Christmas from the Past!

The year is 1965 and it is Christmas Day and I received this for Christmas. My Fort Apache by Marx, I was one happy kid!
Believe it or not but I played with this toy alot and sorry to say when other kids came around this toy was put up, I had other toys they could play with.

  Today 47 years later the wife and I are spending Christmas day alone, the family wont be coming until Saturday so I decided to dig out my old fort and be one happy kid again.
Merry Christmas Everyone!

My wife said nothing changed, I still play cowboys and Indians, just the toys got bigger and cost more.
Oh well what can I say, still a kid at heart.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays

     A Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

Just in time for Christmas

 Another finished belt bag! 

And yet another!

Happy Thanksgiving

I would like to take this time to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Little something different

I made up these two belt bags using the same pattern but, adding some simple tooling to one and stitching to the other.

On this bag I tried something a little different, I did some stitching on the flap.The stitching is of a old  Pennsylvania German Fraktur Style, and is done in a saddle stitch with waxed linen thread.

 Both bags are made from 3oz. veg. tanned leather, hand sewn with waxed linen thread, dyed dark brown and treated with neet-foot oil and bee's wax.
Bag size is 5" wide x 5 3/4" deep will take up to a 3" wide belt, Inside pocket added to the first bag and no inside pocket in the second.

Opening Day

Tomorrow Nov 15th is Michigan opening day of deer season with a firearm. I would like to take this time to wish everyone, "Good Luck & Safe Hunting"


Below I have posted a poem on what it's like to be at deer camp on opening day.
It’s called ‘Palace in the Poplar,’ and, as far as I can tell, its author is unknown. Here it is:

“It’s a smoky, raunchy boars’ nest, with an unswept, drafty floor.
“And pillowticking curtains and knife scars on the door.
“The smell of a pine-knot fire from a stovepipe that’s come loose
“mingles sweetly with the boot grease and the Copenhagen snoose.
“There are work-worn 30-30s, with battered, steel-shod stocks.
“And drying lines of long johns and of steaming, pungent socks.
“There’s a table for the Bloody Four and their game of two-card draw.
“And there’s deep and dreamless sleeping on bunk ticks stuffed with straw.
“Jerry and Jake stand by the stove, their gun talk loud and hot.
“Bogie has drawn a pair of kings, and is raking in the pot.
“Frank’s been drafted again as cook, and is peeling some spuds for stew.
“While Bruce wanders by in baggy drawers, reciting ‘Dan McGrew.’
“Nowhere on earth is fire so warm nor coffee so infernal
“Nor whiskers so stiff, nor whiskey so rich, nor hope blooming Oh so eternal.
“A man can live for a solid week in the same old underbritches
“And walk like a man and spit when he wants and scratch himself where he itches.
“I tell you, boys, there’s no place else where I’d rather be, come fall.
“Where I eat like a bear and sing like a wolf and feel like I’m bull-pine tall.
“In that raunchy cabin out in the bush, in the land of the raven and loon.
“With a tracking snow lying new to the ground, at the end of the rutting moon.”

                       “A clean kill, or a clean miss. Your will, O Lord,”
                             Again remember to be Safe & Good Luck!

Accouterments

Here is a group of accouterments that I made for the 5th annual Trade Fair raffle at Schoenbrunn Village in New Philadelphia, Ohio. You can check out there web site for details at http://www.schoenbrunnvillagefair.org
 The Items are Shot pouch, Ball pouch, Small flint wallet, Coin pouch, and Leather funnel

Back & empty handed

Well we are back home and empty handed, no luck. The bait that I placed out two weeks earlier was gone before we got up there. The last bear seen on camera was the 4th in late afternoon. We replaced our bait the next morning but, nothing showed for the week we were there. I believe that the warmer weather in the hi 70 was one of the factors, or they just moved on due to the bait going empty. I do know that it wasn't because we didn't try, new bait added every morning, in our stands every day by two sometime earlier, and there to dark.

 It was still time well spent in the woods,we had a Fisher coming in to the bait along with Blue jays, ground squirrels, and other small critters. Eric even watched a Bobcat work it's way through the woods.

The week it's self was great, great weather to be in the woods, the fall color was at it's peak and the best part was just spending it with my family!

     

Time to go

The time has come, early tomorrow morning, the family and I are heading north where my son and I will try our luck at hunting Michigan black bear. In Michigan you can hunt with hounds or over bait, we will be hunting over bait. I traveled north a few weeks back and set out some bait and our stands, now time will tell.

I will be hunting in period 18th century fashion, wearing clothing of the 1760 and using my 75 cal. British fowler.

I had taken it out a few days back to work on my load and shot placement.
The last shot of the afternoon was a penetration shot take at a piece of 10ga. steel. At 25 yards you can see the fowler packs a pretty good punch. The ball flatten out pretty good and dented the steel plate out one inch. Pretty darn impressive!

Finished Bag #20

 I just finished up this large bag for a customer,
It is 8" wide by 9" deep I think it is one of the larger bag I have made.
The bag has a inside pocket that is 4" deep and is the full with of the bag.

New Sheath II

After finishing the sheath for the Capt. I went to work on this one. Fred picked up this nice looking knife at the CLA show from CLA artisan Nathan Allen. The sheath is made the same as the one just previously made for the capt.

New Sheath

This morning I finished up a new knife sheath for the Capt.
I made up the sheath out of 5oz. veg. tanned leather, dyed it to match his belt pouch. I made the sheath a little longer then the previous one because I wanted to form the leather around the handle so to keep it secured in the sheath also to better protect the nice wood handle. As requested I add a leather tie so it can be tied to the belt.

The Capt. knife was made by Ben Hoffman of Hoffman Reproductions. If you would like to see what Ben has to offer you can send him a e-mail to  hoffmanreproductions@yahoo.com

Capt.Wulff's New Shot Bag #19

The Capt. new shot bag is a simple bag 7" wide & 9" deep, he requested a small inside pocket along with the same flap design as his belt pouch, both were trimmed out with linen cloth. The pouch is made from 3oz. veg. tanned leather, hand stitched with waxed linen thread, then dyed to match his belt bag and treated with neet-foot oil and bee's wax. The strap is 1 1/4" wide taper down to fit a 1" forged buckle.

"CLA Show"

                                                    "It's Show Time!"

Tomorrow Fred Tonk's and I are heading down to the CLA show in Lexington Ky. for two days of looking over some of the finest Muzzleloading Guns and Accouterments made by some of the best artisan in the country.

"250 Years Ago Today"

250 years ago on August 5th and 6th 1763 the battle of Bushy Run took place. I just return from attending the anniversary for the battle that took place there. I had a great time.

art work by: Robert Griffing

  

"250 Years Ago Today"

 Art work by: Gary Zaboly

The Battle of Bloody Run was fought 250 years ago this July, the British and the Indians fought a fierce battle. In an attempt to break Chief Pontiac’s siege against Fort Detroit, British Captain James Dalyell urged Major Henry Gladwin to authorize a surprise attack on the Indians. Gladwin reluctantly agreed.
At 2:30 a.m. on July 31, Dalyell began his intended surprise attack on the Indian encampment. However, Pontiac had learned of Dalyell’s plan (perhaps from the French settlers) and gathered more than 400 men to fight the British. Pontiac ordered nearly half the men to hide on the opposite side of a narrow bridge called Parent's Creek, two miles east of Fort Detroit, below Pontiac's encampment. As the British troops, some 200 soldiers, attempted to cross the bridge over Parent’s Creek, they fell to a vicious crossfire.
Gunfire erupted from all sides devastating the British. Dalyell realized his plan was destined to fail and called for a retreat. Unfortunately, the call came too late. The only hope left for the British was to charge their way out of the battle. Dalyell and about sixty of his men were killed as a result of the fire fight. Robert Rogers and a small group of rangers along with the help of to small boat armed with swivel guns out on the Detroit river supplied cover for the rest of the British troops to retreat.  
There was so much blood spilled in the battle that the water in Parent’s Creek appeared red. The Creek became known as Bloody Run. This battle marked the height of Chief Pontiac’s siege of Detroit, which he was forced to abandon three months later.
  After learning of Dalyell's death, General Jeffery Amherst offered a £200 bounty to anyone who would kill Pontiac.

Fort Detroit 1763

Belt pouch

Just finish this leather belt pouch, made from 2/3oz veg-tanned leather hand stitched and dyed a lite brown.
The flap is trimmed with a course linen, button closer, small inside pocket.

Battle of Bloody Run

About two o'clock on the morning of the thirty-first of July, the gates were thrown open in silence, and the detachment, two hundred and fifty in number, passed noiselessly out. They filed two deep along the road, while two large bateaux, each bearing a swivel on the bow, rowed up the river abreast of them. Lieutenant Brown led the advance guard of twenty-five men; the center was commanded by Captain Gray, and the rear by Captain Grant. The night was still, close, and sultry, and the men marched in light undress. On their right was the dark and gleaming surface of the river, with a margin of sand intervening, and on their left a succession of Canadian houses, with barns, orchards, and cornfields, from whence the clamorous barking of watch-dogs saluted them as they passed. The inhabitants, roused from sleep, looked from the windows in astonishment and alarm. An old man has told the writer how, when a child, he climbed on the roof of his father's house, to look down on the glimmering bayonets, and how, long after the troops had passed, their heavy and measured tramp sounded from afar, through the still night. Thus the English moved forward to the attack, little thinking that, behind houses and enclosures,

Indian scouts watched every yard of their progress — little suspecting that Pontiac, apprised by the Canadians of their plan, had broken up his camp, and was coming against them with all his warriors, armed and painted for battle.

A mile and a half from the fort, Parent's Creek, ever since that night called Bloody Run, descended through a wild and rough hollow, and entered the Detroit amid a growth of rank grass and sedge. Only a few rods from its mouth, the road crossed it by a narrow wooden bridge, not existing at the present day. Just beyond this bridge, the land rose in abrupt ridges, parallel to the stream. Along their summits were rude entrenchments made by Pontiac to protect his camp, which had formerly occupied the ground immediately beyond. Here, too, were many piles of firewood belonging to the Canadians, besides strong picket fences, enclosing orchards and gardens connected with the neighboring houses. Behind fences, wood-piles, and entrenchments, crouched an unknown number of Indian warriors with leveled guns.

They lay silent as snakes, for now they could hear the distant tramp of the approaching column.

The sky was overcast, and the night exceedingly dark. As the English drew near the dangerous pass, they could discern the oft-mentioned house of Meloche upon a rising ground to the left, while in front the bridge was dimly visible, and the ridges beyond it seemed like a wall of undistinguished blackness. They pushed rapidly forward, not wholly unsuspicious of danger.

A New Addition

I received my new powder measure made by CLA member David Rase from Bremerton, Washington. David is making these by hand, by drawing sheet metal through a draw plate to swag it into a round tube suitable for powder measures.  In the past he has been turning the whole measure from a piece of round stock.  The tube is pulled through the draw plate and then soldered to a turned and broached collar.  The thumb screws are all hand filed from 1/8" mild steel flat stock. David makes them in copper, brass, and mild steel also in any measurement you want up to 120gr.   

 

I had mine made from the mild steel and it measures from 10 gr. to 60gr.   I wanted to keep it small in size, (3 1/4" closed, 5 1/4" opened) so that I can hang it from my rifle bag. If I need a larger charge I can just dump it twice up to 120gr. His work is outstanding and had it in two weeks after ordering. This would be a great addition to anyone's shot bag. David's e-mail is davidrase@q.com