Shop Progress, Blacksmithing awesomeness, and Reading

Hi everyone.

The first thing I would like to cover is what progress has been made in the shop. First, Electricity has been installed, which is great. You can see in the pictures, we have two long fluorescent lights on opposite walls and a box with three sockets. This allows for the playing of music in the shop, which has been nice. Also, we can use power tools, although I haven't bought any yet. By the way, the kid on the right is Sai Ha, my translator.


Also, I purchased a stainless steel sink in Phnom Penh and brought it back to SLP, and got a stand built for it. Thanks to this, I can now wash my hands without having to crouch outside using rainwater. Life feels more civilized. Plumbing the sink in was kind of a debacle, because I had never run PVC plumbing before. It's really easy, but I didn't use enough glue the first time around so we had to cut out some sections that were leaking and re-do them, but it's now watertight. Also, the sink drains to the sewer, so I don't have to wash stuff into the road anymore. I have included this picture of the sink because I rode back to SLP with this on my back. It was ridiculous, and the sink acted as a sail. As Tony said, "you actually have everything including the kitchen sink on your back."

The most recent progress in the shop was the commisioning of a work bench, which will be made out of steel and have a plywood top. It should be done already, I just need to get back, pay for it, and bring it to the shop. On the wall behind the shelf I'm going to install a sheet of plywood to hang hand tools from. And I may have another bench made for the opposite side of the room. Now I need to start doing harder stuff, like coming up with a list of tools to buy and getting that done. And, much more frighteningly, buying parts and actually fixing things. I don't really know how I'm going to accomplsh that. Baby steps.



Okay, so moving on from the Shop, I wanted to include some pictures from an awesome discovery. After commisioning the workbenches, Sai Ha and I rode our bikes past a place with a bunch of scrap metal and about 10 massive acetylene bottles. I was curious, and stopped to check out what was going on. Turns out they were forging axe heads here, which I was really excited about. I think Sai Ha was confused by my exuberance. So here is a picture of the most important part of the operation. That woman is standing near the forge, which is half a 50 gallon drum with an air blower keeping charcoal very hot. She is currently heat treating some axe heads. The massive machine on the left, which is cast iron and taller than me, is a hydraulic hammer or press. I was so blown away by this being here. It's a pretty serious piece of equipment. In the final picture you can see the result of her work, a large collection of axe heads, but if you look carefully in the back left corner of the picture, you will see what looks like a massive bullet standing up straight. I'm farily certain this is the business end of a massive shell, like what would be fired out of a large cannon-y type thing, and it's being used as an anvil. So cool.


So thats whats been going on, and I wanted to write something about books I've been reading and what they've made me think about. So since I've been here, I've finished these books.

This House of Sky, by Ivan Doig
When Broken Glass Floats, by Chanrithy Him
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, by Alan Sillitoe
Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski
A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry
The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham
Freddy and Frederika, by Mark Helprin
Plainsong, by Kent Haruf

Books I have started but not finished are:

On Aggression, by Konrad Lorenz
Irrational Man, by William Barret
The Illusion of Technique, by William Barret
The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen
After London, by Richard Jeffries

So the books i have finished have tended to be novels, and the ones I'm still working on are more philosophically biased. It's been interesting to learn about this stuff, and I'm kind of frustrated by not finishing these books, but I need to re-learn how to read difficult stuff. When i read novels, I read them very quickly and don't have to think about it. But reading some of this other stuff I find myself reading the words but thinking about something else, because I have to read a couple sentences, and stop and think about what they mean. It's a pretty different ball game.

So this train of thought led to a lot of writing. It will be in another post, entitled "thoughts on life."


UPDATE - since i first wrote this, we have recieved our first workbench, and put up a sheet of plywood to hang tools from above the bench. Also, we bought our first power tool, an impact drill. More on this, and hopefully pictures, in the next post. Last but not least, I bought a radio which allows us to listen to BBC worldwide, which is great.