Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Tools of the trade

Gotta respect you brother. That hood is probably as old as I am.. My grandpa had one like it. My dad was also a welder/mechanic and Navy Seabee. I just built ocean going oil barges, grain barges, dry docks, and tug boats..


Also repair work, structural and even ornamental schidt:



Here's a wheelhouse I designed and built for an old tug:



You are right. Young kids don't know jack schidt, but it was our job to teach them. The bad thing is kids are different now days. They don't have the drive. They give up too easy when schidt gets too hard. We always had quota's we had to meet, but management let a lot of the younger guys slide. Up until a point, then when things were not getting done fast enough, they would sick me on them. An example, our quota for fitting angle (lets say 6x4 or 7x4x1/2" angle or bulb flat) on flat plate was 190 feet/day. The young guys were slacking off so much that they were only doing 65 feet/day. That schidt had to come to a stop and fast. So to show the younger guys how much you could actually get done, some of the older guys (all of us in our mid 30's) that could fit pretty decent had a race to see how much angle a guy could get done in a day. My buddy (an ex Airborne Ranger and 6th degree black belt) fit 450 feet. The next guy a huge colored guy that was an ex felon got 350 feet fit up, the next guy was a bomb expert, ex special forces marine (typical bad azz), fit up 300 feet, next guy down on the list was a slow meticulous guy, a little older than the rest of us, in his early 40's, fit up 250 feet. A lot of those guys slowed way down after lunch, where as I don't work that way. I pace myself and build up steam. You don't want to get in my way when I'm swinging a hammer: I fit 608 feet of angle that day. All perfectly on the layout line and nice and tight, ready for the doudle bug to come behind and start welding.. After that day, if the newbies didn't meet quota, the were issued warnings and a couple were even fired.. I don't mind teaching a young guy new tricks, but if they are unwilling to learn I have no use for them...

Bought and paid for a house with this tool, raised a family too. Not too many jobs around here where a guy can make a decent living without formal education...there was always work for a good saw man, not anymore, no hand buckers left as they were replaced by processors, and fallers were replaced by feller bunchers.
There is still steep slope hand fallers and big wood hand fallers givin er chit...6-7 $$$ hundred a day.


I am also a carpenter, but I just cut firewood now...I don't gotta put up with anybodys bullshyte anymore lol.

I sell drugs. Don’t know how to get a pic of that.

Had to laugh when I saw that pic. I was doing some electrical work in a building they were clearing out for a remodel and the machinist group was moving to a new building and getting all new equipment- including the inspection blocks like that one. A guy in the demo crew who was tasked with getting rid of all the miscellaneous stuff besides machinery asked me if I wanted an inspection block just about identical to that one. The little forklift we had on the job couldn't even pick it up, much less put it in my truck to take it home. Not sure what I would have done with it once I got it home anyway- probably would have had to sell the truck with it still in the bed... so I reluctantly turned him down...

Pretty sure I couldn't get all the tools I used in my electrical trade in one picture. Besides all the hand tools I needed, we had benders, big and small, wire pullers, racks, wire reels and jackstands for up to 10K lb reels of wire, all kinds of equipment I learned to run including extendable fork lifts, excavators, cranes, big trucks, and just about anything else it would take to get the job done. I loved my job due to the variety of things we got to do... heck, we even did painting and concrete work when it was needed for our work...

Bob

40 days into this season. About 50 to go.

Not bad.

Old gigolo still lookin' for work?

GREAT Pics and GREAT Work
It is nice to be versatile workers now days for the most part have been trained to be one trick pony's
I worked in a Tank / Structural shop in my mid 20s Duosheild had just been developed and I begged the Foreman to train me on the stuff and they denied me every time i asked. We were welding up some Gigantic Fan Housings for Westinghouse. The fans to be installed were 15 ft Dia. So I decided to clock myself on how many ft I could weld per hour for about a weeks time. My slowest was 28 ft an hour and my fastest was 38 ft an hour that was with Stick 3/16" to 1/4" fillet welds 3/16" Electrode welding 1/4" Material I had to fly or blow a hole in the bse material.

I have tried to get myself up to that speed many times in the last couple years but my brain does nt work that fast anymore.

Calvin

Would you mind telling what rods and reels are in the rocket launchers? The wife and I are just bought a boat for fishing in the Puget Sound and we have to buy everything.

I use Daiwa. Saltiga 2 Speed for halibut and Lexa for salmon. Harrier x for Hali and Northcoast rods for Salmon.

Spendy stuff but I like Daiwa.

Some tools of the " trade" in that assualt pack from chapter 2 of my life.


Chapter 1"Joe Citizen" was life prior to chapter 2 "11B".
In chapter 3 now, the last one actually.
Titled "I don't do schitt now".


But do look forward to Sept 1 Dove hunting.👍👍👍

Cool pic Renegade.

My new shop during recent move-in (still in progress). These are the tools of my trade customizing yachts.

Rolling Mill foundations, big boy work as my Site Manager referenced it.

The tools of my current trade.

knife handle carving....

Flint knapping...