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We sold the house in the city. Bought 1.6 acres between Denison and Ambrose Texas. That was almost two years ago. Weæ±*e doing all the work ourselves, 4150 sf slab, 89 cu yards concrete we hired out the pour and finish. I found 2600 ft of 11 1/2 X 3 1/4 fourteen gauge C purlins in assorted...

I had a need for a temporary power pole. And I had an abandoned power pole in the fence line. Nothing but a thing

I am working on my new shop and considered the roll ups for the main door. This is just a small blacksmith/welding shop 16 feet wide and 40 feet long. The door is at the north end of the building. I am spitting distance from the Red River. I have not figured out why the Okies never maintain...

Late eighties I built and sold rick racks that I had designed. Almost five years ago I came across one of them and took some photos, client had me doing a gate and had the rick rack I had made for his father. Sprinkler pipe is known as schedule ten. I used sch 10 1 1/2 pipe (1 7/8 O. D. 1. Cut...

Neighbor has a 2535 and it acts like the seat safety switch or something like it is keeping it from starting. Anyone know the safety switches and their location on this tractor?

Ron Hall shows up, work follows

Yesterday we went by the Pond project to pick up a couple of turkeys. They had ordered three and received four and wanted us to take two. It's been ten years and the place is marked forever, or until a new owner changes the decor.

A week ago I was picking up a couple of round bales at a friend's place. He had a Mahindra with remotes at the back and it had a bat wing mower that we had to bring the wings up so we could change out remotes so we could use the front loader with hay spears. Mahindra needs to go to John Deere...

One of my good friends wanted an anvil. He found the one he wanted but to get it he had to buy the whole collection. Collector had no interest in blacksmithing, he just loved anvils. So I'm helping my bud move the ones he doesn't want. They are all quality old anvils. If you see something...

Items For Sale At Auction - Retirement/Estate Auction in Caddo Mills, Tx Public Auction Sale: Retirement/Estate Auction - Caddo Mills, Tx I knew the old man who died ten or so years ago. He worked at the aircraft plant in Greenville but before that he was a rural blacksmith. His son who is...

We lost our cat at the Red Barn RV Park on east 380 Friday the fifth morning. He got spooked and took off. His name is Chewey and my wife and his dog miss him something fierce. He's wearing a collar that has a tag with his name and my cell number on it. But it is a breakaway collar so it...

The Wylie FD asked me to help them out with a project. Back in the day when they were mostly volunteers that was nothing but a thing. They would ask and I would deliver. But things change, we now have three fire stations and tons of firemen and lots of equipment. The Wylie FD has won state...

We decided to put this thread up in Rural Living because this is where most of us know Jinman. As most of you know for the past year of so Jim has had some serious health issues. His beautiful home has three levels and it is great except it isn't handicap friendly and Jim's mobility has been...

Yesterday afternoon two nice young men from Houston came up to visit. They are interested in working in Haiti and using Ubuntublox. Immediately after getting out of the truck the younger one asked me, "are we still in Texas? I'm cold here." It was 95 when they left Houston and it was in the...

The first thing that had to be fab'd up and installed was the angle iron track on the concrete across the drive. Texas Don and Mikim made it look easy. Then Mikim had to paint the rails for the gate to ride on inside the fence. We discovered that Mike hates cleaning paint brushes, won't do it.

Mike's original plan was a very simple gate that fit seamlessly in the entryway. When he realized that he couldn't purchase economically the steel equivalents to the existing wood he decided to turn me loose, with reins of course. This is what the finished gate looks like except for the ranch...

Mikim sent me an email with a design for his concrete pour for his new slide gate. I sent him back some modifications. What followed that was one of those one stone killing many bird events. Mike and Bernice got my expertise. My wife got her week out in the fifth wheel adventure, and maybe...

That's because two weeks ago I had to replace the thirty year old water line from the meter to the house. It was only 35' or so but it was almost three feet deep and in the infamous gumbo clay here in North Texas. I call it "DeMudder". It's a light weight anvil device for shocking the clay...

A friend of mine is the director of Human Rights Initiative in Dallas. They do good things for immigrants. He mentioned their break room table was broken but they still had the glass top. I decided to do something for them. All aluminum tig'd with Lincoln 205 ac/dc, no pedal, air cooled...

Good news, it is done and doing well in Parker Az last I heard. Originally the pickup was set up with diodes for using the pickup lights from the Peterbilt through the RV. Sometimes the diodes went out and it was an issue. So the last thing I did was install three way toggle switches in a...

Every now and then I see a question here about securing a sliding barn door. This is the way I do mine. I have a couple of rules when it comes to security. Thieves are lazy so we add a little work. Thieves are stupid so we make it where they have to think. Photo 85. Look at the door, it...

I have a new bud that is a heckuva mechanic. The only thing slower than his speech is his movement. But he makes every word and physical effort count. He likes the truck bed. The other evening we were cussing and discussing it, mostly the irritation of an old scratch start heliarc system...

The basket gate is at the powder coaters so I am doing a fill in job for a friend. He wanted an all aluminum Razr bed for his 2012 Silverado pickemup. We have hot chicks for welding inspectors.

I have a large plastic tool box that I've had for twenty years now just for carrying my welding hood. It keeps them from getting broken and it keeps them dry. Well, it used to keep them dry. A couple of weeks ago I used the tool box for a work bench, just to drill a couple of three sixteenths...

I like playing with pipe, character flaw I will admit. I'm building a special metal fence (over in projects) and thought this would be the right time to do something I've wanted to do for some time now. I started with a bucket of bent 1" pipe (1 3/8" O.D.). I have a hydraulic Hossfield and...

It was a one day job. Client had purchased a new toy hauler and needed their 12' high overheads raised to 15'. I picked up the new pipe, 4 5/8" for two of the gates and 2 7/8" for the last one. The idea is to cut the overhead at the top of the existing posts. Then trim the post square and...

A fun thing about this is making sure everything is coated the right color. The two pieces in the one picture have to be done different colors. The big piece is a splicer for the rails so it will be the light rail color. The smaller bracket will be holding the rail to the post so it will be...

D Magazine : How to Rebuild Haiti Using Trash It was a little like building Don And Karen's bridge if we had Austin and Washington D.C giving advice.

Looked in that nest box and there was a small chicken snake, reached in and grabbed it wondering if that was the way Eddie Walker would do it. OOps! She got me twice while I adjusted the grip.

August/Sept of 2011 and all of March of this year I stayed at the Haiti Communitere compound in Port AU Prince. Their workshop while primitive was good enough for me to make the equipment I needed to make while there. Even more importantly, it was good enough for the Haitian community to use...

From Trash to Home, Sweet Home | NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/02/27/plastic-bag-house-could-be-answer-for-haiti/

I had rotator cuff surgery for two tears incurred when I fell onto a plow. The surgery was 12/27. I've been off the oxycodiene for about three days, occasional tylenol now. Yesterday we made a stand for the keyboard so I can type, sling is above the keyboard, works great. I'm 63, no pills of...

Harvey, I think you need to start a "Harvey in Haiti" thread in the Rural Living Forum, that's pretty rural. I saw your welding post, only by doing a search on your name. Questions to answer: Where are you staying? How long are you going to be there? Have you started making the blocks? Are you...

I arrived in Port Au Prince the 11th of August. My immediate goal is to build two Ubuntu-blox machines. One of the reasons I'm posting this part of this adventure here is it involves a lot of the topics I've seen discussed on welding forums many times. I don't have ideal circumstances...

Haiti is international isn't it? Yup, next week my two oldest grandsons and myself are going to be in Haiti demonstrating the Ubuntu-Blox machine and method for building a house for the rich and famous. Then we hope to get out amongst it and participate in other's endeavors. You can follow us...

jovoto / empowering creatives / ideas If you are in to neat ideas and off the wall solutions to the world's problems then you might find this site interesting. While you are there take a look at my entry "recycled plastic block houses" and rate it for me. Follow your conscience, good sense...

Ubuntu-Blox on facebook. We are building the first home made with these blocks on the SMU campus for SMU Engineering & Humanity Week - Home What we have is a manual machine that compresses trash plastic to make building blocks to build housing. It was intended for developing nations but...

Some of y'all might like this. Just playing with the forge and Hossfield to make something a little different. The color was chosen and applied by a friend of mine in Lavon Texas. Marcus Spence is the owner of Aerofinish and an artist.

Some here might have remembered last November I came up with an idea of using plastic trash to build homes, not just houses, homes. I haven't been here or any place else much because it has an energy and time consuming adventure. I can't claim credit for the success we are experiencing because...

Monday we set some posts and hung a gate in southern OK. A fence contractor provided a 763 Bobcat with a hydraulic auger with a 9" Beltec rock auger BELLTEC Industries :: Bullet Tooth Rock Auger It went through the fractured rock first foot or so okay but stopped digging at the solid...

If you're interested you can click on my signature and scroll down to the bottom topic.

Welding Galvanized Steel -- Safely ｩ Sperko Engineering Services, Inc.,1999, Welding of Galvanized Products Welding of galvanized steel is done almost exactly the same way as welding of the bare steel of the same composition; the same welding processes, volts, amps, travel speed, etc. can be...

Yeah, I know. I do things differently The four inch EMT gate is done but I don't know whether I'll go up to Oklahoma to install it or if my bud will have a local install it. So I made some tractor hinges for it just in case. 1/4 X 2" bar stack cut one foot long. Using my Riley McMillen...

One of my many character flaws involves the way I secure things. I guess a lot of my perverted perspective comes from the lack of respect I have for thieves. My sliding shop door is an exampe of that. If you look at it closely there are some things that just aren't right. The most obvious of...

A bud of mine wants a farm gate for his hunting land in southern Oklahoma. He has a TSC type gate and wants something a little more substantial. We started off with ten pieces of ten feet long four inch EMT. The neat thing about the four inch is I have a tool for coping it. This isn't my...

Catchy title, eh? I had a nice lady call me the other day wanting to know if I did window guards. I told her I didn't because people died when there was a fire and window guards were in place. "I don't mean that kind of window guard" she said. "I want a window in my privacy fence so my dogs...

This is the one I use the most often these days. Here it's got a two by attached with a router for milling tenons on cedar rails for fence. It's a piece of quarter wall 2 X 2 tubing with two stubs welded to it. I can clamp just about anything to it and with the truck as the anchor I can put...

Doggone, it's early, got up at three forty five cst. Tomorrow's the big day. Our schedule today is we fly out of Dallas-Ft Worth at seven thirty this morning to Detroit. We have an hour or so lay over in Detroit and then we catch a bush plane to Appleton. We get there about twelve thirty...

You can still make things. Earlier this year I had a friend ask me to make him another one of these. His had been borrowed and then lost by the friend that borrowed it. This one is mine. It's moved over a thousand cubic yards of concrete over the years. It's great for filling post holes...

I'm a contractor. All the time I have to figure out a price and then I have to justify it to first myself and then to the client. I'll be the first to admit that most of the time I'm not the cheapest, sometimes by a long shot. The price isn't something to get mad about as far as I am...

The other day young son called and asked if I knew someone who could straighten up their brick mail box because the HOA was having fits about it leaning. He had a couple of quotes, three to four hundred dollars. I told him I would look at it. As most of you know I have hitch receivers built...

Last Saturday evening we called in a suspected dwi on our way home. First he/she caused me to stand on the brakes to avoid a collision when they pulled out from a state park. Then they wouldn't go over forty in a sixty for about five miles, constantly tapping their brakes too. Nine at night...

I haven't left for the big tractor playground in the sky yet. We got the patent 7,707,794 on the bracket system. I had to name it for powerpoint presentations to industry so I named it after the dumbest son of a gun I know, They're Harvey Connectors. We're back in the city now so I can get on...

I finally got the patent on the building system TexasDon used to build his carport/garage. Now I'm working on a press release for the trade magazines. I need the numbers on the lateral strength of fourteen gauge formed C channel or purlin 2" X 4". I know pipe is strong/weak three hundred and...

Yeah, I know. Leo died four years ago a little earlier this month. At his funeral I pointed out that what Leo did best was he believed in people. Person after person stood up and testified that they were better at something or another because Leo believed in them. One of the things that Leo...

The old folks here know the story, a tbn member created harveylacey.com and posted mostly stories from tbn. His name was Leo Frisk. Leo died three years ago I never got around to doing anything with the website except paying for the server and domain name. Well thanks to another tbn member...

I had a bud call me from the Richie Bros auction in Ft Worth. He said D8N's that went for $110 to 125,000 a year ago went for the middle forties this year. D3's went for the low to middle twenties and the same size Case, 450's, went for the low teens. He bought some stuff and claimed he stole...

I know. Most of y'all thought I had went to the big project in the sky since it's been so long since I've posted a project here. I've been doing stuff. It's just been little stuff. The kind of stuff that keeps the bills paid in these tough times. TBN is still my home page on the puter. And...

Yesterday wasn't an ordinary day for me. When I called my daughter a couple of weeks ago and told her what I was going to be doing on her birthday she exclaimed, "that's great. Glenda gets to take you shopping." "I get a new tractor?" I asked. "No" she said. "But you don't get on to a...

Bud called about giving him a helping hand installing an antenna. He needed fifty feet of antenna for the wi-fi internet service. The internet service not only wanted a bundle for supplying the antenna, they were backed up on installations. He found a used one on Craigs list. So yesterday I...

I found this one friday night. Glenda and me sat there glued to the small picture on the computer for the full hour and sixteen plus minutes. If you only do one thing with those you love make it watch this video with them. YouTube - Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Anyone who has been around me more than five minutes has probably heard me say, "I'd rather be lucky than good. Anyone can be good, that only takes effort." The reason I say that is because I always get lucky on projects and most of the time they turn out the way I want or even better...

Navistar It seems navistar is buying GM's medium and heavy duty truck business.

We got back from vacation and went straight to Eddies for the Octoberfest get together. Since then we've stretched and tied in about eleven hundred feet of eight feet high fence. The posts and braces were done by others. We stretched and tied in one strand of barbwire top and bottom. Posts...

Jake Norman died yesterday. He was a good man. We'll be going to his funeral in south east Texas Wednesday. Hug someone close to you for us. Jake was a coonass. That's a rare breed and an acquired taste. But once you learn to appreciate it, you're hooked. It was Jake who introduced me to...

Post-Wife-Retirement-Life file is my new role as the post-artist. Artist of course being the person who does for the doing because they have a significant other with a real job. My wife retired the 23rd of June. One of the misconceptions about retirement is one becomes more busy doing things...

A TBN member and friend/client/vendor asked me to help him with a handrail for his new home. We decided on the hammered tubing from King Architectural Metals wrought iron metal balusters finials casting steel ornamental forged gate fence stairs Access control We used the one by two for top...

Thirty one years ago in a swap meet in southern California, back then, back there, drive in theatres were swap meets on weekends, I bought a box of toys. In that box was four Thunderbird AMT store 1/25th scale store models. As it was explained to me the dealers had these models on the show...

I hit the USPTO site and the patent application has been published. It isn't the patent. But it is a milestone closer to having the patent awarded than we were about eighteen months ago initiating the patent process. United States Patent Application: 0070062150

One of my friends invited me to help him and his family prepare the site, drill the piers, form and pour the beams for their new pier and beam home. The site in outside of Terrel, Texas and the soil is sandy loam. He got a Kubota with the property.

Many of you know I have a website. Almost all of it was derived from posts here on TBN. It was converted over to the website by Leo Frisk who passed away almost a year ago from cancer. I haven't done anything with it even though Leo gave me all the passwords etc. Bobby Goodwin and myself...

He's doing fine. It's been about a year and a half since I last talked to him I believe. As most of you know he's had some health problems. Today he was on my mind and so I called and he answered. He's sounding great and things are looking up.

I've never laughed so hard in my life. YouTube - Don't Mess With The Bunny

I had one and a half inches in my rain gauge this morning. This is a good thing.

Yesterday my daughter daughtered. Kamryn Ashley put in her appearance. She showed up 7 lbs and 11 oz, was twenty and a half inches long. Here she is with her hairiest grandpa, her momma, and doing her first opera, and her father and big brother. One look and I called her a thirty. That's a...

For the last couple of weeks I've been wondering if I was a third of the half of a man I used to be. Seriously, I was thinking that fifty eight was the age everyone had warned me about. You know the one where it all stops but the crying. Manual labor seemed to be killing me. Like I said...

An engineering firm called a couple of weeks ago. Said something about needing a creative mind on a job. Me? It seems there's this hill.....

The fourteenth my youngest grandchild will be two. He already has every toy available. Today I found what I believe will be the perfect present for a two year old. Here's where I need the help..... What do you think?

The best fence for horses that I've found is V Mesh. It provides a net approach to horse containment. When a horse hits the fabric the impact is spread over a large area, along the fence, along the body of the horse. The biggest problem with V Mesh when it comes to installation is getting it...

Yesterday evening the client interupted my welding. "Harvey we're being invaded by bees!!!" I flipped back the hood to see a swarm of bees around his small Bradford Pear tree. "They won't bother us while they're swarming." I went back to welding. It was a pretty awesome sight once they...

Don wanted a carport and he wanted to use my connector building system. So here's what we're going to do, am doing. We're going to have an online discussion where he'll use my connectors and I'll provide advice and ideas as his building goes up. He's convinced himself, not me, that he's only...

Ozarker, aka X Terminator, aka Jim Valentine was first and foremost a patriot. He was also a tractor nut with an ozark degree to confirm his lunacy for things country. Jim was slightly less conservative than I am liberal. We enjoyed many an online debate. If a topic could be divided on a...

I lost my bud LWFrisk which sorta changes the way I post on projects from now on. You see I used to post pictures and prose here on an ongoing project and Leo would capture it and post it on harveylacey.com. Harveylacey.com was Leo's passion. It was his baby. He's been fighting cancer since...

When I got in tonight there was an email from Lisa (tractorwidow) informing me that Leo (LWFrisk) passed away last night.

We've got television, internet, and telephone all from Verizon. It's a little hard to get used to let me tell you. I just checked my up speed, 14,778.3 KB. I'm paying for fifteen K up. I think I'll call and complain about the slow transmission. I use photobucket for some of my photo...

Almost thirty years ago I was playing with dirt track cars in Southern California. Budget was tight and I needed a trailer. With a street stock-figure eight car you need a tilt trailer. They're low to the ground and invariably when it comes time to load up at the end of an evening of racing...

The TBN'rs that showed up for our barn raising probably remembered the red horse of Scott's. They also remember all the five foot two by four non climb all over the place. Last month while he was in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving Red, a thorough bred mare evidently had a discussion with the horses...

Here's the link I know there's a bunch of people who watch the show and might find the report interesting. I did.

When you're fifty seven this is something to brag about. And I did it without medication!

It's good to be sitting at my desk looking at my computer screen. We had a terrific three week six thousand and three mile vacation. Now we're facing the glad-sad to be backsees. Tomorrow we'll be back at the pond. The guys have already called and are chomping at the bit to get back on it...

I was informed the other day (yup, vacation will be over tomorrow) that we'll be going with a geothermo HVAC system with the pond we're preserving as the heat sink. So-o-o-o I need to learn as much as possible in the next couple of days about geo thermo theory as I can. I'm facing possible...

I guess seeing couples meet and marry over the internet should tell us what we know in our hearts. The internet is another neighborhood not unlike the ones we participate in each day at work or home. One of the real pleasures in my life has been the TBN community. Probably the most...

It's been awhile in the making. And the inspiration for the whole thing started with two influences. One was a friend wanting me to come up with some new products his factory could manufacture. The other was all the interest shown here on TBN by members wanting a chance to build a metal...

And he's my grandson.

Okeedon asked but I'm sure he's not the only one to wonder why I do so much mixing on site with a nine cubic foot mixer. For me it's about control, quality, quanity, and time versus both of those. It's also more economical. Buying Portland cement, sand, and gravel and mixing myself versus...

I've been working on a project for the last couple of weeks that some of you might find enteresting. I went to give the customer an estimate on a fence and ended up committing to saving a pond. In two weeks the customer has taken about three hundred pictures and I've taken about a hundred or...

As some of old guys know, I do things. The third of July I turned fifty seven. Not older'n water. But I am old enough to remember when we had dirt and we had water and no one even thought about mixing them and having mud. So I decided to celebrate my day in the fun with a solo parachute...

For some time now I've been working on a system to enable someone with minimal construction skills to build their own shop-shed-barn with only a cordless drill and a metal saw, skill, sawsall, portaband, chop, etc. So last week I started building a portable loafing shed using prototype parts...

Where\'s Hollywood? I've made another rock star. First you start with a hardheaded son of a buck.

This morning I had twenty six emails with 53K attachments from legitimate appearing sources. I've already picked up a new one while surfing TBN. Yesterday I bet I got in excess of fifty hits of the same stuff. I know I can tick people off. But I believe it's something less personal. Anyone...

Bud bumped a tree with his factory bucket first thing out of the gate. The tree bumped back.

Sometimes somethings need enhancement. In fact there's whole industries built around this concept. Well I got called on to do a little of that myself. As you can see "Pete" is rather flat back where most of us have, well, a bulge or two.

$300.00 Quick Attach forks for Hayseed\'s Kubota I built this for Hayseed. The material cost was three hundred dollars, two fifty for the fork assembly at a scrap yard and fifty dollars worth of "etc". (We swapped labor. He did my Monster Garage audition video and I'm still trying to catch up.)

Sometimes a little cat can be a big dawg!

Yesterday afternoon I was interupted by a visitor.

As some of you know unique projects occasionally find me. Here's one that chewed up five days.

You coming to the spring fling thing aka Norte Tejas redux deluxe? It'd be nice to have your come by. You need a memory stone of your very own.

I want to make the kinds of gates this guy does. http://vulcan-forge.com/Tree

Wanna see it again?

This is my grandson testing Lucy to see if she tastes as good as she looks.

Yup, that got your attention http://www.reale.com.br/massa.htm It's pretty tuff stuff. It didn't take me long to grab a face mask when rabbeting it. And I've just about resigned myself to wear gloves handling it. The splinters aren't nice. This is the set up in the shop. The router table...

I've got at least two thousand dollars in carving, cutting, and specialty tools I've purchased at our local Woodcraft store in Farmer's Branch over the years. It's one of those places that you know going in isn't Harbor Freight. You're going to pay three prices. Two of those are for service...

Double doggone darn James! I thought I had a common dream with you. "That is ugly!" came out of miss Glenda's mouth. So I guess I'm stuck with the old Garland Texas International CXT. I do have to admit though I'm not sure what I'd buy for a strut truck. For the ultimate getaround zipper...

One of my brother in laws was telling a friend that he had an in on tractor information. We all are his in. So help me help bro in law look good. We need the oil capacities for the motor, trans, and rearends. It's a 1967 model. Bro in law monitors this site (keeping me honest ya think?)...

Tonight on our way home from Oklahoma we passed a sign for a place of business. I said, "I want to do that on my next birthday." My wife said, "you're crazy!" By the time we got home we had Scott my adopted son, my son in law Matt, my son John, and maybe my son in law Rex all committed to...

Today the cell went off. I looked down at the screen. It was my old bud Ron. I said "hello old man." "Hi harv. This is Sue." "Everything alright?" I asked. "Yeah. Ron's in the hospital but he's okay. He should be home today or tomorrow." "What happened?" I asked, still in a state of...

That when my camera is broken the opportunity for the neatest pictures show up? Last Saturday as I'm setting up to weld on a tractor on a large construction site I notice a twenty yard end dump going up. I watch as it gets up about seventy to eighty percent and then it starts to lean. I...

I realize I'm singing to the choir but for any newbie out there that hasn't done such a project I thought I'd do a little how to. First one must draw out the TBN fella on the tractor on some eighth inch aluminum plate with a Sharpie. Then a little plasma arc cut and one has a pattern that will...

Son in law has a 2004 Duramax four door 4X4 dually. He wants a brush guard. I presented him with an idea last night. He looked back at me like I'd stepped in something and we were on his carpet. Imagine this. Four inch pipe wrap around bumper. Then instead of using smaller pipe to...

Seven or so years ago I built a dump trailer for some buds. It all started when an old boy had a seventy something chevy one ton frame drug in with an eight by twelve steel flat bed dump on it. He wanted me to put the dump bed on a truck he was yet to buy. He did construction site clean ups...

Why that thread up in "do it yourself" I've got going on the outbuilding is getting so many views. Since yesterday afternoon it seems to me it's pushing twelve hundred views. Isn't that a little high?

I do things a little different from most folks most times. One of those things is the way I build an out building. This particular project is a twenty four by twenty four foot horse barn whatever. The principles are the same whether the building is a garage, a barn, a shed, whatever. Here's...

I\'ll bet Ibrahim did it I have to login each time. There have been a couple of computer crashes for me and each time there were passwords I'd forgotten. That made things difficult getting back online and conversing. So now I reject auto recognition and do the manual login. Memory excerise...

That's the guy driving this rig on Interstate thirty through Garland when........

Yesterday I went to a bud's granite shop and picked up a rock for a table. Yesterday I also picked up over a hundred feet of one inch schedule forty pipe. Today between showers I'm going to hopefully start forging the pipe into shape for a small table and two stools. The rock not only has...

A good rock auger is expensive, very expensive. So I try to buy components and then assemble it myself. Retail on this kind of auger usually runs about twelve to sixteen hundred dollars. Buying from the manufacturer but at an individual's price will run eight to nine hundred. Buying through...

I've been making these for almost twenty years. They're simple most of time to make. Easy to lock. And if they're made right, relatively horse resistant.

Okeedon and help me out here. I got a call this morning to meet with a restaurant--country club manager about a cooker. Supposedly they've bought a killer grill. And they want it mobile, unique, and western killer style. Something about wanting to be able to cook in the restaurant, or on the...

I know we have a shiskeepotfull of forums. And each has it's own wonderful purpose. But I'd like to see one more, a product review of related stuff we use. I bought a pair of Fiskar post hole diggers the other day at a box store. They were cute, nice curves, good feel, I'm easy. I'd like to...

There's some close ups of them in "photos". But they're just some holes cut in three quarter bar stock with an offset ring welded in. When you slide them over a pipe post and lift with a chain it all comes up.

Here's a matched pair

I visit and post on four or five forums reguarly. This is without a doubt the most user friendly and friendly for the users one out there. Last night I did a just before bedtime check of the forums and noticed a recent post that was a personal attack. It was a newbie so I didn't notify the...

it should go

Well, close. We've got two power poles left from an old service feed on a bud's place. So Iris and me decided to pull them and then put one down by the pond. First I put the sixteen auger on Iris and dug holes besides the poles and then one down at the pond. A little perspective.

Yesterday I got to play for a minute on a new Cat 416 backhoe loader. Joy stick backhoe controls, tighter'n Dick's hatband, and turbo, love the sound and power of that turbo. She was a delight. And I'll bet a the hole against the donut that I find an excuse to take her out on a "date".

Yup, watched Monster House one time too many. I sent them an email application along with a picture. If the application doesn't make them run and hide, the picture will. It would be fun. But I doubt I'm their kind of fish to fry. I don't always play well with others. But I will do most...

This subject comes up often. I do a lot of it. These observations are my own and this is only the way I do it. I have my reasons for just about every part of the process. Some of those reasons might or might not be important to anyone else. From a professional's point of view I like the...

Here's the situation. Customer has came up with the idea that when the new house is finished he doesn't want anyone laying another trench across the place. So we're building in a cabinet out near the gate that will be the access point for the telco, cable tv, etc. It will also be where the...

Into every life a little sunshine breaks through now and then. At 6:49 pm CST we were almost blinded by an explosion of light.

Yeah, I know ya'll ain't into that but............... sometimes..... Customer points out to me the pole barn is history. Twenty four by thirty six with a galvanized tin covering and waterproof from umpteen coats of paint. I mention it to a bud. A deal is made. Free for the taking. So...

We put up six hundred foot of five foot nonclimb yesterday for a quickie fence. Bud just picked up eight acres and needs a corral to hold the ponies (eighteen hands) and goats while he builds his fence. We dug eighteen inch holes six to seven feet deep and put in telephone poles for corners...

Some time ago I needed a wagon. So I went to TSC and picked up some of their cheapo wheels. I decided to go with four wheel steer, easy way. Four wheel steer lets you hang a ninety degree turn, literally. The rear wheels will follow in t he path of the front ones. Simple to do.

Some reason I like spring at Harvey\'s House Texas This one only gives me about six blooms a year. But each one is so special.

I have to pull posts probably a little more often than most folks on this forum. Being a little lazy and really not interested in picking up others and their problems to help me do things I've had to come up with an idea or two. One of the handiest is my post pulling attachment. It's so...

Yup, 625 for the Freightliner, four of them SRT-10's at five hundred a piece and gawd know what that Healey packs. For the inquiring minds those SRT-10's carry a sticker of $54,000.00. Definately all about bragging rights.

This is a project I'm starting. Every now and then I get lucky and get to be involved in a project that's unique or at least a little different. This is one of those. The project involves about two hundred and seventy feet of pipe fence with a gate. There will be an automatic operator of...

A couple of TBN members are working with me on www.harveylacey.com It's already set up and running thanks to Leo. And Ron here in norte tejas is close and willing to help. Leo's got it started but we're wanting space so that we can give each gate it's own story. Sorry, but my gates all have...

http://www.whitecap.net/ This outfit sent me a catalog. They have all the tools. I could drop twenty grand in a heart beat on things I really really really could use. But what got the clock to ticking was their requests for tricked out trucks for a catalog! I think Lucy is going to be...

It seems like it was only a couple of years ago when Brandon's mom and us were laughing about everything on her place being pregnant but her. That was before Brandon. Now he's sixteen. They had a new building put in and want to redo the fence in the area. We decided that since Brandon was...

There are two very serious, make that three, problems with good old used drill stem or casing. First of course is one is never really sure what passed through it and what kind of residue is still about. Saving a couple of bucks might mean poisoning your land. Second is so much of it's heavily...

On occasion I get to take on a project that's challenging enough to be fun. It's a fact of life that when the challenge escalates to a certain point it's no longer work. I guess it's maybe kinda sorta like that silly giggle you get when you're down as far as you can get and life gives you a...

One of the reasons I do what I do the way I do it is for times like today. I got to go back and look at a project that was fun beyond words. Here's something to look at first (the beginning) Then look at the attachment.

Sometimes a man just has to get away from it all and have some fun. Today was one of those days. I took the day off and had some fun at a bud's rock store, er, uh, stone sales yard. We'd talked awhile back about how to make somethings different customers had asked about. I told him I had...

Here's some pics of the finished V Mesh fence in Parker Texas. We didn't want to get too crazy with the gate. So I did a little dressage silhouette in a rolled piece of quarter by three bar stock.

Comcast had an installer ring my bell last Tuesday a little after nine pm wanting to install digital boxes on my televisions. I'm sure he left with the opinion that a old bear is one thing you don't want to wake up. Then last night on my way home after a hard day my cell rings and there's...

I need you to post a picture or two of your Belltec auger you've been using. I've got about two hundred and fifty holes to dig in limestone. I dug about thirty five or so the other day and found out a couple of things. The most important was this monster of a bit that I'd assumed would kick...

I've got a deal for you. For about six months I've been working on a couple of different things. One of them is a way for the less experienced but just as energetic homeowner to do their own pipe fence. I had a great idea. It was wonderfulemousosis. Then a bud had a better idea. Here's...

New Year\'s Day traditions We have one. Dinner must have cooked cabbage, cornbread, blackeyed peas and pork. I think it's a southern thing. But my wife's a little cajun so she always adds Extra Hot Rotel to the peas and sausage. That makes it a real southern thing. How about ya'll...

I don't know if any of you are planning on Santa bringing you a cordless drill or cordless tool combo pack in about ten days. But if you are I was reading the fine print on Home Depot's ad on their new Rigid line the other day. They are offering free battery packs for life on sets sold until...

It\'s the little things I\'m thankfull for.... They say the difference between a man and a boy is the toys. Well, I'm still a kid.

Yup, don't look like much here though. Bud wants a twelve by twenty one three sided shed for his horses to be able to get out of the weather. Here in north Texas we have a lot of rain and even more clay. A shed for two horses will become a bog in no time at all. So bud asked me if we could...

Check out this elevator!

What\'s this world coming to? One of my pet stops every morning (after TBN of course) is NASCAR.com. I can't believe this. flakes in my world I guess that's what you get when you get a wannabe-movie-star-because-daddy-is-a-cookie-cutter-house-builder to invest in a NASCAR truck team. It's...

An attorney friend was trying to explain patents to me. The way he put it was along the line of skinning cats. There are lots of ways to skin a cat. If you have a unique and innovative way it's patentable. These are not patentable ways of fitting pipe. I have a Vogel pipe notcher that...

When I built the new truck I put on a new Tekonsa Sentinel brake controller. It puked. I've noticed that sometimes with a trailer on the gain lights wouldn't work. But the brakes were working. And sometimes the monitor light wouldn't come on like it used to when I hit the truck brakes...

Last year I told the story here about the little kid playing with the plastic pipe and some sticks while I was welding up some fence at the high school. Little round fella about seven years old doing some interesting stuff while his brother and their parents were fixing up the old kid's pig...

Yup, Lucy, Miss Glenda, and me are pulling out of here Monday for points west. We're heading for Arizona where I was born and mostly raised. I'm taking along a bunch of samples of some products we're wanting to peddle to the steel suppliers. We'll hit them as we go through and leave some...

One of the advantages of having a welding machine is every now and then you need something now when only a something will do. It's a ............

Bud bought a new piece of commercial property for a satellite yard for their business. It needed a fence across the front. He decided he wanted a forty foot double gate. Problem was there was an old circular drive and he wanted the gate in the middle. He asked me to put in the new culvert...

I need a little help here guys. A bud has the above tractor without a FEL that is cleaner than a whistle, runs like a top. What would be a fair market price? I know, a man can't have too many tractors. Thanx, harv

Some questions for TBN\'rs in Texas, OK, etc The other day while visiting a fellow tbn'r here in norte tejas the subject of a loafing shed came up. I told him that I would think about helping him lay out a do it yourselfer. That conversation initiated an evolution process. I'm to the point...

Iris, my tractor, is quite a lady. Here's one of my attachments I've made for her. Can you guess what it is?

Actually because of the rain I went to the shop and made something I've needed for awhile. Can you guess what it is?

Lucy\'s tail of \"whoa\" poor girl

I just had another adventure with the utility locate gawds, fickle things. The number one rule to remember when dealing with buried utilities is that you are guilty and will never be proven innocent. If there's a doubt in your mind consider all the bad things that have happened recently in...

One of the regular haunts I hit at least weekly is http://www.vietvet.org/army216.htm For the Nam vet it's an interesting cruise. For the human nature fan it's a very revealing place. For the father of a daughter it's a window into just how important a father is to a daughter. Some of the...

The end of the month, 30, 31, and the first of June will be Ironfest in Grapevine, Texas. Bird you'd better show up. I would tell you that I'd be easy to identify, nice looking portly guy with a beard, but about half the guys there will fit that description if it's anything like two years ago...

I live in a subdivision surrounded by country. The goats and chickens are less than a half mile away at the shop. But the area is growing, I mean growing. We got a new neighbor this week. The old neighbor was a neat guy who did great bodywork. We did some trading and got along just fine...

One of the problems I have in life is some customers just turn me loose to make their dream come to life sorta kinda. It is fun, usually complicated, and always evolving. This is an example. Customer had a six thousand square foot metal building made. I had nothing to do with the original...

The other day my steel supplier referred me to an old boy way out in the country as maybe a source that could do me good. I was looking for someone to break me some three sixteenth's plate. My bud warned me that I should had oughta be careful. "James is a little like you" was the way he put...

It's not so much of a problem of whom but of what. First there's Scrapper, the rooster. His problem is he's convinced he's the boss and I'm here to entertain him. Yesterday would be a great example. I came home early from the job in the country. When I got out of the truck at the shop to...

Have you ever used a set of manual post hole diggers and found it very frustrating when the hole is deeper than two feet and you can't get them to close because the handles hit the sides of the hole? I look at manual post hole diggers different from ya'll. If the digging isn't super hard I...

And tractors were tractors

Today I had some real fun pulling cedar posts, just limbs put in the ground many years ago that had barbwire and field fence nailed to them. The old boy next door to where I'm working let me know them posts were in there forever and wished me luck. I explained I had a trick up my sleeve and I...

A couple of years ago a company gave me an auger that they no longer needed. It had originally been a twelve inch with a Pengo head for a Bobcat two and nine sixteenths round coupler. Some sorry son of a southern siberian sheep chaser had used the auger to the point where it was now a ten...

Professional fence men have been mixing good concrete for decades and decades out of a wheelbarrow. A decent crew, foreman and helper, can lay out, dig, and set sixty to eighty posts in a day if the digging isn't horrible. That equates to about two to three yards of sand and gravel mixed with...

I happen to love old things that serve a purpose. Of course anything to do with gates really gets my attention. Johnny will be ninety this year. He's a little hard of hearing. Heck, he's a little hard of head too. Here are some examples of the treasures I'm finding on the old place...

I got a start on making a pad for a new building. We're pulling in about three hundred cubic yards of material from the berm of a drainage ditch. Of course we thought a bud's beater dump truck would make more sense than repeated loads with the loader backhoe. Then the dump truck got stuck......

lovin\' can be boring Here's two hundred pounds plus ridin' for grins

I thought ya'll might want to see <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.hendrensfarmtoys.com/>this</A> Scroll down to the bottom of the page and drewl, drule, and drool

Not even two thousand on her and she got stucker'n, well, she got stuck.

You know a tractor's work is never done. I've been working on Lucy this last week. Iris decided to help, nest instinct at work I guess....... And you thought I named her Iris because she was so cute and a little heavy in the backside..........

Tuesday morning a bud took me to the dealer and I picked up Lucy. Then Tuesday afternoon I went with another bud and visited his factory and laid out where I'm going to put in about a thousand to twelve hundred feet of ornamental fence. It was a full day. I'd left Lucy at the shop and taken...

I have a question for you. Would it be okay to take my digital camera and do a walk through of my bud's factory? They make lawn edgers, the old fashioned gas powered walk behinds. What blows me away about the place and I suspect what might interest my cyber buds here is how they make all the...

These are like the ones that ate my grandpa's fingers. Notice the one on the left has the guard and the cradle....

and today we think a six horse mower is a minimum

I found this in Hillsboro New Mexico

I found this in Camp Verde Arizona about five years ago. I thought I'd share it with ya'll to figure out just exactly what it is. It'll never be mine. But we do have a kindred spirit.

It\'s just a week....... But we're going to enjoy it. In about an hour we're out of here heading west. We're heading west of Phoenix to visit my dad. And then we're going north of there to the Verde Valley where I was born to visit relatives. And then it'll be back to the grind the...

darned if I do, doggoned if I don\'t This is an ethical kind of thingy. This morning I called my shop to see if I had any messages. I've been out of town since Tuesday morning early early. And so I thought maybe I had shoulda oughta touch base. Of course the shop is where solicitors and...