Steak and Stake

Gator Bait

 
That was one of my first thoughts too but I am not ready to stake my life on it.

Blair

 

Clay Q

From the picture there seems to be a hint of concrete on the wedge. And from what wwsis says this could be associated with the concrete form business down the road from where she found it.

I find the New York Strips to be leaner, less greasy and a little easier to cook being more narrow than a ribeye steak. And my wife says they are better tasting as well. I bought 5 on sale from a great butcher shop in a small town south of us. Worth the drive out in the country. They were around $5.95 a pound. Should have bought more, heeeeeeee.
www.stoneridgemarket.com

fishlessman

back in college we had a railroad spike painted gold, it was the gold spike award. my roommate dave tossed a tiny pebble at a window 3 floors up at the dorms to get someones attention, thing exploded. he got the award, you cant give the award til someone does something dummer. come summer this guy rock decides to move the van off to the side of the road while me and dave are looking for this lookout spot on this particular mountain. theres rock and three girls in the van screaming as we come running back, the van is balancing on a boulder about to fall off the mountain, we were lucky as there was some rope there to tie the frame and get them out, rock got the spike award, probably still has it. you didnt do something real real dumb lately, did you :laugh: :laugh: is that gold paint on it

Gator Bait

 
Hahahaha, I think all my dumb awards have expired or at least I hope so. There has to be some benefit to growing older, I think we are supposed to learn not to do the dumb things of our youth. Not all of us learn that lesson.

I think anything on this object is sand and rust from laying on the side of the road.

Blair

 

stike

my dad worked in a semiconductor company, and used to spend a lot of time in the shop with guys making prototypes of housings and stuff like that. machining weird stuff all day. one time a manager showed up with a rusty railroad spike. he said "could you guys plate this in gold?"

they figured it was some presentation piece to a client for something, and gave it their all.

my dad and a few other guys spent a couple days prepping the thing, grinding it down to remove rust and pits, taking the edges off and smoothing it, buffing it and polishing the thing, smoothing it, smoothing it, then smoothing it a little more. then plating it heavily. some vapor deposit system or other. i remember basically he said it was a few guys for a few days.

they gave it back and it got passed up to the owner or some higher up, who promptly drove the thing in the ground in some ceremony for finishing his miniature outdoor railroad track

Gator Bait

 
I think anything on the surface of the stake is from it laying on the road side.

I paid about the same for these steaks at Sam's Club, the four of them were $29 and change, they are good sized. The ribeyes were about a buck and a half more a pound.

Blair

 

fishlessman

sometimes you have to stop production for the important things in life :laugh:

Gator Bait

 
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

I wonder if it is still stuck in the ground somewhere still all nicely polished.


Blair


 

Gator Bait

 
My brother had this idea . . .
"My first reaction on seeing your photos is that its a Jacobs drift as its the right size and shape. Jacobs drifts are used in machine shops for driving Morse taper shank drillbits out of spindles and adapter sleeves. I have one about the same size out in my shop.

However the hole towards the tip plus the slight bend in the middle of it causes me to think its possible this is a toggle pin of some type of chain holding method such as those used on logging chains. Might even be used on heavy equipment tire chains (like a Road Grader plowing snow)... It would be used by slipping a chain link through a 2nd elongated link and then drive the tapered drift through the part of the first link sticking out through the 2nd link locking them together. The hole would be for a piece of wire or a steel spring clip to keep the drift from backing out.

That it was found along side a road, has the name Gator on it and the slight bend in the middle resulting from heavy use leads me to believe this second description has a better chance of being correct..."

and in a second email . . .
"As to my second description, as I recall, "Gator Tractor Chains" are a John Deere product... To my way of thinking, that would be the more logical choice for having been found along side a Vermont Road..."

I think that is another interesting idea.


Blair


 

fishlessman

thats dairy cow country though, lots of cows turned inside out missing blood. im sticking with alian vampire gators and those are the stakes that killlem

Beli

Perfection achieved Blair, great photos too

Gator Bait

 
I used to figure that as long as it didn't interrupt my pay check the boss was always right.

My last summer in Massachusetts I worked for a good buddy of mine as a carpenters helper doing mostly restoration work on old houses in the South Shore area. The first day on the job he informed me that I was there to work and not to think. I was happy to agree. Latter in the day I watched him cut a piece of wood wrong twice in a couple minutes. I was having a very hard time not to laugh at him. He finally caught on that I was aware of his screw up and wanted to know why I didn't tell him in the first place. LOL, I just reminded him that I wasn't there to think. He rescinded that statement in a hurry. :laugh:


Blair

 

Little Steven

fishlessman,

http://www.google.ca/images?rlz=1T4SNYO_enCA346CA346&q=drill+drift&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=FfApTZHiG4_enQfQg-HLAQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQsAQwAA

I remembered them being called drifts

Steve

Gator Bait

 
Thanks friend Beli, I hope you and yours are well.


Blair


 

Gator Bait

 
Hahahaha, you could be as right as anybody for all I know. I wonder if Julia knows anything regarding alian vampire gator populations up that way. I myself would wish for a much bigger stake before approaching a gator of any size, alian vampire or not! :blink:


Blair


 

fishlessman

if you pinned a chain onto the stake and pinned the otherside of the chain to the ground, you could trace out those big circles in the hay fields to attract them

stike

i had a project that involved pulleys, and my father came home after a week with a set of stainless steel and brass pulleys he'd made. :laugh:

Gator Bait

 
Cool link Steven, I grew up around a large machine shop and remember the drifts like in the photos in your link. One thing that stands out, and I don't know if it matters, is that the hole is in the other end and many of the drifts are tapered on just one side. If I had a bunch of these I could put up my tent. LOL.

Blair


 

Gator Bait

 
Hahahaha, a crop circle pivot? Dropped by a alian vampire gator? I love it! :laugh:


 

fishlessman

took my 1950's 12 foot row boat in, paid about 15 dollars for the rivets, and a week later two guys had it done :laugh: needs to go back in for a paint job.

Gator Bait

 
WOW that sounds cool! Your Dad sounds like a true craftsman. No one in my family would have taken the time to make them. I was the youngest so by the time I came along there was all sorts of junk like that already lying around for me to scavenge.

Blair


 

stike

hahaha

we had a boss who was a real task master. he told everyone to get back to work after the towers fell on 9/11. anyway, one of the guys i worked with was rushing around one day printing stuff on the large format printer and rolling it up and hiding it so we wouldn't see it. what's the top secret, man?

turns out he was printing banners for my boss' daughter's birthday party. big spotted dinosaur banner with "Happy Birthday Elizabeth" on it. the kid was frigging mortified....

cookn biker

I want what Fish is smoking...hahahahaha

fishlessman

come on over but sneak thru the side door, shades are pulled and theres a black escalade with tinted windows out front watching the house and giant gator eggs out back, big green gator eggs

cookn biker

hahahaha

Little Steven

Could it have been vacuum deposition?

stike

sure. i'm relating what i remember from when i was maybe 8, so it could have been anything. :laugh:

Gator Bait

 
Thanks everybody, your input was a lot of fun and even somewhat enlightening. I think fishlessman may have come the closest to identifying the stake with his "crop circle pivot dropped by alien vampire alligators." :laugh:

Blair