Burra Maluca

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:That billhook is a great find -- colour me envious. The steel is likely better quality than most of the stuff we get today.

I took some more photos, mostly of the handle, in case it's of interest.

Austin said the handle looked interesting. It looks like the blade is full tang and comes right through the handle and out the other end.



Then the end bit has been hammered over to secure. In horse-shoeing this is called clenching. I've no idea if it's the same with fitting blades to handles.



There appears to be a load of welding where the blade meets the tang. I wonder if that means it broke off at some point. Or maybe it used to be fitted to a long handle and was adapted to fit a shorter handle.



Another view showing more welding and that metal collar thing, which Austin tells me is called a ferrule.



The ferrule seems to have been welded shut at some point. Or possibly tied with wire and then melted a bit.



The handle has some interesting markings on but I couldn't quite figure them out. I messed about and at one point thought maybe if I held it in my left hand the dark patches matched where my fingers sat, if my middle finger was missing. But I suspect I'm just overthinking it. It probably just got too close to a flame sometime.



The blade has been used, has a bit knocked out of it, but is still surprisingly sharp and is nowhere near as worn out as some old tools I've seen around here. I would happily grab this and use it for light jobs without even running a sharpening stone over it.



That little blade on the black is completely blunt though. I suspect that it never got used for whatever it was designed to be used for.



It does look to be a rather nice bit of steel. One day we'll give it a good clean up and post before and after photos, but the project list is rather long at the moment...



There were two guys working at that place sorting stuff out and bringing the rubble and junk closer to where it could be loaded up to be hauled away. One was raised in a very similar village house and knew what all the tools were - he told us what the pig-sticking knife was for! The other is a young lad working his first job whilst still living with his parents. Apparently there were quite a few other useful looking basic tools there, like shovels, which he delightedly took home with him to start up his own tool collection. Then Austin got the pick of whatever was left before hauling the remains away. I'm quite delighted that more stuff has been rescued and re-homed to somewhere that will use it.

Jay Angler wrote:I would suggest you aren't the first person who fell in love with it. If it wasn't loved, it wouldn't have been given such care. I suggest you ask your dragons which of them are also in love with it! (Actually, that could be dangerous, as they might claim it for their personal use!)

Oh now there's a challenge I can't refuse.

I brought it in and stuck it (not too literally, the bostik has worn off over the years...) on the foot of the bed and watched what happened.



Iggy is still too involved in his books and took no notice.

Gwen, the memories dragon, slid over and decided to occupy it, looking very smug and pleased with herself. Well I guess we all knew it was full of memories, and it certainly is now! Getting them all out again might take a while though...

Rosa says it's smelly and dirty and possibly toxic and doesn't think it should be on the bed. She says it can't possibly ever be used for putting food in, and I think she's right about that. She says it would look better painted, and reluctantly chose hammerite black, which I thought was very restrained of her. I wasn't convinced though as I'm rather fond of the history that it exudes with the Bostik label on. Austin vetoed the paint job and said it would ruin the whole thing and would obliterate the story. Rosa is unconvinced. She does however admit that it would make an excellent ash can and starting reminiscing about the smaugust adventures with ash when she found Shiva in the rocket mass heater.

Roxa is fascinated by how it's been converted and wants to know all about the tools involved and whether or not we have a proper old-fashioned soldering iron. And a riveter. It turns out we have a pop riveter but not a 'proper' one. Guess want Roxa wants for her next birthday...

Vermelha wants to know how the soldering works and I've told her that she's not allowed to even think of such things until after we've had a good amount of rain and the grass has greened up. And she has to practice huffing slowly and gently as I don't want a repeat of the fiasco we had with her attempts at burning pretty patterns onto those bits of wood...

Ursula, the sleepy story-telling bear, has also come over to say hello to the new arrival. She thinks it has good stories inside which are already starting to come out. She has some ideas and is going to sleep on them for a while.

I've been thinking about what you said about it being loved, and I actually think 'appreciated' and 'valued' might be a better description. I love it because of its history and what it represents, ie a totally different value system to the one that is so prevalent today. But the more I look at it the more I think it was purely practical. These days something made out of a repurposed metal can would be a statement. Back then, it was just what people did. Austin said that the house he was clearing out was a fairly typical old-fashioned village house. Living quarters upstairs, wine cellar and storage (possibly a goat...) downstairs. Because this is Portugal and pretty much anywhere that had enough land to grow grapes also had a wine cellar. This house has the same layout, only the emphasis here was on goats more than wine. There were old garrafões down there with maybe wine, maybe aguardente, the most recent dated 1992. None of those got rescued and having being nearly choked by a bottle of something or other breaking and gassing the whole house out once when we were clearing this place I'm not actually disappointed.

Back then most decent sized villages were likely to have still had a tinsmith, like this guy. I took this photo in 2017 and I believe he's since closed up shop. There are more photos of him and his shop here.



Roxa wants one of those soldering irons. Vermelha says she can improvise...

I had a look at the back of the bostik can and it included instructions on how to use the glue, so it was glue, not sealant. It seems far too big a can (25 litres, over 5 gallons) for a normal sized household to use. So my guess is that the local tinsmith collected used cans from manufacturing businesses in the area and converted them into buckets to sell. And then repaired them as needed. A glue can would be a valuable commodity, not a waste product. Well used, but maybe not 'loved' as such. Well, not at the time. I do have an incredibly soft spot for it now...

Oh, and as for the other tools. I've hidden the pig sticking knife, for a while at least. Austin hasn't yet realised that Mochyn has come home and I think tomorrow is scheduled for attempting to straighten the bumper out and patch his poor car up a bit.



I think Mochyn should stay in hiding until Austin's rage at rampaging pigs has settled down a bit. I don't want to be responsible for his actions if he catches the culprit when there's a convenient pig sticking knife around the place.

Austin did, however, say that the billhook was rather a nice one that might deserve a closer inspection and a few photos of the handle and construction. Maybe later...

I nap when I need to, depending on what my health is up to that day.

Some days no naps, some days one, occasionally several. Time of day varies, length of nap varies. If I try to not nap when my body says I need it, I WILL regret it! I'm learning to trust my body's judgement on the matter. If it says I need sleep, then I need to give it what it needs.

Attempts at introducing a regular nap at a regular time have totally, utterly failed though. If I don't need it, then it ends up totally counterproductive trying to encourage one.

I've also noticed that how well I slept the previous night has absolutely no influence on how much I need to nap the next day. Some days I sleep solid all night and still need three naps. Other days it's the opposite, and any combination in between.

Nancy Reading wrote:At a guess the loops are doubled back on themselves through a hole in the can side, which has been reinforced with extra metal, and then the wire rivetted (or possibly just hammered flat).

Austin went and had a look at it. Without dissecting it, as far as we can tell those loops are bent around into a Ω shape, the thin metal sheet has been soldered on top, then rivets have been put through with the lower arms of the Ω wrapping around the bottom of the rivets.

I also suspect that the placement of the rivets one on either side of the seam in the bucket is very deliberate as they, along with the Ω shaped loop of wire and the soldered-on bit of sheet metal, will support the sides of the seam and stop them pulling apart.

And while he was looking at it he noticed that the entire bottom of the bucket has been replaced at some point with what appears to be a nice smooth, shiny bit of galvanised steel.



And a hole has been patched up.



Who would ever have thunk that I'd fall so in love with an old bostik bucket...

I just took a couple more photos because I suddenly realised that it deserved a closer look too.

The metal cans have been cut down, and the edges carefully rolled to make them stronger and safer, which I think is great. I'm not well versed enough in metalworking to comment very much on how the handles were attached so I'll let the images speak for themselves.



And the view from the inside...



Our disabled friend next door recently gave us a rubber bucket full of wood ash to dispose of. I think I'll be sending one of those home-made metal buckets back instead. And the other one can become our ash bucket, for similar reasons. The bostik bucket is more interesting, but also smaller, so I guess I should let him have the smaller one seeing as he's in a motor-home with less space. I have the photos now anyway!

Himself was clearing out the rubble and junk from an old place ready for renovation yesterday. And, of course, he's well trained to bring home anything interesting for me...

This is what he showed up with...

The mobil bucket seems to be made from a cut-down can of oil or something, with what looks like a 'real' bucket handle attached.

The skip bucket is probably just a re-used bucket from a jumbo pack of washing powder.



The bostik bucket is made from a cut down can of sealant or similar, with a purpose-made handle rather well attached. I'm quite impressed with this one!



Let's have a closer look at the tools and things...

There's a big mug thing made out of a castrol gtx can, with a supply of used nails inside.~

The head of an enchada (hoe) which looks very worth salvaging.

A donkey shoe!

A pig sticking knife.

And a bilhook type tool with an extra little blade on the back, which also looks very salvagable.



A quick look in the contents of the bostik bucket reveals old nails, some sisal string, old corks, a bag of unused corks, and a wine-siphoning tube.



And here are the unused corks...



I'm not quite sure how much of that lot we'll ever actually use, but I had great fun playing with it.

I'll salvage what I can!

The crop he grows that takes most space is beans. He grows fava beans, which use winter rain, because in his climate there is no summer rain. He says that if he lives somewhere that also had summer rain he could halve the amount of space needed for beans by growing fava during the winter and a different sort of bean in the summer.

I like the way this guy thinks!

I'm part way through watching it, but I grabbed a quick screen shot to share.

He grows -

- 50 m² of olive trees, for oil. But the wheat and beans grow right up to the trunks so this doesn't get included in the total.
- 200m² of wheat
- 350 m² of beans
- 150 m² of vegetable garden

Total is less than 0.2 acre

Translators of all types can fail hilariously.

Someone near us lost their dog. A bitch, to be precise. This was the notice they placed, helped by a translator.

In Portuguese, it's a perfectly normal sort of notice. In UK English, decidedly less so...

Of course the tool situation here is actually more complicated than it first appears, because I inherited my husband's tool collection. I took the decision to keep them as mine rather than just give them all to my son so that I could use them any time I wanted and to stop him lending them out to people.

Things did get a bit amusing when I was first with Austin though. I'd gone back to the UK to help him look after his dad while the farm was sold, then we ended in a kind of limbo and house-sitting for someone while we waited out the 90 days for Rock (the Welsh sheepdog, because the Portuguese police had insisted I get a dog and send to England for a new man so just to keep them happy Austin's sister gave me one of her young sheepdogs) 's rabies vaccination to kick in before travelling. He offered to take me on his version of a date, which was to a shopping complex which included a giant tool shop. Then while he was in the tool shop he admitted that he intended to splash out on a really nice chop saw, the sort that has a slidey thing and you can set angles and was fitted on a sturdy table. The shop assistant was looking very hopeful of making a nice commission that day, until I pipe up "I already got one!" Austin didn't really believe me, then said that it was likely to be old and worn out but I assured him that it was only about a year old and had done virtually nothing. He still wasn't convinced so I messaged my son, who was back in Portugal farm sitting for me, and sent him to take photos and the poor salesman watched in disbelief as Austin confirmed that yes, I did indeed already have exactly what he was looking for.

I consider those tools to be 'family tools' though. Austin turned up with a collection of his own tools, though the bigger stuff like the big metal-working lathe got sold off. And since then my son has been busy building up his own collection. Which I think entitles me to have my own little mini collection. In pink. Even if I do get the boys to do any decent-sized job around the place.

But then, all those tools get used to build things like willow feeders and rocket mass heaters for me, so I get the best of both worlds really!