Fishing is good!

Fully intended to take my daughter hunting this morning. We woke up to a downpour. Cold, windy and wet are not my ideas of good hunting weather. The deer only hole up in thier beds and the only shots are gotten by jumping them in thier bed. We decided to spend the morning in front of the wood stove rather than waste the gas driving 20 miles each way. By 9:30 the rain stopped. Instead of hunting we went and got some worms and headed out to a big pond in a local park. Due to work schedules we didn't get much fishing time in this year. We intend to not let that happen again. Ten minutes after we arrived there was honking in the distance. Shortly there was the first of four flocks of canada geese joining us at our pond. Again I found myself time traveling. When I started hunting it was on waterfowl. A love of owning and using vintage firearms soon ended that passion. Thanks to the mandate of steel shot. Now I find myself soon to be out of work, and having few prospects for full time work. Newer non toxic shot alternatives have been developed. None are cheap, but, some are downright gentle on those vintage gun barrels. There is a huge pile of cedar and basswood planks out in the shop. I think by next fall they could become a rig of hand carved dekes.

Yes fishing is good. It gives you time to put things in perspective. Life is good when your in the woods. The deer will still be there Thanksgiving morning. And we will be there with them

Woods

Remembering "the Grove"

For whatever reason I have been taking little trips down memory lane in recent years. Maybe it's old age, maybe it's reflecting in comparason to current events. Mostly going to one place in time and one particular group of people. At the time I didn't realize the influence that group of people were having on me. Indeed to my peers of that era this group of people was to be despised or worse. We're travelling back to the 1977-79 time frame. Maybe it was my own families economic reality back then. We had just returned from NE Oklahoma. Tails between our legs and pretty much broke. I was in my mid teens and was repeating my freshman year of highschool. Times were tight and if I wanted anything of my own, it was up to me to get a job and get it for myself. Also because times were hard I was expected to pay my parents a portion of my pay towards household expenses. The solution to my problem was the Rochester "Times Union" newspaper.

My dad rented us an apartment north of Rochester on a bay of Lake Ontario. A fairly upscale suburb was developing thanks to the location. My paper route was mostly made up of what we would later come to call McMansions. However right in the middle of it all was a place known as "The Grove". The Grove was a little nieghborhood or community created during the great depression. A landowner about to lose his land leased a bunch of cottage building lots to other people whose economic reality wasn't a whole lot better than his. 40+ years after those leases were created The Grove had evolved into a group of about 12 little houses. It appeared as though the depression never ended  for most of the people living there. I learned quickly appearances don't always tell everything. I also learned poverty can be just a point of view. Frugality and living within your means can appear as poverty to some. I can remeber many cups of hot chocolate waiting for me on cold winters day. I remember being invited in to warm up next to woodstoves. I remember glasses of lemonade in summer, the real deal too, not fron a frozen can or worse a packet of powder. I remember Mr Johnson teaching me how to tune up a car on his 58 Biscayne. I remember being amazed that such a small 6 cylinder engine could even propel such a huge car down the road. I remember bags of tomatoes and other fresh vegetables being sent home with me. I remember Mr Johnsons old johnboat and the motor that bore the same name as his family. I'm sure that motor was almost as old as he was. I remember making extra money splittng firewood for people too old to do it for themselves. Often refusing payment, knowing I would leave with a full belly and/or a mess of fresh filleted fish.  Speaking of payment. I can't recall ever having to chase a resident of "The Grove" for payment for thier newspapers. Sure I remember being asked to collect once a month or biweekly. I always remember that envelope being on time, and more often than not there was a generous tip there too.  I can't say I have any of those memories from the more well heeled customers on my route. Just the opposite.

I have to wonder what the current generation could learn from a place like "The Grove".  Maybe they would decide to pool thier resourses and create a "Grove" of thier own to occupy rather than trying to occupy Wall Street. But alas, it's too late. The occupants of "The Grove" got even older, or moved away and "The Grove" lost it's battle with the McMansion movement.

And that my friends in my oppinion is where we really went wrong.

Got me a date with Bambi!

And I don't mean a stripper or porn star!

It's been a hectic month. Which I'll elaborate on later.

It's been all I can do to get to the range. Had a scope mounted on my little mannlicher stocked 7x57 mauser 98 last summer. Never got around to sighting it in. Went to the range two weeks ago and it wasn't even on the paper at 50 yards. The target backer was so shot up I couldn't tell where I was hitting. Went again last weds, only to get told the range was closed while the local police dept was practicing. Finally got there this morning with a little 1.5" dot on a 2x3 ft piece of paper. Found the girl was putting them dead on elevation, but, 14" to the left. Had to play with the rear scope ring to adjust that out. But, if I can see it, it's dead now. Next saturday is opening day. The freezer is low on meat and my wife will feed me nothing but beans if I don't shoot something.

Come on Bambi! We've got a dinner date!

Woods

Feedback please

Looking at the stats page it seems my most popular posts are the ones about amature gunsmithing. My most popular post is over two years old and is still visited daily. I've started the one hour gunsmith label and I am wondering how many of my followers would like it to become a regular feature. I intend to make these projects low budget is in under $100. Also as the title implies projects will be able to be completed in one hour, or be able to be broken down into one hour or less stages.

I will still continue my regular "How to's" and homestead life posts. I will just use the "One hour gunsmith" as a means of keeping the blog posts more frequent.

Also, go recrute me some followers people. I intend to do give aways at the 50 and 100 follower marks.

Woods

The one hour gunsmith puts a new mainspring in a muzzleloader

The subject of todays project is a CVA Squirrel rifle that was built from a kit back in 1990. Over 20+ years the mainspring has gotten weak. Used only for target shooting witha 45 caliber barrel over those years a miss fire now and then was no big deal. This year I've decided it will be a squirrel killer and I have reinstalled the 32 barrel.

After making sure the gun isn't loaded, place the lock on half cock. Then partially loosen these two screws. when the screws are about half way out give them a light tap with the handle of your screwdriver. This loosens the lock from its mortise. When the lock is loose you can remove the screws completely.

Here is the backside of the lock showing the mainspring. Also shown is a replacement spring. Genuine CVA mainsprings bring $15 and up on ebay and you don't know thier history. The spring shown is a Traditions part. The Traditions spring is wider, but otherwise close enough to be an almost drop in part. It was also purchased at a gunshow new in it's package for under $6. The mainspring vice was borrowed from a friend.

After lowering the spring to it's fired position you can remove the spring. Here is the old spring in the vice. I've been told you should only use a proper mainspring vice to avoid breaking the spring. The new spring however had ideas of it's own. CVA left an oxide coating on thier spring and the vice was able to hold it quite well. The Traditions version was highly polished and between the extra strength and the polish it just kept slipping out of the vice. I ended up using a pair of needle nose locking pliers. Even using the pliers I had to use a file to roughen the surface so it wouldn't fly accross the room.

Here is the lock with the new spring installed. I got lucky and the inletting was sufficient to just reinstall the lock. The new spring was easily 30% wider than the old one. While I didn't have to make room for it, you may have to depending on your gun. Now it takes some serious effort to pull the hammer back. Thankfully this gun has set triggers otherwise I may have had to do some trigger work.
A gunsmith would have charged $30-$35 for this job. It cost me $6 and just over half an hours time.

Woods

Flatheads Forever!!

Before there was a homesteader.

Long before there was a urban homesteader.

Right about the same time there was a long haired kid hiding out in the woods and fields with a gun or fish pole.

There was a kid hanging out in garages messing with all things with engines. At one point there was a Ford pickup truck that was 25 tears older than me. A truck powered by the most magic of engines.

I just found this video and it took me back in time. Kinda makes me think a 34-39 Ford pickup would fit in my life again

Woods

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/?p=13328

Projects

I purchased this from a coworker a couple weeks ago. He cleans out old houses and garages for extra cash. Usually he scraps all the metal stuff. This was parked in the weeds along side a very very old Troy Built. Supposedly they both ran two years ago. The Troybuilt only needed a new spark plug and fresh gas to run. This one has compression. Plug wire is bad, so I haven't checked it for spark yet.

It's a David Bradley Handyman tractor made in the late 50's and early 60's. This one has the tiller attachment on it. Also available was a snow blower and the usual assortment of 2 wheel tractor attachments. It wasn't very popular and was dropped after 6 or so years. It's smaller than the usual DB. I've been looking for a Planet Junior tractor to restore for a few years now. The handyman is about the same size and much rarer. I would apreciate hearing of attachments for this one if anybody comes accross any. This baby will be a long term project.

More projects in the works. This week we will make some low budget, off grid security lights.

Also in the works is a new gun project. Back in the late 80's I built a CVA Squirrel rifle from a kit. It has developed a weak mainspring and we'll be replacing it with a new one. Also when this gun was built it came with two barrels. I browned the 32 barrel first. It didn't come out as planned, while the 45 barrel did. Later after hunting season we will fix the nasty finish on the 32 barrel.

Woods