It only takes one...

Dave and I deal with countless interesting people. But you know all too well, that it only takes that one-in-a-hundred moron to spoil your day. Dave received a small, but constant percentage of strange letters from unusual people, and occasionally we'd share a few.

Dave had been experimenting with melting cast iron with a cupola, and for a while had been toying with the idea of doing a book on it. Out of all the positive letters Dave got, one came in from some guy who was "running on fumes."

"Had a letter yesterday from a bird who took me to task for not 'going into details' about making a ladle skimmer and a poker. He also wanted to know why he shouldn't use a vacuum cleaner instead of a bellows to draw any loose particles out of a sand mold.

He did admit that he had been too busy to actually put a foundry together and try it out. He topped it all off by asking how to locate gates and risers for a manhole cover. I was tempted to tell him how to heat the poker to a bright red heat and also where to shove it, but then I just wrote him a nice letter anyway. Guess I'm just a sweet guy!"

Also among Dave's numerous letters was a copy of an arrogant, ridiculous review of Dave's machine shop series that appeared in a British modeler's magazine, NOT Model Engineer. The reviewer poo-pooed the whole thing, and closed his review with...

One time we were joking about a rocket propelled bicycle or something, and I told him that if he were to build and send it to me as threatened, he had better enclose a cast iron jock strap. About a week later, he sent me this – a leg off an ol' cast iron stove.

Another time I counterfeited prescription labels of a well-known drugstore chain and sent him his medication (M&M's). The instructions told Dave to take two tablets any time he felt the urge to play the banjo. And, of course, they were supposedly cyanide tablets prescribed by Dr. Jekyll.

"Once one has conquered the slight sense of irritation at the author's tendency to indulge in self praise of his designs and methods, the volumes make interesting reading, but £38.00 the set it is unlikely that many sets will find their way into workshops in this country...."

You don't know how many laughs Dave and I had over that! Less than ten years later, when I visited Adam Harris, proprietor of Camden Miniature Steam Services in England, Harris wanted me to kidnap Gingery and bring him to UK to deliver a lecture because Dave had so many fans! The jerk who wrote the caustic, self-serving review was about as wrong as he could be!

I used a photo of an experimental pre-WWI tank as the basis of an email gag that I used to again blindside Dave. He enjoyed it so much he sent it out to all his email contacts! Others were inserting his face into Mount Rushmore, or replacing Superman's face with his.