@ghostsofpompeii after you collect enough of it to make a batch the sap is filtered through a simple cloth to remove any debris or bugs. The sap is then cooked, and cooked, and cooked through a lengthy process, usually accompanied by multiple pipes and beverages, to boil off most of the water and condense the sugar. I recommend this done outside else your house will become a sauna. Once the sap is close to being refined to the point of syrup I finish it off on the stove inside where I have a bit more control. It will finally be ready for the pancakes after it passes quality control testing (my four year old daughter). It does have a slight sweetness to it straight out of the tree but the amount of sugar concentration is quite low. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup depending upon the year and maple variety. I have used the sap to make some coffee in my French press. Gives it a hint of mapley goodness. Don’t recommend doing that in a regular coffee pot else everything will need a good scrub. Speaking from sticky experience.
@MrMustache That sounds about as complicated as trying to make the old fashion hard fudge. But anything worth doing is worth doing right. Be honest now - did you come up with a product name for your home made maple syrup? Half the fun of attempting to make new tobacco blends was coming up with a name for it.
@ghostsofpompeii I agree with the doing it right! Can’t say I’ve ever thought about naming it. Just focused more on drenching it on a stack of flap jacks. Since you’ve brought it up though, I think Treecle might work.
A coworker wanted to know if I could make him a forming mandrel for his handmade leather pint glass coozies. He has been using a pint glass and was worried about having it break in his hands when forming the wet leather. I went to my lathe and freehand, knocked this out for him. We’ll see how it works for him. I think I see a leather pint glass coozie in my future🙂.
I finished it with a few coats of Super Glue and a buff and wax with carnauba.
I’ve been out tinkering with my old brass pressure stoves today. I have the Optimus No. 45 with a silent burner head blazing away. The flame tips are starting to clear up and the orange/yellow is fading to blue…as it should if it is burning correctly.
I always wish I had taken courses like wood and metal shop when I was in high school rather than the majority of business classes I majored in. You would have thought I'd be grooming myself for a career as a businessman when the reality was once I'd completed high school I'd be off to the steel mills like a majority of my male classmates living in Gary Indiana.
Had I taken things like wood shop I might be more more handy around the house, or at least be able to build a table or bookcase. Or maybe carved a pipe or two.
And as for all those business courses - I still have to go to H&R Block to do my income taxes.
@ghostsofpompeii Interestingly, I never took any shop or art classes in school, besides what we did as children in grade school. I did take a “basic machine practices” course one quarter in college using a lathe to help make a big “single point” bolt and matching nut, and a huge shaper to make some V-Blocks (I wish I had got to keep them🙁, I could use them occasionally now). I also took a very, very basic course in something like “manufacturing”? I don’t recall the actual name. In it we each made a dust pan (I remember one of my little brothers made one in Junior High shop class) not difficult, it took me something like 30-45 minutes, to make from scratch, if that. The other two projects were equally as simple. I wanted to take more advanced courses that would have included plastic injection molding, and sand casting metal, but I quit college before going further. I was originally working towards an Electrical Engineering degree, then decided to switch to Electrical & Electronic Engineering Technology. As it ended up, I lost the drive and bailed out completely….dumb, I know. P. S. I still do my own taxes, but they are very basic, and I’m cheap🙂.
I guess all of us, when we reflect on our past, can think of a myriad of "could of, would of, should of" scenarios. Fortunately, in this day and time, aspiring and becoming proficient in genres outside of our areas of expertise(s) is now much easier. It's called YouTube... 😁
I reflowed the solder on the leaking fuel filler neck on my old Optimus No.96 kerosene pressure stove today. This stove has a “lipstick roarer” burner”. It was an easy solder job, but then again, I’ve had a lot of experience with soldering. I filled up the fount and fired it up. A few yellow/orange tips to the flame again, but it has not been run in 30+ years…..and then it was mistakenly fueled with white gas…oops. It’s lucky I still have my eyebrows. I’ll run a tank or two through it and see if it cleans up the flame. I also polished it up a bit. I had to clean the solder mask (India Ink), and rosin solder flux off after the repair, so a Brasso shine it got. My larger Optimus No.45 with a silent burner that I was working on last time is working beautifully now as well. I fired it up earlier today for a few minutes and it was burning a nice clean pretty blue👍🏻.
Toasty 🔥, it’s already starting to clear up to a nice blue flame.
There is a reason it is called a “roarer burner”. Here, I’m standing about 50 feet away from the patio table where the stove is and I can still hear it plainly…and I’m partially deaf.
Figured i would post a few of the hammers I have made for Silver/Goldsmithing. They are French style pistol grip chasing hammers. They are used for repoussé.
I modified and repaired the fuel cap/air bleed screw on my old SVEA 121 kerosene stove. When I was much younger (like 12-15) I overtightened the air screw, it had worked for 40+ years, but I never opened it. When I went to use it recently, learning that it was supposed to be fueled with kerosene (like my dad said) and not the white gas (dangerous) that I had used for years because a fool at the hiking store that “rebuilt” it said to. Anyway, the seat for the air valve screw was destroyed, pushed out the bottom of the cap and no longer held pressure. I turned a 1/2” diameter brass rod to make a cap to replace the broken out seat. I had to face off the bottom of the original cap with the lathe to get a smooth surface and get rid of the original cracked brass. I drilled the airway and seat, then drilled the part out to fit over the original cap. I masked the parts with India Ink in the areas that I did not want solder to flow into…such as the airway and threads. I fluxed the parts with rosin and soldered the parts together with 63/37 electronics solder and a torch. The cap with the gasket is from my Optimus No.45 stove which is what the SVEA cap looked like before being broken. I have already faced off the old broken end of the 121 cap in these pics.
I filled the 121 with kerosene and lit’er up. It was working, but there was a “candle flame” around the fuel jet, the jet was loose😖. What a pain trying to tighten the jet in the confined space in the middle of all the tubes in the burner. I finally got it tight with my smallest ignition wrench…I guess I need to buy another tool, the proper one.
This stove is the one that went up in flames when I was about 12-15? I re-soldered the fuel neck at that time as the heat from the flames melted the solder. My soldering skills weren’t as refined as they are now, and I didn’t know about using India Ink as a solder mask. A bummer, the big glob of solder looks like hell, but it worked. I might be able to heat it up and wipe most of it away, but I might melt other solder in the stove…such as the seal between the bottom and top of the fount…that would be bad. I’ll just let it ride. Seeing the repair in all it’s ugly brings back the memories from that day almost 50 years ago. Do you think a dad in this day and age would let a 12 year old fire up this stove…without instructions, or even a clue as to how to properly operate the stove…I think not. Ahh, the good ol’ days. P.S. No one lost any eyebrows or even got singed in that fiasco of this stove engulfed in flames three feet high.
After getting the jet tight, I lit it again…working 👍🏻 It’s tough to see in daylight, but if you look carefully you can see the blue flames at the top of the “roarer” burner.
Daddy Stove, Optimus No.45 with “silent burner” from a No.48 fitted to it (effectively a No.48.) (Not lit, also, the grate/pot stands are not seated fully so it looks “bent”, but it’s actually fine).
Mama Stove, SVEA 121 with original “roarer” burner” (lit and running).
Baby Stove, Optimus No.96 with original “lipstick” “roarer” burner. (Not lit).
I may have mentioned taking up bike riding seven months ago. I am still getting out and riding on a daily basis when weather and work permits. My total riding mileage since January 1 is currently at 242.6 miles. I have ridden the bike pictured almost five hundred miles since I bought it in late September. It is considered a Hybrid bike - a cross between a road bike (the old 10-speed or English Racing Bike style) and a mountain bike. I bought it at Academy Sporting and while it's been a good bike, I have learned that it was not designed to be ridden as hard as I have and its approaching time to get it serviced (bearings repacked).
I decided to upgrade to a new bike that is actually easier to get on and is better constructed. I choose a Hunting Beach Cruiser similar to the step-through bikes used in Europe. The style looks like what is commonly known as a "women's" bike but I wanted one I could get on and off of easier.
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I went to my lathe and freehand, knocked this out for him. We’ll see how it works for him. I think I see a leather pint glass coozie in my future🙂.
NASA has been monitoring...
Interestingly, I never took any shop or art classes in school, besides what we did as children in grade school.
I did take a “basic machine practices” course one quarter in college using a lathe to help make a big “single point” bolt and matching nut, and a huge shaper to make some V-Blocks (I wish I had got to keep them🙁, I could use them occasionally now). I also took a very, very basic course in something like “manufacturing”? I don’t recall the actual name. In it we each made a dust pan (I remember one of my little brothers made one in Junior High shop class) not difficult, it took me something like 30-45 minutes, to make from scratch, if that. The other two projects were equally as simple. I wanted to take more advanced courses that would have included plastic injection molding, and sand casting metal, but I quit college before going further. I was originally working towards an Electrical Engineering degree, then decided to switch to Electrical & Electronic Engineering Technology. As it ended up, I lost the drive and bailed out completely….dumb, I know.
P. S. I still do my own taxes, but they are very basic, and I’m cheap🙂.
Fortunately, in this day and time, aspiring and becoming proficient in genres outside of our areas of expertise(s) is now much easier.
It's called YouTube...
😁
I filled up the fount and fired it up. A few yellow/orange tips to the flame again, but it has not been run in 30+ years…..and then it was mistakenly fueled with white gas…oops. It’s lucky I still have my eyebrows. I’ll run a tank or two through it and see if it cleans up the flame. I also polished it up a bit. I had to clean the solder mask (India Ink), and rosin solder flux off after the repair, so a Brasso shine it got.
My larger Optimus No.45 with a silent burner that I was working on last time is working beautifully now as well. I fired it up earlier today for a few minutes and it was burning a nice clean pretty blue👍🏻.
Anyway, the seat for the air valve screw was destroyed, pushed out the bottom of the cap and no longer held pressure.
I turned a 1/2” diameter brass rod to make a cap to replace the broken out seat. I had to face off the bottom of the original cap with the lathe to get a smooth surface and get rid of the original cracked brass. I drilled the airway and seat, then drilled the part out to fit over the original cap. I masked the parts with India Ink in the areas that I did not want solder to flow into…such as the airway and threads. I fluxed the parts with rosin and soldered the parts together with 63/37 electronics solder and a torch. The cap with the gasket is from my Optimus No.45 stove which is what the SVEA cap looked like before being broken. I have already faced off the old broken end of the 121 cap in these pics.
P.S. No one lost any eyebrows or even got singed in that fiasco of this stove engulfed in flames three feet high.
It’s tough to see in daylight, but if you look carefully you can see the blue flames at the top of the “roarer” burner.
Mama Stove, SVEA 121 with original “roarer” burner” (lit and running).
Baby Stove, Optimus No.96 with original “lipstick” “roarer” burner. (Not lit).
My total riding mileage since January 1 is currently at 242.6 miles. I have ridden the bike pictured almost five hundred miles since I bought it in late September. It is considered a Hybrid bike - a cross between a road bike (the old 10-speed or English Racing Bike style) and a mountain bike. I bought it at Academy Sporting and while it's been a good bike, I have learned that it was not designed to be ridden as hard as I have and its approaching time to get it serviced (bearings repacked).
I decided to upgrade to a new bike that is actually easier to get on and is better constructed. I choose a Hunting Beach Cruiser similar to the step-through bikes used in Europe. The style looks like what is commonly known as a "women's" bike but I wanted one I could get on and off of easier.
You're looking pretty dapper... well, maybe not pretty, but still dapper...
🙂
I have acquired two more jerseys. I'll get photos and post them when I get a chance.