The Plant Plan;This was probably a bad idea...

So my uncle was given a Walmart bag full of old plant seeds, all kinds of plant seeds.  Most of them were flowers, but there were also some vegetable seeds, and some mystery seeds.  Heres a photo:

I remember adding a lot of sun flower seeds and sweet corn seeds.  There was also some bag of yellow flower seeds that there were a lot of.  There are also a number of vegetable seeds, cucumbers, tomatoes, a couple peach pits, different kinds of pepper seeds, some seeds that were not marked.  Honestly we didn't read what they were just tore the packages open and poured them into the bowl. Most of these were in store bought packages, some of them were mystery seeds packed in cling wrap.  They were planted by just throwing them out by hand and letting nature take its course.  Here is a photo of the packages.

I am not sure how old all the seeds were, at least one of the packages was marked used by 2004...  I'm sure some of it will grow, and maybe a lot of it in a really crazy garden of sporadic flowers and vegetables.   If they do grow I will post an update in the future.  If this plan goes horribly awry and we end up fighting pod people or Triffids start sprouting out of the ground I'll try to take some video of the ensuing chaos...

Double Barreled Shot Gun Internal Hammer Repair.

In today's adventure we repair a internal hammer of a double barreled shotgun.  This hammer has been used so much that the striking face has been dented from normal use.  It as also been worked on at least one time before in which it was hammered thinner to elongate the striking face.   You can clearly see the dented strike face in the above photo.  Also note that the width of the strike face is thinner then the lower part of the hammer which was not subject to previous repairs.

The first step in the repair is to weld the strike face to add material on to it.  Its good to make a few test welds on similar sized material before welding on the actual part.  For this I used the piece of metal plate in the back ground.

The next step is to rough out the shape of the hammer using the finer wheel on a  bench grinder.  This removes most of the extra material and saves a lot of time compared to using a Dremel or file.
 

  After roughing it out, I used a Dremel to clean it up better, then used two different honing stones to finish it up.  One of the stones I used was a fine grade triangular Gun smithing stone to clean up all the other contact points. 

The final step is to reassemble the lock plate mechanism and instal it back into the gun.

That's today's adventure.

My Home Made Metal Detecting Digging Tools

These are two home made digging tools I made.  I really built them for Metal Detecting but they also work pretty good for planting.  The first tool I made was using recycled angle iron from some old bed frames, and recycle Cast Iron Water pipe. 

It measures from the top of the handle to the bottom of the blade is 18 1/2 inches.  The blade area made out of the bed frame material is about 7 inches long and about 2 inches wide.  The bed frame metal is hardened steel and has held up well with no bending.  The handle is 3/4 inch outside diameter galvanized water pipe.  I had made several prototypes using 1/2 inch square tubing but they bent during testing.  The welded connection has about an inch of straight pipe and and inch of tapered.  So far I have had no bending problems despite abusing it some.

The second digger which I have not really tested I made out of some 1 inch pipe, a short piece of 3/4 inch pipe for the T at the top.  There is also a piece of 1/2 inch square tubing on the inside Just to make sure the shovels neck didn't bend.  The shovel is an old Army Folding shovel from the 40's or 50s.  Its overall length with the blade out is about 47 inches and folded in is 40 inches.  With it able to fold up it should be a little safer and not have to worry about it accidently poking holes in things.

 

 I trimmed the sides of the shovel's blade from 6 inches at the taper to 4 inches to make it a little easier to push into the hard clay dirt.

 

 There is a piece of this 1/2 inch square tubing that was left over from the piece of tubing that runs the length of the shaft.  I added this to make sure the end of the shovels neck would not bend as the 1 inch pipe would not go all the in.

 The folding function still works.

 Note the small hole to drain any water that might get inside of the shaft.

 So far no problems!!!

True Stories From Garage Saling

I have been for nearly every weekend for the last twelve years or so, gone to as many garage sales as possible.  A few times I have gone to sales that were more interesting then others.  Here are the stories of two of these.

The first story is of a sale that was probably eight years ago.  A lot of times people are selling stuff because they want to get rid of it, but others times its because they need the extra money.  This particular sale it became apparent almost immediately that the woman selling was wanting to make enough money to score their next fix.   The first thing I noticed was her body movements.  She had that characteristic jerky back and forth movements that just scream tweaker.  The first words out of her were "Every things for sale, I'll even sell you my clothes if you have enough money."  I looked around and most of the stuff was the standard garage sale junk but she did have a box that was full of Flatware, and one messed up fork in particular caught my eye.  It looked like it was sterling silver and after I picked up the mangled fork, which looked like it had lost a fight with a tiller, and sure enough it was marked "Gorham Sterling".  This was back when sliver was about 15$ a Troy Ounce and the fork weighed about an Ounce and a half.   I figured it was worth about 25$ in silver scrap.  Next was where it started to get funny, wanting just that one fork I asked, "How are the forks and spoons?"   Her eyes widened and she started talking very fast and tripping over her words "Well some are 5$, some are 2$, some are 20$ it depends on what all you want"
This dropped my hopes a little, the fork is only worth getting if I can get it cheaper then what its worth, and at this point it was not looking too good.   I looked back at the fork and shuffled some of the other flatware around.  To me it seemed like it was only a second or two but she must have thought I was changing my mind because she then blurted out "Or you can have the whole box for 10$" At that point I looked up and she then said "Ok 5$ for the whole box".   Thats when I said sure and ended up with and entire box of flatware when all I really wanted was one fork.


On a different day my Dad, sister and I were going on a trip to see my brother we stopped at this garage sale that was in the middle of no where.  This was a small garage sale and really didn't have anything.  The most interesting thing was a couple of Barn Swallows that had a nest in the garage.  While we were looking at the birds and talking to one of the guys having the sale, the other guy walked up near my sister and asked her "Do you like boiled pigs feet?"  At this point my sister shot a very concerned look at both me and my dad.  This apparently was missed by the guy as he continued, "I've had them boiling all morning they are just right."  At this point my sister headed back to the car and it had reached that point in this adventure where it was "Time To Go".  We quickly made our exit.

My EDC Knife swap Buck Vantage to Buck PaperStone 110 with KWIK Thumb Stud

I have for the past three years carried a Buck Vantage Pocket knife as my every day carry (EDC).  I actually had two of these, the first one I lost after about a year.  Its blade was the Sandvik 13c26 with the BOS Heat Treatment.  The second one was Bucks Standard 440 Stainless with the BOS Heat Treatment.   The 13c26 blade was INCREDIBLY hard and kept a an edge for a long time at first.  The 440 had similar results, held the edge very well at first but after Six months of use I have sharpened into the meat of the blade more and noticed the edge would not hold up like when they were new.  I used these like all my EDC knives nearly every day and for a variety of uses.   It is not uncommon for me to have to sharpen a knife more then a few times.  When I do this I generally use a cheap course sharpening stone.  When I get home I use a finer stone to put a better edge on them.  Here is a photo of the second Buck Vantage which I had used for nearly TWO years non Stop.

After a bit of constant use and sharpening I started to thin the blade some. (So much so that BUCK is no longer visible.)  One reason I did this was that it greatly aided in cutting thick stuff like rubber or plastic.

  The liner lock on this one has held up very well.  I did mess up the first one by batoning through some small tree limbs.  This resulted in the blade always being a little loose.  I never used the second one in such a manner and it is still tight.  The only real issue I have had with it was when I took it apart for cleaning.  Shortly after I reassembled it all the screws became loose and I had to take it apart and use Thread Locker.   This fixed the issue and I have not had any problems with it since.

This Year I have switched to Bucks New PaperStone Ecolite 11o model.  I got the Grass Green version.  I also bought a KWIK Thumb Stud to add to it.  The only thing I have done to the knife itself was round the edges  on the blade side of the handle with some sand paper.  While it was not really an issue I felt it would make it more comfortable when I do some really hard cutting.  I had done this on both the above knives as well. The Knife has worked well so far, however I have noticed that if you are really torquing on it you can feel some flex in the handle but have not had any malfunctions.  I think this flex is because it does not have full Liners.  The liners have had a large section in the middle removed to save weight.  I don't see this causing any issue for normal use.

The KWIK Thumb Stud is USA Made and the one I purchased was in Stainless Steel.  It attaches nicely to the blade and is held on by a Non Stainless Hex head screw.  I did also use Thread Locker on the screw after deciding where on the blade I wanted it.  This addition to the knife makes it easy to operate with one hand.  It also makes a nice "CLICK" sound when opened.  So far I have not had any issues with it and I do not expect too.  I am sure this knife will serve me at least as well as the previous two.

That Plant Plan this year.

I am planning on trying to grow a sort of garden this year.  Last years attempt failed due to a combination of drought and roaming bands of hungry deer.  This year I am going to try again but instead of the usual stuff I am planning on growing some weirder things.   The first thing I am going to start this week are Goji Berries.  I purchased some seeds off of eBay from two different suppliers.  One order had 100, the other order had 25.  I am hoping to have at least a few plants make it out of that many seeds.

The second thing I am planning on growing is a Frankenstien monstrosity that is tomato plant on top and potato plant on the bottom.   I saw an article last year about some one in Europe selling these plants that had been grafted together.  The idea is that you have tomatoes all season and then when the tomato plant stops producing you dig up the potatoes.

I also have some Japanese Asaki beans as well as a number of lentles, and mung beans that were left over from last year.  Not to mention the back of random seeds I picked up for 75% off after last summer.  Hopefully the drought will end this year and this mish mash of a garden will have a chance to make it.

Sand Scoop Modifications.

I am planning on going back and metal detecting the Slab in Llano again in about two weeks.  This will be after Spring break is over and hopefully there will be some new stuff on the ground.   I am also planning on make a how to video about acid testing gold and silver items.  

I did modify my cheap sand scoop a little.  I added a piece of metal at the opening to the handle to strengthen and welded a few spots I thought needed more strength.  This piece of metal was originally going to be a knife.  I cut up an old hand saw and this was one of the left over knife blanks.  With this addition the bottom part of the scoop does not deform any when scooping through hard material.  Also it now will support some weight if I were to slip and instinctively used it to catch myself.

 I also added a few smaller holes at the bottom.  I noticed when I was using it that a little bit of dirt would stick in these areas.  These holes a a lot smaller then the factory ones but they should work well to prevent the build up.   I did not want to make the holes too big or put too many more into it for fear of weakening it too much.  It is made out of some pretty thin metal to begin with.