Tin Bending 101.0

On Dec 8, 1:35*am, " wrote:
.
I'm sitting here, counting my pills with one eye on the clock and I
get this message from a guy who is having some trouble with a piece of
aluminum. *Flat piece. *60 inches wide, 180 inches long, .032 inches
thick. *So I tell him what to do and he comes back saying he tried
that an it didn't work. *Which sorta blows my dander up. *Of course it
works! *Always has and it always will.

Try it with a piece of paper, I tellz him.

Nope, paper ain't aluminum -- he's not going to let me trick him like
that.

So I tell him to go get a beer can. *No, an EMPTY beer can. *(He tells
me to wait a minute... glug, glug, glug...)

Okay, not cut off the top & bottom of the beer can. *(I can do that,
he sez and asks if I don't need some more empty cans, cuz he's willing
to help. *Shushes his wife up; he has been ORDERED to empty them cans.

Empty beer can. *No top. *No bottom. *Use scissors to get it kinda
square. *Comes out 3-3/4" wide, 8-1/8" long and .003 inches thick.

NOW we're getting somewheres! *(Empties another can for me.)

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You laughing yet? *Well don't, cuz there's lots of things you can do
with a whiff of sheef aluminum thinner than a sheet of paper.

Get out your jitterbug and sand on it a while then dip it into you
etchant tank... the thing you store your etchant in when you ain't
using it. *(They don't make 12' long trays so you gotta put your
thinking cap on, which usually comes with a couple of sheets of 5mil
plastic attached. *Couple of 2x4's. *Cover them with plastic sheeting,
pour in your etchant. *Now you got a tank twelve feet long, six inches
wide and 1-1/2 inches deep.

What's the etchant? Phosphoric Acid. *Same stuff you find in your Coca
Cola and Pepsi Cola and what all. This particular stuff happens to be
Jasco (brand name) 'Prep & Prime.' *Bought it at the Borg. *Look in
the Paint Department.

Put your beer can stock into the etchant. *Slosh it up & down. *Rinse
under hot water (no fingerprints, please). *Now the aluminum surface
has some 'tooth,' meaning it will hold paint. *Or epoxy. *Or JB Weld.

Whatcha use it for? *To protect the wood. *Glue it right to it. *No,
not like that! *Bend it first. *Make is soz it's a perfect fit. *NOW
glue it to it. *Heel rests? *Yeah, it'll work... for a while. *But
it's better suited for protecting the edges of ply, like that empty
hole where you usta have a radio before you flew in here and tossed
the keys to a guy you thot was the line-boy. *(Naw, don't worry about
it. *See them tats? He's an El Tigre and they don't pull much water
around here; this is mostly Azteca territory, unless the Oso Negros is
outta jail. *(That's a black bear for those of you who don't speak
Texmex.) *) *We'll get your radio back... eventually. *But I don't
know about your keys.

Layer of aluminum three thousandths of an inch thick. *It offers more
protection than you'd think, assuming it's properly applied.

Christmas is coming. *Last year it was a fleet of Chinese junks. *This
year it's... something else.

-R.S.Hoover

Bob,

I know that you had a CD of your stories sometime back but how about
having some of them placed in a book and published? I've said it to
you before and I'll say it again, no one writes pratical common sense
stories or articles better than you.

Joe