A week off.

Winter has finally hit us, I know you northern boys have been off for months. This week we are getting down to -8 degree's at one point.

I did pick up some items that I'd like to learn to use. Granted, I'll never make much money w/ them around here, I'd like to be able to use them. I've used the needle nose bender(?) already, but pliers worked just fine before this.

Got the book from the wife's grandpa, among a bunch of other metal & wood working books.

Thanks bdub, ebay specials! Watched it for 2 weeks and won them for $16 shipped. I just want to be able to walk away from a dead valley and know for sure that it's got 30 years of no problems...or preferably 50.

Also, after re-assessing my wood pile I the following quote a pipe dream.

clvr83 Said: Ive almost got enough split to heat all next winter, first time for me.

Barely over half, but that is hot water & furnace.

Nice tools! Those are my every day must haves. Youre 100% right though, they dont really make money. Read that book and mess around with patterns and seaming, its really fun. Good chance you will end up employing some of those techniques. Dinosaur stuff bredren!! Welcome to the club!

Lefty Said: We do whole roofs, repairs, siding and seamless gutters all year.

clvr83 Said: natty: I almost posted a picture of what keeps me from having too much time to myself in the winter. Ive almost got enough split to heat all next winter, first time for me.

clvr, same here. I heat my house with wood as well. I don't have enough for next winter yet but, do have a good start on next winter for sure. Im still burning like crazy as temps are still getting into single digits at night.

Took this pic a few weeks ago before all the white stuff. Had just put a badly needed new bar on one of my favorite tools B)

They are not risking life and limb. We use all the safety equipment. Even though most company's do not. We do whole roofs, repairs, siding and seamless gutters all year.

We pay health insurance, dental, life insurance, paid holidays, paid vacations, your birthday is a paid holiday, we match up to 3% in your retirement fund. We also pay a good wage. They would lose all this if they did not work. I can not afford to pay these if they are not working.

I do not have lunkhead roofers working for me. My workers make a good living even if I do not. I am the last one paid.

It would be a little hard to do an Alaska cruise in the wintertime. Like one of my guys did last August. One of my guys went to the North Carolina shore last July. Also they would have to take their children out of school to go on vacation in the wintertime.

Lefty Said: Natty, I have family guys working for me. They would sooner work then collect unemployment. Most of them take their family vacations in the summer months. You can not afford to take your family to Disney World on unemployment.

There you go again- not making sense. Seems to me that a freezing climate roofer would take his family vacation around Christmas time instead of during the prime roofing weather. And, do something else for a living while roofs are frozen instead of risking life, limb and damaged material. How do you do any kind of roofing in sub-freezing temps? Maybe just emergency temporary repairs? Of course, we are talking about the lunkhead common roofer because the business owner is the one raking in the profit and he is not limited in what he can do.

natty: I almost posted a picture of what keeps me from having too much time to myself in the winter. I've almost got enough split to heat all next winter, first time for me.

Lefty: We used to do the same thing, not often below 20 though. Slowed down after a big storm, now we mostly do repairs in the worst of winter. Luckily, the storm debacle provided years of repair work.

Natty, I have family guys working for me. They would sooner work then collect unemployment. Most of them take their family vacations in the summer months. You can not afford to take your family to Disney World on unemployment.

Lefty Said: We worked right thru the winter. Shoveled off a few roofs to keep working. Some days highs were in the low teens.

We worked right thru the winter. Shoveled off a few roofs to keep working. Some days highs were in the low teens.

What fun! You should go to slateroofcentral and look at some of the copper / slate work we do there. Interesting, and trade specific. At least more prevalent in the higher end market.