie yellow glow inside the car. At first I didn't know what the heck was going on. There was so much snow on the windshield (I had of course neglected to clean off before trying to start the car) that I couldn't see forward at all. It was weird; that snow that was on the windshield blocking my view was glowing yellow.
It suddenly dawned on me that the yellow glowing snow was the result of a particularly disturbing engine fire that was currently engulfing the engine. It seems that my action of pumping the gas pedal (although it really hadn't helped to start the car) had done an excellent job of producing a most impressive four-wheeled bonfire.
Okay, "What to do when your Dodge Dart catches fire in the driveway?" wasn't a question that appeared on my driver's test, and I must admit that I was stumped for an answer for the next few moments as I stood and watched the inferno.
Then an idea dawned on me and I knocked out the hood-supporting 2x2, and the hood crashed down with a resounding thud that only a 1970 dinosaur car like this one could produce. As luck would have it, the air cleaner cover fell right on top of the air cleaner when the hood slammed shut, and the fire was snuffed out. The funniest part was the moment after I slammed the hood, the car engine (which had been backfiring horribly), ran and purred like a kitten. "Boy," I said to myself. "I hope I don't have to start it like this every time."
Discretion being the better part of valor, I eased the Dodge away from my house, turned it off and the next day I used a backhoe to drag it to its final resting place. I'm sure seven or eight years from now, some niece or nephew of mine will come out to our place and ask me how much I want for that Dodge. (Mum's the word about the incendiary tendencies of the carborator, okay?)
In DaQotah knife-making news,
I totally screwed up my latest 52100 knife handle.
I make my handles out of two pieces of oak; one is small, only a half to-three-quarters of an inch, and the rest of the handle is a solid piece of oak. I drill out the oak to fit the tang, but apparently I made too big of a cavity in the handle, because while I was sanding the handle down, making everything smooth on the handle, I sanded down to the epoxy that surrounds the tang.
Somehow I've got to figure out how Ed Fowler drills a tunnel for the tang to slide into that's not so big that one runs into this epoxy-filled tunnel while sanding.
Oh well, all the experts tell me that my first 50 knives are just give-away, anyway. I'll chalk this up as a learning experience and start working on a sheath for it tomorrow.
Last weeks trip to Las Vegas was a blast! I got to examine up close all the knives that had been used on Star Trek, and I was amazed at how well my Bat'leths stood up in comparison to the Official Batleths.
It hasn't been all good news here at the DaQotah homestead, though, for I've had to permanently park the old Dodge behind my shop. The poor girl just has suffered enough. I felt a bit of nostalgic sadness when I draped the tarp over her and cinched it down with bungee cords.
I'll miss that old car, but this year I have experienced an unusual number of engine fires with the Dodge. The worst one happened the day we returned from Vegas, let me tell you about that...
While I was preparing my shop for my absence during our Vegas vacation, I got nervous about leaving all my tools in a shop with a door that doesn't shut all that well. So I decided to leave the Dodge outside of the garage, to give the impression that someone was home. I hoped any burglars would see that the car was home, the light was on in the kitchen, notice the attack cats in the window, determine that someone was home, and perhaps go next door (my neighbor has a better drill press than mine, anyway).
So I came back from vacation. The poor Dodge had been sitting outside getting snowed upon for two weeks, and oh did she complain when I stuck the key in and turned it. The engine just groaned in its attempt to start. I didn't want to have to jump it, so I stopped running the starter before the battery went dead. I sat in that frozen snowed-in car watching my breath crystallize on the dash, wondering how I was ever going to get this thing started, when I noticed a can of starting fluid down amongst all the empty McDonald's bags on the floor.
We use starting fluid at work to convince the reluctant John Deere backhoes to start in the winter. I had never used it on the car before, but I figured it was worth a shot. ( Don't it sure "sound" like a great idea?) I grabbed the can of starter fluid, ran around to the front of the car and popped the hood.
Okay, maybe "popped" is not the correct term,I "untied" the hood and raised it up, jamming it open with the special hood-raising 2x2 I had stuck in the grille for this very purpose.
To get at the carburetor, I took off the top of the air cleaner. It was easy to see the carburetor then, because I had never installed an air filter for the Dodge since I owned it. I sprayed in a shot of starter fluid right down into the throat of the carburetor, scurried back to the driver's seat and gave the key a turn.
It fired once. I knew I was on to something, but obviously the engine needed more starter fluid. I sprayed a whole bunch more starter fluid into the carburetor this time, darted behind the wheel and turned the key again. WHOOOMPF! WHOOOMPF! WHOOOMPF! Came the sound from the engine compartment "Well, that's a new and interesting sound," I remember thinking to myself.
I was still turning the key; the engine was still firing and almost catching.
By now my foot was getting tired from pumping the gas pedal. I remember looking down at my foot as it was pumping furiously away, when I noticed an eerie yellow glow inside the car. At first I didn't know what the heck was going on. There was so much snow on the windshield (I had of course neglected to clean off before trying to start the car) that I couldn't see forward at all. It was weird; that snow that was on the windshield blocking my view was glowing yellow.
It suddenly dawned on me that the yellow glowing snow was the result of a particularly disturbing engine fire that was currently engulfing the engine. It seems that my action of pumping the gas pedal (although it really hadn't helped to start the car) had done an excellent job of producing a most impressive four-wheeled bonfire.
Okay, "What to do when your Dodge Dart catches fire in the driveway?" wasn't a question that appeared on my driver's test, and I must admit that I was stumped for an answer for the next few moments as I stood and watched the inferno.
Then an idea dawned on me and I knocked out the hood-supporting 2x2, and the hood crashed down with a resounding thud that only a 1970 dinosaur car like this one could produce. As luck would have it, the air cleaner cover fell right on top of the air cleaner when the hood slammed shut, and the fire was snuffed out. The funniest part was the moment after I slammed the hood, the car engine (which had been backfiring horribly), ran and purred like a kitten. "Boy," I said to myself. "I hope I don't have to start it like this every time."
Discretion being the better part of valor, I eased the Dodge away from my house, turned it off and the next day I used a backhoe to drag it to its final resting place. I'm sure seven or eight years from now, some niece or nephew of mine will come out to our place and ask me how much I want for that Dodge. (Mum's the word about the incendiary tendencies of the carborator, okay?)
In DaQotah knife-making news,
I totally screwed up my latest 52100 knife handle.
I make my handles out of two pieces of oak; one is small, only a half to-three-quarters of an inch, and the rest of the handle is a solid piece of oak. I drill out the oak to fit the tang, but apparently I made too big of a cavity in the handle, because while I was sanding the handle down, making everything smooth on the handle, I sanded down to the epoxy that surrounds the tang.
Somehow I've got to figure out how Ed Fowler drills a tunnel for the tang to slide into that's not so big that one runs into this epoxy-filled tunnel while sanding.
Oh well, all the experts tell me that my first 50 knives are just give-away, anyway. I'll chalk this up as a learning experience and start working on a sheath for it tomorrow.
make shure you have a fire extinguisher handy. Since you have put it in the wood hardener I would watch out for the smoke also, could be real hard on the lungs.
