Showoff Your Other (Non-Rocket) Hobbies! *Eye Candy Please!*

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I have a little bit of a Mil-Surp collecting thing going on... only three rifles at the moment;

1942 Winchester M1 Garand...

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My Mosin Nagant, the rifle that started it all for me... best $99 I ever spent!

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...And my Yugoslavian Mauser designated the M48 BO. This rifle was un-issued, so is in new condition... a beautiful example from history...

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I also dabble a little in reloading for each of my firearms...

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Raven - awesome! Thanks for sharing. I bet that thing sounds so nice and thick, esp on that neck pickup. Favorite guitar body style. As you can see in my post, I play a good 'ol basic Ibanez Artcore AS-73. But it sounds so good. Not full hollow though.

Tronman - nice axes! Gotta love an ES-335 and the Ric bass. Sweet synthesizer collection.

It sounds fantastic when played by someone who knows what they're doing, sadly I don't know how to play and very much lack any musical talent. The few professional musicians I've let play it love the sound but say it's very unforgiving to even the slightest mistake.
 
Not quite as actively anymore, but I make chainmaille jewelry:

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I also have this silver, copper, and (artificial) topaz ring I actually wouldn't mind selling:

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For shame! You live within 30-45 minutes driving distance of Stellarvue World HQ and don't own one of Vic's babies?

What!? O1d Dude... don't tell me you are also a scope nut? I had an old NightHawk a while back, but upgraded to the Tak. Are you also in SVAS? I took another rocket forum member to the Star-B-Q last weekend.
 
Not really my hobby as more of one of my dad's old ones, although I would tag along most of time:

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'97 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Steel front and rear bumpers. Custom machined skid plates. This is my favorite vehicle of all time.

And now onto my other hobby, airsoft.

A couple of my rifles:
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I did the painting on the first one. I do all the performance and aesthetic upgrades for my own replicas as well as the replicas my friends/team own.

Action shot:
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I am also into RC Planes and Birdwatching.
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My Parkzone Night Vapor RC Plane.
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A Blue Jay sits on my birdfeeder.
 
Here's my "work" banjo.
The "Michaels" on the head stock is my stage name.
All the pearl is cut out with a jewelers saw, inlaid with a Dremel, glue and ebony dust.
The inlays are a thistle pattern, for all the years I spent flying rockets at our family artichoke ranch.

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The model ship was a kit, a Chinese Junk.
The sides of the hull are planked, the fit has to be tight.
The hardest part was the rails. It was a little like making a Mercury Redstone tower from toothpicks.

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I do a fair amount of woodworking, although most seems to be focused on home remodeling -- cabinets, trim, etc.

My oldest daughter is 5'-2", and always pulled chairs into her kitchen to get to the top of cabinets. I built her this stepstool a couple years ago.

I bought a lathe a couple years ago and started with pens, like many who buy their first lathe. Then I started making other "spindle" things -- shown are some reversible screwdrivers, a peppermill, and a handle for a bowl gouge I bought. (Seems I've been stuck on "handled" things, so the latter was so I could try turning bowls next.)

And finally, a nose cone! The top rocket is an Estes Recruiter. The nose cone below is one I turned. I didn't plan to exactly scale up the Recruiter, but make one similar to it, just a bit stubbier (and limited due to the short piece of balsa I started with.)

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What!? O1d Dude... don't tell me you are also a scope nut? I had an old NightHawk a while back, but upgraded to the Tak. Are you also in SVAS? I took another rocket forum member to the Star-B-Q last weekend.

My original SVAS membership started back in the late 1970's when I first moved here. Since that time I've been in and out of paid membership status. I also belong to Sierra Stargazers and recommend them highly. They put on regular monthly star parties in the foothills. SVAS seems more interested in doing "outreach" as many of the members of school teachers so that's their focus and also why I no longer belong to the club. Now that the county has replaced all the abysmal street lights in my neighborhood, my backyard works pretty well for stargazing (refractors, filters, and high azimuth/zenith viewing).

Scope nut? Well, I received a small reflector when I was 12 years old and built my first 6" reflector in 1971 using the plans in Edmonds' Sam Brown Telescope book. Assembled my second 6" from commercial parts in 1980. Everything thereafter has been purchased commercially and they've all been refractors...I don't know why.

Used to live down the street from "Telescope John" Dobson and his sidekick Brian in SF back in the mid-70s and hung out in the their garage workshop on De Anza(?) Street near Golden Gate Park. John Dobson was an interesting fellow.
 
My original SVAS membership started back in the late 1970's when I first moved here. Since that time I've been in and out of paid membership status. I also belong to Sierra Stargazers and recommend them highly. They put on regular monthly star parties in the foothills. SVAS seems more interested in doing "outreach" as many of the members of school teachers so that's their focus and also why I no longer belong to the club. Now that the county has replaced all the abysmal street lights in my neighborhood, my backyard works pretty well for stargazing (refractors, filters, and high azimuth/zenith viewing).

Scope nut? Well, I received a small reflector when I was 12 years old and built my first 6" reflector in 1971 using the plans in Edmonds' Sam Brown Telescope book. Assembled my second 6" from commercial parts in 1980. Everything thereafter has been purchased commercially and they've all been refractors...I don't know why.

Used to live down the street from "Telescope John" Dobson and his sidekick Brian in SF back in the mid-70s and hung out in the their garage workshop on De Anza(?) Street near Golden Gate Park. John Dobson was an interesting fellow.

Wow, one more thing to chat about when we finally get the SARG launch off the ground. Which I hear is potentially soon. :) I've been in and out of SVAS as well since 1988.
 
Other than Rockets, is photography, mostly Aviation/Warbird, but others including rockets.
Aviation:

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Rockets:

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I am also into weaponry, these are my weapons. This image was taken in my house, I call it "Still Death" instead of still life:wink:

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I also collect dicast aircraft and Military Personnel Autographs. I have Robert Morgan (Memphis Bell) Paul Tibbets (Enola Gay) General Bond & Tex Hill (Flying Tigers) (and I became drinking buddies with them:cool:) Gabby Gebreski (WWII [P-47] & Korea [F-86] Ace) to name a few!
 
Too many hobbies, Besides restoring a '67 Camaro right now, and building a few rockets, Im into RC, Paramotors, full scale aviation, FPV, Shooting, Camping, fishing, building stuff, my 1yr old, photography, antique stationary engines..

Here is the biggest RC plane Ive had, when I was sponsored by Composite-ARF.. 132" wingspan, doing a demo at a full scale airshow.
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My Turbine powered BVM FJ-3 Fury
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1916 2.5hp economy
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Heading out fishing in some rough water
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180size fpv
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My PPG buzzing the tower... haha
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Pictures...

Ammunition reloading
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Chain saw milling of wood (Kentucky Coffee Tree)
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Misc. Farming activities.
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This is my reloading "bench". I use the hand press to prime and seat, and the single stage press to size.

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I've been working on a classic 67 mustang with my dad for around six years now. Just now got it started up. Should be driving it soon. :)

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Your reloading bench and shop must have been "photo shopped" as they are entirely too organized. Nice try. :wink:
I suffer from OCD. It does not normally look that good but I do try.
 
I play board games too. I play both Mage Knight and Mice and Mystics solitaire, so I made myself a deluxe dice tray. The white wood is zebrawood and the red wood is padauk. The brown is just a piece of felt to give some cushion when rolling dice. I also get together with a group of guys to play board games about once a month. We play a lot of different stuff, but Pandemic is a popular game.

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I work on a B-17 restoration. Or as people are saying more often; we are building a B-17. This thing will probably be 90% new by the time we are done. We make lots and lots and lots of little things most people never even think about. Here are the turbocharger air inlet scoops. The rear left is an original; we made the other three. The three in progress are just held together with clecos (specialty clamps).

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And here is the fabrication of the leading edge of the inlet scoop. We take a strip of aluminum and bend it at a 90 angle. Since aluminum has a grain you have to be careful to bend against the grain or the part will just snap in two. We put one edge in the shrinker/stretcher tool. In this case we shrink the one side of the piece to create a horseshoe shape. The shrinker grabs the aluminum with two sets of jaws and then forces the jaws closer together. For this piece I had to use the shrinker about 75-80 times.

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After we tweak the fit we have to grind out any imperfections on the surface and on the edges. Not to make it look pretty, but to keep it from cracking when we bend it. The edge that was shrunk now has to be bent over so that it fits inside the scoop. We use rubber mallets and beat the snot out of it until it lays flat inside the scoop.
 
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Here are some more photos from the restoration.

We spent a lot of time laying out the placement and mask. The area to be painted was taped off, buffed with Scotchbrite and then alodined.

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The next few steps in the process were the painter shot an epoxy primer and then an epoxy dark blue paint.


Here we see the blue paint has been shot. The white paint will be put on top of the blue. Shown is a paper copy of the star to help us lay out the tape for the mask that would cover all the blue paint that we need to keep from being painted.

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The full mask in place. They have to kick everyone out of the hangar for the weekend when they shoot the paint as it is pretty nasty stuff. They also want to minimize the number of people moving around to keep the dust down that could land in the wet paint.

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The finished star.

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