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What Did You Do Today?

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Pappy:
Congrats Eric, nice doe and looks like that shot done the trick. Pappy

Eric Krewson:
PM me your address Mr Drums and I will send you some for free, I have lots. Just a heads up; Walmart puts out caps in July for $5 and change a tin, they don't last long, it is my understanding that more people steal them than pay for them. In July I walk by the M/L stuff every time I go in the store, on one trip they were on the rack, I picked up 3 tins and left the remaining tins on the rack for someone else. We have three Walmart's in town, I don't shoot percussion much so I didn't go to the other stores and get a few more. I do keep a stock for a SHTF scenario, caps, flints and 23# of powder.

Academy has them as well before hunting season, theirs's are $13 and change a tin, they do price matching so if you have proof of Walmart's price, they will sell you some at the $5 price Walmart charges.

Eric Krewson:
It is legal to shoot in my yard, living at the end of a dead-end road in a subdivision there are at least 100 acres of woods behind my place. I have an archery range alongside my shop as well as a place to shoot my flintlocks (and other stuff), I have sent thousands rounds down range.

I put trail camera on my neighbor's orchard to check the deer movement. The camera is downrange of where I shoot, when I pulled the card, I had consistent pictures of my neighbor's grown son and his girlfriend on it roaming through the woods, not good.

In a previous post I started a bullet trap but never finished it, shoveling a yard of sand put me in a recliner for days with extreme pain from a hernia mesh issue that I have dealt with for a while.

A couple of days ago I felt good and decided to finish the project. I had used up all of my scrounged lumber, I needed to buy more as well as another 1/2 yard of sand.

I bought what I needed and finished the bullet trap, I used smaller boards on the front so I could change out any that got shot up. The stall mat will keep the sand from leaking out when I change boards.

I went overboard on the dimensions with 3ft of bullet stopping sand, 2 ft would have been more than enough. I used a sand volume calculator to determine how much sand to buy, as you can see it was spot on.

   

JW_Halverson:
That is a right nice sandbox you got there, Eric!

I made a 20 hour roadtrip to Southeast Nebraska a few weeks ago and bought a dozen osage staves from a guy. He's no bowyer, but learned he can get a lot more money from a bow stave than he has been getting for fence posts, so he started holding back straighter stuff. I have been slowly going thru the stack taking off the sapwood and getting them down to a single growth ring before resealing. I warned him that his 2,500 staves in his barn all have powder post beetles in the sapwood and that the sapwood is going to cause them all to check. He has been taking off just the bark and sealing with cheap wood glue. I explained bark-on prevents checking, down-to-sapwood-and-sealed prevents checking, but you just cannot seal sapwood enough to stop them from checking. Dunno if he has the time and energy to go through that stack and rip sapwood off, so I suggested he get one of those debarking tools that mounts on a chainsaw. So long as he uses a gentle touch and just barely gets to yellow wood before re-sealing will save him from losing (literally) tons of wood. He seemed genuinely interested in having a good product for sale, so I hope he heeds my words.

I also showed him on stave after stave what exactly I was looking for. He pulled out a saw and we cut the ends off a number of staves so we could get a better look at the growth rings. I showed him the early wood to late wood ratios that were best, those that were good, and the crap that was fuel for the woodburner stove. He started to get an eye and I quizzed him on a couple staves asking him which growth ring would be the one to pick for the back of a bow. He picked the same rings I saw and his confidence grew.

He tells me he had been to one of the jams, I forget now whether it was Mojam or Ojam. He said he was interested in hauling wood to these sort of events to sell, but was worried about picking a stave to ship to someone. His name is Duane Hansen out of Syracuse, Nebraska. If you run into him, say hi from me! Then fill his ears with education on what bowyers want in a stave. I think the more he hears what we want the better his product offering will be. And if you can, talk him into starting a bow with you at whatever venue you meet him. He expressed interest in learning to make one for himself...and you know making one means making another. And THAT will teach him huge lessons in what is a stave and what's firewood.

Today I spent 5 hours in the shop on a big ol' hog of a stave from him. With a lot of wedges and some luck, I turned that bugger into 3 good staves and a 4th that might make a kid's character bow. My arms and back started barking at me, so I swept up, burned the scrap, and came in the house for a cup of hot tea and time to catch up with you all.

Sorry I don't get in here as often, I kinda lost interest in making bows for a couple years, but I am back scraping again. Let's all keep in touch, ok?

Pappy:
Glad to see you back at it JW, yes getting a bunch of Osage debarked and down to yellow wood is a chore but if you want to be sure of no bug damage it really needs to be done, sometime you get lucky if you don't but to me not worth the risk. :)
 Pappy

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