Creuzer – Page 71 – Random things Creuzer

Blacksmith forge from gas grill and recycled bricks

I made a natural lump charcoal forge tonight out of an old gas grill. I lined it with recycled bricks. The blower is a leaf blower.

Bricks lining a burnt out gas grill to make a blacksmith forge. The holey bricks on the bottom allow air to come up.

I put in just a little bit of natural lump charcoal to test it tonight.

Testing the forge with a small piece of metal

Turning the flash off on the camera, and you can see the warm glow of the forge fire

The forge works, it heats metal up until it glows!

Using a leaf blower underneith pushing air up through the bricks to provide extra oxygen to the fire really heats things up!

See, with the blower, the fire gets hotter. Look at that metal glow!

I am not sure how long the bricks will last - they are glowing brightly as well.

I only tried banging on the metal with a hammer for 3 heatings.

Thus begins my journey into the world of blacksmithing. Yet another hobby for me!

How to make a bee hive

A friend of mine through http://www.primitivechicago.com/ was invited by Craftsman Tools to do a video on making a beehive. I was supposed to go and be in the live audience that day, but I was originally told it would film in the evening, and that got moved to mid-day, and I had made morning and early afternoon plans that day.

If you have a youtube account, click over and thumbs up and comment on the video! Maybe next time he will invite me to assist him on the next project..

Android phone quite updating… again… Fixed!

My 2nd Samsung Moment Android Phone quit updating the android apps in the market again. I click update, and it says “Download Failed” or was it “Installation Unsuccessful”? I can’t remember, one of the two. I hadn’t seen this on the ‘new’ phone, which is an ebay replacement of my original which had a worn out usb port so it wouldn’t charge.

I tried to clear the app cache. From home screen, click on the Menu button, select Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications. Then Click on the Menu again Filter -> All. Scroll Down to the Market entry and click Clear Cache.

No Dice.

Then I did the above, clearing the cache, then clicking force quit, then immediately restarting the phone.

We have a winner! The market can now update apps again!

I don’t know if force quiting the app is required, but the option is right there.

Rain Garden, Hugelkulture & Terra Petra garden mashup

Unrelated photo. I just love I have Violets growing in my backyard

Today I dug up a bit of my front yard to build a rain garden of sorts. There looks to be a drainage gully leading from the front of the house to the street. I dug a dike 1 lawn mower width from the corner of my driveway and sidewalk. Gotta make the chores as easy as I can.

The city had dug up the water shut-off valve last summer here.

What I did is dug a deep trench and dropped a bunch of short logs into it. What will happen is these logs will start to rot in a few years and turn into giant water sponges. By placing these in the path of the drainage gully I am hoping that they will soak up and hold the rain water. I planted a bunch of irises and purple cone flower seeds.

All the logs dropped into this hugelkulture bed

Watering the bed in. See how it forms a dike making a rain garden?

I also planted my grapevine. This I dug a deep hole that I dropped a bunch of half burned fire wood down. I also mashed up some of the charcoal I made my dousing my campfires. The charcoal will hopefully form Terra Petra of sorts.