Attempts at amateur gunsmithing, citizenship, and other skilled trades
I took my freshly-painted rowboat out several times last month.
Late October brought freshening winds, and the last time I went out I had to crab so severely into the wind to hold my course that I made very little headway.
To add insult to injury, the fish were moving to the far end of the lake, out of range of my trolling motor, and–unless I had a lot of time to spare–of my oars.
Continue readingWhile I’d managed not to melt the boat with my brazing experiment, I worried that painting would be a problem.
I can fake a rattle can touch up (like the one on the boat trailer) as well as the next person, but tend to get myself into trouble with more advanced finishes.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I bought a 12′ rowboat this summer.
It was a turnkey operation: in addition to the boat and trailer, the seller threw in a trolling motor, a couple of deep cycle batteries, a pair of oars with rowlocks, an anchor and line, a couple of Type II life vests, and some fishing equipment.
A smart man would’ve been happy with the setup as is.
Naturally, I immediately set about replacing EVERYTHING.
I’ve noticed my performance at “twitch” computer games has fallen off of late. Rather than blaming my aging eyesight and/or reflexes, I’ve singled out my old Razer 3lue Mazer gaming mouse as the likely culprit.
He was a young farm hand born in Blanco, Texas, in 1922. His family had only been in the U.S. a couple of generations–German was his first language and his English would always carry that accent.
He’d never really been out of the Texas Hill Country until the Army drafted him in the fall of 1942, assigned him to the Ordnance Corps and put him on a troopship bound for China.
I recently bought a 12′ boat and trailer.
The boat’s a 1976 model: I plan to refurbish it when the weather cools down a little. The trailer, however, is from 2002 and appeared to be in good shape when I brought it home.
However, since my total experience with trailers up to that point had been living in a single-wide with my parents and brothers as a kid, my opinion of its condition really wasn’t worth much.
In the days and weeks to follow, I would learn more…much more…
Continue readingI found this old Dake Model X arbor press online.
I hoped to use it as a pistol sight pusher in addition to the press/stamp/rivet operations it was actually designed for.
Some quick research revealed that these Dake presses last forever and are easy to refurbish, so I took the plunge.
Continue reading*First appeared in Air Force Times, fall 2000
This week* we celebrate the 46th anniversary of the Cessna T-37, which first flew on 12 October, 1954. Nearly 1300 “Tweets” were manufactured before the production line closed in 1977: this number includes the trainer, attack (A-37) and Forward Air Control, or FAC (OA-37) versions.
Shooting over distance requires you to adjust for bullet drop and windage. Calculating these corrections, or “dope,” ahead of time improves your chances for success.
My Opa learned over a lifetime of hunting to instinctively aim where he needed to cleanly hit his target. If he could see it, he could knock it down, quickly and humanely.
Unlike Opa I didn’t hunt to feed my family, so I lacked his motivation–and, sadly, his talent–to make every shot count by just looking.
Continue reading“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point being a damn fool about it.”
– W.C. Fields
Hard work and practice are necessary to perfect any skill. But sometimes an utter lack of aptitude rears its ugly head, and no amount of hard work and practice can overcome it.
I’m reminded of this whenever I pick up a shotgun.
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