What Did You Do Today?

[YosemiteBen]

Got some time on the lathe Monday. Today I am at work. So many things to do and never enough time. One of these days I will join the retirement club and just maybe I will find enough time to get something done!

[YosemiteBen]

Well for Christmas I got what I expected because my wife never knows what to get. New shirts and a new clay flute. Check out Flutes by Nash - Jaguar Drone if you want to see what it looks like. My wife did surprise me with my first ever TWO YEAR subs to PA! Worked Xmas Day, Working New years day. Y'all have a safe and happy New year. I for one will be in bed by the time it gets here.

[PaulN/KS]

Well I'm in the "retirement club" so was down in Lawrence tearing out the carpet in on of the rooms where the kid lives. Then the wife tells me the battery is dead on the Forester so had to find someone for a jump and run up to North "Larry" to the battery shop before they closed. Tomorrow I'll be working on putting in the new flooring. 
Yeah, "retired-ment" is more like it... 

[Eric Krewson]

I was playing with scrap osage and made some ball starters for my flintlocks. I hunt with a ball board and don't need to cut a patch, these smack a ball in with authority and take up very little space. I made one for my 12ga fowler and one for my .54.

[Deerhunter21]

What are ball starters Eric?? they look nice!

[Eric Krewson]

When we load our black powder guns with a patched round ball ball the initial fit of the ball and the cloth patch is very tight, you can't push it it with your thumb.

We use a ball starter to smack the ball and patch into the barrel and get it started. Most ball starters have around ball with a nub on the ball on one side and along rod on the other. The nub is what we call a short starter, just long enough to get the ball all the way in and started.

 Most of us put the ball over the muzzle on a strip of lubed cloth, smack the ball in with the short starter, then use our patch knife to cut the excess patching material away before we the long starter to ram the ball and patch down the bore about 6", we them ram it all the way down the barrel to rest on the powder with our ramrod. 

When I hunt I use premeasured tubes of black powder and what we call a ball board that has several balls already patched, lubed and ready to go in the barrel, no need for a strip of cloth and a patch knife.  It is about speed and convenience when I hunt.

With my little starters I can push a ball out of the board  into the first part of the barrel and then use the starter to ram it down the barrel a bit, my ramrod will send it home after it is in the barrel.

My little starter takes up very little room, normal ball starters are much larger.

In this picture you can see a ball board with patched balls along with a normal starter in the background as well as the strip of cloth and naked balls I use when I cut my patching material at the muzzle after the ball is in the barrel. To the right of the can of powder you can see a cloth strip that I used to patched some .50 cal balls then cut the patch at the muzzle.

[neuse]

bjrogg

Very cool shelves, great idea.

[WhistlingBadger]

Snow day today!  More then a foot of fresh powder on the ground and no sign of letting up.

After starting the fire, having a mug of tea, and enjoying a celebratory cuddle with the girls, I finished putting together a prototype quiver.  My deer hide should be coming back from the tanners in a week or two, bark-tanned, and I'm planning on making it into a side quiver.  It's going to be sort of a hybrid of native American and northern European designs, trimmed with badger fur and claws, and hopefully incorporating a wool tartan fletching cover.  This involves inventing a lot of techniques I've never tried before, especially working with fur.  So, I had a practice run making a quiver out of the leg of an old pair of canvas pants, and the relatively worthless belly fur from the badger.  I'm fairly pleased with how it came out, despite a lot of goofs and start-overs.  Now it's done and I'm ready to get to work on the real deal as soon as I get it back.

Now, some music work:  Sitting in my easy chair by the fire, mixing down the final song for an album I'm going to release next month.   

Hey, Pappy, you reading this?  Guess what.  Life is good! 

T

[WhistlingBadger]

Just had a game of double monopoly with Mrs. Badger and the Badgerling, followed by a huge smoked brisket sandwish...stay tuned for further updates.    (S)

[Eric Krewson]

Multi-tasking today; dividing my time between making an osage static recurve and building an eighteenth century flintlock rifle.



Good thing I have two vises on my bench. I got the bow to the short string for the first time and got a couple of the ramrod pipes in on the rifle.

[WhistlingBadger]

Looks like a mighty good day, Eric.
T

[DC]

Is that bow painted gold or is it just the lighting?

[bjrogg]

Looks like your going to divide and concur Eric.
Bjrogg

[Eric Krewson]

Just aged osage, the back had turned, I started the bow a year ago, ripped out the mesh on a hernia repair and couldn't pull it on my tillering tree until this month, 13 months after I injured myself.

[WhistlingBadger]

Glad you're recovering.  Feels good to be able to do stuff again after an injury like that.