Dealing with the cold...

[Brian Marshall]

I realize that a lot of you are dealing with "real" cold - ice and snow and such. Living in the north central part of California we might see a half inch of snow once every seven years or so... it never lasts more'n a few hours.

But, for close to forty years now, I've never had central heat or air in my personal studios and it does get down into the 30's, occasionally even the 20's where we are.

Dunno 'bout the rest of you, but I hate coming into the shop to engrave at a COLD block in the mornings!

Over the years I have solved this in various ways. Used a hot water bottle. Brought the block into the house with me at night. One place I had, I used to leave it propped on the radiator at night.

Setting it on top of the woodstove in the studio while I had coffee, made phone calls and woke up - worked well for 20 years.

Once, when I was desperate, I even warmed it in the kitchen oven. Cold fingers are not precision instruments.

What I'm doing these days is covering the block with an electric heating pad and doing my wakeup routine while it's warming up. You can find a 15" x 20" pad at your local pharmacy for around $15. (Or a couple dollars at a second hand store.) If you fold the pad into a cone and clip it together at the base it'll fit right over most blocks. Mine came with an automatic shutoff after 2 hours - which leaves the block just barely warm when set on the high temp.

When the block is warm enough, I'll put the pad on the floor for my feet... works perfect with moccasins.

Brian P. Marshall
Stockton Jewelry Arts School
Stockton, CA, USA
209-477-0550
instructor@jewelryartschool.com
jewelryartschool@aol.com

 

[monk]

just when i think i've learned every engraving trick that's worthwhile, this comes along. i'm gonna try this. thanks. i may try sittin on it though !

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Hi Brian

Very clever idea. Our winters get cold but nothing like what you guys seem to suffer.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Marcus Hunt]

Brian, I know the feeling only too well. For the last 2 weeks we've had thick frost every morning and temeratures are very low. The block is the main problem but tools aren't nice to handle first thing in the morning either. I've lost count of the number of times I've asked GRS if there is someway they could cover the handles with a nice tacky rubber similar to the rubber they use on the QC hand push handle they produce. That would make holding metal handpieces far nicer on winter mornings.

Regarding the block, I usually sit there for 10 minutes with a hot air 'paint stripping' gun playing on it as I slowly revolve the block. It seems to work reasonably well.

 

[Tira]

My shop is cold as well this time of year. It usually starts off at about 56F and climbs during the day to 68F if I can get it there with the heater. I'm going to have to try the heating pad approach. It would be great not to have cold hands all morning. The good thing about my shop is that the other 3 seasons it is fine. In the summer it is nice and cool even when it is 95F out - everything is a trade-off. Only another 10 weeks of freezing and then we're back to comfortable.

 

[M. J. Atkinson]

Marcus, when I first got my GRS tool, the surface seemed to me to be very slick and I couldn't control it. Also I was mashing down with my finger on top of the chisel---got very sore. I cut a short piece of bicycle inner tube and slid it over the tool leaving a strip of rubber extending on top of the chisel. The plan did work, tho given time I learned to control the tool and didn't need the rubber tube. I just came up with one you might want to try: maybe you could paint on a coating of rubber cement. That would certainly take care of the cold, slick surface. Here endeth the lesson.

 

[Abigail]

Speaking of cold......I should be getting ready for work but as I type, poor Sam is outside with a blowdryer trying to thaw out our pipes. I went to get in the shower earlier and....no water. This is Louisiana for heaven's sakes and just a couple of days ago it was 80 degrees outside.
I suppose we should really turn on the television sometimes and watch the weather channel. Oh well.
Cheers,
Abigail

 

[fegarex]

Yes, there is nothing worse than grabbing 40# of cold steel in the morning!!! My approach is a little less high tech but works too. I use a 100 watt bulb close to vise for a little while.
I've also found that the older style hand-pieces didn't work too well in these cold mornings either. I fund out that turning on the machine and giving it "full throttle" for 30 seconds or so fixed the problem. I think the metal contracts so much that the clearance is reduced so the piston didn't move right. The new 901, Monarch and Magnum don't seem to be effected as much by this but if you are having trouble, give it a try.

 

[Rick Eaton]

I guess I will have to say something about the cold. You know your shop is cold when you have to brake the ice on your water bucket for cooling down the steel, then you place the steel on the rest next to the flat platen on the grinder and it freezes to the rest, but that only happens when it is about 15 below outside. Thankfully it hasn't been that cold yet.
Rick

 

[jlseymour]

COLD
Ha!! Ya'll think it cold where ya'll are, I'm in Orlando, FL area and it was 39* this morning, Burrrrrr!!!
Just an old Cold Whimp...
Jerry

 

[Sandy]

Here is a picture of last weeks Ice Storm. It was taken on Thursday. It rained 2.75 inches on Tuesday. One inch of ice on everything. Electricity out for a week. Tira I think this storm hit you this past weekend. Then on Friday/Saturday it dumped 6 inches of snow on top of the ice. You just have to love Kansas.

 

[jlseymour]

I Know how bad the cold is I worked outside as a cable splicer most of my life, from New England to Washington State and Florida and I feel for ya'll...
Being without electric for any period of time is bad, but for an extended period, Ouch!!!
Hope ya'll have a great holiday, ya'll will be in our thoughts and prayers...
Jerry

 

[jimzim75]

Snow Day

Hi All,
We got a little bit of snow. We're supposed to get the same amount tonight.
Until then we have a couple of lake effect streamers to watch.
The neighbor got plowed in and I don't think he's going anywhere soon.

My shop is small, so it's easy to turn on a small heater when I get up a 6:00
and let the shop warm up. I don't really start to engrave until around 10:00 in
the morning anyway. The only I have to do is setting in the morning for rush jobs.
The ring holder in the bench mate system can be like a ice cube. So I just take apart
and run hot water through it until it's nice and toasty. Dry it and grease it. Then the setting
starts and I'm off and running. Facing a positioning vice any earlier than 10:00 is a
vile thought. I like the idea of the heating pad and am going out to get one today for
the shop. Thanks for the tip.

Jim

 

[msar24]

I don't get the freeeze that many of you get but the vise does get cold. I put a small heater next to it to heat it up. But a word of caution, if you leave a thermo loc fixture in the vice and trun on the heater and go away for about and hour you no longer have a fixture that is the same shape as when you left. DUH!

 

[Tira]

Sandy,

Yeah, the storm hit us this past weekend. Where I live it was mostly rain w/ a bit of ice, but up in the Pocono Mountains where we were for the weekend it was ice on everything. If our area was hit as bad we would have stayed by the coal stove sipping the hot chocolate, but alas, down here school was going to be open so we had to spend 2.5 hours getting home on the icy roads yesterday. Our area didn't seem to get the storm nearly as bad as when it went through Kansas - almost everyone still has electricity.

 

[Sandy]

Jim,
Holly Cow. How do you get along with so much snow. All that happened last week brought most everything to a stop here. One good thing in Kansas all you have to do is waite. The highs for this week are going to be 43 to 46 or so they say.

Tira,
The schools here are suppose to be back in tomorrow. The kids have had a field day. Our problem was electicity. You take it for granted until it is not there and then it is early panic time.

See ya all
Be Safe
Sandy

 

[Dave London]

Humm
Sam and a hair drier, somethjing is fishy here Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year To All

 

[Dmitriy Pavlov]

It is view on my home with basement's workshop in the Wisconsin. After winter view in my window I remembers about St. Petersburg (Russia) streets: kazaks, balalaikas, polar bears walking outside.....

 

[jimzim75]

Hi Sandi,
I've always lived in this area, and I find the snow at this time of year comforting.
It makes it real hard for the Jewellers to get to me with one last job before Christmas.
So, I can work uninterrupted. I tend to over book jobs for Christmas because I find hard
to leave jewellers stranded. Tis the season ya know.

I like Dimitriy's window picture. My windows look the same. The snow makes the shop
brighter with sun shine and it makes the day easy. I do my best work on such days.

Jim

 

[hiloboy]

Well I don't get as cold as you guys, but it did get down to 66 last night, and had all the blankets in the house on AND I still almost froze to death.

This is the snow that we got!!! (yes Hawai'i does get snow ) Maybe i can use the heating pad to cool my AC down ....