Tagged With: Iron

Rusty Chain

Rusty Chain

Rusty Chain

Outside my office, between the parking lot and the woods, there are a half dozen wooden picnic tables, stacked one on top of the other. They are chained together, presumably to keep any of them from wondering off (as it were). The chain is a little the worse for being out in the weather all the time. I didn’t really test it of course, and for all I know it’s still strong enough to stand up to average abuse. Nevertheless, it looks a bit weakened and a strong piece of iron inserted between the sides of a link and twisted might snap the chain quite easily.

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Horseshoe and Spikes

Horseshoe and Spikes

Horseshoe and Spikes

At the top of our driveway Cathy had a few potted plants. Well, I say a few but there are quite a lot, really. It’s actually a nice garden and since we aren’t going to be putting our car in the garage in any case, it doesn’t really matter that it’s blocking them out. On occasion I’ve had to move a few plants just to get something large in or out but generally there’s enough of a path for that. In addition to the plants there are a few “ornaments” of one kind or another. I don’t recall where this horseshoe came from, or the iron spikes, for that matter. I particularly like their color when they are wet from the rain.

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Old Wrench

Old Wrench

Old Wrench

I had hoped to get pictures outside today but it didn’t happen. I was moving a few things in the basement this evening and I noticed this old wrench and thought it might be an interesting thing for a photograph. Well, maybe not all that interesting but that’s all I have, so that’s all you get. This was one of the tools I got when we cleaned out my grandfather’s work shop back in the early 1980s. I don’t know how old it is, but it’s almost certainly older than I am, anyway. I see similar items listed on web sites specializing in antiques calling this an antique. That may be stretching things a bit, but it’s oldish, anyway.

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Bolt Cutters

Bolt Cutters

Bolt Cutters

I mentioned that Iris and Seth bought a house. There is a shed in the back yard and the sellers left it empty and with the doors unfastened, but with a locked padlock on the door. It would have been nice for them to take the lock off or leave a key for it, but perhaps they had lost the key and couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. I took my bolt cutter and chopped it off this week and thought I’d post a photo of this handy tool. It’s the sort of thing you only need once in a while but it sure is handy when that time comes. This pair has seen some heavy use and the cutters are nicked pretty badly but when cutting things like padlocks (and bolts, of course), pretty isn’t generally a consideration. It came from my grandfather’s and I worked for him two summers when I was in high school. We did the bulk of the maintenance of the small rental properties he ran in his retirement. I learned a lot those two summers and as much as I didn’t enjoy crawling under a house in the mud to find a plumbing leak, I learned a lot that’s been useful to me in later life.

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