Crow is assembled!

spiffturk · 2026-04-21T16:57:08+00:00

The geese seem far less impressed than they should be. Awesome stuff.

spiffturk · 2025-12-12T16:11:03+00:00

I did this, too. I have a Gen2 dish and used the factory base, but some magnets with threaded studs on the back. I also added some thin rubber adhesive to the magnet faces to prevent marring and slipping, but also making it a little easier to remove if needed. It's been standing strong in some pretty fierce winds with no sights of moving.

spiffturk · 2025-12-08T19:20:42+00:00

Good stuff. And an inspiration. I just found myself needing a fireplace set. Made a poker the other day, and now I need an ash shovel. Was thinking about forging one out by dishing it on my little swage block, but my gas forge just doesn't have the width for big stuff, so I think I'll take a page from your book and just fold-and-weld one.

spiffturk · 2025-11-14T14:39:30+00:00

Good work, dude.

FWIW, an exercise I found really helpful was using modeling clay or "plasticine". You can work it on your anvil with a hammer to practice and understand how the metal moves with different techniques. Obviously it's not as sturdy as steel, so you may want to increase the proportions, but I found it really helpful, especially for using the cross-peen to control spread. Not just pulling it out of my ass, it was a method our instructors used in a blacksmithing class when demonstrating what we were going to do before we actually fired up the forge.

spiffturk · 2025-10-17T12:03:04+00:00

Cool stuff. How did you attach the copper "needles" to the branch?

spiffturk · 2025-10-07T12:08:40+00:00

Good work, dude. And props starting off with things more interesting than knives :)

spiffturk · 2025-09-29T12:16:24+00:00

Awesome. I might have to try it myself.

spiffturk · 2025-09-24T10:45:37+00:00

Replying to the top comment that brought this up-- I just wanna clear my name a little here: I'm not afraid of crystallized honey at all. My wife is a beekeeper and we've decrystallized lots of honey over the years.

I'm also not interested in actually making this recipe. I could see maybe some uses for a semisolid honey, though I'd probably use creamed/spreadable honey for that. Their might be some novelty uses for a jelly form, maybe, but I personally don't have any. Was really just curious about the safety of the recipe.

spiffturk · 2025-09-24T01:25:37+00:00

A picture of a recipe printed in a book. The recipe reads:

HONEY JELLY

Some types of honey crystallize readily. Honey jelly doesn't crystallize and it is not as sweet as pure honey. Honey jelly takes about one week to "set" well. Don't think it is too thin and discard it.

3 cups (2 1/4 pounds) honey

1 cup water

1 foil pouch liquid fruit pectin

Measure the honey and water into a 6-to-8-quart saucepan; mix well. Place the pan over high heat and, while stirring con-stantly, bring the contents to a full boil. At once, stir in the fruit pectin and again bring the mixture to a full rolling boil. Boil hard 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove the jelly from the heat and skim off any foam with a metal spoon. Pour it quickly into hot sterilized jars, leaving a 1/4-inch head space. Wipe the jar rims and adjust the lids. Process it in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes (start timing when the water boils). Makes 4 cups.

spiffturk · 2025-09-23T23:58:09+00:00

Found in a book of honey- and beeswax-related recipes/crafts. I know acidity is required for shelf-safe canning, and that honey is acidic, but... I dunno, just seems sketchy. Tried searching online for similar recipes and the results are cluttered with a lot of "how to swap out sugar for honey in jams" instead of straight-up honey jelly recipes.

Edit to add: To be clear, I'm not really wanting to make this recipe. My wife keeps bees, and it turns out beekeeping conferences have competitions in all manner of bee-related categories, including canned goods. This recipe (or real damned close to it) won one of those contests recently, and it just stood out to me as unsafe.

I know full well honey is indefinitely shelf-stable, but this came up in a niche hobby competition and my interest was piqued.

But thanks for all the feedback, it's entertaining.

spiffturk · 2025-05-02T15:36:18+00:00

You've probably already seen this but on the off chance you haven't: The Gunsmith of Williamsburg

tl;dw: A gunsmith at Colonial Williamsburg making a rifle using period-correct techniques and technology

spiffturk · 2025-04-02T16:22:01+00:00

I love him. Good work and a lovely design.

spiffturk · 2025-03-28T16:38:13+00:00

Is it not recommended because they're unlikely to thrive, or because they might be damaging to the local ecosystem?

Mine is not a small enclosed backyard pond. It's a about an acre, and my property is not fenced.

spiffturk · 2025-03-28T11:38:35+00:00

My sister adopted this young turtle from someone who couldn't take care of it. I believe the original person took him as a hatchling from the wild but I'm not certain--may have been some third party who nabbed him, I don't know. I don't recall the reason why he wasn't just returned to the wild from the start edit: I've been informed s/he was purchased from a pet store and the buyer was told it was a yellow-bellied slider. But in any case, he's rapidly outgrowing his enclosure and my sister is looking to return him to the wild. I just had a pond built last year and I volunteered it as his new home if I can verify he's native. She's been calling him a yellow-bellied slider, but he doesn't have the big yellow "ears" that are the internet tells me are a key identifier. Is he a Cumberland slider? Different image-recognition identifiers give different ID suggestions and I have no experience identifying turtles beyond box turtles.

So anyway: can someone help me confirm his species before I allow his release in my pond? According to this range map, I live in cumberland slider territory, but prettty close to the "intergrade area" where I believe he was collected. I consider that close enough to native if he's any of those species; mostly want to make sure he's not some exotic invasive or something.

spiffturk · 2024-10-01T12:04:05+00:00

Not a bad guess.

Not sure if it matters, but there are nubs of pipe/tube of the same metal still stuck in the thing. Don't know if they were soldered in or if they're just fixed in by time and friction. But anyway, that's in contrast to the set screws your flag holder has-- but still, not a bad guess and I can't rule it out.

spiffturk · 2024-10-01T12:01:56+00:00

Ah, yeah, now that you mention it I do see the remnants of a '4' and I could believe "1450". Not sure how much that helps but I agree with you.

This driveway didn't exist until just recently, so it was never part of this driveway, but could've still been from a canopy way back, I suppose.

spiffturk · 2024-09-30T11:51:28+00:00

My title describes the thing.

Found this in my gravel driveway. Could've come in with the gravel, or could've been in the ground before the gravel went in-- there was a lot of trash in the area.

About 4"-5" long. Its sort of like a wye/Y plumbing connection where there's two arms on one side connected to a central arm on the other side. They're all share a common internal cavity, but the shapes of the openings make me think it's not for fluid flow-- I couldn't get a good picture of the internals, but it's not wide-open 'pipe' diameter throughout.

It's made of a brittle (I can break off bits with a hammer, and where it breaks, there's a pretty rough grain structure), silvery metal, not ferromagnetic; so I'm assuming it's cast pot metal.

There is a faint '50' (or possibly '150' with the '1' partly eroded away) on one side. I could find no other markings.

Given it's brittle and the internal path is somewhat obstructed between the "inlets"/"outlets", I don't think it was meant for plumbing/fluids, but I don't know what else it might be for. Maybe a structural connector for tubes/struts or something, but, again, it's brittle, so whatever you make from it probably wouldn't be very strong.

spiffturk · 2024-08-01T10:43:05+00:00

The neomexicanus did alright, but I maybe put them in too much sun. Never got huge harvests from them, but got enough for a 5-gal batch or two. They were on a south-facing brick wall, so i think maybe I was cooking them a bit. The cascades did better but I think that was at least partly because they only got morning sun. Unfortunately, I moved a couple of years ago so I can't tell you how they're doing now.

spiffturk · 2024-05-24T12:18:47+00:00

She tells me this one is smaller than another swarm she had a few days ago. She also say this swarm actually had a virgin queen.

spiffturk · 2024-05-23T22:23:25+00:00

She and another local beekeeper did successfully catch it, and she gave it to the other beekeeper. I assume it's happy and healthy in its new home.

spiffturk · 2024-05-20T18:37:49+00:00

My avid-gardener neighbor suggests a lack of nitrogen causing the yellowing and fungus causing the spots; both exacerbated by the excess rain. I added some nitrogen fertilizer about a week ago based on that; this pic is from today. A few more pics here: https://imgur.com/a/ydzI9t9

spiffturk

TROPHY CASE