Marfa Low Crown

Here in San Antonio there's a fair amount of Mexican judo. Judo know if I've got a knife or a gun ese

I know absolutely nothing about beekeeping but I think it's bad ass. Subscribed.

I took a break from arranging my socks, underwear, and shirts in the luggage to check teh surl.. saw this thread...and thought man isn't it funny how the universe works. Such disappoint.

Fugggg 😂 That sounded like someone trying to play a saxophone filled up with Campbell's thick and chunky.

Dolly Parton is about as Southern sweet as it gets and she could still talk me into eating a ketchup popsicle.

To become a believer it takes....whatever it takes but the change is permanent. For the last two years anyways I've watched these threads pick up humbled converts who have had their faith shattered- only to regain a new strength in knowing there are others who also live in fear and the doubt of their own ass. It is one day at a time we walk this path, hopefully, without any shit in our drawers. Welcome, Roll, Welcome.

Fruits and vegetables, what is this some kind of new year's resolution? Regardless, you don't wanna rolling be like that.. it's entirely too risky. A steady dose of some fast food with all the fiber stripped out is a great first step in righting this wrong. If you live in or around San Antonio I highly recommend the carne guisada from Rolando's super tacos. Just one of them will back you up for two days. Remember...

You see that Jerry Jones? Eli got out of the NFL after 16 years. Why aren’t you smart like him?

“I get the Reese's candy bar, If you read it, there's an apostrophe. The candy bar is his. I didn't know that. Next time your eating a Reese's and some guy named Reese comes up to you and says let me have that. You better give it to him. I'm sorry Reese, I didn't think I would ever run into you. You're a bully man.”

Always been a cool site... love the concept but doesn't seem like they've done anything with it in a couple of years. Yeah those Mako and Great White sharks really travel. I don't think the days at sea part of things is accurate on the site.. also the lack of any kind of scale / mileage on the map is kind of annoying.

Visor blonde on the back row can eat crackers in my bed anytime

Thread title had me thinking Mona Lisa but instead I got this Anyways, I would gladly touch that thing's balls.

Well... in a dream world I'd love to get a 300-400 amp engine-driven bruiser that would allow me to carbon arc gouge but that's champagne desires on a beer budget. The reality is that for most of what I do right now, I'm usually welding 1/8 rods around 125amps or less. A pull start Lincoln or Hobart would be completely adequate here & more in my current budget anyways. I just wish there was more room to grow with a machine like that. We had a Bobcat 250 at my last ranch job. I wish I could say it was great but there was 'something' wrong with it. We replaced the rheostat, we replaced the leads, and it just didn't weld right unless you ran it wide open. You couldn't weld anything thinner than 1/8 steel with it and even with that you had to boogie or you were blowing through. I'm sure they're good machines... that one was a refurb so who knows what it had been through.

A little follow up on the Azul family of games... | Acquired Azul Summer Pavilion recently and we've played three games so far. That's not enough sessions to do more than scratch the surface and allow for just a brief overview because this game is a 500lb gorilla compared to regular Azul. Whew... where to begin? Like the original, Summer Pavilion has a back story and it too means nothing in the game. If you've played regular Azul you'll see some similarities but there's a whole other order of mental olympics that this game requires over its little brother. You're still collecting and organizing tiles but the inclusion of wild card tiles combined with much, much, deeper scoring opportunities opens up an entire new level of thinking and strategy. The wild card tiles change by round, which requires deeper planning and strategy, and there's a bonus board of tiles you can draw from after successfully surrounding pillars, statues, and windows on your board.... and that also adds to the complexity. They've 'fixed' a thing or two in this one. In the original game drawing first from the discard pile, thus allowing you to go first the next round, is a very powerful...sometimes too powerful advantage. In Summer Pavilion it'll cost you a lot more points to do it and the game also starts you off at 5 points instead of 0 which is more fair. They provide a place to put spent tiles ( the Big Ben looking tower) whereas regular Azul made you provide a bag or a bowl or some place to put a growing pile of spent tiles. The game also ends in 6 rounds whereas regular Azul has no defined ending by number of rounds... although I don't think we've played any regular Azul games beyond 5-6 rounds either. In this one, though, 6 rounds doesn't feel like enough time so there's a bit of a crunch as you near the end. Anyways that's about it on the technicals for now. The games take longer, the silences between players are longer (probably because we're all still learning), and at least on the surface as a new player you have enough to worry about that interfering with other players is a secondary concern. I'm sure that a better understanding of the game as time goes on will open a lot more things up. 1-2 games of Summer Pavilion is enough to make your brain ask for a break whereas we'll regularly session 3-5 games of Azul.

Hey man, that's a good looking 6011 downhill weld on the elbow if I'm guessing the process right. Nice.. Pipe is tricky... that rod angle is changing. Awesome project... damn welding that box from the inside I bet you ate fire the f'n whole time. That takes welding discipline...and pain tolerance. From the heat affected zone it looks you covered just about all of it too. That's a great project .. did you shore up the broken I-Beam at all? Saw that too. Anyways.. much respect.. especially any man who smokes a whole turkey with a bicycle pump in hand. Teach me your ways.

Heh...yeah, it fell off the cart while I was snapping that picture. Tell you what though, they were really accommodating at Harbor Freight. We didn't have the receipt and a couple of other snags but they came through for us anyways. These really are just hobby / light fab machines though. Been geeking out to the Fronius TransSteel 2200 ( or anything Fronius makes) but they're pretty proud of their stuff $. I want an engine welder so badly but I'm priced out of a brand new one atm and I'm not a mechanic... can't risk buying someone else's problem in getting a used one.

Okay... a little follow up on Harbor Freight's Vulcan 225 stick welder... So not even 5 days after giving it a reasonably favorable review here I managed to rag out the shop's Vulcan 225. When I'm not fabricating I'm stacking beads and trying to stay sharp in the 1-4G positions. More or less overnight the Vulcan started to doo doo... sputtering arcs, weak arc force, beads way too cold for the amperage it was set at.. and no amount of adjusting the amps delivered a proper bead. It was too hot or too cold. If 7018 wasn't trying to burn through the work piece or dog dicking on 3G then it wasn't tying in at all and I had cold, peaked, beads. That's on DCEP.. the machine wouldn't run AC at any amperage. Again, it darn near happened overnight. My guess?... less than 100 hours of actual arc time under load.. folks I think it's more like 75 hours on the machine. The machine was barely a year old. Yikes. For whomever this helps, this is a moment where buying the extended warranty makes a lot of sense and fortunately we did. I think it's $65 for three years and the way I go, I can already tell you the replacement isn't even going to see its first birthday. I don't mind rolling on Harbor Freight's dime. I'm respectful to equipment and strict on the duty cycle but there are just so many hours in a machine like this. Anyways just some honest feedback for anyone considering the Vulcan 225.

Now there's a guy who knows how to bring home the bacon.

Both those guys, Bob and Jody, are excellent. Agree... and if you're going to watch YouTube videos watch theirs as they are actual instructors. Although he's kind of annoying, the ChuckE2009 kid is a total welding geek and he's got some good videos too. These are only my opinions but I think there are pros and cons to using videos as an instructional aid... my primary belief is they are a great resource if you're already receiving instruction. We've got a guy at the shop space (and I'll admit he's a little off to begin with) and he's entirely YouTube 'trained' in welding. King YouTube claims he's been watching videos for 9 years and although he sneaks into the shop late to practice his welds, I find his stuff lying around. I use his practice pieces as examples when instructing people because just about every error is there. It goes without saying he won't listen to anyone, I don't even try, but I know the reason he's not getting better no matter how many videos he watches is because he doesn't understand what he's doing wrong in the flesh. So again, it just comes back to having someone in the booth with you correcting little things... or... having someone there who can look at your welds and tell you what's right and what's wrong until you can read them and self-correct. Another downside to videos is that if you watch them long enough conflicting answers and approaches to things will start piling up. As a new welder you can really get confused and turned around and that's not ideal. Heck I got chewed out by my instructor for running 6011 in circles on a fillet one time but you'll find at least one video that says it's fine to do that. I found peace in relinquishing everything I thought I knew and just doing whatever the teacher told me to do... once you get a baseline of knowledge you can always go back and tweak how you want to do things. Even just a couple of hours would be time well spent with him

Several folks on this thread are pretty critical of their welds (we all are) and I do have some thoughts on this : I've welded over 10 years and was self-taught. This is a path I do not recommend to anyone. In my case I was working as a hand and a ranch foreman threw me a box of electrodes, pointed to a broken gate with an SA 200 parked next to it, and said "Figure it out.". I've made just about every mistake you can make in welding and far more sinister, developed a pile of bad habits along the way. Bad habits get burned deeply into your muscle memory and they're a booger to get out of there. Ultimately this led me to welding school - Let's right the wrongs, let's re-learn this from the ground up with qualified in-person instruction, and let's do this the right way. Qualified, in-person, hands on instruction is how you're going to get better at this. Fast. You see... .the thing is... you can't see yourself welding. You can't see the little ticks in your movement that get your rod angle off... or that the reason your welds are laying down on you is that you're ever so slowly pulling the electrode towards you as you weld. And about 100 other things that someone standing over your shoulder will see about yourself that you don't.. and correct them until you are the one correcting yourself. I made more improvement in the first 2 weeks of welding school than I had in the 5 years prior just welding on my own. I'm not saying I'm an expert at this, I think we're all still learning, but I can lay a bead better than your average bear and I get stoked watching people learn and get better at this. Sound stick welds really come down to these 5 things : Proper electrode selection, proper current, proper arc length, proper travel speed, proper rod angle. Whether you're pursuing welding certifications or will remain a hobbyist the principles are the same. Naturally, not everyone has the time or the interest to go to welding school nor am I recommending that.... but for some of y'all that are looking to get your chops up a little, consider a short or even one day CE intro course if it's offered in your area. Get someone next to you telling you when you're long-arcing, or going too slow, or too fast. Maker spaces can be good for this if there's one in your city. If you're in / around the San Antonio area PM me and I can make a suggestion. Also people are often down on flux core MIG. Don't be. You can do A LOT with even a 110v flux core welder and there is no shame whatsoever in using one.

The background iirc is you’re a Portuguese tile layer building a wall under the employ of the king. This is immaterial to the game however & the context is unimportant. Social interaction tends to revolve around bitching about the tiles & other players - “Ah! You asshole!” Is often heard during Azul gaming sessions ☺️ I wouldn’t say it’s too cerebral, anyone who has played qwirkle will find Azul to be a quick learn. The game calls for adaptive strategy each round as things you’re trying to do often will change based upon what other players are doing or what tiles come down. Anyways...can’t say enough about Azul give it a try sometime 👍