Hobbies , Arts and Crafts

[01RUBY500 1,253]

That is beautiful. None of that around here. I should check out the local Woodcraft store and see if they have any. They get top dollar plus for their wood. 

[01RUBY500 1,253]

So decided to use the Oak burl slab to make a hat rack. Getting tired of the bright white bone/skull look so I experimented and came up with a look I really like. 

[jeffo21 125]

11 hours ago, Fishfiles said:

Jeff. You got the best two hobbies to have 4 wheelers and fishing.  Don’t get much better than that.  

well I try to ride as much as I can and well fishing I get out there a lot. trying to catch another bass to match the one I had a replica made of

 

 

[Fishfiles 20,145]

Jeffo , Nice bass !!! ---   I fish a little bit  of fresh water , I like the salt water marsh , speckled trout and redfish primarily 

[jeffo21 125]

nice mounts there Fish. really like that speckled trout.

[Fishfiles 20,145]

Jeffo , that speck  has a story behind it , 1982 Lake Ponchartrain south shore , wade fishing the sand bars in the winter with waders pulling a inner tube with a crab basket in the middle full of specks  , throwing a Sidewinder lure , hooked into it and it was a fight , at first I didn't think it was a speck and was a redfish till it broke the water ,  had to drag it up onto the sand beach , got it mounted by Spencers as a plastic replica as scale mounts deteriorate , it measures 31 1/2 inches , the number 2 speck in Louisiana right now , 38 years later is 32 inches , I never weighed that  fish back then , unless it was going on a scale to sell them , I never cared about weight , it was about length , I figure him for about 10.5 pounds and would be #3-4 on the record book today  ----Katrina flooded my house in New Orleans with 48 inches of water , those both fish were on the wall 6 ft up , so they didn't swim but got funky , I had a friend who pasted a coupler of years back , he was an operator by trade but was a great air brush artist and had a shop , he said never painted a fish before , being both fish are plastic replicas , I had he try and repaint them , I gave him a couple of pics and he did some research on his own and  went at it , he did a very good job on the colors , they look better in person than in a pic ---that red is 44 inches , I have caught bigger since then , 48 is my personal best , I caught that 44 by myself on 14 pound test , when I got him in the boat , I  was more than a mile from where I hooked him 

[shrade 197]

Spent the  last couple of days carving a set of stocks for a Smith & Wesson K 22 Outdoorsman, the gun was built in 1934 and had been orphaned.Some pitting on the cylinder, carefully removed the pits and polished it. Sent it off to Bobby Tyler in Texas to have it blued. While it was away I worked on the stocks. The extractor housing and rod were bent as well, chucked it in the lathe and straightened it with the help of a dial indicator. here are some pics of her ready for another 86 years. I have named her "Corona"!

[01RUBY500 1,253]

Very nice and great job. Do you still have the original grips?  I have one of those my grandfather handed down to me and he had made larger grips for it to fit his hand better and they are beautiful and he hand checkered them. I have had it appraised a couple of times and luckily I have the original grips also because even though the ones grandpa made are nicer it becomes 10times more valuable with the originals. So I put them back on it so they don’t get lost. It will be handed down to my son someday. 

[shrade 197]

17 minutes ago, 01RUBY500 said:

Very nice and great job. Do you still have the original grips?  I have one of those my grandfather handed down to me and he had made larger grips for it to fit his hand better and they are beautiful and he hand checkered them. I have had it appraised a couple of times and luckily I have the original grips also because even though the ones grandpa made are nicer it becomes 10times more valuable with the originals. So I put them back on it so they don’t get lost. It will be handed down to my son someday. 

Thank you. It did not have the original grips, it had a set of Magnas from the 50's that were beat to crap oil soaked and funky. I have been looking for some pre-war service style, like the originals, but haven't found any I could afford. Took the escutcheons and medallions out of the junkers and used them for these grips. still keeping an eye open for a used set that is not to beat up, that I can restore. If you have time post  a pick of the grips your grandfather made. 

[01RUBY500 1,253]

Hey Shrade here are the pictures you requested. My S&W model is actually a K22/32 kit gun. Pictures have original grips on the gun Grandpas grips next to it for size comparison. 

[shrade 197]

nice old "flat latch" you have their. Gandpa did a ! of a job on those grips, definitely more hand filling than those original Round butt magna grips. Great family heirloom!! if you have any more info about your grandad's relationship to the gun, old pictures of him with it, keep those together and right down anything you know about it so when your gone your son has the complete history. Keep it LIGHTLY  oiled to prevent corrosion and enjoy!

[01RUBY500 1,253]

Thanks Shrade great idea, I will. I have fond memories of going to the range with him. This is the first pistol I ever shot and I think I was like 9 or 10. I have the paperwork from his purchase of this gun when new, it was 1957 the year I was born. He did some competition shooting with this and a High Standard .22 semi-automatic Target that had Barrel weights. My dad got this one and my aunt got the High Standard.  Not sure if she still has it. I should find out and see what her plans are for it. Probably will give it to my one of my cousins I’m sure. 

[Turbo Twister 545]

It was a bust week for me woodwork wise, I didn't go anywhere near any metal! I have been collecting beer bottle caps for almost a year now, and after gathering approximately 600, I could finally start the wedding gift I talked about doing for months. Unfortunately the couple who are receiving it have had to postpone their wedding until later in the year but they will receive it as planned regardless.

 

I painstakingly sorted all the caps so no two are the same, then stuck them all down with Tec7 into 5 rows from the outside edge inwards. I did a dry fit of each row first and had to squeeze some caps a little to get a perfect circle.

 

When I got to the 6th row, I found that the circle was no longer perfectly round so I had to come up with another idea. My mother suggested just putting a clay bowl in the middle that could be removed for cleaning etc.. I liked the idea, but wasn't convinced to use a factory made bowl, so me being stubborn, I went and made a wooden one, using only the tools I had to hand (yep, I don't have a lathe!).

 

I have a mobile chainsaw mill that I seldom use, but I milled a decent branch of chestnut last year and it dried out very nicely and straight, thanks to the heavy duty ratchet straps and adequate spacers, I took the second board from top as the grain was rubbing in the right direction for this particular piece.

 

I spent 9 hours the first day attempting to dig out the inside of a chestnut blank, which didn't live up to my taste, so I scrapped that the next day and spent a further 4 hours making a router jig. This worked wonders for me, all beit a bit slow. I had to change the curve half way though to deepen the outer edges of the dish.. I also had to modify the router cutter by extending the shaft from an old bit and welding it onto the new one.

 

So about 12 hours later, including the fitting of a teak dovetail key to cover up a little router incident, the bowl is complete, oiled with olive oil to bring out the grain detail and once the new batch of epoxy resin shows up, I'll cover the caps over.

 

A very fun project (the bowl making) but a lathe would be great for any future bowls.

[Fishfiles 20,145]

 

 

I like that jig , you thought that up or seen one 

 

[Turbo Twister 545]

1 hour ago, Fishfiles said:

 

 

I like that jig , you thought that up or seen one 

 

I saw something similar to it on YouTube, but it didn't give me a lot of info about making the jig. So trial and error really is how I came about it. The most difficult part was fixing the wood blank without having screws hit the router bit. I couldn't clamp it down because I had to rotate the wood by hand with every pass of the router. It's really a 2 person job to do one efficiently because using one hand to move the router can be risky. 

[jeepwm69 7,605]

On 4/17/2020 at 4:05 PM, shrade said:

Spent the  last couple of days carving a set of stocks for a Smith & Wesson K 22 Outdoorsman, the gun was built in 1934 and had been orphaned.Some pitting on the cylinder, carefully removed the pits and polished it. Sent it off to Bobby Tyler in Texas to have it blued. While it was away I worked on the stocks. The extractor housing and rod were bent as well, chucked it in the lathe and straightened it with the help of a dial indicator. here are some pics of her ready for another 86 years. I have named her "Corona"!

Very nice!  Love the K frames.

[jeepwm69 7,605]

On 4/18/2020 at 7:26 AM, 01RUBY500 said:

Hey Shrade here are the pictures you requested. My S&W model is actually a K22/32 kit gun. Pictures have original grips on the gun Grandpas grips next to it for size comparison. 

My first S&W revolver was a 34-1 4" round butt.  Dad "gave" me one for my birthday one year, (said he would buy one for me when he found the right one) so I looked for one for a couple of years before I found one that was early enough to be prior to S&W's decline in quality control (late 70's), but I finally found one.   Your flat latch was obviously earlier, but made during the prime of Smith and Wesson. 

 

I never shot that 34.  Dad ended up finding a nice early 63 (same gun in Stainless)  and I figured for the intended use/ field gun that stainless made more sense, so I kept that one and sold the 34.

[jeepwm69 7,605]

On 4/19/2020 at 9:27 AM, Turbo Twister said:

It was a bust week for me woodwork wise, I didn't go anywhere near any metal! I have been collecting beer bottle caps for almost a year now, and after gathering approximately 600, I could finally start the wedding gift I talked about doing for months. Unfortunately the couple who are receiving it have had to postpone their wedding until later in the year but they will receive it as planned regardless.

 

I painstakingly sorted all the caps so no two are the same, then stuck them all down with Tec7 into 5 rows from the outside edge inwards. I did a dry fit of each row first and had to squeeze some caps a little to get a perfect circle.

 

When I got to the 6th row, I found that the circle was no longer perfectly round so I had to come up with another idea. My mother suggested just putting a clay bowl in the middle that could be removed for cleaning etc.. I liked the idea, but wasn't convinced to use a factory made bowl, so me being stubborn, I went and made a wooden one, using only the tools I had to hand (yep, I don't have a lathe!).

 

I have a mobile chainsaw mill that I seldom use, but I milled a decent branch of chestnut last year and it dried out very nicely and straight, thanks to the heavy duty ratchet straps and adequate spacers, I took the second board from top as the grain was rubbing in the right direction for this particular piece.

 

I spent 9 hours the first day attempting to dig out the inside of a chestnut blank, which didn't live up to my taste, so I scrapped that the next day and spent a further 4 hours making a router jig. This worked wonders for me, all beit a bit slow. I had to change the curve half way though to deepen the outer edges of the dish.. I also had to modify the router cutter by extending the shaft from an old bit and welding it onto the new one.

 

So about 12 hours later, including the fitting of a teak dovetail key to cover up a little router incident, the bowl is complete, oiled with olive oil to bring out the grain detail and once the new batch of epoxy resin shows up, I'll cover the caps over.

 

A very fun project (the bowl making) but a lathe would be great for any future bowls.

Very nice looking work.  I hope the bride and groom appreciate the time and craftsmanship that went into their gift!

[Turbo Twister 545]

30 minutes ago, jeepwm69 said:

Very nice looking work.  I hope the bride and groom appreciate the time and craftsmanship that went into their gift!

So do I! The funny side to this story is that they have both seen the build up from day 1, yet they don't know it's for them!😂

[01RUBY500 1,253]

Well Gov. Hitler lifted her ban against motorboats yesterday, (Yah she banned a lot of stuff that made no sense but booze & weed were not one of them, guess boats are more dangerous) about 12 hours before opening day of fishing season (today) So we headed over to our favorite opening day spot on the Tittabawassee  River. Started trolling for Walleyes about 6:30am and had our 2 man limit of 10 fish by 10:30am. Great day of fishing and another great opening day. We had at least another 10-12 fish that got off before we could get them close to the net, they all had ! off attitude and put up a great fight. And I did manage to catch a nice small mouth bass too. 

[jeffo21 125]

nice catch ruby. Hoping to catch some Bass tomorrow

[shrade 197]

4 hours ago, 01RUBY500 said:

(Yah she banned a lot of stuff that made no sense but booze & weed were not one of them, guess boats are more dangerous)

She didn't ban the closing of liquor  stores and weed shops because they need the money from the taxes these businesses generate.   

[Fishfiles 20,145]

Flea Markets are back open , found me a brass chicken yesterday , been looking for a while for the right thing to put on top my wind vane project  , been putting  together this wind vane , the base was a bubble gum machine base , made out of cast iron , would think it is from the 50s , the wind direction piece is also cast , thinking about making a pointer arrow --- wife tells me I should sell the stuff I make , lets see , I got about $25 into it , could maybe get $20 LOL 

 

Got the new to me firewood rack painted up ,  should improve the looks of the wood rack 

[_Wilson_™ 6,566]

fish and wife salvage ? .. I'm just messing with ya ... lol ... that weather vane project is nice!! 

[01RUBY500 1,253]

Built a sandbox for my grandkids today, the cover folds back and becomes a bench seat.