Thread: Monday Makes Mornings Made for Munching Many bagels with Coffee

Or so I'm told anyway.

I'm sorry to hear about the continuing ills. I hope they'll all clear up soon.

We did manage to go see Brave yesterday but because a Skype chat over wedding plans ran a tad long we wound up running a few blocks down the hill to get to the theater on time. As it was we missed the trailers (darn) and all but the last minute of the Pixar short but we got to see the whole movie. And it was good. Another good Pixar film to add to a vault somewhere.

I also managed to finish another piece yesterday so there may be a blurb on that later. But first is breakfast and coffee and the whole morning routine. Ya'll have a good 'un!

afternoon landrovalrim,

garaf,glad you enjoyed Brave, It was good.

just got back from taking my sister for chemo. It went well, and the good news is her hemoglobin (thats what this cancer attacks) is up to 8,1 from 7.4. Normal is around 11 or so, so she still has a way to go, but its better. Just relaxing a bit before I leave to drive back to Springfield around 2 pm. Take care everyone.

Hey folks. Good news about your sister Doc. Hope things continue to improve. Safe drive back to Springfield.

We enjoyed Brave too Garaf - but when we saw it there was no Hobbit trailer, so you maybe didn't miss anything. They might only be showing that in the States.

Off to Logan Lake, (minesite) so won't be around for awhile. Have a great week Landroval!

Glad to hear your sister's doing better, Mr. Doc.

Here's my aforementioned blurb. This one's got a bunch of other pics that you can see at the bloggy thing

In the ongoing list of Ranger-related builds the next in line was the holster here. After I'd determined that putting a hook or peg on the belt and hanging the hip flask from that was... impractical I'd pretty much given up on carrying the flask on the belt. Then I happened to spot something someone else had made for their hip flask and the holster notion just sort of fell into place.

The design was a little more complicated than most, featuring (initially) 4 pieces of leather that would have to be cut and molded and still fit together pretty precisely. I started by building a prototype out of paper and used that to build a draft on the computer that was a bit more precise.





I used that draft to cut out the leather pieces. There were two cross strips that I tooled to match the tri-weave pattern on the flask, a larger strap that folded over to form the belt loop and folded the other way at the bottom to support the bottom of the holster, and the bottom of the whole thing.





I made the mistake of trimming about a 1/4" off the strips thinking it would make them fit a bit closer and at first that seemed to still fit alright. But then I punched holes for the rivets that would hold the straps in place before molding them and that became a problem. After the molding the holes no longer lined up. Since I didn't really want to just glue things into place this created a problem I had to resolve. My solution was to cut a piece of thin scrap and use that as an intermediary piece.

I stained all the pieces to match the flask. So Bison Brown over the pattern, chocolate brown on the borders, and then kote on the back or anywhere it was going to be rubbing frequently. I was in a bit of a hurry so I didn't wait the usual 24 hours after staining the thing and assembled it anyway. I riveted the loop on the strap closed then used glue and rivets to fix the intermediary piece to the strap. At that point I tried fixing the cross strips to that intermediary piece but because of the way the various pieces overlapped I couldn't exactly get the anvil underneath the rivets. Many rivets were therefore lost before I finally got one that would actually hold onto the post in any vague manner. As it is I'm not too sure about the durability of one of the rivets. In the future I should remember to punch the holes AFTER molding.

Another problem was that the bottom piece wouldn't really fit within the bottom cross-strip anymore. Well it would fit but there was about a 5mm gap on the side that was a bit unsightly. So I made it a separate piece and glued it onto that bottom part of the strap. I used a liberal amount of kote to cover up the dried glue and all seems well.

The final result seems pretty serviceable. I might have given more space inside the belt loop but once I finally got the tip of the belt through it wasn't too much trouble to pull the thing to where I wanted it.

Garaf, cool crafty stuff.
Doc, good to hear about your sister, and I hope she continues to improve.

It has been a day of highs and lows around here. The youngest Darkslayer turns 7 years old tomorrow, but since her Dad will be working from 8am 'til 9pm, we celebrated today. That's good. Unfortunately, she is developing a case of swimmer's ear, so her enjoyment is dampened a little.
We thought we had figured out a slow but effective way to unclog the drain that is backing up into the hallway carpet, but it seems to have stopped working. Looks like it's plumber time.

That's all the news from the Darkslayer household. Time for a spaghetti dinner and relaxation.

Oh, and one more thing. Owulf (Hubby's warden) and Gweannara (my rk) made it into and out of Isengard. I had to totally re-gear my rk to stack the heck out of my morale/vitality to survive the fights in the escape instance, but I was feeling pretty darned good once I was back in Dunland.

Good news Doc. Better is Better.

I made dinner tonight for the first time in awhile. I let my pain pill fade this afternoon and took some otc med to tide me over to bedtime just to let my head clear a bit. I think I might be able to function with it. Maybe not sleep so will continue with the hard stuff for nights. It will help that we don't work on Wednesday.

We'll see.

After my whine, I thought I'd let you all know.

You do some really good work there Garaf. I really enjoy my little jewelry box.

I don't know when we will see Brave. Might have to await the DVD release.

Hope the plumber doesn't put too big a dent in the Darkslayer household budget. I always cringe when something like that happens.

Anyway, while I'm still alert, I think I'll do some reading.

*Hugs and Muffins*

I've been lurking lots recently, but I have to say, Garaf, Most impressive. I always enjoy reading about your crafting abilities.

On that note, I may or may not be taking up blacksmithing in a few weeks. This following a new Recurve Bow! Because the one I had been using was an antique from the 1950s and I'm pretty sure it's gonna break if I keep using it.

This one. is. beautiful. 60 lbs draw, 4'10", crafted oak. I'm getting giddy just thinking about it