DIY Packable Fire-Irons

I saw the idea somewhere along the way so I can’t claim the idea as an original concept.

I can’t remember where or when I saw it. I wish I could so I can credit the idea. All my Googling turned up nothing like it. That’s not to say there isn’t. It’s just to say I haven’t found it. So if I’m stepping on someone’s patent, I apologize up front. The encroachment is purely accidental.

What I do remember about what I saw was that I liked the idea but it was made from thin flat bar material. I didn’t care for what I saw. I figured the thin flat bar would get hot fast and bend under the weight of something sitting on it so I kept my bucks in my pocket.

Back during the winter, when it was fun to build fires and cook over them, I decided to play around with some salvaged 3/16^th round stock. I wanted to make a set of folding fire-irons that were lightweight but strong and packable … something that would be ideal for solo trips.

This particular metal round stock comes from one of those tripod style flower stands that florists attach arrangements to (commonly seen at Visitations and in cemeteries). Very few of these sources for metal are ever recycled. Most of them are left behind and eventually thrown away.

I cut two pieces 14 inches long, figuring this length would be neither too short or too long, then used my forge to heat one end of the two pieces just hot enough to flatten them a little.

[Here’s a little tip. Hammering and flattening the ends hardens them. Heating them a little after flattening them makes it a lot easier to center punch where you will be drilling the two 3/16^th inch holes that have to be drilled. Without center punching the two pieces, it’s really hard for a bit to get a bite when you start drilling.]

I used a flat washer on the slotted side and one on the nutted side of the 1/8^th inch threaded screw. I also spun on a nut between the two halves as a spacer before adding the outside flat washer and nut.

The next step was to use side cutters to trim the length of the diminutive bolt leaving about 1/8^th of an inch showing before peening it on the anvil to flatten the excess screw to insure the rig would never come loose. A little touching on the grinder finished rounding the ends.

These stands come with a heavy coat of baked on enamel paint that is a real chore to sand off. I quickly gave up on sanding, built a hot fire, and put the painted fire-irons into the fire. It was a cold Lower Alabama morning and sitting by a hot fire felt good. A quick wire brushing finished the creation process.

It was a fun little DIY project that yielded a very usable take-along tool.

I also found that the 14-inch length is ideal.

What?

You don’t have a forge?

A forge isn’t necessary for a small project like this. 

A good bed of red hot hardwood coals will heat the small diameter metal enough to make if workable.

A Strange Wildlife Episode

[NOTE: One of the outdoor magazines that I grew up on had a feature entitled "This Happened to Me" that depicted out of the ordinary outdoor experiences. This short blog article is a this happened to me thing ... something completely out of the ordinary and a first for me.]

You just don’t know what a day holds in store when you wake up in the morning.

Most days are routine and uneventful. Now and then one comes along that leaves an indelible memory etched into the memory chips.

Today was one of those memory makers despite the ordinary routineness that began the day.

I made a trip down to the other end of the county to pick up some barnwood. The drive down was pleasant. Hot enough to feel like summer but not brutal like it has been lately. Windows rolled down. Wing windows cocked at just the right angle.

It didn’t take long to load the wood onto my truck. I was in and out in less than thirty minutes and that includes a bit of time visiting with the retired Marine Captain and a retired Army Warrant Officer. I drove back out to Scenic 98, the less than ½ mile to County Road 32, and turned East on 32.

That’s where this strange episode began to play out.

It came from the passenger side and made its way to the driver’s side. Across the bottom of the windshield.

I wanted to video it or at least get a picture, but I figured I’d best leave that alone and mind the business of driving safely. Traffic. Plenty of it. Coming at me and following behind me.

I closed the drivers wing window and rolled up the window when it turned the corner headed toward the rear of the cab.

It turned and headed toward the bottom of the door just before the door handle. I’m thinking all the while that at road speed the wind would blow it off the truck. It disappeared altogether from my view and I figured it was gone. Wing window is open again. Driver’s window opened some but not all the way.

There it was again. It was coming through the wing window.

I shut the wing window on its head and held it in place.

What do you do with an Oak Snake ... a four feet long Oak Snake ... that’s doing its best to get into the cab of the truck with you?

I sat at the light at 32 and 98 and waited for the light to change. I couldn’t help but to chuckle and grin. I was wondering what folks in the flow of traffic might be thinking about this sight.

I pulled into the parking lot of the church there on 32, snapped this couple of pictures with my phone, then (without harm) removed the snake’s head from the wing window and turned it loose.

I’m just glad it didn’t travel across the truck in the other direction and find the open wing window on the passenger side.

Farewell To An Old Friend

It’s gone.

It needed to happen.

It took a lot of years, but it did finally happen.

There is a part of me that is relieved that it happened.

There is a part of me that is very sad that it’s a done deal.

Even knowing it’s what must be done … when it’s done … when it’s all said and done and finally a done deal … there’s something about it that’s difficult to wrap my mind around. Maybe not so much my mind. More so my heart and soul. There is a very real side to the deal that causes me to feel like I’ve said farewell to and buried a dear and lifelong friend.

It didn’t look like much there at the end.

Neglect had taken its toll. Neglect has a way of doing that. Decades of neglect take a heavy toll. At its end it looked nothing like its former self … not even a shadow of its former self.

I’ll not postulate on what it meant to others that had their start in life there. Nor will I postulate on what it meant to others that had some related or sterile association with it. Others have their own personalities. Others have their own perceptions. Others have their own experiences.

Personalities, perceptions, and experiences create their own judgments. Judgments have a way of creating either lasting bonds or fractures that endure. It’s one of those realities in life where, at times, even agreeing to disagree is unable to do the work of Super Glue in reattaching the pieces.

It was, to me anyway, a lot more than a familial habitation surrounded by fields and woods.

It was there where my woods wandering nature began to germinate in the soil of my nature.

I didn’t recognize the event. 

Nor was I aware of the seedling in my soul as it emerged and took shape. It was a slow and subtle process … one overshadowed by the life and social happenings that motivated me as a young boy to solitarily seek out the safe and friendly respite found in the fields and woods of that place. 

Motivated is too weak of a description. Drove is honestly a more accurate way to describe it.

Woods do not recognize social status. They do not impose peer pressure. They do not sponsor sibling rivalry or pecking orders. There is a rhythm of saneness in the woods … a wild and appealing rhythm of saneness … a rhythm of saneness that has a way of teaching and encouraging without ever succumbing to tactics involving personal humiliation.

I don’t remember who she was talking to. It may have been someone there in her living room. It may have been someone on the phone as she sat in her chair. I do remember my mom telling someone that David took to the woods after his daddy died.

The truth of the matter is that I took to the woods a long, long time ago … long before my dad died. That little seed that sprouted and quietly grew into a tree rooted in my inner being has cast its shade and influenced me a lot of years now. It’s always been there. The sorriest and worst times in my life were the years I ignored its shade and tried to blend with the other trees growing in the forest of life. 

At this point I can do no better than to live in its shade.

I admit that I spent a lot of time in those woods after my dad passed from this world.

I did a lot of reminiscing out there. I did a lot of mental sorting and reasoning. It was a convenient place to simply go for a solitary walk. Shirli and I went there to wander on a number of occasions. I used the fields and woods as an outdoor classroom for teaching bushcraft skills. There was also the looming reality factored into the equation … after the For Sale by Owner sign went up … that one day, sooner or later, the land title would be transferred, and I would no longer be able to wander those fields and woods except in memory.

Here’s to you, old friend.

Thanks for the memories.