Hello

[Trojan Horse]

Hi everyone, my real name is Bobby, Bob, Robert, or TH as you wish. The screen name is just one I have used for many years.

I have been a member here for 1,610 days as reminded by the admins when I logged in. I apologize for taking so long to introduce myself.
I used to be a power generating plant superintendent for a small city/town in MO.
I am disabled because of work injuries and I now sport a goodly amount of titanium in my lower back and neck to hold my spine together.
I also have an electrical stimulation device implanted in my lower back to enable me to be able to walk a little bit easier and I've had to have my right bicep reattached and my right rotator cuff repaired. I also found out not long ago that I have a degenerating spine condition that will worsen as time progresses. Since I could no longer do the work at my job of 26 years after being injured, the nice people on the board there decided they didn't need me anymore and terminated me immediately thereafter. I was injured trying to do the work of 2-3 men alone because the board was "cutting costs". There were several other jobs I could have done for them, but since I was not a "mindless drone" or "yes man," and I tended to be vocal when I disagreed with the board, they wanted me gone and seized the opportunity to get rid of me. I may sound bitter, but I am not really. I'm just really sad and sorry that I wasted so many years there and never followed my true dream of building and fabricating cars and bikes. Having four children to care for, I was afraid to leave the stability of a decent full-time job. Now that my children are grown and have left the nest, I find myself unable physically to do things I really enjoy and that weighs heavily on me at times. I joined up here to just read about, learn, observe, and admire other's creations.

Throughout my life, I have had experience in several fields. I have experience in, (note: some of these overlap) plumbing (7 years), carpentry (5years), power generation (26 years), electrical repair, design, and installation, metal fabrication, design, and building, a small bit of machining with lathes and mills, painting for vehicles, machinery and buildings/houses, welding & cutting with both acetylene and plasma, mechanics both gas and diesel, small engine repair and rebuilding, computer building and repair, and various other things over the years. I am proficient at pretty much all of these things, but really the master of none. There is always more to be learned and that's why I'm here. Even though I am unable to do many of these things now, they still interest me.

My current desire is to purchase a small lathe (I can stand/sit and use my hands with some difficulty, but it is not impossible yet) and learn more about machining, but trying to survive on disability is making that an almost impossible dream. To overcome that deficiency I am currently attempting to learn to code in hopes that I may be able to code some apps that may make me enough money to achieve my goals. I am one of those people who pride themselves on being self-sufficient and it pains me to have to hire anyone to do anything for me. Before being injured I added on to and completely remodeled our house pretty much all by myself. The exception was the concrete foundation, I had to hire that done because I did not have the equipment or forms to do it myself. All of the carpentry, wiring, and plumbing I did by myself with help from my immediate family members only.

Ok, I've been a bit long-winded and I hope this is not TMI. I want to thank everyone for sharing their projects and ideas, I do thoroughly enjoy looking at and reading about them.

Thanks,
TH

[Jon]

Hi Bobby - welcome to HomemadeTools.net

Pride in self-sufficiency, built your own house, and disagrees vocally - yup, you'll fit in well here

What tools would you like to build? Click the "Reply to Thread" button below to let me know, and I'll post some relevant links for you.

BTW, here are our best homemade tool builds: Must Read homemade tool builds from HomemadeTools.net

[Trojan Horse]

Hi Jon,
Thanks for the warm welcome.

I was looking at the hammers in my most recent email from you guys and I think I would like to try the plastic milk jug hammer.
It's just one of those things I've never seen before and I found it pretty interesting.
My last supposedly "good" rubber or poly hammer I got from Snap On just flat out disintegrated on me a while back and they would not replace it nor offer any good reason about why it disintegrated. I think it was a material failure the way it just came apart. It was a dead blow hammer and I retained the inner steel structure of the hammer, so I thought about using that and trying to melt the plastic around it by fabbing some type of mold.

[Jon]

Thanks, that was a good newsletter. I was really surprised at the diversity of different types of hammers, and that milk jug hammer certainly qualifies. Keep us posted if you have any questions about the mold; we love getting in on a good build in progress.

[Trojan Horse]

Thanks, that was a good newsletter. I was really surprised at the diversity of different types of hammers, and that milk jug hammer certainly qualifies. Keep us posted if you have any questions about the mold; we love getting in on a good build in progress.

Thanks Jon, will do.