Man with a Hat

Man with a Hat

Dec 19

 

Got the opportunity to repair another really nice screw type nutcracker for a Nutcracker Club member.

 

These club members come up with the nicest stuff. I really have to start looking harder for these treasures!

 

This piece needed some repairs done to the nose, cheek, and base. It also needed a refresh on the finish to bring out the great details.

 

The repairs on this piece came out great. The base looks original and all the small nicks in the hat are gone too.

 

Here are some before pictures:

 

 

Here’s the piece after the repairs:

 

 

 

 

 

Wabbit Season!

Wabbit Season!

Dec 12

 

Yes, I’m a Looney Tunes nerd.

 

Click on the picture to see the Wabbit Season skit

 

Any who… I recently got the opportunity to repair a really nice figural rabbit (A.K.A. – wabbit) nutcracker for a Nutcracker Club member.

 

The rabbit had a big chip at the top of the left ear, an old very obvious repair on the jaw, a broken pin, and basically needed an overall refresh on the aged finish.

 

The repairs on this piece came out great and replacing the pin gave me the opportunity to make it a “hidden pin” which really adds to the overall quality of this piece.

 

Here are some before pictures:

 

 

Here’s how the piece came out:

 

 

Honestly, this was a fun piece to work on. It came out great and the customer was very happy with the work I did.

 

—– Brandon

Many Hats

Many Hats

Nov 24

 

My little workshop has to be flexible and wear many hats.

 

Today was no exception. Today’s task was to convert it to an electronic repair shop to see if I can resurrect an old 22″ Dell monitor they were throwing out at work.

 

I disassembled the monitor, pulled the power board and found 4 bad capacitors which is typical in Dell hardware.

 

– Power board on the bench being diagnosed –

– Bad Capacitors (domed tops) –

So after about 30 minutes of my time and 4 new capacitors (56 cents total), I have a nice large Dell monitor for my home PC. Nice!

 

– It’s Alive! –

This was a nice little project that yielded a nice much larger computer monitor for my home PC for next to nothing.

 

Awesome!

 

BTW – Yes that’s a VCR under the monitor. I use it to transfer VHS tapes to digital media, and the pint glass you see has Thirsty Dog’s 12 Dogs of Christmas Ale in it which I highly recommend. 🙂

 

My ’69 Camaro (the saga)

My ’69 Camaro (the saga)

Aug 11

 

I’ve had my ’69 Camaro convertible for over twenty five years. It’s one of the last cars my dad and I restored together before I moved out, life took over, and I had less and less time to spend with him wrenching, sanding, and painting. I miss those days.

 

This car has always had a tendency to heat soak the starter and leave me stranded. Even with a new 400 small block transplanted in it (after I spun a bearing in the 327 a couple years ago), it left me stranded at the gas station and had to be flat bed home. I got fed up with it and it has just been sitting the last couple of years. Sort of a time out, if you will.

 

This past Winter I decided I want to get it back on the road this year so I bought a high torque starter (the small one on the left) to replace the regular worn out one (the larger one on the right). I wanted to start working on it earlier this summer, but with the rain and all I figured it could wait.

 

About a week ago I finally had some time to wrench on it, but it turns out the new starter won’t line up and the gears won’t mesh with the flywheel. The pinion gear on the new starter has 11 teeth and is supposed to be a direct replacement for the original 9 tooth one I’m replacing, but after many wasted hours of trying to get it to line up and the teeth to mesh, I call bullsh*t on that. This thing just won’t line up period. Unfortunately, I’ve had the starter way too long to return it. Crap!

 

Ebay and Skip White’s Performance Shop to the rescue! I picked up a shiny new 3 hp mini high torque starter (9 tooth pinion) and put it on this past Saturday. It’s a straight bolt pattern configuration, bolts right up to the 400 small block, and works exactly as it should. No shimming and no cussing. Let’s fire it up and get this thing timed!…. Well…. ummmmm… the Camaro seems to have other plans…..

 

The new starter is in, she’s rollin’ over like she should, but … now it won’t fire. What the fu… (whoa! watch the language)?!?!

 

So, now it’s time for troubleshooting 101:

– Fuel? –> Check

– Spark? –> Nothin’ (Sigh… It ran when I parked it. C’mon! They’re all new parts. C’mon!)

 

Here’s a shot of the dismantled HEI distributor on the bench getting ready to have all its vitals (pickup, coil, ground wires, etc…) checked. Everything I can troubleshoot checked out fine so that meant a trip to the parts store for them to test the ignition module. The ignition module checked out fine (really????).

 

 

So I buy some dielectric grease, head home, put it all back together (for about the 10th time), and it fires right up first try. Really? Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy it fired up; but I honestly don’t know what caused it not to fire before and can’t say I trust it since I don’t know what was broke. The only thing I did different was I left the tach wire off, but that really shouldn’t make a difference. Especially since everything was working when I parked it including the tach.

 

By the time I got it running, it was late on Sunday and I was just done. What should have been an hour or two on Saturday went well over the time I set aside to work on this. My plan now is to set the timing and mess with the tach sometime later this week.

 

To be continued…

 

Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc

May 12

 

Here’s a rare piece that I just finished recently for the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum.

The antique dealer Arlene Wagner (Nutcracker Museum’s curator) bought it from thinks the piece is from around the 1830’s and was made in France.

I only fixed the lower lip and left the rest of the piece’s character intact. When a piece is this old, doing a minimal restoration helps maintain its age and integrity.

 

Before Restoration

 

Before Restoration

 

After Restoration

 

Thanks for looking,

—– Brandon

 

 

A rare piece…

A rare piece…

Mar 14

 

Here is a rare Swiss piece I was lucky to find on Ebay back in December of 2013.

As you can see it had some extensive damage. Most of the base was missing and it had a hole drilled in the top of the head. It also had some damage on the face, especially the nose.

I wanted to have the piece fully restored for my wife’s birthday at the end of February. Unfortunately the weather here in Ohio did not cooperate and I had to give it to her partially finished.

The weather has finally broke a little and I was able to get it done this week. Missy is very happy with it and it is going in our private collection.

Be sure to click on the pictures for a bigger view:

Thanks for looking,

—– Brandon