Leatherwork Tools

Organizing my Leather Working Tools

I need to make a knife sheath for the knife that I built in a previous blog post and I decided that before I start it was time to do a little organizing of my leather working tools. I built a box to hold all my leather working tools but it has been getting a little cluttered. 

So I decided to take some of the scrap leather that I have saved from previous projects and make tool holders for some of the tools that have been floating around the leather work box. 

Specifically my punches and needles. 

Here you can see my new punch holder (with ruler attachment), and my needle holder. 

 And neatly tucked away in the box

Not too bad for a few pieces of scrap leather and an evening of stitching leather on the living room floor with the family.

Automatic Clay Thrower Upgrade

Upgrading the Clay Thrower

One day I got to thinking about how great it would be to be able to use my clay thrower by myself. It would be nice to practice and work on my shooting skills without having to rely on someone to throw the pigeons for me.  I guess the other option is to get more friends, but this seemed easier. I have an automatic thrower but I still need someone to push the button to throw the birds. 

So I decided to build a circuit that would accept the input from a remote, wait a specific period of time and then launch the pigeon. This would give me the ability to press the button, then get into a shooting stance and get the shotgun ready before the pigeon launches.

I did a little research online and found that I could get an Arduino embedded processor for about $12, a remote transmitter and receiver for about $6, and a relay to switch the thrower for about $7. So off to Amazon I went and ordered a few components. 

My original plan was to have the buttons do different things. I wanted one configuration to wait 5 seconds after the button press and then launch the pigeon and the second button to wait 5 seconds after the button press then launch a pigeon, then wait 3 seconds and launch a second pigeon. 

The problem that I had was that the $6 remote that I bought had a problem with it. All of the buttons switched all of the switches. So I was not able to have the two configurations.  I guess when you make something for $6 the quality control is not that great. 

So, off to amazon I went and bought another remote. 

Here is my system wired up with the new remote receiver and mounted in the enclosure. In this case is the Arduino Processor, the Wireless Receiver for the Remote, and a Relay Board that will switch the Thrower.

I had a toggle switch with a MIL Spec arming cover laying around for years. I decided that this was the prefect project to use it on. It adds a little bit of cool factor. 

The Arduino processor is configurable with a psudo "C" code that is written on a PC and then uploaded via a USB port to the Processor. 

I have been an Engineer for over 20 years, but I have never written a line of code. I read a few tutorials online and stole some code from the Arduino example code and cobbled together the code to do what I wanted the Arduino to do. 

Button A = When A Button is pressed, wait 5 seconds and then switch the thrower for 1.3 seconds (Time needed to throw the pigeon and reset the thrower). This should throw one Pigeon

Button B = When B Button is pressed, wait 5 seconds and then switch the thrower for 1.3 seconds (Time needed to throw the pigeon and reset the thrower), wait an additional 5 seconds and then switch the thrower for 1.3 seconds (Time needed to throw the pigeon and reset the thrower). This should throw 2 Pigeons.

Here is my system, The Thrower, Battery, and My Controller. 

 Here is a close up of my switch, and the enclosure. 

 Here is a video of the thrower working. 

Button A = When A Button is pressed, wait 5 seconds and then switch the thrower for 1.3 seconds (Time needed to throw the pigeon and reset the thrower). This should throw one Pigeon

Button B = When B Button is pressed, wait 5 seconds and then switch the thrower for 1.3 seconds (Time needed to throw the pigeon and reset the thrower), wait an additional 5 seconds and then switch the thrower for 1.3 seconds (Time needed to throw the pigeon and reset the thrower). This should throw 2 Pigeons.

I guess I no longer have an excuse for my poor shooting skills. 

Cobblers Hammer

One of my hobbies is leather work and I have several leather work projects that I will be doing soon. One leather work tool that I have always wanted was a Cobblers Hammer, aside from looking really cool they are really useful for flattening stitching, folding over edges, wet forming, and many other things. 

I found several nice examples on e bay but they were very expensive. So I decided to buy a beat up one and refinish it. 

I was able to find this Sears and Roebuck, hammer for $12 on ebay. It needs a lot of cleaning up and a new handle. But I figured it would be a fun little project. 

 The face of the hammer had several deep gouges and a lot of marks on it. I would need to smooth it out otherwise it would mar my leather. 

After quite a bit of filing, grinding, sanding, and eventually polishing it was ready to be put back into use. 

Here is the cool old Sears and Roebuck label, I wonder when the Craftsman brand came into place. Think of that I wonder when you could buy a cobblers hammer from Sears? Certainly a different time from the one that we are living in! 

 Now on to the handle, this hammer has a very small eye. I was able to find a ball peen hammer handle that looked pretty good. The eye had to be reduced a little, I seated it very far down on the shoulder, and I decided to take about 1.5 inches off of the length. 

 Here I am installing the wedge.  

 The wedges installed and dressed down.

 A little sanding of the handle and a few coats of boiled linseed oil and this hammer is ready to be put back into service. 

I tend to take really good care of my tools and like to have quality tools. For me I would rather invest a little time and effort into a tool like this than buy a cheap knock off from Amazon. I am sure that this hammer will outlast me. Heck I am sure it has already outlasted its previous owner. 

Shotgun Stock Refinishing

Beretta 686

My Beretta is a great gun. I really enjoy it, and like using it in the field. The one thing that I don't like is the very plain wood that came with the gun. So I decided to get some new wood for this gun.

 I bought this stock set off the internet. This is a high grade Beretta factory stock with an oil finish. I like the figure of the wood but and not really happy with the finish. The finish is very dull and the wood pores were not filled prior to finishing leaving them very open.

 I would like an oil finish a little closer to a London gun oil finish. So I decided to do a little refinishing on this stock set. 

 I wanted to start with rubbing down the existing finish and seeing how much work it would take. Here I am applying Rottenstone (a very fine abrasive) and some Linspeed Oil (Linseed Oil with dryers added). 

This should start filling in the grain and rub down the existing finish. 

 Here is what it looks like, the Rottenstone and Oil turns into a slurry on the wood as it is rubbed in. If you look at the left side of the stock you can see the open pores, on the right side you can see that the slurry is starting to fill the pores.  

Once the Rottenstone and Oil are rubbed in they are wiped off, and the stock is rubbed very vigorously with the palm of the hand. This heats up the thin layer of oil left on the stock and starts the curing process. The stock is then left for 24 hours and the process is repeated. This is a picture of the stock after about 4 applications, the grain is starting to fill in and the stock is starting to take on a satin luster. 

This type of finish is very time consuming but worth it in the end. 

Knife Making

Knife Making

Well Knife Assembling anyway. I had a friend come over the other day and I noticed that he was wearing a fixed blade knife. This got me thinking about how practical it would be around the vineyard to have a fixed blade knife. I have always wanted to make a knife so I figured that this was an opportunity to give it a try. 

So I bought some components and decided I would give it a try to see if I would like it. 

 Here are my components, I decided to buy the blade pre-shaped. I just want to give this knife making thing a try and this seemed to be the easiest. I bought some zebra wood scales and found a nice mosaic pin to round it off. 

 First I sanded the surfaces of the scales to make sure they were flat. Then paired them up and marked out the outline of the blade where I wanted it. Then center punched one of the pin holes. 

 Here are the scales in the drill press getting the first hole drilled. 

Then I put a pin in the hole to insure that everything stayed in the same place and drilled the next hole. I repeated this for  the third hole as well. 

 After a good scuffing up I cleaned everything with acetone prior to bonding the parts together. 

 Everything was glued together with epoxy, clamped, and set aside to dry. 

Then I started shaping the scales. I could not resist sanding down the mosaic pins first. Here you can see the first mosaic pin sanded flush with the scale. 

Here is the knife after shaping. I went through a few iterations before I found a shape that felt good in my hands. This is what I finally decided on.

Here it is after a few coats of oil on the handles. Next I will have to make a leather sheath for it. I will add that to the blog when I have completed it.

This was a fun little project that did not require any specialized tools, I can see why people get into knife building. 

7mm-08 Project #20

7mm-08 Complete

I told myself that I would only post 20 posts about this project so here is the last one with a few pictures of the completed rifle in the vineyard. 

7mm-08 Project #19

Bluing Metal

I told myself that I would only do 20 blog posts on this project so I am going to start wrapping it up. 

Here are the parts back from bluing after a good polish. I prefer to hot blue I like the deep black color and I think that it is actually more durable. I know that is debatable but it is my opinion. 

 Here are all my metal parts after a good polish and hot blue. You can see that they are a nice deep black color! 

 Here is a trick that I like to do and the guy that does your blueing will really appreciate it because he will not have to fish small screws out of his hot blue tank. 

But the real reason I do it is so I know what screws go in what slot. So I make a steel plate that has threaded holes in it to accept all my screws then I stamp the holes so I know where the screws go. The plate can be reused several times(if you use the same type of screws) and makes life a lot easier!

 

 

Here are some pictures of the sling swivels and grip cap assembled. I think that they turned out really nice! 

In the next Blog post I will have pictures of the completed gun.