First Coffee Review Video - 427 Stroker from Gearhead Coffee

Greetings my fellow Fox River Roustabouts, welcome back to the shop. Well, here it is! The premier video from my new coffee review series. In this video I will be reviewing the “427 Stroker” blend of coffee from Gearhead Coffee. As I was trying to figure out which coffee to start with on this series I happened to notice ads for Gearhead coffee showing up in a lot of my feeds so eventually I checked them out. The company is obviously targeting a demographic that is interested in car culture. The coffee I’m reviewing first is a nod to the iconic “Mystery Motor” used by racing legends Mickey Thompson and Smokey Yunick. When I was in high school I figured I wanted to be a mechanic when I graduated so I took all the classes related to that like small engines class, automotive concepts both one and two, auto maintenance, ect. I’ve always liked cars and trucks, especially old ones and hotrods and while I didn't end up becoming an automotive mechanic I did end up working on trucks and heavy equipment so I still fit in the gearhead catagory. Looking at their website I discovered they offered a sample pack of six different blends with enough of each blend to brew a full pot of coffee. This seems like a great way to start the series so I ordered the sample pack and here is the first review.

Something New Brewing

Greetings my wonderful Fox River Roustabouts, today I am excited to announce something new coming out of the shop. I am going to start doing coffee review videos. I’ve been a regular coffee drinker for decades consuming vast amounts of the wonderfully caffeinated elixir while working or making music or just hanging out at a cafe with friends. I’ve noticed that coffee culture has been growing and when you look on media sites there is all sorts of content related to “this roast” or “that grinder” or “those brew methods” and is constantly portraying a glamorized idea of coffee culture. I noticed something missing. There is very little input from the average, everyday working stiff slugging back a “cup-o-joe” as they deal with their blue-collar, multiple-job trying to make-ends-meet life. So I thought I could develop a series using a basic automatic drip coffee maker and do some taste tests of different types of coffee available for purchase. I’ll use some standard controls so I can maintain a neutral brew environment like store bought water and a reusable, dishwasher safe filter. I think this will help eliminate anything that might unduly affect the coffee I brew. I’m looking to start this series in the very near future. I hope it turns out well and provides some entertainment for everyone. If there is a coffee you would like to recommend please feel free to send me an email at Chris@foxriverforge.com and I’ll check it out.

Giaco Whatever Unboxing

In a fit of retail therapy I paid money to a Kickstarter in order to get a specialty retractable utility knife from a maker named Giaco in Italy. I stumbled across it while watching videos from Jimmy Diresta. In this video, I open up the package and check it out for the first time and give my thoughts. I will do a review of it in a couple weeks.

Enjoy

Setting up the Shop

I finally got some time and weather to get into the shop and get things essentially placed. I was able to dig up a knockoff GoPro camera my wonderful wife gave me a few years ago so I could have a couple different camera angles for this video. I also used a licence free music site called “Epidemic Sound” for some of the video. It was an exercise in creative problem solving moving some of those items alone but I succeeded.

Enjoy

A new Beginning

I’m not a New Year’s Resolution person,
like, AT ALL.
I don't need a special day dedicated to making promises I’m not likely to keep. I do, however, like tidy increments of time so since it’s January I’m launching an overhaul of my YouTube channel. I haven’t been able to get out to the forge at my dad's house for months mostly because it’s inconvenient to wedge into my schedule, so I made a decision. I’m moving the forge.
Again.
My house has a two car garage and I am going to give up parking inside so that I can put together a shop where I can work both on home projects and other creative endeavors.
I want to start making regular YouTube videos showing the creation of the shop and the projects that go through it. I’d like to augment that channel by creating corresponding posts here. I would use these posts to provide more details and explain things that either I didn’t have time for in the video or would be too tangential.
My gear and expertise in video creation is fairly sketchy but I hope to improve that with time.
The first video in this series is called “A New Beginning” and I’m literally, starting from scratch. I used my phone and the YouTube app to shoot it. It didn’t sound or look that great but I got it done.

Enjoy

Strange customer

While I haven't been doing very much smithing at all recently, an off hand comment led to be sharpening some lawnmower blades for a friend.  Shortly after doing his set, someone else contacted me to sharpen their blades based on a recommendation from the first set. This has led to a small but steady stream of work sharpening mower blades and even repairing some yard tools like rakes and shovels. It's not a lot of money but I enjoy it and a couple extra bucks is nice.
It has, however, led to a strange encounter.
A lady called  looking to get some items touched up and said she would send her son out to the forge to meet me. He arrived and I immediately took notice because he was very large, easily four inches taller than me. He was also, evidently, a huge Detroit Red Wings fan because he was wearing one of their goalie masks. He was shy and didn't say much as he handed over a machete, an axe, and a pitchfork with some bent tines. I told him I'm just now getting into knife sharpening and these were the first blades of this type I'd sharpened. He didn't seem too bothered. I touched up the axe easy enough.  The machete had some pretty good dings in the edge, probably from some hardwood limbs or something, so that took a bit of time. He wasn't overly anxious but he did have some sort of sneezing fit because I heard him make a sound lime "ki, ki, cha, cha" a couple times.
Anyway, I got the pitchfork tines straightened without needing to heat them up and he wad on his way. I assume he had to get back to work because he was wearing coveralls with the name if some camp on them. Weird guy, never said a word aside from the sneezing. But I guess it's October and people are more open to let their Freak Flag fly.

Split crosses for a church auction

The church I belong to had an auction recently to raise funds for its outreach program. This year I donated three plaque mounted split crosses. Split crosses are made by making two intersecting cuts in a length of metal and opening those cuts up in a specific way creating a cross with a diamond shape in the middle. They look really nice when done well and I’ve made a few of them in the past so I know how they’ll turn out.

I made these particular crosses out of some discarded railroad spikes. I chose the spikes because I had them in my stock inventory and the dimensions were decent. I also like the symbolism of turning spikes into crosses to help raise money for my church. I bought the bare plaques from Michaels Craft’s because I wanted the rough, hand-forged look of the crosses to work with the proper, cleanly milled edges of the commercial plaques to show a union of thrift and wealth.

I also took the time to record the process of making these plaques. I recorded footage of the entire process for one specific plaque, edited it and put it on a flash drive to be auctioned off with that specific cross. I also uploaded a copy to my YouTube channel. You can watch it below.



I’m pretty happy with how they came out and I hope they do well at the auction.