What Did You Do Today?

[osage outlaw]

Nice haul!  Looks like it split straight. 

[PEARL DRUMS]

Real nice haul big guy.

[Eric Krewson]

I started a new flintlock rifle.The first step is to fit the breechplug to the barrel, not an easy task. Both the barrel and the plug were too long, it is a green Mountain Barrel. I filed 1/8" off the barrel and plug and started the arduous task of trying to get the plug to bottom out on the breech face inside the barrel and line up perfectly with a flat on the barrel with no gap, all at the same time.

Ordinarily, one would keep the company logo that is stamped on the barrel on the bottom flat out of sight. I didn't have enough room for this fit so my logo ended up on a side flat. I peened the letters closed with a punch and filed it away so it wouldn't be visible on the finished barrel.

Two days of taking a file stroke, screw the plug in with marking dye, remove the plug and file the high spots and retesting resulted in a perfect fit. I have done two other breechplug fits that were "questionable", I took much more time on this one and all is well.

[JW_Halverson]

I took the Black Hills Raptor Center on the road today to the Hot Springs Veterans Administration Hospital.

I got to meet some damn fine vets.  I got to talk with them, show them raptors up close, tell really bad jokes, and tell them that I appreciate them.  I got to meet staff there that could probably make much better wages in the private sector, but they care too much to walk away from the people that need them.

Dunno if you have a VA Hospital nearby, but if you do and you are not working with their volunteer services coordinator, you are missing the boat. Repost a hundred of those chain letter "I love my vets" posts of you want, but they don't hold water. Not when there are men and women that fought and bled for your country, now are hanging on by a thread at a VA facility miles from home.  Just make a call, go visit, spend an afternoon or an evening shooting the breeze with them.  It's worth more than any million "Likes".

[lebhuntfish]

I took the Black Hills Raptor Center on the road today to the Hot Springs Veterans Administration Hospital.

I got to meet some damn fine vets.  I got to talk with them, show them raptors up close, tell really bad jokes, and tell them that I appreciate them.  I got to meet staff there that could probably make much better wages in the private sector, but they care too much to walk away from the people that need them.

Dunno if you have a VA Hospital nearby, but if you do and you are not working with their volunteer services coordinator, you are missing the boat. Repost a hundred of those chain letter "I love my vets" posts of you want, but they don't hold water. Not when there are men and women that fought and bled for your country, now are hanging on by a thread at a VA facility miles from home.  Just make a call, go visit, spend an afternoon or an evening shooting the breeze with them.  It's worth more than any million "Likes".

Good for you JW! Is that hot springs Arkansas? If so that is kinda in my back yard.

We have a VA close to me also. Me and a buddy try to put on a rabbit hunt every year for the wounded warrior program. We also do a huge kids hunt on new years every year. Thanks for supporting our vets, it means a lot to me and many others. Patrick

[JW_Halverson]

Hot Springs, SD.  It's a helluva nice facility on the edge of town.  The campus is really big and has broad lawns and wooded areas all around.  Hot Springs is really a little town and no hiway going thru it, so when sitting outside, you can't really hear a lot of urban noises....most time it is drowned out by the birds doing their thing! 

Apparently, people coming there for service and treatment are often from Denver and other larger cities....and about day three of the stay, they have this AHA! moment that causes them to relax and go with the flow.  They do a lot of work with PTSD therapy and such with quite a number of 30 and 60 day stays. 

[lebhuntfish]

That's cool JW! Sounds like a serene place. The quite and calm is probably great medicine for them. Patrick

[Eric Krewson]

I had to back off on the gun build, when I planed  cherry my stock blank I found too many flaws to continue. I ordered a really nice grade 4 curly maple blank yesterday.

I am getting the props together to shoot a Gizmo video when my son comes for a visit next week.

I floor tillered a bow blank I made of mismatched billets and found one limb was really good, strong wood and the other was like a noodle, mushy and weak. It will do for demonstrating floor tillering and using the gizmo on the long string.

I had my shoulder worked on 4 months ago, recovery hasn't been going well. I am shooting a 38# bow and didn't have anything to move up to that would be a few pounds heavier.

I was digging in my failure bow pile and found a BBO that came out way under poundage and was a real poor performer. I had heat treated the limbs and put it back in the pile.

I strung it up to check it and found the heat treating had really gotten the tiller off. I retillered it and gave it a test run. Dang, it was now a rocket launcher, a #45 rocket launcher, just what I needed for my rehab.

Yep, heat treating works wonders on a wimpy bow. 

[YosemiteBen]

Last night - it took me four hours to change the oil pan gasket in my van. 1/3 of the bolts are over the cross frame. Had to drop the starter,  and transmission cover just to get the darn thing out. I have never encountered a one piece gasket before but it did make it easy. Got done about 1130 by the time I got the area cleaned up. Alarm went off bright and early at 6am. Raining here in Yosemite at the moment sure does smell good!

[osage outlaw]

I just pulled 43 borer worms out of a single stave      It has thick sapwood and none of them made it into the heartwood.  This is from a tree I cut in March and left the top hung up in the canopy.  It finally fell down and I got the last straight section out a couple of weeks ago.  I can't believe there are this many borers in it after 2 months. 

[Eric Krewson]

In the past I have had coons wreck my corn patch in one night. For the last few years I have put out my coon deterrent, a couple strands of electric fence at coon height. Works very well, coons apparently don't know how to jump a fence like a deer. 

[Eric Krewson]

The coon fence was a success, I froze 14 dozen ears. The Cabella's vacuum sealer is a work horse.



 I cut the power off the the fence yesterday, the coons were in my corn patch last night eating what few ears I left.

[osage outlaw]

Nice ears Eric.  I'm going with a slightly more lethal approach to a raccoon and possum problem.

[lebhuntfish]

If you get any extra coon hides Clint, let me know!  Patrick

[Eric Krewson]

 I trapped 9 one year with a variety of traps, it was that big yellow lab I caught that made me go to a live trap and later the electric fence. I placed a trap in the middle of a pile of tomato cages so the neighborhood dogs wouldn't be in danger, wrong! The lab was able to nose his way to the chocolate chip cookies, I had him by one toe nail. I wrestled with him for 45 minutes trying to get him out of a double spring trap, he wasn't very cooperative. I felt like I had been in an MMA cage fight after I was finally able to step on both springs at the same time and get him out. I found out later from a trapper that all you had to do was throw a coat over their head, they would then sit still and let you take them out of the trap.