I have a young spider plant in a plastic 6" pot. I realize that the plant will grow and have to be transferred into a larger pot. I want a blacksmith to make me a custom hanging hook for this plant. He is not sure whether to use 1/2" iron stock or 3/8". Does anyone have any idea as to how much a mature spider plant would weigh, pot and all, and how much weight a forged iron hook could support? Thank you!!!!

I was toying with the idea of getting one of the electric snow shovels that was light enough to lift--unlike our big gas-powered machine--to use on sidewalk and deck, so I was reading reviews on Amazon. The question came up about snowblowers on gravel driveways and the need to keep them up a bit to avoid throwing the gravel around. Someone said if they kept the handles pushed down, pushing up the front edge of the blower, it was enough to keep the gravel from being thrown. I thought I read that someone else nailed a wooden strip or something to the bottom of the scoop to accomplish the same thing, though now I can't find that. In any case, I'd think the same thing would work for rubber roofs--you just need to make sure you're not digging into the membrane. The model I'm considering, the Toro 38381, weighs 26 pounds: not light, but you could heave it around. It wouldn't handle two feet of snow in one pass since it's only 10" deep, but of course the bigger the machine the heavier it is. You might also call roofing companies, I know a lot of them are keeping busy now dealing with ice dams and they might have people who could help you out. Good luck, it sure sounds like an exhausting and scary task.

While wood can warp when one side is wetter than the other, when the moisture equalizes, which it will, it will return to its natural state. The problem is due to either or both of these: - Reaction wood -- twisted grain or wood that was grown under stress such as on a hillside. - Differential expansion / contraction rates of radial (from the center out) and tangential (around the growth rings).While these number vary by species, it's generally on the order of twice as much tangentially as radially.This is why logs usually split and open a "pie piece" shaped split.A way to explain this is that the curves in the annual rings tend to flatten out. My opinion is "in the end, the wood has the final say."I've not seen a successful way to "unwarp" something permanently.My recommendation is to use plywood or fabricate new drawer bottoms from quarter-sawn wood. Here is a link that might be useful: See figure 4.3 This post was edited by bobsmyuncle on Thu, Nov 29, 12 at 14:20

Here's a pic of the counter. We made a temporary one from an old Ikea tabletop. Obviously didn't quite have enough to cover the whole "L," but it's fine for now.