Deer Hunting and an Evil Snowman!!

This weekend as many of you know, was the opening of the 9 Day gun deer season. Our hunting party of 10 people had mixed luck. We got three deer tagged, but we only shot two of them. My brother and I noticed a deer in the darkness limping into our marsh Saturday evening on our way in. Sunday morning we did manage to find the blood trail from where it entered the marsh. Shortly after that we found the four point buck laying dead. It was a bittersweet find as it is never good to know a person never even tried to find the deer they injured. It was nice though that we noticed it, and the deer did not go to waste. We have had this happen before and we call these "freebies". As always it was a great weekend and I look forward to going back out Thursday through Sunday.

Here are the three deer, the small one in the foreground is the one I shot Sunday morning. The buck was the freebie, and the other doe my dad shot on Saturday.

Ruth and my Dad have the whole week off, here is the scenery ruth was looking at this morning...must have been nice!!

Here is Ruth's evil snowman she made on her stand...the face and arms were made from licorice pieces. Obviously she was bored and not seeing any deer...oh well, it's always nice to be out.

More updates to come later this week.

Worky Work...Busy Bee!!

Another couple of days have passed, I have finished a few projects, but even more have arrived.

Each Piece of paper is an order..as you can see I have a few. The three on the bottom left were finished tonight...sweet.

The three projects finished were the three diamond cases I was working on. I think they turned out pretty good. Here is a view of us attaching the top..which is on the bottom in this picture.

Here is a view from the inside looking down.

Here are the cases all loaded up in the truck....ready to be delivered tomorrow when I am done with work.

Back to the wood projects tomorrow.

Always Busy

As always, I have been busy in the shop. Not only with business stuff, but getting ready for deer hunting next weekend.

Here we have one of the glass diamond cases being assembled. Very easy when the edges are taped, and aquarium silicone is used. So Far they are going together very well.

Another angle on the operation, the wood pieces are made from a scrap octagon box that I cut up...the angles are perfect for supporting the glass while the silicone dries.

This year out at the "deer shack" we have four new hunters, which means four more guns to be kept inside. This year we are bringing this gun stand along to help out. Here is my dad lining things up. It is not a very complex design, but it is definitely functional...and that's exactly what we need.

Here it is all done, it will hold 14 guns if we need it to. To go along with it we have made a makeshift hall tree to hold all of the blaze orange jackets, bibs and backpacks. We also made a boot scrubber out of 3 heavy bristled brushes...no more mud tracked inside!

Long week.

It has been a busy week since I last posted. I have made a few boxes, and have gotten orders for more. We also finished Ruth's deer stand.

Here is one box...as hard as it is to paint beautiful wood, I really like how it looks.

Same thing with this one...the flash makes it much brighter than it actually is, this is a dark cherry colored box, it actually looks really good.

Here we have the traditional stained box, awaiting a second coat of polyurethane.

Using the biscuit jointer to assemble the red box you saw above.

Looking in at Ruth applying some paint to the black box.

Here we have Ruth's stand up in the air. This was done on Sunday while the weather was less crappy than Saturday. It went up really well, and is very sturdy...a great area for Ruth to harvest a deer.

No Shop Time Tonight

Tonight was a slow night around here. I spent some time with the parents, getting their computer working for them again. And of course we saw the results of the election. Check back tomorrow as I hope to get a few boxes done for Mary, and to work on those end tables again.

Deer Stand

Here are the pictures of the last two days of working on Ruth's deer stand. We only worked for a few hours each day, so I think it looks good, and is definitely sturdy.

Here is the ultimate portable stand building setup. As you can see we have a generator to run the air compressor for the nail gun. The miter saw is on the horses to cut all of the lumber. I had a German saw with a blade on it to cut the steel. We have every tool needed, and then some...its pretty sweet.

Here is Eric cutting off the edges of the floor boards.

The carcass is starting to go on.

Frame all ready for steel on the sides and a roof.

Just the roof, and the plywood door, then we are ready to tip it over and attach the legs.

Here I am working on the legs. They are bolted to the rest of the frame, it is super strong and super easy.

Here is the stand all done and ready to be stood up. We ran out of time today, so we will stand it up next weekend. When done with that we will sight in my dad's gun with his newly installed scope. After that, we might have time to re-attach to door to my deer stand.

Just over three weeks, then hopefully I will have some big buck pictures and a great story to go along.

Early Morning Coffee

Well, I am up early this morning. Just drinking some coffee and watching some hunting shows. Yesterday we started to build Ruth's deer hunting stand. I have pictures, but the camera is out in the truck. We are headed to Kristina's for Breakfast in a few hours, then we are going to finish the stand. I will post pictures later tonight of the completed stand, or if not, I will do it tomorrow morning, since I have Monday off.

Update on the heater project!! We completely finished the install Thursday night, I will post some pictures of that as well. Now that the heater is in, and working, I have all day Monday to get back in the shop.

My goal is to almost finish those end tables on Monday. I do have all day to work on them. I might build a few more boxes for Mary as well. A busy Monday for sure.