A use for swarf chips

Probably not many have ever had much use for their swarf, but there are times when it can be the best tool for the job
I use mine all the time. I have used the very fine dust like chips as soil amendments
I have used the long curly tendrils from drill presses as rebar in concrete castings
I have packed swarf in the eves of houses to discourage squirrels and birds.
Once I even used some stainless steel drilling swarf on top of a fence to serve as razor wire at a business I had in a city a long time ago.
So yesterday I caught a snake in my chicken house, in spite of our burying barbed wire and sheet metal around the chicken pen when we added on to it years ago snakes have discovered a way to get inside of the older preexisting portion and yesterday I managed to find out how they were getting in when the snake trying to exit got stuck with the dozen eggs in its belly.
Here is what I did to prevent this from happening again
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Thanks Frank S! We've added your Chicken House Pest Control to our Farm and Garden category,
as well as to your builder page: Frank S's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

<div id="blocks"> <div class="block b1 pngfix"> <div class="bimg"> <div> <a href="https://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-chicken-house-pest-control"> <img src="/uploads/233719/homemade-chicken-house-pest-control.jpeg"/> </a> </div> </div> <div class="head pngfix"></div> <div class="left pngfix"></div> <div class="right pngfix"></div> <div class="blockover b1 pngfix"> <div class="title"> <a href="https://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-chicken-house-pest-control">Chicken House Pest Control</a> <span> by <a href="https://www.homemadetools.net/builder/Frank+S">Frank S</a></span> </div> <div class="tags">tags: <a href='https://www.homemadetools.net/tag/farm-tools'>farm tools</a> </div> </div> </div> </div>
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Snakes ? What kind of Snake ?
Frank, where you live appears quite exotic to me ��

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Originally Posted by Christophe Mineau

Snakes ? What kind of Snake ?
Frank, where you live appears quite exotic to me ��

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It was just a bull snake about 5 & 1/2 feet long he could have lived in peace out in the woods had he not developed a taste for eggs. Our eggs are a small cash crop for us, we sell enough to pay for the chicken feed and still accumulate some to boot plus it lets us have eggs for breakfast every morning. So anything that upsets the natural flow of things has a short life expectancy

I like your perspective, Frank

How did you cook him?

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Originally Posted by NortonDommi

How did you cook him?

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I guess he chopped him up and scrambled the dozen eggs. I usually find that much shells when I scramble...OR boil him, that'd even work better!

We have Garter snakes, King snakes, Gopher snakes and Rattlesnakes on our property in California. All get to live except for the rattlers . Probably 10 years ago I accidentally scoped an 18" baby rattler by the head with my gloves. I looked at this wiggling thing in my gloves and saw the diamond stripes. That was one of those "Oh Sh-t" moments and chucked the baby rattler on the ground.and got my flat-blade shove. Took its head clean off and kept its two segment rattle. I was lucky to pick it up by the head but did not see it while removing the spent grey lavender seeds/flowers Just grey on grey. This was in April and our worst month for rattlesnakes. I do a lot of brush clearing on our property and never walk backwards just in case there may be a rattlesnake too slow to move away from the noise of the brush cutters. I always have my cell phone with me in case I need to dial 911

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Originally Posted by Frank S

I have used the long curly tendrils from drill presses as rebar in concrete castings

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I seem to remember that's exactly what vault building companies do to make the pre-fab panels,
adding swarf to the pretty dry concrete mix, vibrating the molds for hours.
I did a fast check and that's about what I found.

Thus purportedly getting more 10 times more ruggedness from today's 3" panel than the old 18" conventional concrete pour.
Then as an added benefit - the swarf probably also diverting the heat from a villain's torch -
making the wall "impossible to cut".
What they actually add to the mix is shrouded in the mystery of "proprietary info", of course...

-So, what swarf are they actually using?
Stainless for ruggedness? Aluminum for heat conductivity? "Tungsten swarf", if even existant, for the highest melting point?

Link: How bank vault is made - material, history, used, parts, product, industry, History, Raw Materials, Design

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Originally Posted by DIYSwede

I seem to remember that's exactly what vault building companies do to make the pre-fab panels,
adding swarf to the pretty dry concrete mix, vibrating the molds for hours.
I did a fast check and that's about what I found.

Thus purportedly getting more 10 times more ruggedness from today's 3" panel than the old 18" conventional concrete pour.
Then as an added benefit - the swarf probably also diverting the heat from a villain's torch -
making the wall "impossible to cut".
What they actually add to the mix is shrouded in the mystery of "proprietary info", of course...

-So, what swarf are they actually using?
Stainless for ruggedness? Aluminum for heat conductivity? "Tungsten swarf", if even existant, for the highest melting point?

Link: How bank vault is made - material, history, used, parts, product, industry, History, Raw Materials, Design

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a long time ago I made a gun vault for a friend of mine out of 3/8" thick steel and lined it with 2 1/2" of concrete the door had a 7 bolt lock system but the real clincher was as I poured the concrete in the door I added crushed carbide cutters and ball bearings in the area where the combination lock mounted and swarf throughout the pours of sides of the entire vault The hinges were concealed inside of the box as opposed to the way most vaults are made then the interior was finished by another friend with 1" thick cedar finished inside dimensions were 72" tall 24" wide and 18" deep making it 80' x 32'x26" outside all dimensions approximate I have no idea how much it weighed but I would guess well over a ton. I told him when we set the combination to make dang sure it was something that he could never forget because a lock smith who would normally know where to drill into the door near the combination lock would never be able to drill the hole. the only way into that safe would have been to completely destroy it by cutting it up. He owned 3 guns that required the federal tax stamp to own one of them worth well over half a million dollars in 1998 money or so he said I never saw them.
I probably still have some of the drawings I made while designing the hinge and lock system somewhere on one of my hard drives

thats smart thinken!!!! so how do I use it to get rid of the neighbors ?:rimshot:

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Originally Posted by marksbug

thats smart thinken!!!! so how do I use it to get rid of the neighbors ?:rimshot:

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stuff it into shotgun shells? :D

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Originally Posted by drivermark

stuff it into shotgun shells? :D

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build you a blunder buss. might be shorted range but it would cut down on the overhead.

hmmm......

Funnily enough I was working on a motorcycle wheel lock design a while ago, the lock was to be based an Israeli Multi-lok with a 16mm shackle, with a fabricated hardened steel protector over the shackle to prevent grinder attack filled with carbide balls and 5 grains of propellant sealed in with JBweld, so any slitting disc grinder attack (the favoured method in the UK) would destroy the disc on the balls and the gas jet from the propellant would 'cook' the grinder/thief. Still on the back-burner as a stenchant rather then propellant would be needed for UK use, given our laws...

Always great to see material repurposed rather than just thrown away.

when IU was working at a prototype machine shop ( doing a lot of 250-500 count prototype items for the big automakers witch dont have time or resources to do them self for testing to get the items right befor they do go into production,I was there in the AC referedgent change fromr12 to r134. I did a few thousand expansion valve bodys with various orfice holes for test vehicles to get it just right, amoung lots of aricraft and other ****) we generated a lot of swarf chips,strips,flakes of all kindas of material. big pile of them for the recycle guy, and big pile of drops too,I wish I could have some of those drops now that Im at home making chips for my self. 3 day cleanout amlost a half a 35 gallon can of swarf from this "small" shop. I learned a lot there.I did lots of cnc programing&running the machines, reworking blueprints when the "engineer "did NOT get it right...lots of aerospace stuff,and some coustom boat stuff too.even impellers for mud puppys( dredge) the 3d programing was awesome,it took me a few days to read up on it all and get it sunk into my head but it was great.I wish I still had a cnc machine at my finger tips..I was going to buy one for home but...didnt.I wish I had. I thought about making one but....too late in my life now and my brains dont remember squat any more.hell right&left seem to be getting hard to rememeber.... keep all the good stuff comming guys!!!!

A great idea, but it looks like a new way to choke the chickens to me.

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Originally Posted by Moby Duck

A great idea, but it looks like a new way to choke the chickens to me.

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Chickens are dumb but they don't seem dumb enough to scratch or peck at the swarf

I dont think having a hand full of swarf while choking your chicken wood bee a good idea....you might end up with a wobbly duck.

This thread popped up just now when a like was posted to it. To date there has never been another snake in the chicken house. I have never had to add more swarth. Sometimes even the craziest simple fixes work so well you forget about them.