I know, it's been a while since I last put up a post. But I haven't had a lot to talk about until today. Well, that's not entirely true. But it would have been really depressing to read since it would have consisted of whining and pissing and moaning about how horrible it was. Mind you, I'll talk about it anyway, but it won't be as horrible to read since I'm in a much better mood now.
So! Since last we talked, I passed my aluminum shoes. Full set of four fullered shoes. Aluminum is really easy to work with and responds well to the hammer. There's just one problem with it...if you leave it in the fire too long, it disintegrates. It doesn't melt, mind you. It just falls apart. Like when a part of a soft cookie breaks off and falls to the ground. So you have to hold it in the forge with your tongs and count to 15 seconds. Then you drag the butt end of your hammer across the aluminum and if it leaves a black mark, the metal is hot enough to work. If it doesn't leave a mark, you put it back for 5 more seconds and check it again. Never do you set it down. Or as Bill put it, if you look away from it, it's been in the fire too long.
I spent all last week working on those. One of the fronts fell apart on me, so I had to make another one. And technically, my fullers were too far inside for a couple of spots on the fronts. But Bill was feeling generous and passed me anyway because he understood my intention and the metal was kind of thin to hold a proper fuller. Those passed on Saturday of last week, so then it was on to bar shoes for me!
Now, the next burning question: What's a bar shoe and what's it used for? Well, the best way to describe a bar shoe is to imagine a regular horseshoe, then put a solid bar of metal across the bottom connecting the heels. It's used in cases where the heels are having a problem of some kind and need to be protected or if the horse needs more support on the foot than a regular shoe. A good example is a horse that's been staying here at the school for about a month now. This horse had a big section of his hoof that he caught in a wire fence and ripped off. The hoof wall was dead on the outside of his right hind foot from about the middle of the quarter on that side all the way back to the heel and all the way up to almost the hairline. The whole hoof wall, right in to the sensitive structures underneath. So we took a Dremel tool and pared out as much dead hoof as possible, though some had to remain so that a shoe could be nailed on. Austin made a bar shoe and nailed it on so that the horse would have something to support the foot while the hoof wall was missing. Repairing the hoof with acrylic wasn't possible at first because of infection. If you cover up an infection, if only gets worse because there's no way to treat it externally and the bacteria breed like crazy in an oxygen deficient environment. The bar shoe supported the foot by distributing the weight better across the foot where the hoof wall was missing. Once we got the infection out, Austin applied an acrylic to the foot to make a fake hoof wall. Apparently, you can rasp it and nail a shoe into it just like a normal foot. As the new hoof grows out from the hairline, the acrylic will be trimmed and rasped off from the bottom as though it were part of the hoof until the new hoof grows all the way out. Cool, huh?
So, back to me and bar shoes. I've been hearing from a lot of people that the hard part isn't shaping the shoe, it's welding the ends together at the bottom. That's right, forge welding. Basically, you take the ends of the metal, bring them together, apply flux, get everything yellow hot, then tap it together to weld it. On a bar shoe, the two ends meet in the middle of the bottom bar between the heels. And everyone told me that was the bitch of the whole thing. Well, I tried it today. And got a solid weld first try. *grin* I credit it to Alberto, who gave me the demo Thursday morning and some great tips. Like brush all the slag off before applying the flux and make sure the anvil is hot before welding because otherwise the anvil will suck all the heat out of the metal and the weld won't hold. And you have to tap the weld line gently at first and gradually increase the power of the strikes. So now I just have to make a second bar shoe and get them passed. Once I get that, I'll have completed all the minimum forge requirements for the 12 week program. There's still 4 more shoes I can learn to make after that, egg bar shoe, heart bar shoe, aluminum bar shoe, and patton bar shoe. But I don't have to complete the list, just up through regular bar shoes. It's a good end to a week that started really crappy.
OK, here's the part where I tell why I haven't posted in a while. This week started pretty horribly. On Monday, they popped a graded barn day on us. I was assigned two front feet. I had to trim them to my satisfaction, then call an instructor over to grade my trimming. Then, I had to make a pair of fullered shoes with toe clips and fit them to the horse, then have an instructor grade the shoes and the fit. Finally, I had to hot fit them and nail them on and have an instructor grade the finished product. Took me all friggin' day! I'm not fast at making shoes. I've gotten a little faster since, but I've been practicing since that day. I can knock out a pair in an hour now. Which is still kind of slow, but I'm trying to balance speed with nailability. If they want it faster, the shoes probably wouldn't nail on because of shoddy workmanship. And I hate doing things half assed. But on Monday, it took me closer to 2 hours I think to make my shoes. Ugh!
Then, on Tuesday, we got the client in that always wants clips on their horses. I had a pair of hinds that day and the horse was a leaner. This big fat ass horse putting all his weight on me and I was trying to fit hind shoes with quarter clips. Let's just say that I was conducting primal scream therapy in the barn that day. I was the last one under a horse and frusterated as hell. The shoes weren't fitting well, my clips looked like crap, and did I mention the horse was a leaner that didn't like to pick his feet up? It's hard to burn on a shoe when the horse doesn't cooperate. You have to be able to hold a really hot shoe on tongs with one hand and pick up the foot with the other. Then you put the shoe on the foot and hold your breath, because the smell of hot shoeing is horrible. Imagine the stink of rolling up hair into a cigar and smoking it. The smoke comes up off the foot and right into your face, so you're working half blind and not breathing. If you make the mistake of opening your mouth, you can taste it in the back of your throat. >.< For those of you that have ever smelled your clothes after being in a smoky bar or nightclub, this is worse. Even my bra smelled of fried hoof, and that was through my t-shirt.
This might make a few of you surprised. I basically told one of my dormmates she could kiss my ass today. I know I've talked about the barn princess Isabelle before. Well, today I was hunched over looking at my horse's feet to make sure the angles visibly matched on the feet. I heard this voice from behind me saying, "Is that really necessary, sticking your ass in my face?" Without looking back, I replied, "Yes, it is. I'm checking my horse's feet." I then walked to the other side of the horse to check from the other side and added, "You can kiss it while it's there if you'd like." All I heard back was this terse little "No, thank you". But I was grinning like a bandit, let me assure you! Makes me glad I only have to put up with her for another two weeks.
That's right, I'm almost out of here. Two more full weeks. I probably won't be able to pass the time limit for the practical portion of the journeyman's test, but we'll see. And anyway, Jerry agrees with me that quality is better than quantity. I've discussed it with him and he assures me the quality of my work is quite good, so I'm happy with that. =) And I know that with time and practice, I'll just keep getting better. I've been able to work on horses with chronic founder and crappy feet and make them better. And with the success of my welding today, I now have the basic skills to make many more shoes that a vet may require for therapeutic purposes. I do hope to get the basic shapes for egg bar and heart bar shoes even if I don't actually make them so that I can practice once I leave here. Time will tell, hmm?
This is me, signing off.
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