My Work

[Michael J. Spangler]

hi everyone!

i find myself spending more and more time on this forums lately.

i noticed a lot of your have some great side jobs and hobbies and turn out some awesome products

i figured i would post some of my handy work and show you all what i do on the side

this is a great community and i'm happy to be part of it. thank you all for the help and information you have given me!

specs
Overall: 8"
Thickness: .140"
Steel: S30V
Handles: Oil Finished Walnut
Pins: Stainless
Finish: Hand Rubbed Satin


http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll105/MJSpangler/dd7ee5a9.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll105/MJSpangler/44416ac5.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll105/MJSpangler/1476d4b7.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll105/MJSpangler/2ed23872.jpg



who else has a unique hobby? show some of your handy work please! i love to see what everyone is working on

[1Shirt]

NICE!!!!!
1Shirt!:coffee:

[slide]

Outstanding

[Jal5]

Beautiful! Nice work.

[R.M.]

Now that is my kind of knife. What are the specs on it?

[Michael J. Spangler]

sorry i forgot the specs. i'll update the first post

[arjacobson]

fantastic work!!

[firefly1957]

Nice work

[MtGun44]

Really nice looking.

Are you sure it is strong enough? I mean, if you ran over it with an M1 Abrahms
tank you might bend it. Of course, you might not, too. ;-)

Looks like a really good knife.

Bill

[waksupi]

Very nice. I have got to get a decent grinder!
I make lotsa stuff. Guns, knives, fishing lures, mandolins, fiddles, lots of Indian stuff in the past. Items too numerous to mention!

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

Now that is a purdy piece of hardware!

[DCM]

Beautiful knife!

[leadman]

Great looking knife!

[Michael J. Spangler]

Nice fish! I would love to see some woodworking pics. I wish I had time for more hobbies. Working wood with hand tools has always been very interesting to me.

[9.3X62AL]

Great knife work!

Nice catfish pic, too. Ugly things, though. I suggest an N-frame pic next time. But, that's just me--I like trout and S&Ws.

[krag35]

A couple of wood projects I finished up today. A Quilt display rack for my Bride, and a step stool for my ganddaughter.

[Bob in Revelstoke]

That is a beautiful knife. The fit and finish are A-1
As I am not very good with my hands anymore my main hobby is chemical,
that is, the transference of beer and other spirits into urine. So far, it
works very well.

[gandydancer]

very nice. Blade work?? hand made? drop forged? MFG Blanks?? not that it matters its still nice work. GD

[Buckshot]

...........Dang! That knife looks just like real! :shock:

.................Buckshot

[Recluse]

Here's one of the projects that is taking up some time of mine.

Me and two others are involved in a complete ground-up restoration and rebuild of a 1946 Taylorcraft. We have a very low-time 65hp engine and everything else was in pieces. Days and weeks of disassembling, sandblasting, priming and painting and reconstruction. Now we're ready to begin covering it. It's a fabric covered airplane.

Really neat airplanes. They're tail-draggers, very light, very efficient wing--can cruise an honest 100mph on about 4.5 gallons of gas. Great airplanes for low and slow scenic flying.

No electronics and an "armstrong" starter. :) We have installed an internal antennae and cable for our handheld radio/s and will be putting in a rechargable dynon battery for the handheld Garmin Aera 500 GPS we bought for it. To be legal, it also has an ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter beacon) in it.

Cozy cockpit. Two pilots or occupants, and it helps to know each other. But they are some kind of fun to fly and meet the FAA's classification of "Light Sport Aircraft," which means you don't need a Third Class medical to be legal--your state-issued drivers license serves as your medical. (You still need an FAA pilot's license, however.)

Here are some shots I took last month of the progress. The wings are being re-worked upstairs in our hangar, the fuselage downstairs.

The wings, almost ready for covering.

http://i1171.photobucket.com/albums/r544/The1Recluse/Tcraft3.jpg


http://i1171.photobucket.com/albums/r544/The1Recluse/Tcraft2.jpg

The instrument panel. Will mainly have engine gauges and static instruments (airspeed, vertical speed, altimeter and we'll put in an electric ball & needle or turn-indicator)

http://i1171.photobucket.com/albums/r544/The1Recluse/Tcraft5.jpg

Moving downstairs, we have the fuselage in the back part of the hangar behind the Cessna and RV8. We'll probably move the RV8 out when we get ready to attach the wings. It's a small(er) airplane and our neighbor next to us has room in his hangar for it--plus, since he's a partner in this thing. . .

Here is the cockpit. Pretty cozy and you can see you have rudder pedals, but only one set of brakes--which are heel brakes with direct cable linkage. They're only good--sometimes--for runup checking the magnetos.

http://i1171.photobucket.com/albums/r544/The1Recluse/Tcraft8.jpg

And the fuselage, just about ready to cover.

http://i1171.photobucket.com/albums/r544/The1Recluse/Tcraft9.jpg


http://i1171.photobucket.com/albums/r544/The1Recluse/Tcraft6.jpg

I haven't gotten much casting or reloading done out there with this project going on. Can't wait to get her finished and flying.

:coffee:

[Michael J. Spangler]

Awesome man! That's a great project

I love the quilt rack too.

The knife is totally hand made
I start with flat stock steel and a block of wood. Oh and pin stock.

Everything is shaped between a bandsaw and a belt sander then finished by hand. All shaping is done by eye with a long hand earned feel for it. No jigs allowed in my shop.

[TJF1]

Great knife a lot of time involved

[waksupi]

Here are a couple of my projects.

[geargnasher]

Michael, this forum is comprised of many "Renaisance Men". The sort that casts their own boolits are the sort that are inclined to do lots of things themselves, and have an affinity for unusual things, comes with the territory. You will be in good company here, nice work on the knife!

I'm a professional automotive/diesel mechanic, but my hobbies include fine woodworking and carving, stock making, model rocketry, gem grinding, playing tenor saxophone, classical/spanish guitar, pipe organ, and piano, leatherworking, weaving, crochet, metalworking of all flavors (except lathe and mill, alas!), and of course shooting, casting, hunting, paper-patching, etc.

Check out this link to my wife's album on this forum for some pics she has taken of some of my work: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/album.php?albumid=395

Gear

[Michael J. Spangler]

amazing work wak!
those are beautiful

gear! how do find time to learn so many things !thats one hell of a list of hobbies!awesome pics in the album i love your work.

i always wanted to try stock making too! one of these days. i've done some work with 1911 grips and love making them, they're super easy though

[geargnasher]

Mostly luck. I was homeschooled by a father who is a college professor, artist, sculptor, and craftsman and a mother who is an elementary teacher and does all the things modern girls have no clue how anymore. Both are accomplished musicians, costume artists, and stage actors. I also grew up without electricity, so I learned how do to everything by hand. The rest I learned in college and from a lifetime of watching all sorts of talented old men make things.

Waksupi is one of our resident stockmakers and gunsmiths, dig around a little bit and you'll find several threads where he's documented his work, he's a bit more than an amatuer rifle builder, you WILL be impressed, especially with the attention to detail you demonstrated with your fine knife.

Something else you find here are a number of flintknappers, among them Boerrancher and 357Maximum, they have posted pics of their work. I've dabbled in that enough to know it will take the time and dedication I do not have right now to become even slightly competent at it. I have several of Boerrancher's knives, and I have to say that while I can and have made decent steel knives, the primitive stone knife is it's own art form.

Gear

[felix]

Gear also knows professional audio enough to know what he needs to know to "audify" an auditorium, small room, or whatever. Perhaps a car done right! ... felix

[waksupi]

Here are a couple other things I play around at. The cups are horn. I made the copper front pie safe, and my brother and forum member Elawolf, made the ice box. Looking around the cabin at things I've made (not to mention the cabin itself!), I could make this topic go on for a long time! :wink:

[geargnasher]

Nice work on the copper door panels, Ric. I'm planning to do a similar thing to the cabinet doors above my casting bench when I get a Round To making the doors themselves, but I plan on using old weathered galvanized sheet metal. Old tin, a cypress log, hammer, and selection of nails has been known to keep me occupied for hours on end a few times. I was thinking of copying the "Castboolits" logo like on the bumper sticker, but Willy and Ken might come confiscate it!

Felix, that's not a hobby, it's a way of life! The audio is easy with the right equipment, the enviroment is always the biggest challenge. I'm finishing construction of our living room right now, hiding bass traps in the full-wall bookcase at the back of the room. Still going to need one heck of an equalizer and am still shopping for something affordable to correct the time alignment, the feature in my receiver, for some reason, doesn't have a correction feature for the subwoofer output which = instant "muddy" sound at the wrong place, and unless I make an ottoman out of it, there's no place I can put it where the phase will be right. Mobile audio is always a compromise, but it can be done very well for only one seating position if you have the right stuff ......and rebuild the structure of the passenger compartment!

I grew up around people who had a certain baseline expectation of what a fully-developed human being was supposed to know and be able to do, seems that's gone by the wayside nowdays since technology, mass production, and mass marketing has insulated us so much from having to. There was a time when nobody thought much of it if you needed a new cutting board or chair leg and went out to "the shop" for couple hours to make one. Now people will say "WOW, you made that? I'd probably cut my fingers off trying!". One of the things preached to me as a child was "fingers don't grow back", you get the picture after a while.

Gear

[Hamish]

:mrgreen:Wak, you suck!

Sometimes a project comes out kinda ok.

handcarved and painted muskie baits,
Handsplit, drawn, planed, sawn, dovetailed, and pegged foo-foo catcher,
(No electrons were harmed in this endevour)
Fun with taxidermy,
and airbrush snakeskin camo.


http://castboolits.gunloads.com/album.php?albumid=685

Almost forgot, built the room the deer heads are in, hand planed all the moldings with my Trusty 45. (Stanley 45 multi-plane)

Sometimes it's there and sometimes it seems like I can't draw a straight line. I am truly awed by talent like waksupis and some of the other gents here.

BTW-Love Life, that picture made me hungry!

@(:^]#>:::

[felix]

Ian, do consider making an ottoman with of one of these 18, or 24 inchers. Power to this unit can be minuscule and still be easy enough to equalize across a larger area to make the sound come alive without generating SEE's at any base frequency. ... felix

http://homepage.mac.com/planet10/TLS/downloads/hartleybrochure.pdf

[crabo]

Here's some pictures of my day job.

[Michael J. Spangler]

awesome work!
there is a lot of talent on this board

[plmitch]

Sir, that is very sweet!

[waksupi]

Nice art, Crabo!
I may post more when I get back from the weekend.

[starmac]

Nice bunch of eye candy guys.

[geargnasher]

Hey Crabo, when I was going through boxes of "stuff" in the process of moving into my new gun room I found an old "Judge" name badge I'd saved from when I used to help judge the big high-school competitions held in Ft. Worth (south of downdown, off of I-20, can't remember the name of the convention center) and remembered all the neat stuff we got to see. I also remembered all of us from the Tarrant County NADA, TCC South Campus, and Allen Samuels Dodge being there for hours after the show closed, sometimes until 2-3:00 in the morning, trying to decide who would get the ribbons. Deciding was always tough, they all deserve awards. Those pics look just like much of the stuff we saw there, lots of talent be it only a mechanical fuel injector restoration or a complete vehicle overhaul. A surpising amount of entries by young ladies, too, that always impressed me as well. I was always glad to see that students in the area were given a chance to stretch their skills and imagination, I come from a small-school area and our local schools don't even offer wood shop or automotive classes. Keep those kids inspired!

Gear

[heathydee]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/3164f3dfedbd56f7.jpg
Scratch built falling block rifle in 30-06 Springfield .

[LuvMy1911]

There are many talented members here judging from the pictures.

But DANG! I REALLY love that falling block 30-06 that healthydee built. Beauty!!

[32ideal]

heathydee fantastic looking single shot with a one piece stock, how about some more photos and info on your rifle, it is a really interesting design, maybe a photo of it out of the stock.
Thank you, 32ideal



http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/3164f3dfedbd56f7.jpg
Scratch built falling block rifle in 30-06 Springfield .

[Michael J. Spangler]

amazing rifle.

so when you say from scratch, did you make the barrel and everything? amazing!

[KCSO]

Excelent grind work sharp lines and even grind. You could sell those for sure!

[Jailer]

This thread makes me realize how woefully untalented I truly am.

This site never ceases to amaze me at the collection of talent and skill there is here.

Those are some truly fine works of art guys, well done.

[dragonrider]

Occaisionaly I build things like this
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0603/PaulGauthier/shaker%20table/shaker_table_o30.jpg

Or this variation
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0603/PaulGauthier/double%20spindle%20shaker%20%20table/tablespindle057.jpg

[heathydee]

Here is a link to the build thread . I made everything apart from the barrel , scope rings and a few screws .

http://garagegunsmithing.com/index.php?option=com_jfusion&Itemid=54&jfile=viewtopic.php&f=34&t=1083

Also a link to a video of it being fired .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpQKw4mR8wg&list=UUdza0w1OiFq1ByUehsRXzdA&index=11&feature=plcp

[Michael J. Spangler]

heathydee WOW!!!

[Matt_G]

This thread makes me realize how woefully untalented I truly am.

This site never ceases to amaze me at the collection of talent and skill there is here.

Those are some truly fine works of art guys, well done.
+1 Jailer.

[crabo]

Hey Crabo, when I was going through boxes of "stuff" in the process of moving into my new gun room I found an old "Judge" name badge I'd saved from when I used to help judge the big high-school competitions held in Ft. Worth (south of downdown, off of I-20, can't remember the name of the convention center) and remembered all the neat stuff we got to see. I also remembered all of us from the Tarrant County NADA, TCC South Campus, and Allen Samuels Dodge being there for hours after the show closed, sometimes until 2-3:00 in the morning, trying to decide who would get the ribbons. Deciding was always tough, they all deserve awards. Those pics look just like much of the stuff we saw there, lots of talent be it only a mechanical fuel injector restoration or a complete vehicle overhaul. A surpising amount of entries by young ladies, too, that always impressed me as well. I was always glad to see that students in the area were given a chance to stretch their skills and imagination, I come from a small-school area and our local schools don't even offer wood shop or automotive classes. Keep those kids inspired!

Gear
Gear, they used to have our contests at Ft. Worth in the convention center that you are talking about. It was called "VICA" for Vocational and Industrial Clubs of America. It is now called SkillsUSA. They needed an image update.

It is the judging by industry professionals, like yourself, that give legitimacy to our contests. It wouldn't mean much if it was judged by people who don't know what they are looking at.

[Michael J. Spangler]

Vica or skills USA is an awesome program. I used to compete in cooking competitions in vica.

[crabo]

Vica or skills USA is an awesome program. I used to compete in cooking competitions in vica.

I have been teaching autobody for the last 17 years. SkillsUSA competitions are one of the best tools for teaching a kid life lessons and building self esteem. We took 28 kids to District contest, and 26 got First Place/ Superior, and are advancing to State Competition.

I keep telling my kids that they want to do adult level work. Do you want to be good, or do you want to be "Exceptional"? To succeed in the industry you have to be exceptional.

I also challenge them to do "hard things". I'll often say, "who wants to learn something hard", and I will get takers. A lot of them will rise to the challenge and take pride in doing hard things.

[William Yanda]

Knice nife or something like that. I think the "PA Dutch" borrowed it from the German's "Zu schnell alt und zu spaet klug" I know spaet is spelled with an umlaut but I can' convince my computer to do it that way.

[pmeisel]

Not sure either, but it sounds a lot like my aunts' old thing "too soon old and too late smart"

[Recluse]

Here are a couple of my projects.

Mandolin and fiddle. Those are friggin' gorgeous. Luthiers are a special breed of craftsman. If you don't have the music in you, hard to make the instrument that will truly sing.

:coffee: