Redneck Know How Blog

HYCHIKA Cordless Electric Screwdriver Review

redneck_knowhow@yahoo.com (Donald Matthews) — Sun, 19 Jun 2022 14:24:46 GMT

Is the HYCHIKA Cordless Electric Screwdriver the solution I'm looking for?

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The HYCHIKA cordless screwdriver
comes with several accessories.
Click here to enlarge.

As always, the first step is getting the cordless screwdriver out of the box and exploring what comes with the HYCHIKA cordless electric screwdriver. Of course the screwdriver itself is in there. It boasts an idling speed of 280RPM and electric torque of 3Nm. (manual torque 10Nm) 4 gear torque adjustment, going from 1 to 3Nm. This is so that on delicate and small screws, you can start off light and prevent damage to the screw increasing the torque as needed. Use the trigger button by pressing the top to tighten, and press the bottom to loosen.

There are four LED lights on the front end of the cordless screwdriver, making it easy to see what you are working on. Dark and low-light areas are no problem. The built-in 2000mAh battery will easily screw in 190 M3*35mm screws when fully charged. And the type-c charging port allows for quick recharge.

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The driver bit slips right into the magnetic chuck and hold firmly to give great performance for tightening and loosening screws. And the HYCHIKA cordless screwdrivers comes with several different type driver bits with multiple sizes. Also included is a flex shaft attachment that allows you to get into tight and awkward spaces that you just can’t get to with a straight screwdriver. The handle grip shape is designed with a triangular shape that gives a better grip and more comfortable feel.

Now on to my use of the electric screwdriver. I had a metal fan that needed some cleaning.And in order to get to the blades, I needed to remove several screws that were holding the front grate on. These are some tiny screws that I could be easily lost. So the first thing I did was magnetize the driver head I was going to use with the magnetizing tool that comes with the HYCHIKA cordless screwdriver. So I tried the first one.

The HYCHIKA cordless screwdriver
tackling screws in action.
Click here to enlarge.

The HYCHIKA electric screwdriver
tackling screws and nuts.
Click here to enlarge.

I started out on the lowest torque setting and put the screwdriver heat in the screws slots and slowly began to try and loosen the screw. Somehow I managed to strip out the head of this screw nearly to the point that it was unusable. Upon further inspection, (which I should have done first), I found that these screws were screwed into some nuts. So I fumbled until I finally got a small set of pliers on that nut. Then added a bit of pressure to the cordless screwdriver and loosened that one.

I got all the rest of the screws removed, the grate off and the fan blades cleaned as well as both sides of the grate. The next trick was to put the front grate back on with the screws provided. This was not easy as the screws and nuts were tiny and the arthritis in my hands strong. Not to mention my eyesight ain't what it used to be. I eventually got the first screw worked through the screw holes on the grates and the tiny little nut started on the tiny little screw. Then I tightened them with the pliers in the back, holding the nut and the HYCHIKA cordless screwdriver on the business end tightening them down. Again, on the lowest torque setting, until snug but not over tight. I didn't want to strip out any more of the screw heads.

Next I had a string trimmer that needed assembling. Which I also did a review on here. This job only required 2 two inch screws to be driven in to hold the string guard in place. The HYCHIKA electric screwdriver made fast work of them with no problem. I was honestly grateful to have the cordless screwdriver on this one as it would have been too tuff a job to do with arthritic hand and a manual screwdriver. Yet a drill would have been a bit too much.

I also disassembled and older fan that had a burned out motor in it. Doing what my father did and stripping it of it's screws, cords, bearings, and anything else I might find useful on it before chunking the bare carcass into the trash. I'd have boiled the bones if I had thought they held marrow.

Attaching a weed trimmer guard with
the HYCHIKA cordless electric screwdriver
Click here to enlarge.

The HYCHIKA cordless electric screwdriver
comes with this flex-shaft.
Click here to enlarge.

Next I created a test piece with an old piece of scrap wood and tried some scenarios I might come across putting screws in wood with the HYCHIKA cordless screwdriver. First I wanted to try the flex shaft attachment. I really didn't have any work available that was in a hard to get to place, so I bent the flex shaft and used my imagination. I magnetized the driver head and began to work a screw in. I had already drilled a pilot hole. So all that was needed was to put the screw head on the magnetized head and maneuver it into the pilot hole. The cordless screwdriver drove the screw right on in and back out again. No problem. Even with the shaft bent, plenty of torque to do the job.

I have been very impressed by the HYCHIKA cordless electric screwdriver. Several jobs later that I didn't even cover in the video below, and the tool works great. I am proud to recommend it. Especially for people like me who have issues with arthritis. It sure beats cranking a manual screwdriver when your hands are full of cramps and having spasms.
So go check out the
HYCHIKA Cordless Electric Screwdriver by clicking here for more information and ordeing yourself one.
Thank you so very much for reading.

HYCHIKA Cordless Electric Screwdriver Review

HyperEcho Cordless Grass Trimmer and Edger Review

redneck_knowhow@yahoo.com (Donald Matthews) — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 04:06:39 GMT

Hyper Echo Cordless String Trimmer and Edger I was asked by HyperEcho to try out their 20 volt cordless string trimmer and edger and do a review on it it. I did and in this article I will let you know what I found out.

HyperEcho Cordless String Trimmer and Edger.
Click to enlarge.

First I’ll discuss some of the features of the cordless trimmer. It is, in fact, a 2 in 1 weed trimmer, It converts from a standard grass and weed trimmer to an edger with the simple press of a button and a twist. It gives a 10 inch cut radius. When the trimmer is fully assembled, it only weighs 4.6 pounds. So it’s lightweight and easy to hold. The telescopic handle makes it easy to adjust for your height and comfort. So the HyperEcho string trimmer is easy on the back. It features a “D” shaped auxiliary handle that has adjustable positioning for added comfort adjustment. The grass cutting string feeds from the spool automatically as needed. So, there’s no need for bumping or manual recoiling required. It comes with a 2.0Ah battery and a fast charger that charges in 75 minutes. There’s plenty of power to trim a medium yard on one charge.

HyperEcho Cordless String Trimmer and Edger

The battery came with a partial charge and I finished it up on the charger. Charging is easy and quick. Just slide the battery onto the charger and plug it in. The lights on the front of the charger let you know when it’s done charging. The red light is on while it’s still charging, and it’s fully charged when it switches to the green light.

There was a little bit of assembly to do when I opened the string trimmer. Nothing difficult, and all I really needed was a screwdriver with a philips head. I simply had to slide the flower guard on the head of the weed trimmer. Then attached the guard cover with the two screws that came with the tool. Then I attached the “D” handle by pushing the button in and snapping the handle in place. Then you can adjust the position of the “D” handle by pushing that same button and moving the hand into the position that makes operating the HyperEcho cordless string trimmer comfortable for you.

HyperEcho rechargable 20 volt battery comes with the string trimmer.
Click to enlarge.

First I took it right outside and tried the string trimmer around the wood shop. It worked great. It cut the taller grass well and I was ready to see what it did as far actually trimming and edging the grass. I don’t really have that much to try it on in my back yard, so I took the string trimmer out front to edge around the walkway and driveway. This is where I get a bit critical of the HyperEcho string trimmer. I converted it to use as an edger and placed the wheel on the concrete and began edging the walkway. It trimmed and edged fine.

But the design of the wheel seemed to want to jam and stick on the concrete. I checked to make sure it was spinning freely. It was. But the spacing of the grooves are so far apart that they want hinder it from turning when the wheel contacts the cement. Things would go a lot easier if those grooves where smaller and closer together. But the string trimmer is so light that you can hold the wheel up off the concrete and work around that issue.

Edging with the HyperEcho string trimmer.
Click to enlarge.

I continued to use it. Cutting the weeds that had grown up through the relief cracks that separate the sections of driveway and a few extra cracks that have appeared in the cement over the years. The HyperEcho grass trimmer cleared them away with no issue. I trimmed around our pitiful little shrubs and azaleas. The flower guard worked well at keeping me from getting to close and damaging them. I trimmed the grass and some poke weeds around our Japanese maple. It cut through the thick poke weed like it was nothing. Next I trimmed around the house. Again, it performed wonderfully. And the flower guard worked well at preventing me from damaging parts of the house by letting the string get too close. Yet still allowed me to achieve a close, well manicured cut.

I returned to the backyard, but I was not ready to quit using the HyperEcho Cordless String Trimmer / Edger yet. So I decided to knock down a few elephant ears which have spread like wildfire in the yard. Again, the tool performed wonderfully. My battery was still showing 3 bars. So I decided to cut my path to the woodshop with the trimmer. It did well and didn’t over tax my back. I honestly think I could have cut the whole yard with one charge.

My final opinion on the HyperEcho Cordless String Trimmer and Edger is that it’s a very good 20 volt battery operated weed trimmer. Even though I did find the wheel design for the edger to be a bit of a let down, the over-all light weight design of the string trimmer made it easy to work around that issue. And let’s face it, no tool of any kind is perfect, let alone a yard tool. It has enough power to cut through thicker weeds and grass, though you won’t be cutting down any small trees or saplings with it. And it’s not designed for that. But you know us rednecks gonna try. hehehehe...

Using the HyperEcho grass trimmer around the azalias.
Click to enlarge.

Poke salad don't stand a chance against this weed trimmer.
Click to enlarge.

The string feeds out nicely and automatically. I didn’t have to keep bumping the ground. And it rarely tangled up and backlashed on me. It only happened once to me and that was my fault when I tried to cut down one of those trees I mentioned up there. I have no doubt that if you have a small to medium yard, the HyperEcho will trim the whole yard on one charge. And if your mower is broke down, I’d say the trimmer would cut the whole yard in less than two charges. And the charging of the battery only takes 75 minutes, so that gives you a nice lunch break.

At the end of the day, this string trimmer is a good tool for light to medium yardwork. It’s lightweight and easy to hold. And adjustable to suit any height. I would recommend this tool. If you’d like more information about the HyperEcho Cordless String Trimmer and Edger click here. Or watch me put the string trimmer through it’s paces in the video below. Thank you for reading and have a lovely whatever you’re lovelyin’.

The Hyper Echo Cordless String Trimmer and Edger turns out to be a pretty good string trimmer for the money.
Click here to enlarge.

Hyper Echo Grass Trimmer Tool Review

Best Crappie Fishing Tips

redneck_knowhow@yahoo.com (Donald Matthews) — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 14:59:46 GMT

Great Crappie Fishing Tips That Will Help You Catch More Fish.

As great as crappie tastes, and as much fun as crappie fishing is; finding them and hooking them can be a job in itself. So I’ve put together some of the best tips I know for catching crappie. There are as many crappie catching techniques as there are crappie fishermen. Be it vertical jigging, swimming a jig, bobber fishing or a variety of other methods. All of these are great methods so long as you are willing and know when to change, and use more productive methods for the current weather and water conditions.

Often fishermen do well while crappie fishing when the weather warms up in the spring. The crappie move into more shallow waters and crappie fishermen have a blast catching them. However, as the weather changes; the habits of the crappie change as well. Those fishing for crappie that were successful during the months when the fish would hang in shallow water, may find themselves catching far less as the weather heats up. Deeper water is cooler water, and the crappie move back to their deeper habitats.

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Successful crappie fishermen change their tactics with the changing weather and habits of the fish. These fishermen own a variety of gear, tackle, lures, crappie rigs, and baits. And most importantly, they know when to change between these things as conditions change to have better luck crappie fishing. And the following are the best tips I know for catching crappie all year round. With it being winter now, we’ll start there.

Best Crappie Fishing Tips for Winter:

In colder weather and water temperatures, crappie tend to seek cover and deeper water. The deeper end of boat docks are a good place to start. If the waters you are fishing have tree stumps, brush piles or any kind of underwater cover; try those areas as well. Crappie are likely to gather in tighter school in these areas during the colder months. They may drift back to shallower water during long warm spells but as soon as the water starts chilling below 55 degrees, they’ll head straight back to cover and deeper waters.

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Crappie spook easy so if the water is fairly clear, don’t park the boat right over them and start dropping vertical jigs on top of their heads. This approach likely won’t work in these conditions. Most crappie fishermen will find they have better luck anchoring the boat a little distance from them and casting instead. I like to use a 1/32 ounce beetle spin to catch a mess of crappie to pan fry. If I want to try for the larger ones I’ll move up to a 1/8 to ¼ ounce beetle spin. I cast past them and retrieve.

To slow the retrieve of the spinner bait for the crappie; which like other fish, are lethargic during the cold, I tie a plastic bobber above the beetle spin. The lure will then only sink as low as the bobber will allow it. I can then slow the retrieve to a stop and go. Reel it in a little bit, then let it drop for a couple seconds.

If the water is pretty murky then a vertical jig might be in order. First, try to determine what depth the crappie are at. One of the best tips for catching crappie is finding their depth to begin with. Crappie tend to find a depth they like and stay there only feeding on what is at that depth. Therefore finding this depth can mean the difference of no bites and catching crappie. Just drop your jig at different depths till you find the depth where the crappie are biting it at. Again, use this technique around areas of cover for the fish as mention earlier. Adjust what size jig to how calm the water is. 1/8 ounce is a good mid-size to start with adjusting to lighter or heavier depending on the activity of the water, how natural the jig works in the water, and of course, what the crappie are biting.

A boy using some crapie fishing tactics of his own.

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Best Crappie Catching Tips for Prespawn:

When the warmer and milder temperatures of early spring hits; the water warms. And the crappie will move to shallower waters in preparation for spawning. Try concentrating your efforts near brush piles near spawning areas. The best areas are likely in a few feet of water that is near a drop-off. Crappie will begin to move near these areas a little while before they move in to actually spawn. This may be just a couple of weeks, or a little longer depending on the conditions.

I like to fish using a spider rigging method around brush piles during this time. I use several poles rigged with crappie rigs in this manner. The rig goes like this, a ¾ ounce sinker on the bottom of the line. Then about 16 to 18 inches above that I tie on a #2 hook. Then another #2 hook about 16 to 18 inches above the first one. I bait each hook then drop it in the water and let it touch the bottom. Then bring them up until the sinker is hanging just above the bottom. Then I move the boat ever so slowly in front of the cover trying to maintain my lines in an almost vertical position. If they bite, I continue this until my limit is caught or they stop biting, then I move to another location.

Best Crappie Catching Tips for Spawn:

If you’re like most crappie fishermen, you’ll head for cover like brush piles in shallower water where the crappies are spawning. And this is no doubt a good idea when crappie fishing. But I’d like to suggest a different crappie catching tactic to you.

Try trolling a jig slowly along the drop-offs nearest the spawning areas. You’ll want a fast vertical drop as opposed to a slow inclined drop-off. Rig the line with a two 1/8 ounce crappie jigs. One tied to the end of the line and the other about a foot to 18 inches up from it. Then troll the drop-off very slowly, barely moving at all. There’s a good chance if you catch a few with these crappie rigs on the first pass you catch crappie on the second pass and so on.

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Best Crappie Catching Tips for Summer:

For summer crappie fishing, I spend a lot of time on standing trees. I rig 1/16 to 1/8 crappie jigs with 2 inch grubs and pitch them to the standing timbers. Crappie tend to be found in these areas at depths of 9 to 14 feet in lakes, and more shallow in creeks during the summer months of crappie fishing. Of course these depths can change depending on the weather. If it is unseasonably hot, the crappie may seek deeper cover, and less deep in milder temps.

In bodies of water without a lot of standing timber, I’ll fish along ledges with bottom bumping jigs and rigs. Usually in the summer months on these types of lakes, minnows on crappie rigs will produce better than the jigs will. The rig I use consists of a hook 18 inches above a ¾ ounce bell sinker, and a second hook 18 inches above the first. Each hook baited with minnows.

Best Crappie Catching Tips for Fall:

At the of spring and through the summer, the baitfish that crappie feed on go from small hatchlings up to their full size. The crappie adjust to this. So now as fall had rolled around, the fish they have fed on have grown larger and it makes sense to go to a larger size lure. Now is a good time to go to a 2 1/2“ or even a 3“ lure.

There are less storms and rain to stir the water during the fall and winter, so the water is more clear. This will cause the crappie to notice your line a lot easier. And they will avoid striking your lure or bait. So avoid using heavier lines during this time. 4 to 6 pound test, low visability will increase your chances greatly.

During the fall as the water cools I tend to catch more crappie along brush pile and stakebeds that lay along the flats of the lake or whatever body of water I may be fishing. The best depth at this time seems to be between 9 and 14 feet. Lighter jigs seem to work best during this time so I use 1/32 to 1/16 crappie jigs with tubes and grubs. And I use a slip bobber to adjust my depth as needed. And those are the best crappie fishing tips I know. I hope you use them and that they serve you well the next time you go crappie fishing. Nobody wants to go home with nothing but the seat of your britches wet and a empty bucket.

Poor no crappie catchin' fella.

Fried Crappie Cakes

redneck_knowhow@yahoo.com (Donald Matthews) — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 08:52:11 GMT

Delicious Fried Crappie Cakes! Add Some Cole Slaw and Taters and Mmmm...

The weather is warm and folks are crappie fishing. But how do you keep those meals of crappie interesting? Make no mistake, I love the normal filleted crappie and hush puppies. But sometimes you just want to do it a little different. So here’s a fried crappie cake recipe that I enjoy. You can eat them plain with some fried taters, or slide them in a bun with some tarter sauce.

This recipe makes 5 to 6 fried crappie cakes.

The best tasting fried crappie is fried in a cast iron skillet

Ingredients

1 pound of crappie fillets
1 large egg
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 to 1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
2 to 4 drops of liquid smoke
1 tbsp Lemon Juice
1 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. salt
1-1/2 cups bread crumbs
1 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. vegetable oil

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Instructions

Great frying oil for your
fried crappie cakes!

Boil the crappie fillets in a cast-iron skillet. Just boil the fish for a few minutes, the crappie fillets will feel firm. Then, let the fish cool.

Since the crappie fillets are cooling, this is a good time to mix your batter. In a large bowl, whisk the egg, mayonnaise, mustard, liquid smoke, lemon, salt, and soy sauce.

When the crappie fillets have cooled, break them into large chunks. Now mix in the fish, bread crumbs, and parsley into the batter mixture. Be sure to mix it up thoroughly.

When the mixture starts to stick together, form the crappie mixture it into cakes. You want to make them between 1/4-inch and 1/2-inch thick.

Now your crappie cakes are ready to be fried in a skillet. Heat the butter and vegetable oil to frying temp and add your fish cakes. When the first side is brown, flip the crappie cakes over and brown that side. When both sides are brown pull them from the oil. Serve hot and enjoy.

SORAKO Jigsaw Tool Review

redneck_knowhow@yahoo.com (Donald Matthews) — Sat, 28 May 2022 23:12:21 GMT

I was asked to review another SORAKO tool. And after the pleasant experience with the SORAKO chainsaw, I was happy to give their jigsaw a try.

The SORAKO 800-3000SPM Jigsaw with orbital function.

The SORAKO 800-3000SPM Jigsaw With Blades & Scale Ruler came to the shop. And I was eager to use open it and read the instructions so I could plug it in and try it out. It comes with wood and metal T-shank blades, a straight cut fence (aka... scale ruler), and Allen wrench (Hex key). It also comes with a safety shield that attaches just in front of the blade mechanism and prevents debris from flying up and causing injury. Along with that, it comes with some other cool features.

SORAKO Orbital Jigsaw

Motor	5.0Amp 600watt
6 Variable Speeds (variable speed control dial with 800 to 3100 SPM)	1 to 4 - plastic, PVC 2 to 3 - steel plate 3 to 4 - stainless steel 3 to 6 - aluminum 5 to 6 - wood
4 Position Orbital cutting settings	Position 0 - straight cut Position 1 - mild orbital cut Position 2 - medium orbital cut Position 3 - aggressive orbital cut
Other Features	Bevel cutting: ±45° Max Cutting Depth 60mm for Wood Tool free blade change Blade lock for safety Integrated dust blower Dust removal system

The SORAKO jigsaw has an easy to adjust Obital setting.

The SORAKO jigsaw toolless blade change system.

Cutting out a hole with the SORAKO jigsaw.

There is a noticable difference between the
scrolling jigsaw blade and a standard wood cutting jigsaw blade.

I wanted to use the jigsaw on some scrap first to get a feel for some of the features on it. Mainly the oscillating feature. I have apparently been living under a rock, because this was new to me. But they have been around for awhile. This feature can be handy, but also can cause some problems if used for the wrong cutting task. What it does is pull the blade back, away from the cut on the non-cutting stroke. This allows the chips to clear and makes a for a faster cut. The down side of this is that it creates more tear out along the cut. There are 3 settings for the orbital cut besides the 0 setting, which is straight up and down. 1 being the mildest oscillation and 3 being the most aggressive. I tried all 3 while cutting a hole. All 3 worked, however, I got a cleaner cut from setting it to 0.

I can see the appeal of using the more aggressive oscillating setting in construction or when speed is needed and you don’t mind a little tear out. But if you want the clean, sharp cuts, it’s best to avoid it. And in situations where you’ll be cutting out a circle as I did, or around curves, it tended to cause me to over cut with more tear out than I cared for. The jigsaw itself performed wonderfully. Once I set the oscillation to 0, it cut the circle in a good amount of time and gave me a very accurate and quality hole.

I then went on to try the scrolling blade they had sent with the SORAKO jigsaw for me to try. This jigsaw blade for scrolling is noticeably shorter and thinner than the other blades. I’m not so great at making scrollsaw patterns so I went to my friend’s website, SimplyWoodenCreations.com, and grabbed one of his. He also has a YouTube channel by the same name and does a live show almost every Saturday at 8pm Eastern time. I chose a scrollsaw pattern that says something I say all the time. You see, I screw up and do stoopid things in my shop quite often. And you just can’t fix stoopid. So I printed out the pattern and used some adhesive spay to attach it to a piece of Luan plywood. Then drilled some holes to put my blade into and began cutting.

Using the SORAKO jigsaw as a scrollsaw.

The finished scrolling project I did with the
SORAKO jigsaw.

I made sure the SORAKO jigsaw was speed was set to a slower speed. Normally for cutting wood I’d set it somewhere between 4 and 6. But I found that slowing the speed down to 3 worked best for doing the scroll work on the 1/4“ Luan. I tried to make use of the holes I’d drilled for making sharp turns, but in some places I had to put the old skill of cutting, backing up, cutting, and sort of whittling away enough material until I could make that turn. It’s just something you have to practice to get good at. The SORAKO 800-3000SPM jigsaw did a fine job of it. And cut surprisingly clean. Making precise cuts for scroll work is a lot to ask from a jigsaw, but I was very pleased with it. Please note, I am a long way from being a scrollsaw artist.

The next thing I tried it on was cutting through metal. From time to time I do work with pallet wood and need to cut through nails and sometimes screws. I drove some sinker nails in the end of a 2x4. I also drove a yellow zinc screw into it, just to see what it would do. It cut through the 10 penny nails like they were butter. Then I got to that yellow zinc screw, which is harder. It did not want to be cut. I pushed on it and worked it, but the saw simply would not cut it. It finally worked through enough that I could whack it off with a hammer. But it never really got through it. I believe it has something to do with the strength of the yellow zinc screw and how it’s made. I checked the blade I was using after it had cooled down enough to touch it and it was still sharp. I don’t work with metal much, so there is a great likelihood that it was just me not knowing what I was doing. I was impressed that the tool held up so well. I was scared I was pushing it too hard and would have burned the motor up.

The result of cutting nails with the SORAKO jigsaw

Click here to learn more about the
5.0A, 800-3000SPM Jigsaw With Blades & Scale Ruler

Other than that one screw, the SORAKO 800-3000SPM jigsaw held up well and worked great. It made the precise cuts needed to do the scroll work I did and was heavy duty enough to cut through the 2x4 with nails in it. Please click here to learn more and to purchase the SORAKO 800-3000SPM Jigsaw for yourself. And the video of me doing all that I mentioned is below. Have a lovely day!

SORAKO Cordless Chainsaw Review

redneck_knowhow@yahoo.com (Donald Matthews) — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 08:36:11 GMT

I was given the opportunity by HYCHIKA to try out and review their SORAKO chainsaw. This blog describes what I think about the chainsaw. How well I like it as well as my experience in using it.

First I’ll give you a few of the details about the SORAKO electric chainsaw . It uses a 20V max battery and comes with a 4.0Ah battery charger. This means no mixing of gas and oil. Which is already a big plus for me. I really don’t like having to measure out and figure out 1 to 2 part ratios and having a half gallon of gas that I’ve premixed kicking around, turning into a stale oil and gas mixture that I’m likely to have to dispose of rather than use. There’s no smelly exhaust emission. So it’s friendlier to the environment. The cordless chain saw is a lot quieter than any gas powered machine, yet maintains high efficiency power.

The whole chain saw, including bar and chain, weighs only 8 pounds. So it causes a lot less fatigue in your hands and arms. This electric chain saw comes with a high quality 10 inch bar and a equally high quality chain. The chain speed is 20.6 f/s which gives it enough power to prune larger limbs and buck smaller trees. No tool needed to install the chain and adjust the tension. Simply rotate the orange ring and tighten down the black knob in the center to lock in place. The automatic chain oiling system keeps your chain and bar well oiled insuring the Sorako cordless chainsaw stays in good condition.	The SORAKO chainsaw's 10" bar and chain system.
The SORAKO chainsaw's hand guard and brake system.	The orange hand guard in front of the top handle does two things. It protects your hand from debris and also brakes the chain if the chainsaw kicks back, or if an emergency stop is needed, a forward push on the handguard brakes/stops the chain immediately. The safety lock, located above the trigger on the rear handle prevents unexpected starts, yet is easy to operate with a simple push with your thumb. Low vibration technology makes for low impact operation. And the rear handle is a comfortable fit to the hand. The overall balance also makes using the Sorako cordless electric chain saw easy to use.
To say I enjoyed using this chainsaw is a bit of an understatement. With my sciatica, bulging disks, and arthritis, operating a gas powered chainsaw can bring on some hurt. The light weight of the Sorako cordless chainsaw relieved a large amount of that. And as mentioned earlier, I don’t have to worry about mixing gas. The largest effort is to make sure the battery is charged, and that there is chain oil in the chainsaw.	The SORAKO chainsaw's chain tensioning system.
The SORAKO chainsaw's chain is easy to install.	The first few limbs I cut were on a Dogwood tree that is right behind my shop which have been rustling against the roof. Not healthy for the shingles, and kinda creeped me out on some of the late nights I spend working in there. Made me think the boogieman was gonna get in a time or two. These limbs required me to use a ladder to get to them and the light weight of the Sorako chainsaw made that easier to do and certainly more comfortable knowing I didn’t either have to haul up a running chainsaw, or try cranking one on the ladder. Did I mention I’m not the steadiest of people on a ladder? Well, I’m not. The chain saw made quick work of those limbs. And one of those limbs came within a couple inches of making quick work of the camera I use to record my YouTube videos. More about the video later.
The next job was a Crape Myrtle that needed it’s lower limbs clipped. That started off great as the cordless chainsaw went right through those limbs. At least until I got about a quarter way around. There I was using the chainsaw to knock off the little hedge switch like limbs to get to the bigger limb that I wanted to cut. If ya don’t know what a hedge switch is, don’t ask your granny, she just might show ya. And they hurt. A couple of those little switches got caught up under the chain and popped it off the bar. I quickly stopped the chainsaw and inspected the bar and chain. I took the chainsaw off to the side and removed the battery to prevent the saw from having any power. Safety first. Then I unscrewed the tension system, removed the cover and reinstalled the chain. Put the cover back on and reset the tension on the chain. No tools needed and back, ready to cut in less than 5 minutes.	The SORAKO chainsaw is a joy to use.
The SORAKO chainsaw has a very good chain lubrication system.	I took some of the Crape Myrtle branches that I had pruned and were big enough, and cut them up in pieces that I could let dry a bit and hopefully get some pen blanks out of them. Next I was off with the cordless electric chainsaw to a Sweetgum log that I’ve had beside the shop. I’ve been planning on cutting it up into bowl blanks for awhile now. And now is as good a time as any. The outside of the log was punky down to about an inch. But the old growth that laid beneath was still hard as any Sweetgum wood. I made my first cuts to trim away some unwanted ends. Though I could tell I was cutting through some thicker and harder wood, the chainsaw made pretty quick work of it.
Then I went to buck off my first bowl blank. This cut would be close to the max cut of Sorako cordless chainsaw. For what they call buck cutting anyway. The chain went right through the old punky wood as expected. In just a second I was through that sapwood and into the harder heartwood. I was waiting for the chainsaw to bog down, but it really didn’t. I had a bigger problem bending over to get to it. I adjusted the log to raise it up a bit then started the chain saw again. The electric chainsaw went right through it as easily as a gas powered saw would. I would cut another that was just a tiny bit bigger after this one before it started to rain and I called it quits. The result was the same. This cordless electric chainsaw did a mighty fine job of cutting it.	I'm using the cordless electric chainsaw to cut off a bowl blank.

I have little doubt that the chainsaw will cut the bigger end of that Sweetgum log when I can get out there and cut it. I was very impressed with the SORAKO electric cordless chainsaw and I am very grateful to SORAKO and HYCIKA for the opportunity to try out and review some their tools. Thank you very much for reading my blog. I hope this information is helpful to you. If you’d like to see the video of me using the chainsaw, the video is below.

If you’re already convinced or want to learn more about the SORAKO cordless chainsaw, follow this link https://www.amazon.com/gp/mpc/A105JBKUG8H7FC and use the 20% off Promo Code: 20PWGCHM

Hychika Cordless Drill Tool Review

redneck_knowhow@yahoo.com (Donald Matthews) — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 03:33:50 GMT

This is what I think about the Hychika cordless power drill.

A few weeks ago Hychika approached me about reviewing one of their tools and gave me the choice of what to review. I chose the cordless power drill. I was very excited when I received it as I was eager to put the drill to work. You know how it is when you get a new tool to use. It’s like being a kid on Christmas day.

I was pleased to see that the Hychika cordless drill comes with several accessories.

They are...

4 Spade bits, 5/8“, 9/16“, 15/32“, and 3/8“
6 Twist bits, 5/16“, 1/4“, 3/16“, 5/32“, 1/8“, and 3/32“
5 Sockets, 5/32“, 3/16“, 1/4“, 9/32“, and 5/16“
7 Driver bits, PZ1, PZ2, PZ2, PH1, PH2, PH2, and an adaptor bit for the sockets.

All wrapped in a handy roll-up canvas organizer. There is also a belt clip that is easily installed to the drill, making it easy to just clip on your belt when not in use. And easy to get to when you need it while working.

The drill itself has many great features. Not the least of which is it’s weight and balance. This is important to me because a tool that isn’t comfortable to hold, isn’t comfortable to use. The weight of the Hychika power drill is excellent and gives the perfect amount of weight without being so heavy as to bring on fatigue. And Hychika has managed to distribute that weight in a way that feels balanced in the hand.

The other features of the Hychika cordless power drill make it an awesome tool for the price.

21 + 1 clutch and variable speed with 2 speeds makes this cordless drill very versatile for home projects as well as in my wood shop. It handles every job I throw at it without issues.
3/8“ metal chuck has a max of 330 in-lb 35 Nm torque. This drill accepts most bits used in a shop and home. It has the strength to handle tough jobs, but the versatility to be delicate enough to install the tiny hinges and latches used on the keepsake and jewelry boxes I make.
Reverse for removing screws and backing the bits out of projects when needed.
Built-in LED light makes low light situations non-situations. No matter how you hold it, the light shines on the work area.
20V Lithium Battery (In the US, 18V in EU) Comes with a 1 hour quick charger so you’re never far from fully charged. This cordless drill’s battery lasts a surprisingly long time to begin with. The quick charge makes life so easy. Plug it in and either take a break or move on to do something else and within an hour, you’re ready to use the Hychika cordless power drill again.
And it also comes with a very nice canvas bag to keep all the goodies in and keep track of them. If you always put them back in the bag, they won’t be hard to find when you need your power drill.

I was very impressed with the rubber grip on the handle as well. I almost grips your hand as you grip it, so the tool slipping in your grip is unlikely. And it is so much more comfortable than gripping bare plastic.

I really can not say enough about how much I like the Hychika cordless power drill . I put it through the paces for the review in the video below and since then have used it on a regular basis. Not a problem yet and it’s actually a joy to use. I drilled pilot holes and ran screws in them, then ran some screws in without pilot holes. It did great. Though I will always recommend you drilling a pilot hole if possible just to keep the material from splitting.

I ran bolts and tightened bolts and nuts with it and, as mentioned before, drilled the holes for tiny hinges and drove the screws for those hinges in with the Hychika cordless drill. I adjusted the torque and the speed, and this drill did it without being too much.

The link to the cordless power drill is https://bit.ly/32pYgKt

Below is the video review of the Hychika cordless power drill that I recorded so you can see the drill work for yourself.

The Truth of the Dovetail Joint

redneck_knowhow@yahoo.com (Donald Matthews) — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 06:41:30 GMT

They are for far more that decoration when used correctly!

Everybody seems to be in love with dovetails these days. Myself included. They look nice, feel nice, and they make the woodworker feel an overwhelming since of pride when he makes tight and even. Especially the hand cut dovetails. Dovetail joints can be produced with power tools. And there are dovetail jigs you can buy and make. It makes getting precise dovetails with no gaps a lot easier. But nothing feels more satisfying than finally getting hand cut dovetails tight and gap free. And for the record, I use the term, “gap free”, very loosely. I’d wager that even the best woodworker gets gaps in their dovetails no matter how hard they try. Maybe not as many as us new to middlin’ woodworkers, and certainly not as noticeable, but there are gaps in their dovetails.

Nowadays, people use dovetails not only as a joint, but as decoration. A showpiece if you will to show off the craftsmanship of the woodworker. But the reality is that they were not originally meant to be pretty. They were utilized to hold pieces that were heavily used together. Such as drawers or other parts of furniture and other items that were constantly pulled or tugged on. In the example below, you can see how the angles of the dovetails will keep the joint from coming apart during the tugging of the drawer when opening it. This part of the joint is where the dovetail joint get’s it’s name. Often when used on boxes, the orientation of those angles are switched around, placing them on the front of the box as a decoration, and the pins of the joint is put on the side. Great for looks, not so great for function.

Of course for most smaller boxes, the function of the dovetail really isn’t needed and using dovetails for looks is fine and an anesthetically pleasing way to show off craftsmanship. But let’s not give up on using the dovetail joint for utilitarian purposes when building boxes too quickly. They can be a great way to join a bottom to a box that will be holding heavier stuff, such as tool boxes. The angle of the dovetails can manage the stresses of carrying heavier items such as tools if you wish to maintain a *NO screws or nails* policy on your woodworking projects. Or you can use the dovetail joint along with screws for extra protection against the bottom dropping out.

So the purpose of the dovetail is a lot more than to just make your woodworking look good. In fact, long ago, they were hidden. Simply a way to join parts and give them the strength to do what the item was meant to do, and be hidden when the drawer was closed. Using the dovetail joint for decoration is a modern thing. Which I have nothing against. I love to show off dovetails I’ve made nearly perfect. Well, in my eyes anyway. Roy Underhill and Paul Sellers would likely just look at them and grin, maybe chuckle at me being so proud of something so far from the skill level they have achieved.

The Best CA Glue I’ve Used!

redneck_knowhow@yahoo.com (Donald Matthews) — Sun, 10 Oct 2021 22:28:29 GMT

Strarbond Adhesives produce the best super glue you can buy.

I’ve been making some Celtic knot pens as of late. And was just about to finish preparing a batch of pen blanks when I decided I’d take the time to spread the word about the great Cyanoacrylate glue that I’ve been given the opportunity to promote. Starbond contacted me awhile back and offered to send me some of their Superglue and accelerator to try and possibly promote if I liked using it. Well, obviously I like it. The first thing I used it for was to glue the tubes into some pen blanks. I was a bit nervous because every C.A. glue I’d tried to use for this had failed while turning the pen. This can ruin your blank and your tube. At best create extra work and at worst ruin both the blank and the tube.

Starbond was the exception I’d been looking for! I really wanted an option that allowed me to start turning pens fairly soon after glueing in the tubes. I used Starbond Thick super glue to glue in the tubes for several pens. And turned most of them on the same day. My back failed me, not the Cyanoacrylate. Which amazed me because all other CA glues failed on the first or second pen. Starbond Thick Superglue held on all and held strong. I also used it to finish those pens.

Now CA glue finish on pens can be done with most any superglue. However, not every Cyanoacrylate will achieve the same result. Sometimes there may be a bit of cloudiness. This can come from many things, including the brand of glue. Some super glues don’t take the sanding and polishing as well as others. Sometimes the reaction between the accelerator and the ca causes it. None of these were an issue with the Starbond superglues . The finish sanded and polished to a crystal clear finish with a beautiful shine.

And finally to the Celtic knot pen blanks I mentioned in the beginning. The trick with a Celtic knot is keeping your cuts and glue ups as square as possible. This helps insure you get a straight bore through the center of the blank, which is very important to having a even and nice looking knot. On the one in the pictures, I’m attempting to make a more complex, multi-knot effect.

I start by cutting a slit, most of the way through the blank, but not all the way through it. Not cutting completely through the blank aids in the gluing in of the thin pieces of wood. Gluing up a pen blank can be difficult with a straight cut. Gluing up one with an angled cut like these cuts will pull out bad words you didn’t even think you knew while creating new ones.

Then I glue the thin pieces of wood into the slit I’ve cut on the blank. I used one of Starbond's tinted CA glues for this. They have these in brown and black. I chose black to try and highlight the brown wood I was using. I put a little bit on each side of the thin cut wood and pushed it down into the slit I had cut previously. Then I spray it with some accelerator and give it just a few minutes to dry. Then I take it back to the saw and cut another slit just below the one I just did. I continue this until I get 4 strips of wood superglued in. Then I flip it over and continue the same process on all sides.

I haven’t turned that one yet, but here’s the result from a previous pen in which I only did two opposing sides with the multiple cuts and one cut on the other two sides. I highly recommend you give Starbond Super Glue a try. And if you use the word code “WOODSHOP” , you get a 10% discount on your order.

Plugging Holes in the Table Top

redneck_knowhow@yahoo.com (Donald Matthews) — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:56:21 GMT

Pallet Wood Kitchen Table

Smoothing the Table Top

A smooth and flat table top is important. Before I get into plugging the nail holes and other voids in the palletwood table top, I need to get some of the rough planning done. There were a couple boards that were’nt the same thickness as the others. So when I glued it up, I made sure the bottom of the top was as even and smooth as I could. Then I went back and leveled it out with the hand planes. It’s easier to knock down the taller boards with the hand plane, then level and smooth things out. As I said, this is just the first run with the plane to get it level. I’ll be coming back to get it smooth after I filled a few of the voids with epoxy, and the nail holes with plugs.

Filling the Nail Holes with Plugs

First I matched a Forstner bit with the size of the plugs and put it in a drill, which I then used to bore the plug hole where the nail holes are. I placed the point of the bit in each hole and bored to the depth I desired. The nail holes in the boards were not lined up very well. When they put these pallets together, I’m sure the idea of someone building a a table out of it was the furthest thing on their minds. Getting it done in a hurry and moving on is the idea in that job. So being exact wasn’t an option from the beginning. It will simply add to the rustic look of the finished table. I just did the best I could and got the holes bored into the table.

I filled the hole in sections, doing 6 or eight holes at a time. Just because I get bored doing the same task over and over again. I put some glue in the hole and then pushed the plug in. Next was a couple taps with a mallet to get them seated well. Then I moved on to the next hole. Actually I used a hammer. I simply place a small scrap of wood over the plug to keep from damaging the table top and tapped the plug in. Mallet or hammer works, I do recommend using the scrap block of wood which ever tool you use. It just hurts your feelings to get this far in a project only to have a deep dent to deal with that could have been avoided.

The next step is to trim the plugs down flush to the table top. This is done best and easiest with a flush cut saw. However, at the time I didn’t have one available so I used the hand plane. The problem with that is you’re working yourself far more than with the flush-cut saw and it’s easy for the plug to get tear out below the depth of the hole. And that just gives you another hole to patch. It can be done as long as you pay attention to which way the grain of the plug is running, but the same problem occurs even if you pay attention. Once you get the plug cut flush, you can run the plane over it all you want to and have very little risk of tearing the plug out.

Gluing Up a Table Top - Pallet Wood Kitchen Table

redneck_knowhow@yahoo.com (Donald Matthews) — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 04:55:36 GMT

How I glued up my table top.

Now it’s time to mark where the mortises for the dominoes will go. The dominoes will serve two purposes.

1) They will help the boards line up and stay lined up during glue up.

2) They will help add more surface area to make the glued up joint stronger.

Once I get the edge of the boards marked for the mortises, I’ll make sure they they all line up. Then I’ll start creating the mortises that I marked. First by removing a large amount of the waste with a drill and a Forstner bit, and then follow behind with a chisel to clean up the mortise.

Next was the process of gluing the boards together and creating the table top. This is conceptually easy. However, it being a large glue up, gets complicated in practice easily. So what I did was glue up two boards at a time. Letting those boards dry, then gluing those sections up until I finally finished with a full table top. This takes awhile longer than just gluing everything up at one time, but it’s far easier to get two boards to line up, and stay lined up, than five or six at the same time. And of course, there’s the window of time to get things lined up before the glue starts to set to consider. When you’re doing this alone, the glue’s set time sneaks up on you faster than you think.

I didn’t have enough clamps long enough to do this glue up and lacked the funds to buy them. Nor could I afford to buy the materials to build pipe clamps. I did find a video in which Izzy Swan made some wedge clamps out of two by fours. And since I had the materials on hand to make them, those are what I made and used. Check out Izzy Swan’s video at this link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr6MkXy1nos

How I Made a Pallet Wood Kitchen Table

Thu, 28 Nov 2019 03:57:56 GMT

When My Daughter Asked Me To Build a Kitchen Table...

Awhile back my daughter asked me to make a kitchen table for her. This series of blogs is how I went about building from pallets, this beautiful, (if I do say so myself) kitchen table. This was my first real piece of furniture and I am indeed proud of how well it came out. Of course I said I would as soon as I could. I just wasn’t sure what I was going to make it out of or how to go about it.

A few days later, my niece called me and said she had some pallets if I wanted them. She works as a receiver at a grocery store and sometimes they get pallets that can’t be sent back and they pile up and get in the way. I said yes and set off to collect them. I drove across town cussing myself for bothering. You see, the normal pallets one picks up are busted and broken. You might get a few good boards but more often than not, you get short boards because it’s nearly impossible to pull those twisted nails out. So it becomes a choice of risking tearing the whole board apart trying to get the full length, or just cutting the board off with a saw. At the time I was trying to get enough pallets collected to enter the pallet wood challenge, so as much as I hated the idea, I was off to get these pallets.

When I got there I was pleasantly surprised. Most of the pallet wood she was talking about was from a new floor machine the store had purchased. It was crisp, clean, new wood. They had actually used real nails instead of those evil twisted nails that are more screws with nail heads to put the pallets together. And cut from the same logs as I would find out later. They were rough sawn with several 1“ x 6“ boards. A few 3“ x 4“ boards. And several short 2“ x 4“ boards. After I loaded up, I headed home. I was in hog heave and I’m sure I was grinning ear to ear. It’s amazing what simple things can make me happy sometimes. As I drove home I started thinking about my daughter’s table. Working out how I could join the 1 x 6 boards to make the table top. Then visions of breadboard ends popped into my mind. And the plans of the kitchen table began to form to use the pallet wood for the kitchen table. I got home, unloaded and began taking the pallets apart. I took a break for the day and went inside to think about the build.

I did some research, asked my daughter about what size area she had for it, and came up with some measurements. And that where the videos start. I can’t remember now what I actually cut the boards at. It’s been awhile since I got started on it. Then I had to stop working on it because of a move and I didn’t have a shop for a couple years. But after another move, I had a shop and began working on it again. But at this stage in the video, I’m still at the old place and I cut the 1x6 boards to length, and squared up the sides. I would use dominoes or biscuits to line the boards up for glue up. These would aslo add strength to the joint. I don’t have a domino or a biscuit cutter, so the tenons would have to be cut in with a chisel. I made a story-stick to mark where I’d be putting the tenons on the sides to receive the domino/biscuits I would make. This would make it easier to line up the mortises. After the boards were marked, I used a Forstner bit to remove some waste then cleaned it up with a chisel.

And that’s where this video takes you. In my next blog, I’ll tell you about the table top glue up and getting the top level and smooth. So please enjoy the video below and come back for part 2 of the Pallet Wood Kitchen Table blog.

Turning a Birdhouse on the Shopsmith Lathe

Fri, 15 Feb 2019 20:05:31 GMT

I took a 1x6 pine board and cut it into several equal lengths. Then I glued those pieces together. Which is easier said than it was done. Since the boards slide on the glue so easy when the clamps are applied, I had to glue it in stages. Gluing them two at a time and letting them dry, then gluing those stacks together two at a time and letting them dry. Then gluing the final two together to form one block. I needed two blocks, one larger for the bottom, and one a little wider but not as tall for the top. It took some time. Then I found the center and drilled a hole to accept my chucks worm screw in both blocks. Next I knocked off the corners as best I could with the saw. This makes life a bit safer and easier when turning larger pieces because I don’t have the hard corners to knock down. Plus it keeps the vibration from the spinning wood down.

And then it was time to begin turning the bottom part of the birdhouse. I got it rounded and cut the mortise which the jaws of the Nova chuck would expand into to hold the piece as I hollowed out the inside of the birdhouse out. I must admit, hollowing larger pieces can be a challenge on the Shopsmith lathe because you have to have the support of the live center and tailstock to keep the piece from flying across the room. And that leaves very little room to work with your hollowing tools. I got it done though. At this point I only hollowed part way down.

Next I shaped the outside of the acorn bottom. This was far easier than hollowing it out I promise you. I used the parting tool to get started and cut a gap near the bottom. This way I could use my gouges to shape the bottom easier and not risk catching a gouge. on the wood left on the chuck. Once that was shaped I was able to finish hollowing and I’d know when to stop without going all the way through. Next I used the drill and a paddle bit to make the entry hole for the birdhouse, finished shaping the acorn bottom. Working up as close to a point as I could, and then I separated the birdhouse from the block that remained in the chuck.

I mounted the top of the birdhouse on the Shopsmith lathe and began to rough it down to round and began to shape it to look like the top of an acorn. Once I got a tenon cut on the top side, I flipped the acorn top and mounted the tenon into the chuck. On the opposite end I turned a tenon that would fit into the bottom of the acorn then began to hollow the top out. I didn’t need to hollow it as deep as the bottom so this was a little easier. I cut a stem on the side that was held by the Nova chuck, and drilled some holes in the stem with the intention of running a chain through to hang the birdhouse with. That plan changed later on though.

While my housemate painted the bottom, I used the Dremel rotary tool to stipple the top and make it look rough like the top of an acorn. Then I stained it brown. Once both the paint and stain were dry, I sprayed the birdhouse bottom and top with a couple coats of Polyurethane. Next I drilled a hole through the center of the stem and added an eye bolt with washers and a nut. This allowed me to either hang the birdhouse from a hook or use a chain to hang it from a branch. I drilled pilot hole through the top of the bottom and the tenon on the lid that fit down into the birdhouse and attached the acorn top to the bottom with screws. This way the screws can be removed and the top of the acorn lifted off to allow for cleaning between seasons. The video below is the video I submitted as the entry into the Summers Woodworking Birdhouse Challenge 2018. Please watch and enjoy.

Building a Celtic Keepsake Box From Walnut

Tue, 12 Feb 2019 20:08:52 GMT

A good friend and customer asked if I could make a keepsake box for him and carve a Celtic cross into the lid. Of course I could. I gave him the options of wood that I had on hand. One of which was an old walnut board that I had acquired. This walnut board is what he chose to have it made out of. Which worked out great because the board was aged and this would help give the finished box an older, aged look.

This was going to be a fun and interesting build, so naturally, I decided to record it and make a few videos on my Youtube channel of the build. Content is king, and this Celtic keepsake box would make some great content and allow me to show off how my skills at dovetails has improved. I’ll put the playlist with the videos in it below. I’d be grateful for all views you give me and please feel free to share it if you like it.

The first thing I had to do was get that old reclaimed walnut board squared. As I said, it was old and had slightly warped with the movement of the wood throughout the years. And I’m not so sure that much time was given to making sure it was 100% square to begin with. The edges were rough cut and I found different widths on both ends. Not a problem that a little work with a hand plane couldn’t fix though. I found the straightest edge and began work there to get a square reference point. Once I had the one side square, I used it as a reference against the tablesaw fence and squared the other side.

Then I measured and marked out the pieces that would make up the keepsake box. Bottom, top, and sides. Once I got those cut I trued everything up once again with a hand plane. Once I got everything trued up, I re-sawed the bottom into a thinner board that would be set into the bottom of the side pieces with a grove on all four sides. Once that piece was smoothed and true, I began marking and cutting the dovetails into the walnut boards I had cut for the front, back, and sides. Once the dovetails were cut and ready to be placed together, I made the groves for the thinner piece of walnut that would be the bottom.

I used a combination of a homemade rabbet plane and a 1/4“ chisel to make these groves. Once the groves were in, I glued up the bottom of the walnut box. Then I made sure the lid for the box was a good fit for the box and began to carve the Celtic cross design I had made into the top. For this I used the pneumatic engraver for the finer details and the Dremel rotary tool to hog out the larger area of walnut that needed to be removed. Once the Celtic cross was carved into the lid for the keepsake box, I put the finish on, and once that dried, I added the hinges and sent the box off to my friend who was very happy with the result.

Below is the playlist that has the entire build in more detail than what I cover here in my article. For me, it’s far easier to show how I did it than trying to come up with words to explain what I do here for my website. Please watch and give me some love with some thumbs up if you like the series, thumbs down if you don’t like it. And feel free to comment on the videos on the Youtube site. These things help me better gauge what you like and don’t like. I’m certainly not here to produce things people don’t like. And if you’re not subscribed to my Youtube channel and want to see more of what I do, please subscribe and click on the bell so you’ll be notified when I publish new content. I tend to produce much more video content that what I post here on my website. Thank you for taking time to read and please make your life a great life. Enjoy it!

How to Build a Workbench from Dimensional Lumber

Wed, 06 Jun 2018 20:23:50 GMT

I’ve been in need of a proper workbench for my woodworking for awhile now. I was without a shop for awhile so making one was a bit pointless at that time. Now that my roommate and I have found this house with a building very suitable to be a shop, the time to build a workbench was long over due. The shop, while not really small, is still limiting when it come to space for woodworking tools. So my bench has to be of a size that gives me room to work on it and still leave room for me to move my Shopsmith Mark 5 around and adjust it as needed for whichever way I need to set it up. I also wanted it to be large enough for me to be able to work on larger projects like tables and other furniture projects.

The original plan was for it to be 4 feet by 2 1/2 feet, but that was adjusted a bit as the build proceeded. The final dimensions of the top are 46 1/2 inches by 22 1/2 inches, and the hight of the workbench is 30 7/8 inches. One of the 2x4‘s I was going to glue up into the top twisted to a point that it was just not worth trying to square up. After seeing the size it would be I decided not to add another, and it worked out fine, and the top came out to a good size for what I needed. So on to the how I did it part.

how to build a workb...First I took 6 pieces of 8 foot 2x4 SPF and cut them in half. Then I used my hand planes to get the sides of the 2x4‘s I would be laminating flat so they would glue up without any gaps. Then of course there was the glue up. I was limited on clamps so I did this in stages over several days. In fact. I’d plane two boards and glue them up and get them clamped. Then while they dried, I used the wood plane to flatten the next two. The next day I repeated the process and continued until I had 6 pieces of 2x4 glued up. Then I glued up those 6 pieces of SPF, two at a time until got to the final glue up in which I used the wooden wedge clamps I had made awhile back because they are the only clamps I have that were long enough to work. The wedge clamps work as well as any so I don’t feel the need to stress finding the money to replace them with pipe clams or other expensive alternatives. I just have to be sure I use something to keep them form being glued to the project. Being made from wood, they could easily become attached to what I may be gluing at the time.

Then after the top was all glued up and dry, I took the hand plane to the bottom of the top. (Does that even make sense?). I mean, the bottom side of the top. The main purpose here is to get the area that the legs will attach to flat and reasonably square. This will help keep the workbench from having any wobble in it that would mean having to trim and level the legs. I cleaned up the entire bottom but I really only stressed the area that the legs would attach to being completely flat and square. The ends of the workbench top were a bit raggedy and not flush where the 2x4's were glued, so I cut a thin piece off each end of the top to square that up. I also ran the bench plane over the ends just to smooth the roughness from the saw cut.

Then I began working on the legs. The legs are made up of two 2x4‘s which I glued together to form 4x4 boards, which I then planned to be reasonably square and cut 4 legs from that. I cut each leg at 29 inches. (After the legs sections are joined, a 2x4 will be screwed across the top of each leg section increasing the height of the legs by 1 1/2 inches. **in the U.S.A., 2x4‘s are usually, in reality 1 1/2“ x 3 1/2“**). After the top was added and flattened, I ended up with a working height of 30 and 7/8 inches.

how to build a workb...I went ahead and glued up the boards I’d be using to make the apron so it could be drying while I finished working on the legs. The apron is a 8 foot 2x6 spf board, with a 8 foot 2x4 glued on top of it. And of course I planned squared and made sure the surfaces to be glued were flat before I glued and clamped them. I don’t mind telling you that taking a wood plane to a 8 foot board in a small shop is a challenge. Then I decided on where the cross-braces for the legs would be going and marked all the way around the legs for the width and height of the cross-braces and marked for my mortise. And took mallet and chisel in hand and began to make my mortises. How I did that and everything else is in the video playlist on that is linked below.

After I got the mortise done, I cut the cross-braces. I cut them a little longer then they would end up being. This being a through mortise and tenon, I wanted to be sure the tenons went all the way through. I will cut off the excess with a flush-cut saw after the glue up. I marked and cut the tenons, being sure to cut to the waste side of the line and paired down with a chisel and plane until I got a snug fit in the mortise. Then after all mortise and tenon were cut, I glued them up. When that dried I added the 2x4 board across the top. The next step I did to the legs was to add some dowels through the mortise and tenon joint. This really isn’t a must do, but it added to the strength of the joint so I did.

Next came the apron. I squared up the ends with a hand saw, then cut to length. Used a handplane to flatten and square. Then I cut some wedges out of a scrap piece of wood to use to wedge the apron to the leg braces. Then marked for the recesses to place the legs and wedge in the apron. I screwed up on this part. The basics of my workbench is based on Paul Sellers’ workbench. The wedges are supposed to be pointed down to allow gravity to always work the wedge to work it’s way back down tight in case they do loosen. The correct way to do it can be found in this video by Paul Sellers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06si-zVX8FA&feature=youtu.be I had to use wood screws to reenforce the wedges in the legs. How I did that and straightened out my screwup is in my video series.

The rest of it is just getting the legs set in the recesses of the apron, adding the wedges. Then place the top between the apron pieces and attaching with screws. And of course adding the woodworking vise. All of that is shown in the playlist I have embedded below. Also, as I mentioned, the basics of this workbench build are based on Paul Sellers’ build series, How to Make a Workbench . If you don’t know who Paul Sellers is, you have been missing out. He has many years of experience making fine furniture and woodworking. And shares so much of his knowledge. Please check his channel and blog out.

And here is the video playlist of how I built my workbench. Mistakes were made, but the true talent in anything is figuring out how to fix the mistakes. I hope you enjoy it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCLBqwIkP6A&list=PLdwx77PpBsOU766avjeImIp1Gxika_qTL

How to Turn a Pen on a Shopsmith Mark 5

Sun, 31 Dec 2017 20:27:33 GMT

A couple years ago, I decided I wanted to turn pens. The only lathe available to me was a Shopsmith lathe. The principle and basic operation of pen turning is the same on a Shopsmith, but the mandrel used is a little different due to the way components are attached to the Shopsmith. This is how I do it.

The first part of this endeavor, assuming you have the turning gouges and skews, is finding the mandrel that fits the shopsmith. The only one I could find that really suited my needs was the “Universal Lathe Pen Mandrel Set: For 5/8 in. Shopsmith”. Just copy and paste that into a search engine and search, you’ll find a few places that you can order it from. There are mandrels that fit into the drill chuck component of the the shopsmith, but I found that to be an uncomfortable way to turn the pens.

Next, I recommend a mandrel saver. They are not too expensive and can be found at the same places you find the mandrel at. It really helps make your mandrel lat far longer, and prevent you from replacing several cup centers or live centers due to wear. Which I go into better detail on in the video below.

Next you’ll need a pen kit. You can turn any pen kit you wish on the shopsmith using this same mandrel, just keep in mind that different styles of pens require different sized bushings and drill bits for drilling the center hole to place the tube into. In this instance I’m turning a slimline simply because the universal pen mandrel for the shopsmith happens to come with the 7mm bushings and drill bit that you will need for turning the slimline pen.

You simply take one of the tubes out, line it up on the pen blank, measure and mark as explained in the video. Then just cut the pen blank according to the marks you made. Then with a straight edge laid corner to corner, mark a line. Where the lines meet is the center of your pen blank. It doesn’t have to be perfect center, but as close as you can get. If you happen to have a round blank, a center finder is your best option for getting as close to the center of your pen blank as you can.

I have built a jig for the drill press to help me hold the pen blank in place once I get it centered under the drill bit. You can hold it using a clamp and your hands, just make sure you don’t move your blank while drilling, but a simple jig like I use in the video makes life so much easier and risks of damaging the pen blank lessens greatly. I also use an ice pick to poke a hole in the center of the blank so the brad tip of the drill bit will have a good place to start. It just seems to help the bit from wandering off the center mark.

When drilling the center hole into your pen blank, drill a little then bring your bit back out. This helps clear the waste from the drill bit and out of the hole. Also, if you try to hog out the all all at once, your bit will tend to try and follow the grain of the wood or the weakest part of an acrylic blank. This will cause your hole to not be straight and give you problems when you try to glue in the pen tubes. Also, in some extremely hardwoods and especially acrylic pen blanks, The bit might start getting overly hot. Just stop and give it a few minutes to cool. And overheated drill bit will weaken, become dull, and bend.

Next comes gluing in the tubes. There are many choices in glue. Some use CA glue, I find that it loses it’s hold too easy though. Polyurethane glue such as Gorilla glue works well, but it requires all night to get a strong bond. I started using 5 minute epoxy most of the time. It gives a strong bond between the tube and the pen blank in just a few minutes. I run a cotton swap that was soaked in denatured alcohol; not a lot but enough to clean out the dust. While that is drying I run some sand paper over the tubes to rough them up. This helps the epoxy grip the tube better. Then I mix up the epoxy. I put some on the pen tube and spread it on the outside of the tube with the stick I used to mix it with. Then slide the tube into the hole of the pen blank. It helps to slide it in and out a couple of times to spread the epoxy, then slide it on in all the way. Wipe the excess off the ends of the blank and let it set up. I tend to give it an hour just to be sure the epoxy is well set.

After the epoxy has had time to dry, I set up the shopsmith with the sanding disc, placing the table right in front of the disc. Holding the pen blank with a squeeze clamp, I sand the ends to the tube as I show in the second video below. Also in this video I show how I turn the slimline pen. I just turn a basic slimline pen shape in the video, but the style and design of the pen is only limited to your imagination. This second video also shows how I put the pen together.

Deer Hunting Basics - Scent Control Products

Sat, 26 Aug 2017 12:09:32 GMT

Click here to continue to Deer Hunting Basics Part 3

Deer can smell you and run if you don't take precautions to get rid of the human scent. These are some great scent control products that will help you keep your human scent down and your bag limit up! Scent control is very important when deer hunting. Unlike our grandfathers and those before them, we have better and more sanitary options than letting our hunting cloths hang outside to get filled with spiders and other bugs. No more is there a need to rub our hunting cloths in the dirt and bath in mud to hide our scent. Check out the products below and visit Field Supply for many more options.

Link to Related Products

Field Supply carries a huge selection of scent control products!

Click here to continue to Deer Hunting Basics Part 3

Basic Woodworking Terms - KERF {aka Saw Kerf}

Sun, 13 Aug 2017 20:41:06 GMT

Click Here for great woodworking tools at

Hardware World!

What exactly is kerf and saw kerf? How do you set the kerf of a handsaw anyway?

In this video I try to answer this question. I go over what saw kerf is and explain a little about how the teeth are set on a hand saw blade.

It came to me that many of us woodworkers throw certain terms; such as kerf or saw kerf; around and we all automatically know what they are and what they mean because we have been using them so long. We forget that people that are new to woodworking may not be familiar with our woodworking language and woodworking terms. Even though this is basic and simple stuff to us, it may not be to someone new to the craft. I hope to give new woodworkers and makers a little help by, as best I can, explaining some of the words and terms that we use so often.

How to Make Wooden Curtain Rod Holders

Sun, 13 Aug 2017 20:34:54 GMT

I moved into the new house and the need for curtains of became obvious real quick. I doubt the neighbors would appreciate seeing me in nothing but my drawers or even less. We looked around for some less expensive metal curtain rod holders, but even the less expensive ones were ugly (to me) and not what I’d consider inexpensive. After cleaning up my shop and getting thing where I could work a little. I ripped a 2x 4 in half and began working on some of my own.

My roommate had drawn up an idea. A rectangle split from top right corner to bottom left corner, creating two right triangles. Which was a great idea, however, I needed some more paint pyramids so turning them the way I did in the picture allowed me to get theses from the triangle of waste material. Also, for astatic purposes, I thought it would look better if the grain on the top of both holders come from the same side of the board.

I also felt the grain should run from front to back on the curtain rod holders. If the grain runs from top to bottom, the weight of the rod and curtain might split it easier if the grain is top to bottom. There are some thin spots under the hole that holds the rod and that can make for a weak spot, especially if the grain isn’t oriented correctly. So I had to sacrifice some material. But making the paint pyramids made it not so much of a sacrifice. It was a scrap piece of pine 2x4, so I wasn’t really stressing the waste so much. Had it been walnut, cherry, or something of the like I might have cried a bit more.

I marked it out on the wood being sure to allow for the kerf of the saw blade. (If you’re not sure exactly what “kerf” is, I explain it in this video... http://redneckknowhow.com/Blog/BlogMain/ArticleID/216/saw_kerf ) Now that I had them laid out, it was time to cut the rod holders out. Naturally, this can be done on the table saw, but I just needed 4 curtain rod holders at the moment so I used the handsaw. I used the end of the board for the back of the first curtain rod holder, so I started cutting down the center of the two. On this cut I went straight down the center of the line trying to keep the waste equal on both sides. Then onto the back of the other rod holder. Here is where allowing for the saw kerf is really important. Cut to the waste side of the line between sets of rod holders. If you are cutting multiple sets of rod holders side by side, be sure to leave a gap the width of your saw kerf to allow for that waste. If you don’t allow for the saw kerf your measurements may be slightly off on the final project. Likely not enough to be noticed after the curtain is hanged, but this can be a problem when making boxes or drawers so I like to stay in the habit of allowing for that kerf even when it really doesn’t matter that much. Then simply cut the corner of the board that is attached to the curtain rod holder.

So now comes cutting the round notch that will actually hold the curtain rod. I’d love to be able to say that I used some fancy algebra, ungodly math formula, or even some genius magic to get the size and placement for this notch. The simple fact of the matter is that I used a nickel and a ruler. I placed the nickel where I thought the notch should be, and traced the circumference. Then used the ruler to continue to the top from the widest part of the nickel mark. Then measured the depth of the notch; the length from the back of the rod holder to where the notch met the top; then used those measurements to mark the rest of the curtain rod holders.

I used the Dremel Moto-Saw to cut these notches. This was the first thing I’ve used it on and was very impressed at how easily it cut through that thickness of board. Granted it was softwood but I was still impressed at how good of a cut I got. There’s multiple ways to cut these notches, this just happened to be the easiest way I had available. The moto-saw is basically a scrollsaw so I’m sure if you have a regular scrollsaw it will work the same provided it will cut that thickness of wood. You could also use a forstner bit on a drillpress for the circle and remove the the remaining waste with a bandsaw or copping saw. However you can or so choose to get it done is fine.

If you’re rounding the edges of the curtain rod holders by sanding, it’s fine to go ahead and drill the holes first, before sanding. However if you shape the edges with the router I think it’s best to drill the holes after you shape the edges of your rod holders to prevent tear-out around the area where the screw-holes are.

I decided on the best places for the screws in order to hold the rod holders to the window frame, and placed one an inch from the bottom of the holder; another an inch up from that. I drilled twice. Once going all the way through using a smaller bit which the screw will actually go through to hold, and a larger hole over that to countersink. I drilled the smaller hole, then measured with the screw how far to go down with the counter sink. I want the screw to have enough coming through to grip and hold the window frame, and the head of the screw will tighten against the bottom of the larger hole. This will keep the head of the screw from being so easily visible on the curtain rod holder.

All that’s left is a final sanding to knock off any rough spots that may have accrued, then finish. On the first ones I stained with a red chestnut stain then finished it with a few coats of clear spray shellac. On the second I simply used boiled linseed oil. Let dry and hung the curtains. Thank you for visiting Redneck Know How and please take a look around. I have loads of other stuff and new articles on the way.

Building a Workbench With a Door

Fri, 28 Jul 2017 09:00:41 GMT

The first thing I did was remove the doorknob and hinges. The doorknob had hidden screws and I’d never removed one like that before. I had to go watch a youtube video to figure out how to get it off. But it was an easy job once I knew what to do. The hinges came off easy. That was a pretty straight forward job, just remove the screws and pull off the hinges. This prepared the door for being the workbench top as well as gave me a temporary surface to work on.

Next I pre-drilled some pilot holes in one end of the 2x4 legs and started the screws. Then I Putting the workbench leg components together.lined up the center two by four and screwed the two by four legs onto the center 2x4. I cut the legs to 38 inches which was the height of our kitchen counters which are a good height and I like. However, I didn’t take into account what I would be using on this bench. A router table and bench top drill press. The drill press is alright, but the router table is a bit high. Still usable but I will have to figure something else out eventually. I wish I had made the height of the bench about 6 inches shorter though.

I made three of these leg components for the workbench. And this leads to the next step which is adding the two by four brace across the top of the legs. First I drilled pilot holes in the top of the leg components and started the screws. Next I clamped the brace in place on the inside of the legs and began running in the screws. Constantly checking to make sure everything was flush until everything was tight and in place.

I added some braces about halfway down the legs on each end. I made these braces out ofAdding side braces to the workbench. some scrap 1x 6 that I had. Eventually, if needed I can add one to the center set of legs and lay a piece of plywood or boards across them to make a shelf. But for the time being, my shop vac and cyclone dust collection fits under there near perfectly and keeps them out from under foot and taking up valuable space on the shop floor.

All that’s left is to lay the door across the top and the biggest part of Placing the workbench top.building a workbench for my shop is done. I will have to come back and do some tweeking. The door slides a little, so I’m going to have to make some braces to hold it in place. I don’t want to damage the door too much so I’ll have to make these braces with that in mind. Another regret on this build is I didn’t build the workbench base so that the legs would be flush with the door top. If I had I could have just cut some 1x2 boards to length and screwed them into the 2x4 legs with the end extending to be flush with the top of the bench. As it turns out I’ll have to notch out some pieces of two by four.

However these braces will be a project and article for a little later on. If you decide to do this, I do suggest you run another two by four brace across the back. Also remember to measure for what you need and not use any of the measurements I mentioned as your needs are likely different than mine. If you haven’t already, please check out my YouTube channel. I usually release my project videos there before they ever make it to this website so please subscribe while you’re there. Have a lovely day; Get out there and do some woodworking; have a great night and a happy life because life is short and it’s meant to be enjoyed. Peace!!

Shop Update - Finding a New Wood Shop

Sat, 17 Jun 2017 09:25:12 GMT

Donald Vlogsifys Wood Shop
A New Beginning

It’s been a long 10 months as far as the wood shop goes. The place I was living at was going to be sold and I had to find a place to live. Those that know me also know I have liver issues and I’m on disability. Therefore money is always tight for me. Those that think a person receiving disability has it made are very wrong. It’s a very hard challenge living on the amount of money SSD provides. So finding a place to live on my own that wasn’t in a run down slum would be very difficult.

Luckily I have a very dear friend who was looking for a place too. She has been like a sister to me for many years. We talked about it and decided we could find a much better place together than we could on our own. At the time she had found a temporary place to stay. One room in a nice house, satellite tv, Internet, water and electric included in the rent. There was a room in the same house available so I took it.

That place was ok, clean and the landlord was cool. But the tv was the bare basics as was the Internet, which made for long uploads, and issues when more than one person was trying to use the computer to watch something besides what was on basic satellite tv. And the biggest problem for me, no place to use for a shop. Not even a place to store my tools. Therefore I had to put my tools in a storage unit and do my wood working out of the back of my truck. Running back and forth to the storage unit to swap out tools needed to work with.

As you can imagine, that was very frustrating at times. But I knew it was temporary and we were working to get things together so when the right place came along we could move. Nothing ever works out the way you want. But sometimes there is a reason. In May 2017, our landlord messaged us that he was going to have to sell the house we were staying in and we would need to find another place. That was a surprise.

We began the frantic search to find a place. We didn’t think the landlord would try to throw us out on the street, but we knew legally there was a limit on the time we had. We looked at a few places, and applied for some. But alas, they always chose to give them to someone else. We were getting very stressed as time was running out.

One day while coming home I noticed a “FOR RENT” sign on a house that was actually only 3 houses down from where we were. I stopped, looked at the outside, took pics. As I rounded the back yard, there it was. A beautiful 15 by 15 building with an air conditioner sticking out the window. I sent the pictures to my roommate and she called about it. I went to the realtors office the next day to ask about it and try to apply and at least set up a time to look inside. But they said they couldn’t until some things in the house were fixed.

Finally, after a week or so they called and said I could view it. We really liked it, it was perfect for what we could afford as far as rent. I filled out the application and the process began. They called me and told me it was ours. We weren’t quite ready to come up with deposits and stuff. But we managed to scrape it together. Money will be tight for a couple months. But we got our home and I have my wood shop.

Now we are moved in and my tools are in the shop. Still a lot of work ahead of us. The furniture is in but a lot is still in boxes needing to be unpacked. My tools and stuff from my old wood shop is in the building but I mostly just set things in there till I had more time to organize and get the shop set up. But soon I will finally have a place to do my woodworking.

Shotguns for Spring Turkey Hunting

Fri, 27 Jan 2017 13:09:49 GMT

Primos Hunting Turkey Hunter Starter Pack

The perfect starter pack for the beginning hunter for this spring turkey hunting season. A loud Sonic Dome slate call for long distance, a double-sided box call for mid-range, and a diaphram mouth call for hands-free, close-range calling.

Primos Hunting Turkey Hunter Starter Pack

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Today just deciding on the right turkey gun is a hunt in itself, let alone the varieties of turkey hunting shells to choose from. And more shotgun choices arrive every year, just a sure as a new updated and better version; than before, computer or car. The shotguns of today are specifically designed for turkey hunting or whatever your wild game of choice might be.

Don’t let the notion that turkeys are dumb fool you; they are one of the hardest targets for a hunter to choose. A clean kill on a spring gobbler hunt requires the placement of a dense pattern of shot into the bird’s head at ranges reaching upwards of 50 yards, sometimes a bit more. Sounds easy, right? Yeah… not so much. In the real world it’s a tough shot for anyone. That’s why there are so many long faces at the turkey shoot.

Back in the day, many hunters used the 10 gauge, thinking that the larger loads would give cleaner kills. But, that turned out to be a lot of gun to tote around after spring turkey. A 12 gauge with 3inch to 3 and a half inch shells do the same job and is a lot lighter. I’ve even known some turkey hunters that use the 12 gauge 21/2 inch baby mag shells. The choice between semi-automatic and pump shotguns really boils down to the turkey hunter’s preference. It’s quicker to squeeze off a second shot with the semi-automatic, if a second shot is necessary. But many gobbler hunters, myself included, still like to hunt with a 12 guage pump action. The ease of the second shot is really the only difference I’ve noticed. You won’t find many double barrel shotguns taken on a turkey hunt anymore.

This wild turkey is just waiting for you to get your turkey shotguns ready.[/caption]A shorter barrel is preferred, as most turkey shots are taken from a sitting position. The shorter barrels make it easier to swing around and shoot freely without hang-ups. This is handy when a spring turkey comes in close earlier than expected, and the turkey hunter has to shoot quickly. A short barrel is also easier to carry through the heavy brush that is sometimes encountered on a spring turkey hunt. Recoil is the downside; a 3-inch round in a 20-inch barrel and your shoulder will definitely feel it.

Whichever length barrel you choose, long or short, a shotgun is not designed for accuracy. But you’ll need to be somewhat accurate or come home with turkey burger, as you only want to hit the head and neck of the turkey you are hunting. Thus, a sight system added to your turkey gun would be a great asset. The simplest method is a series of beads on the barrel’s ribs. It’s not the best way to go, but at least it will give the hunter an aiming reference.

There are better ways to go though. Scopes, open rifle like sights, or even electro-optical systems. Turkey scopes usually run 1.5X to 4X in power. You won’t need a high powered scope, but you will want it to have good light gathering capabilities. Because a lot of times, the best turkey shots come early in the morning when the light is still relatively low. On the downside, there is often rain during a spring turkey hunt, and the gobblers keen eyesight will not forgive the movement of removing lens covers when a shot is at hand. The elecro-optical system places a laser aiming reference on a display. Though lightweight, low profile, parallax free, and highly accurate; it’s difficult to read in rain or mist. Open sights are efficient and simple. They use the same premise as on a riffle and allow you to accurately place the shotguns shot pattern to the head of the spring turkey. Open sights work in rain and don’t put a lot of added weight and bulk to your turkey gun.

The choke is the next consideration. Many of today’s shotguns have screw-in chokes. So if the shotgun you choose comes with a standard full choke, you can swap the choke out with an extra-full choke tube, also known as a turkey choke. But even if the turkey gun you choose has a fixed full choke tube, they are usually fine for most shots on a spring turkey hunt.

Perhaps the most trying part of buying a shotgun for turkey hunting is finding the shotgun shell. The thing to remember is that a turkey gun is only as good as its pattern. The relationship between a shotgun and the shotgun shell you use is no easy thing to discover. There is a lot of ammunition out there designed to kill turkeys, but there’s no guaranty that all loads will pattern well with your shotgun.

Most turkey loads are copper-plated; some are buffered and most have relatively high charges. The buffering and copper plating detour the pellets from deforming in the barrel, creating a tighter pattern. Shot sizes range from 4 to 6, five being a good middle ground. A shot size of 4 provides a penetration that allows for longer range shooting. You will have to practice and test different turkey hunting ammo to find the load that works best for you.

Finally, I recommend you buy a camouflaged gun. You spend a lot of time making sure that tom turkey does not detect you. And you spend a lot of money as well on camo clothing, gloves head nets and hats. It makes sense not to give yourself away with a non-camo shotgun.

If you’re in the market for new turkey shotguns, use these considerations when choosing it. Take the time to practice, and find the right ammo, and you’ll find your next spring hunting trip to be more successful.

How to Modify A Woodworking Chisel

Sun, 24 Jul 2016 09:32:21 GMT

If you do woodworking long enough you’re going to find a need to modify your tools to a specific need for a specific project. How do you think so many style of hand planes and chisels were developed over so many centuries? No big tool companies weren’t spending millions to develop tools and come up with odd ball designs. It was a carpenter who decided to make his life easier by making a tool to fit his need.

You can go online and spend hours browsing woodworking websites. There’s hundreds of different chisels for woodworking. Skewed, fishtail, and low profile for dovetailing… the choices are endless. If you have and are willing to spend the money you can find a chisel to suit you in every woodworking need. However you can spend a small fortune getting every tool you need.

Then there is the wait for it to get shipped to you and in your hands so you can complete your work. As well as the added cost of shipping. The big box stores just don’t carry a large selection of sizes and specialty chisels. And the specialty woodworking stores are often not located close enough for us to justify a trip for one or two tools.

So here I’m going to show you how I take some of the cheap box store chisels and modify them to fit the size and style of work I need it for. I take this chisel and grind it down to the size I need and then reduce it’s profile so the chisel doesn’t damage the piece I’m working on.

Everything I do is in the video below. So if you ever want a chisel for woodworking but don’t want to spend to money or wait for it to get here, everything you need to know is in the video below. And check out my Youtube channel and subscribe for more woodworking videos. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBIEZrZSZT8Ajw0COy0NwJA

Shellcracker and Jalapeno Appetizers Recipe

Sun, 01 May 2016 18:46:25 GMT

This species of bream are easy to catch and very plentiful. This makes them perfect for this recipe. This is also a versitale bream recipe as you can also use bluegill bream. If you’ve been looking for different bream recipes, this is one you’ll love. Shellcracker and jalapeno appetizers will delight everyone.

Shellcracker and jalapeno appetizers ingredients:

18 fresh jalapeno or small sweet peppers
1 cup cooked shellcracker, broken into pieces (bluegill bream can be used as well)
2 green onions, minced
2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon lime zest, minced
1 cup shredded jack cheese
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup seasoned breadcrumbs

Shellcracker and jalapeno appetizers instructions:

Preheat oven to 400°.
Spilt jalapeno peppers lengthwise and place on a baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven for 8 to 10 minutes until peppers are softened.
Remove from the oven and allow jalapeno pepers to cool.
While peppers are cooling, mix the shellcracker meat, green onions, basial, garlic, lime zest, shredded jack cheese, cream cheese, and bread crumbs in a bowl.
When jalapeno peppers have cooled, carefully scrape out the seeds and discard.
Stuff the peppers with the shellcracker mixture.
Broil or grill the shellcracker and jalapeno appetizers until warm and cheese is melted. And enjoy this twist on the classic recipe for jalapeno poppers.

Turning a Dovetail Pen

Sat, 30 Apr 2016 10:30:02 GMT

Now I’m not the first to dovetail a slimline pen, or dovetail a pen blank. But most I’ve seen were done from side to side on the pen blank and when the pen was turned, it came out with a beautiful pattern. But as far as I’ve looked, I haven’t found one done in the manner I did so it looks like there really is a dovetail down the center of the pen. In fact in mine, there really is a dovetail in the center of the pen. It is a dovetailed pen and looks the part. The videos below show how I did it.

Bandsaw Speeds for the Shopsmith

Mon, 29 Feb 2016 11:09:29 GMT

A little while back I was trying to figure out how to get the shopsmith bandsaw to function properly. I was having issues because the bandsaw for the shopsmith is set up differently than most bandsaw models. The blade tracks differentlyand the set is just a bit off from most bandsaws made today. And shopsmith instructions are not very clear for the everyday user. Also, help to understand it is sparse and a little more technical than what is needed or can be understood for the average person that may be using the bandsaw.

I as well as many other have gotten frustrated trying to decipher the technical degrees and mathematics that so many people what to try and answer questions with. A lot of question that require a simple answer get more confusing because of a lot of people trying to speak engineering to people such as me who are doing good to be able to divide the fractions we need to cut. And in the end a lot of us who have a used shopsmith tool have cast the bandsaw attachment to the side simply because a lot of wanna be engineers seem to refuse are incapable of answering simple questions in simple everyday language.

I’m a stubborn man. I’ve been called bullheaded more times than I care to even try to add even if I did have a love for math along with engineering and physics degrees. Which I don’t. I’m just a redneck with a tool that I need to use and don’t feel the need to learn rocket science to use that tool which was supposed to have been designed for the weekend woodworker. I finally got the shopsmith bandsaw about figured out and working. I go into more detail about it in the video series. I’ll place the playlist down at the bottom.

One of the questions I have gotten asked most about the shopsmith bandsaw is what speed to run the bandsaw at. Which is actually a little more complicated than one would think. Even for those of us that choose not to over think and come up with complicated algebra formulas to cut a board. If the bandsaw blade is moving a little too fast for the size blade you are using in hardwood, you risk burning the wood. Too slow in softwood and you may get wobble in your cut, and other various results that are less than desirable.

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So, with this in mind, I have compiled a basic speed chart and put it below. This is just an average idea of what speed to use on your shopsmith bandsaw for cutting. A starting point, so to speak to get you in the ballpark. It is always best to cut a test piece of wood and dial in and fine tune your speed to get the desired cut you want.

This chart does not go into the speeds for cutting metal and plastics because I don’t work with a lot of metal and when I do, I don’t use the shopsmith to cut it. From what little I’ve investigated, the lower speeds required for cutting metal can only be achieved on the shopsmith with a speed reducing attachment. I just don’t do enough metal work or work with plastic to justify purchasing one. I hope this information is helpful.

How the Shopsmith Bandsaw Works

Deciding on a Fixed Blade Broadhead

Sun, 24 Jan 2016 13:34:20 GMT

Fixed Blade Broadheads for bow hunting!

Grim Reaper Hades Broadhead 1 3/16-Inch Cut Fixed Blade, 100 Grain

When searching for the best fixed blade broadheads I found the Grim Reaper Hades was the most accurate, quietest flying and deepest penetrating. It’s not your ordinary fixed blade broadhead. This broadheads blades are sharpened to cut whether going in or out, with a bone crushing solid stainless steel v-notch tip and 4 point blade locking system making the Hades the best flying, best penetrating fixed blade in my experiance!

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A bad choice in a broadhead can mean you being depressed about that prize deer that got away and was never found after being hit with a good shot from a poor choice broadhead. Here are a few tips I’ve learned along the way that helps me make the right choice in fixed blade broadheads.

Bowhunters have some very powerful bows available to them nowadays. But even with those powerful bows used with a mid-weight arrow and speeds beyond 265 fps, some fixed blade broadheads won’t do well in flight without fine tuning it. Not very often does a bow hunter take the time to tune their broadhead. But they should take the time to sit and play with testing and tuning the broadheads and arrows to get the perfect aerodynamics.

Accuracy: Use three fixed blade broadheads on three arrows making sure they are seated and aligned to the arrow shaft perfectly, and three arrows with field points. Then start group shooting at a distance of 40 to 50 yards with three field points, then with the three fixed blade broadheads. If the broadheads are off more than 5 or 6 inches from the field point groups, you probably don’t want to use those broadheads for hunting. With a well-tuned bow and perfectly matched fixed blade broadheads, you should easily group within 5 or 6 inches and be very close to the impact points of the field points. A general rule of thumb is that shorter fixed blade broadheads can be pushed faster with less planning problems.

Durability and Strength: Durability is very important in fixed blade broadheads. You’ll already be putting some wear on the broadhead by checking for accuracy during practice and other such hunting preparation. It is wise to change the blades of your broadhead after accuracy tests. Fixed blade broadheads made of poor quality aluminum won’t last thorough pre-hunt practice. Broadheads with all-steel or titanium ferrules are far better and will last much longer. A good test for the durability and strength of fixed blade broadheads is to shoot them through a piece of sheet metal that is about an eighth of an inch thick. Any signs of damage here such as blades dislodging or coming off will tell you if the broadhead can be depended on during a hard hit against a bone.

Penetration: A fixed blade broadhead should go in deep and stay in line with the point of entry no matter what angle. Wild game have a tendency to twist or jump right after the arrow is released even when the best shot is chosen, so the bowhunter should plan for the worst. You can test the design of the fixed blade broadhead by shooting it into plywood at different angles. Broadheads with slim noses and less angle to the blade seem to work better, however this may need to be adjusted depending on the arrow speed. Broadheads that have more of an angle to the blade tend to cause problems because the blade closest to the target hits before the point and the whole broadhead and arrow is deflected.

Sharpness: Rub a piece of cowhide against the blade of your fixed blade broadhead. If it doesn’t cut with just a light touch, it’s too dull. A sharp broadhead blade will cause the deer to bleed excessively and that loss of blood means a quicker kill. Fixed blade broadheads with replaceable blades are preferred however there are some broadheads with non-replaceable blades that work well, and can be re-sharpened successfully.

Cutting Surface: For better and more effective wound channels, a broadhead with 3 inches of sharp cutting surface is best. Such fixed blade broadheads generally come with fairly wide cutting widths. A broadhead has to travel through several layers of tough tissue that will dull the blades before getting to the vital areas which is slick and rubbery, but contain many blood vessels. It takes a fixed blade broadhead that will stand up to those first layers, which likely will include passing through the ribs, and remain sharp in order to cut those vital areas and open up those blood vessels. And a dull broadhead blade can cause tissue to swell and seal up which will hinder bleeding.

Concentricity: Take your fixed blade broadhead and screw it on an arrow, if everything is correct, you should be able to spin it on the broadheads tip like a top with very little wobble. If too much wobble is present, try the broadhead on a different arrow. All-steel and titanium fixed blade broadheads tend to be easier to match with and arrow shaft because of their solid one piece tip and ferrule design. Aluminum ferrule Broadheads that use a screw-on or press fit tip tend to need more mixing and matching.

I hope this article about fixed blade broadheads has been helpful in helping you find the right broadheads for your bowhunting needs. It can be a very rewarding and satisfying to bowhunt with the right fixed blade broadhead. Thank you for reading. And please take time to visit my sponsors by clicking on their banners. Each carries some great fixed blade broadheads or other bowhunting gear that will help make your bowhunting experience more successful.

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Pneumatic Wood Carving

Thu, 14 Jan 2016 11:14:08 GMT

First and foremost, you will defiantly need to wear eye protection when doing pneumatic wood carving. The bits for the pneumatic engraver are small and can break, and the speed at which the tool is spinning can throw the piece of the bit that breaks at a very high velocity. And that can cause some serious eye injuries. I also recommend a respirator or dust mask as a lot of dust is created by the wood carving process. Though I don’t use a dust mask in this video because it fogs up my eye protection and I made the personal choice not to wear dust protection.

The first step is to get your basic design onto the wood. I used a design I drew onto some notebook paper, then used carbon paper under that design and traced out the design onto the pieces I would be doing the pneumatic wood carving on. I then used one of the smaller straight carbide bits to trace around the basic pattern, cutting into the wood to get my design started.

After I got the tracing of the design done I switched to a smaller sized round end carbide bit to pull some of the wood away from where I traced. The videos tell what I do much better than I could ever explain. As I walk through everything I do step by step. So I invite you to watch my pneumatic wood carving in the Dovetail Box from Pallet Wood and Scraps series, starting here with part 3 which is posted below.

Pneumatic wood carving can be a very enjoyable and calming way to express yourself. I often lose track of time when I pick up the pneumatic engraver and begin wood carving, forgetting the world outside and enjoying what I’m doing.

Winter Bass Fishing Tips

Fri, 08 Jan 2016 17:21:15 GMT

That nip in the air doesn’t mean you have to put up all your fishing gear and give up on catching a winter bass. All cold water means is you have to change your fishing tactics to adjust to the changed habits of the largemouth bass. Here are a few tips for catching those winter fish.

Bass are more lethargic during winter months, but they are far from being a creature that hibernates, so they must feed to live. And any fish that feeds can be caught with the right bait and the right combination of tactics for the lure. Lures with thin metal blades can work wonders on a trophy winter bass. Use them for ledge hopping, walking down points, and along channel edges. Try jiggling slab spoons right in the face of slow to strike fish.

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I often like to work a jig and grub in cold weather to lure largemouth bass into strike mode. Working them slow right off the bottom, and along the edge of lilypads, brush, docks, and heavy grass. A lot of times, depending on the water depth, a 3/8 or 1/2 ounce jig will provoke a lunker bass to strike in these conditions. Spinner baits can work a miracle on bass as well. Cast it and let it flutter as it sinks, then roll it back.

The bigger lipped crank baits can work well if the fish are in a moterately aggressive feeding mood. Keep the retrieve smooth and steady, but try pausing and twitching from time to time, especially near cover. Remember that you may have to make a few trips to the same pond or lake to figure out the feeding habits of the winter bass, what they want, and how the largemouth bass want it.

Presentation is essential for cold water bass fishing, especially when a cold front is upon you. Largemouth bass react to the changing weather and so you must react to their changing patterns. Fish tend to move close to cover and hang in cold weather. Thus their strike distance is a lot shorter than warm weather bass. Also, pay attention to where the fish are hitting your bait during cold fronts, and concentrate on casting to those types of areas. You’ll spend more time catching those lunker winter bass, and less wasting time casting to non-productive spots.

And last, the most important winter bass fishing tip! Don’t give up! Throw on an extra pair of long-johns and get out after those winter largemouth bass! If these tips don’t work, think outside of the box and keep fishing!

Venison Parmesan Recipe

Sun, 03 Jan 2016 18:54:04 GMT

The wonderful taste of the venison round steak can be enhanced by tenderizing it the night before you cook it and marinating (soaking) it in buttermilk. Just crush 2 to 3 cloves, add that to the buttermilk a long with ½ tablespoon of Cavender All Purpose Greek Seasoning

Stir to mix. Then add the venison round steak making sure all the meat is submerged in the buttermilk mixture. Cover and place in the fridge overnight. Then prepare as the recipe that follows. For more information about soaking wild game, please read my article, Wild Game Meat Soaking.

Venison Parmesan Recipe Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds of venison round steak
1 egg beaten
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup fine bread crumbs
1/3 cup olive oil
1 medium onion, minced
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. marjoram or oregano
1(6 oz.) can tomato paste
2 cups hot water
8 oz. mozzarella cheese, sliced
1 to 1 1/2 pounds cooked spaghetti
Grated Parmesan, Romano and Mozzarella cheeses

Venison Parmesan Recipe Instructions:

Pound the venison round steak to tenderize, and cut in serving pieces.
Dip venison meat in egg and roll in mixture of Parmesan and bread crumbs.
Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a heavy skillet and brown the venison round steak on both sides until golden brown. Set aside.
In the same skillet, cook the onion over low heat until soft and stir in spices. Add tomato paste and gradually add hot water, stirring constantly. Boil gently 5 mins.
Place the venison meat in a deep casserole and top with the mozzarella.
Pour half the sauce over the meat and cheese and top with spaghetti.
Add remaining sauce and an additional sprinkling of cheeses.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Let sit for 10 minutes then serve and enjoy this wonderful venison parmesan recipe!

Dovetail Box from Pallet Wood part 2

Wed, 30 Dec 2015 11:28:10 GMT

So I've done the hand cut dovetail joints and I'm onto working on adding a bottom to the oak pallet wood sides.

Well now I have done the dovetails by hand. I don’t show much in regards to that in the video because I’ve done them before and there is a slew of how to woodworking videos on that subject. All you have to do is type “How to do hand cut dovetail joints” and you will find more dovetail videos than you could imagine. I do recommend the video by Paul Sellers video as he goes into cutting them in great detail and at a speed that’s easy to follow. He also has several other videos on his channel that offer great information about woodworking using hand tools. You can find his dovetail video by following this link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCYjoj6cfno

Removing waste from hand cut dovetail joint. Also, if you’re interested in making blind dovetails, Mitch Peacock at WOmadeOD, (made in wood) has a very detailed video on that. He also has many great videos with information on woodworking with hand tools as well as power tools. You can find the blind dovetail video here… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzNhv1kID6E

I’ll be doing a post or two on my website here on how I do dovetail joints here on my website just so I’ll have it available. Though I have not the talent for doing them that Paul and Mitch have, or any other form of woodworking for that matter. I’m still learning and still find myself with gaps. That is something that comes with practice though, doing dovetail joint after dovetail joint.

And now onto the dovetail box build. I cut a groove along the bottom of the sides with my Dremel tool and router attachment. This is to accept the 1/4” plywood bottom. Then I cut out the bottom, matching it with the dimensions of the box. I was trying to mark with a knife so I could sever the wood fibers and prevent blowout. I managed to cut my finger because I wanted to get that last little ½” before moving my hand and of course the knife slipped. Be careful when using your tools. Then I took it to the table saw and cut it down to the size I would use. Using the Dremel router attachment to make a groove for the bottom.

While I was at the table saw, I cut the pieces I’d be using for the top and squared them up. I only had enough of the oak pallet wood for the sides. Sometimes in woodworking, especially when dealing with reclaimed wood, you have to mix and match. I had some scraps of treated pine decking board so I used that. It worked fine for this project. I never use treated wood or pallet wood for something to store food in and certainly not for anything that will actually contact food. The chemicals the wood is treated with can be harmful if ingested. This box isn’t intended for food so we’re good.

A few runs through the jointer and the wood cut for the lid was ready to be glued together. I only have a 4” jointer, so I had to break the boards for the lid into 3 pieces so that my jointer would accommodate them. Then I glued them up, clamped them and set them aside to let the glue dry. After I took the clamps off, I realized I didn’t take into account how much material the saw would take away. I took some of the board sides I had trimmed off the decking boards and glued them to the sides and front of the lid to make up for the wood I’d removed. I cover that in more detail in the video. Again, such things happen in woodworking. Part of the craft is learning how to fix your mistakes.

Then I used the hand plane to shave down the excess on the glue up and began to prepare to do some pneumatic wood carving. I had come up with a design and sketched it out on paper. Then I transferred that onto the wood using carbon paper. My next post will cover what I did as far as the pneumatic wood carving. Please take time to watch the video below that shows me doing what I have written about. Take time to subscribe as well because I have a lot of my woodworking on videos that I haven’t covered on this website. It’s just easier to record what I do than to write about it. Thank you for reading and please come back for part 3 of the dovetail box from pallet wood and scraps!

Please consider subscribing to my Youtube Channel by clicking here to go to Donald Vlogsifys Wood Shop.

Eagle America Dovetail Marker

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One secret to making good hand cut dovetail joints is matking them correctly. The Eagle America Dovetail Marker is a very handy tool whether you are putting a dovetail joint in oak pallet wood, pine, or harder woods such as walnut. The can mark dovetails up to 1" long and has two ratios: 1:5 for softwood and 1:8 for hardwood. Hand cut dovetails can be a daunting task. The Eagle America Dovetail Marking gauge makes laying out the angles simple and precise.

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/dovetail-box-from-pallet-wood-part-2/

Haunted Graveyard Project

Mon, 26 Oct 2015 11:50:11 GMT

A scroll saw project for a Halloween themed youtube contest.

Actually the haunted house beside the haunted graveyard could be the title. But that’s too long, so haunted graveyard will do. Simply Wooden Creations on Youtube had a Halloween themed scroll saw contest running through October. I haven’t ever done much scroll saw work, but I decided to do something and enter it into the contest.

I had a couple other competitions going on this month as well. The Summers Woodworkings birdhouse contest in which I entered 2 birdhouses, the first was loosely based on the house depicted in Little House on the Prairie. And the second was a Jack-o Lantern birdhouse. I actually won a can of General Finishs top coat for that one. Then there was the Casket themed chisel cabinet For the Hallowood15 contest hosted by WOmadeOD . I’m still waiting on the results of that one. There are a lot of craftsmen in these contests that are far more skilled than I so I really don’t expect to win prizes. But with each contest project I learn new skills and get practice in on old skills. So prize or no prize, I win either way.

Well in this scroll saw competition, I decided to do a little Halloween scene of a black haunted house that resides next to a haunted grave yard. I purchased to poplar boards that were ¼” thick and used double sided tape to stick them together.

Note: I didn’t know any better at the time and used carpet tape which was a mistake. It worked ok if you go ahead and make your cut and separate the boards and remove the tape. However I left it on overnight and returned the next day, cut my window holes out, then proceeded to pull those to pieces of the haunted house apart. The double-sided tape, which was really carpet tape, had set to a more permanent bond with the wood. And the piece broke. It was a clean break, so I was able to glue it back together but I recommend you make sure when using double-sided tape for this purpose, you get the double-sided masking tape variety which will not adhere to the wood quite so well.

I decided on my measurements for the size of the haunted house, marked and cut the front, back and sides out on the scroll saw. Trust me, straight lines on a scroll saw are not easy cuts to make. Then marked where I wanted the windows to be as well at the door. The door was not to be cut out but was marked there as a guide for when I glued some stripes of wood as a door frame which gave the appearance of a door; which I later added a door knob and knocker to for a little more detail. Then cut out the squares that would represent the windows. Then I separated the pieces that were taped together.

Using the scroll saw to cut the angle on the top of the haunted house.

I cut my roof top, adding the thickness of the board (1/4") to the width of the other side so that it can lay over the other side at the top of the roof and still be an even overhang on the front and back of the haunted house. Then I attached a straight edged board to the scroll saw table to act as a fence and cut the tops of the front and back panels of the house to match the angle of the sides so that the roof would lay properly Then I glued the house together, added the fake doorframe and window frames. After the roof dried I went ahead and put masking tape inside the house, over the window holes and across the opening on the bottom of the house to keep paint from getting on the inside of the haunted house. I just felt the natural wood would reflect the lights better than if I’d have let black paint get inside. Then I spray painted the house black.

Next I moved to the haunted graveyard and began cutting out the grave markers and ghosts. I used the remaining pieces that I didn’t use on the haunted house and just freehanded the shapes of the grave markers and ghosts. Then I cut them out on the scroll saw. Sanded them a bit and set them to the side while I made the base to glue everything to. I cut the remaining pieces of the ¼” polar to length on the scroll saw. Marked where the house would sit; then marked a circle and cut a hole with the scroll saw that I could later feed a string of lights through.

I cut three strips of scrap wood to go under the base. Approximately one inch by whatever length you need. I also cut a strip of one by two poplar stock to the length of the front to hide the wires from the lights that would be underneath. I glued the two boards of the base to the strips making sure to leave a gap between the center strip of the 3 strips and the strip of 1x2 that would go across the front. This would give me enough room to feed the string of lights across the front of the base and onto the side with the graveyard on top of it. I clamped that together and let it dry. I didn’t glue on the front strip yet. I waited until I had decided where I wanted to drill the holes to fit the light through, though I doubt it matters if you go ahead and glue it on while gluing the 3 strips under the base. After that dried, I painted the base black. I then drilled the holes for the lights, then glued the 1x2 to the front and then painted it black.

While that paint dried, I glued some orange plastic over the windows on the inside of the house. Then I painted the grave markers and ghosts. While those dried I added the lights to the bottom of the base. Starting on the haunted grave yard side, sticking a light in each hole so that the light stuck up from the hole on the other side of the base, using tape to hold the wires in place where needed. I worked my way to the hole I had cut which would be beneath the house. After each hole had a light I folded the remainder of the string in half and fed that through the hole leaving enough of the string that had the female plug on it hanging out so if I wanted to plug a string of lights from another decoration into it, I could.

The pencil shaving and stained sawdust make pretty good dirt and dead grass.

I then stuffed the lights into the house, arranging them as I thought they’d look best, then glued the house in place and clamped it. After I was able to remove the clamps I glued the grave markers and ghosts in place. As it dried, I was reminded of the one quality of gorilla glue that I could usually live without. It expands as it dries and created some unsightly clumps of hard bubbly foam along some of the places I had glued. To cover this, I added more glue. Yup, in this case more was better, because I had saved some saw dust that had been stained to fill some gaps in dovetails. I mixed that with some trimmings from the pencil sharpener and glued sprinkled it over the glue. I was trying to simulate dead grass and dirt. It worked pretty good and covered the glue.

Just after I had applied the gorilla glue and paint.

Of course the same thing had happened on the ghost I had coming out of the chimney of the haunted house. But I had an idea; gorilla glue expands and gets all bubbly and ghost leave ectoplasm. So I dumped a bunch of glue on top of the chimney and added paint, kind of swirling in the different colors I had used on the ghost and kind of letting it run down the side of the chimney a little. The glue expanded as it hardened and made what, in my mind, resembles ectoplasm. After the gorilla glue and paint had dried. And that’s about it. I edited the video of the haunted house beside the haunted graveyard build and uploaded it to Youtube. Then I submitted it to Simply Wooden Creations Scroll Saw Contest 2015. The video of the build is below.

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Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/haunted-graveyard-project/

Jack-O-Lantern Birdhouse Project

Tue, 20 Oct 2015 12:12:05 GMT

The Jack-O-Lantern birdhouse was my second entry for the

Summers Woodworking's Birdhouse Challenge 2015.

The final product of the Jack-O-Lantern Birdhouse Project build. It being October, I decided to do something for Halloween. So I came up with a Jack-O-Lantern birdhouse. I hope you like it. Thank you Brian for hosting the challenge, and thank you to the sponsors for putting up all the prizes. Good luck to all who enter the challenge.

This was a very enjoyable build. Everything came together right and there were very few problems while building it. A lot of times when you're doing woodworking things just don't go as planned. Either the tools don't do what you hoped they would. Or like happened in my Chisel Casket build, the wood just doesn't want to cooperate with what you're trying to do.

But that's all part of the joy of woodworking isn't it? Gaining the skill to work around problems that are bound to come up. But the Jack-O-Lantern birdhouse came together great. It was built out of some pallet wood I had laying around. A couple of wide pine pallet wood boards I managed to salvage without damage while tearing apart the pallet.

The video of the Jack-O-Lantern birdhouse project build is below. I hope you watch and enjoy it as much as I enjoyed building this birdhouse.

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/jack-o-lantern-birdhouse-project/

Casket Chisel Cabinet Build

Tue, 20 Oct 2015 11:51:24 GMT

It's Halloween and I need a chisel cabinet. So why not build a chisel casket?

It was time for WOmadeOD (Made in wood) to have it's Hallowood15 woodworking challenge. It's hosted by Mitch Peacock over at WOmadeOD. Please check his youtube channel out at https://www.youtube.com/user/WOmadeOD So I built a chisel caninet.. or should we say chisel coffin... to enter into the contest. I want to thank Mitch for hosting the challenge and to all the sponsors for the prizes they put up for it.

Chisel Casket Cabinet

This build was fun, but not quite as trouble free as the Jack-O-Lantern Birdhouse project . I ran into some trouble putting the angled dovetails into the pallet wood I was using to build the chisel cabinet with. Pallet wood is dry and splits very easily do to the heat treatment used to preserve it. Therefore I making dovetails was difficult. Every time I took the mallet and chisel to it, it would split and cut deeper than I wanted. Oh the woes of woodworking.

Because of this splitting, I ended up having some gaps in the dovetails. Now granted, I'm not very experienced at doing dovetails and that didn't help either. This being a shop project, I decided to experiment and practice on the corners with angled dovetails. Angled dovetails being a woodworking challenge to begin with, the dryness of the pallet wood made it a little more difficult.

But I learned and gained experience and skill. That's what's great about shop projects. Though you do want to do you're best, there's room for error because it is to be used in the shop and not necessarily meant to be pretty. And this is a Halloween project, meant to look like a wicked casket. In this case the gaps and imperfections added to the effect I was going for. I wanted it to look like something you would expect something evil to come out of.

The video of the build is below, I do hope you enjoy. And a word of caution. This is a Halloween video, it is meant to scare you silly.Take head that there are a few startling moments. Those with weak hearts may not wish to view it. HAPPY HALLOWEEN! keep the kids and yourselves safe!

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/casket-chisel-cabinet-build/

Shopsmith Bandsaw Blade Tracking

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 12:46:12 GMT

How to get the blade to track properly on the Shopsmith bandsaw

Are you having problems with the tires, blade, or both coming off your Shopsmith bandsaw? I’m going to try and help you by explaining how the bandsaw blade should track in your Shopsmith Bandsaw.

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If you’ve had problems with the tire coming off your Shopsmith bandsaw or the blade coming off, sometimes even both; you may have gone down the same route as I did. Replaced the tires and still the same thing happens. Maybe you’ve gotten the Shopsmith used and it came to you with the wrong size blades, or no blades at all. Maybe no instructions either. So you search to find what size bandsaw blade to use.

You go to the forums to seek advice and you find where they say you should use a 72 inch blade Shopsmith bandsaw blades. You can use other blade brands but the must be within a half inch of that 72 inches. But leave out the key information that you will have to adjust the tension differently than what the tension scale on the machine says to adjust for that difference in length. They just assume everyone would know or think to do adjust the tension.

You may be like I am and simply like to build things out of wood. You simply like woodworking and just want the bandsaw to work without having to go back to school to get a mechanical engineering degree to understand how to keep the blade on your bandsaw. I mean come on, there’s a reason I build things out of wood and not metal. Yet there seems to be a need for that engineering degree where you go to get help.

Please understand, those people are good folks that really are trying to help you. But they seem to get caught up the technical and mathematical bits when they are trying to help you and end up going all around, past, and beyond what you really need to know in simple and basic terms. Friends that had bandsaws were offering me advice and, unfortunately, the advice they had which was good advice for other brands of bandsaws, was wrong advice for the Shopsmith. It simply throws people who have never used the Shopsmith bandsaw to see the blade ride the back of the wheel. But that indeed is where it’s supposed to be.

That is why I made the videos below. I could find plenty of videos showing how to cut, how to adjust the fence, and lord knows, plenty of videos of people pushing wood through it. But none that really walked me through the alignment of the blade. So I did my best to explain what I have learned about alignment of the roller bearings, blade guides, and placement of the blades. I hope these help you get your Shopsmith bandsaw in condition to make some sawdust and build some beautiful woodworking projects. And below the videos are some links to bandsaw blades that will work on your Shopsmith bandsaw. Any purchase you make through those links help support this website and my youtube channel, helping me bring content to you.

Video #1 - Shopsmith Bandsaw How the Blade Should Track

Video #2 - Shopsmith Bandsaw How the Blade Should Track Part 2

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/shopsmith-bandsaw-blade-tracking/

Basic Sheepshead Fishing

Thu, 24 Sep 2015 17:19:39 GMT

RAPALA.com

A wonderful fish for dinner, sheepshead, (Archosargus probatocephalus) also known as PORGIES, often require the fisherman to use different fishing tactics.

Often as those fisherman that are heading out to do battle with flounder, king mackerel, and other popular saltwater species, they see those that are sheepshead fishing along the bridge supports and other such structure. Some know why they are so close to the supports and others head on past and wonder why fishermen would risk damaging their boats in search of sheepshead.

Sheepshead fishing requires only the minimum amount of gear. No large boat is required as with other saltwater fish. The sheepshead (Archosargus probatocephalus) angler often prefers a small Jon-boat in fact. In some cases no boat is required to catch these low-key fish.

Though the equipment used for catching sheepshead is relatively simple, the challenge faced when sheepshead fishing is as great as with any other game fish. Many a fisherman have all but forgotten all other saltwater fish species in favor of sheepshead fishing.

Patience is an important tool a fisherman needs when fishing for sheepshead. There's an art to pulling this fish from pilings, and the boat wakes from boaters that are unaware of what you are doing tend to wash and slam your boat into these pilings.

The first task a sheepshead fisherman confronts is the gathering of bait. Mollusks and crustaceans are the dinner fare for sheepshead (Archosargus probatocephalus), and the reason other inshore anglers using different bait in search of other species rarely catch them. Though, some fishing with shrimp or squid just might hook one from time to time. Fiddler crabs; found burrowing in the marshes; are the most used bait when sheepshead fishing. Fiddler crabs are about an inch long and the males have an over-sized claw it uses to attract the ladies with.

It's easier to catch these little buggers during low tide, as they will gather at the water's edge where a casting net can easily be tossed over them, or if you want to have some fun, try chasing and catching them by hand. Fiddler crabs do pinch though, but rarely enough to harm you. It takes quite a few to last through a day of sheepshead fishing; so many anglers catch them ahead of time and freeze them.

Aside from Fiddlers, all other crab species make fine sheepshead bait. But check the crabbing regulations, some species of crab are protected and cannot be gathered and used for sheepshead bait. Clams are good bait, but there are harvest restrictions, though if you can find a seafood market that sells the big chowder clams, then you can buy all you want to use while sheepshead fishing. Bang two clams together to open the shell then cut the foot into two pieces. Then the rest of the clam is separated. This will give you three baits. However, other fish are attracted to clams besides sheepshead. Many sheepshead anglers avoid these bait stealing fish by fishing them during fast moving tidal changes.

You can also scrape barnacles off of pilings and other structures and use the soft innards for bait when sheepshead fishing. However, the fiddler crab is the favorite of most who endeavor to fish for sheepshead.

As mentioned earlier, a fisherman does not really need a boat for sheepshead fishing. Often a sheepshead fisherman can have fine success from a pier. And some lucky enough to have access to a private docks and marinas enjoy a bit of luck as well. Any series of pilings hold potential for sheepshead fishing. Though it is best for the sheepshead angler to fish many docks and pilings as each are different in the amount of sheepshead they attract. And I recommend getting to the pay piers early to claim your spot.

From boats; sheepshead fishing can be done by finding pilings, bridge supports, and other such structures that are covered with shells or have shell-covered bottoms. These structures that are along the edges of navigation channels are great spots for sheepshead fishing. You can't see the sheepshead from the surface, but when you find them, you'll likely be fishing where there is less fishing pressure from others that might be sheepshead fishing.

During low tide, many anglers scrape the barnacles off the pilings, and then fish these spots when the tide returns. This creates a chum by dislodging crabs and exposing the soft innards of the barnacles. You can also chum for sheepshead with the fiddler crabs that will inevitably die after being caught. Even the ones that have deteriorated can be tossed under docks and around the piling when sheepshead fishing to attract the fish.

Strikes when sheepshead fishing are subtle, so most sheepshead fishermen will tell you to set the hook before you feel a strike. Smaller sheepshead will nibble the bait off the hook using it's sheep-like teeth, and never be felt by the fisherman. The larger fish will take off with the bait like all other fish.

You can use super braided fishing line when sheepshead fishing, but a lot of anglers still use monofilament because, in this case, it actually holds up better under the pressure of being tugged on shells when a sheepshead is hooked. Often, sheepshead fishermen keep the drag tight in order to horse the larger sheepshead away from the structure, because the larger fish are strong enough to snap or break lines against shells and barnacles while on the run.

Use a strong #2 steel hook, or no lighter than a #1 due to the sheepshead ability to bite through a wire hook. Tie the hook directly to the line on a dropper loop and with a sinker tied about a foot from the hook. You can also use a Carolina rig when fishing the bottom. Thread the line through an egg sinker and tie to a swivel. Attach a leader with a #1 or #2 steel hook below the sinker. You'll also need a sensitive rod when sheepshead fishing, or hold the line between the index finger and thumb.

Bumpers or floatation cushions can be used to help keep the boat from making contact when the tide or wake from other boaters pushes it into the pilings. Often when sheepshead fishing I tend to use one hand to try and keep the boat from hitting the structure and the other hand to hold the fishing rod. I keep a glove on the hand I'm trying to keep the boat from knocking into the pilings with to avoid splinters and cuts. And I pay close attention to my fishing line while sheepshead fishing in order to detect any noticeable twitching that will lead to setting the hook and landing a sheepshead.

It's the small battle to yank the fish from the structure that, (pardon the pun) gets anglers hooked on sheepshead fishing. That short fight shoots adrenaline through the body of a fisherman, and a rush of excitement takes hold. In the end you've either pulled a sheepshead from the structure or you lose it. Don't let the name fool you, sheepshead fishing provides a fight that rivals any game fishing experience.

I hope this article helped and, if you've never tried sheepshead fishing; I hope it inspires you to give it a try. Not only are Sheepshead fun to catch, but they are also a delicious fish to eat!

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/basic-sheepshead-fishing/

Fishing the Fall Spot Run

Sun, 13 Sep 2015 17:31:50 GMT

Get Ready for the Fall Pier Fishing Season Getting ready for the fall spot (Leiostomus xanthurus) run Tips and technique to prepare you for when the spot run this fall.

Click here for the rigs you need for fishing the fall spot run!

Eagle Claw Pier and Jetty Ready To Fish Tackle Kit

Fall is right around the corner, and with it comes the spot (Leiostomus xanthurus). Somewhere between the last week of September and the first week of November the spot fishing starts picking up as they migrate to warmer water. If you've ever seen other fishermen come back from the coast with coolers full of spot, often giving several to friends and family, and wondered how they know just when to go, then here is the answer. The spot start biting and the fishing for them progressively gets better in late September. Usually picking up around the middle of October. That's when I try to plan to head out to the pier and plan to spend most of my time on that pier.

When the spot run, it usually last over several days, and you can tell they are running by the crowded pier with hundreds of fishing poles hanging over the edge. The key thing to keep in mind in order to work your schedule around for spot fishing is the water temperature. The spot (Leiostomus xanthurus) really start running and biting hard when the water temp hits 70 degrees. It's kind of a guessing game as far as the water temp goes, but if you keep a check on your fishing reports, water temps, and weather for the area you will be fishing, you can pretty well judge when the spot might start running. When the weather starts hitting 70 degrees, the spot start hitting blood worms, cut mullet, and shrimp hard. The normal rig used to fish for spot is a relatively simple 2 hook bottom rig with a 2 or 3 ounce pyramid sinker or weight.

You want to limit your trips on and off the pier so it's a good idea to have your equipment and gear ready so you can make as few trips back to the truck as possible. When the spot (Leiostomus xanthurus) are running and biting, the last thing you want is to find you've forgotten something and have to leave and run to the truck. Not to mention that's a long walk. One thing I suggest is to fish with a partner or a group. That way there is always someone on the pier with your gear. Unfortunately, people will steal your gear. And there is little chance of losing your place on the pier when you have to leave. And believe me, somebody is watching and ready to pounce on your spot as soon as you leave.

Some things you will need are a five gallon bucket which can serve multiple purposes. Put some ice in it and put your bait in the ice separated in plastic bags or containers. Lay a board over the top of the bucket for a convenient place to cut bait, and rig your spot fishing tackle as needed. A mid size cooler for drinks and and food. And another cooler with ice for your catch. Be sure to keep the fish you catch iced down well to prevent spoilage. And drain the cooler regularly as you want to avoid letting the fish sit in water. The water is a breeding ground for bacteria that will hasten the spoiling of your spot. You will also need pliers a good bait knife, a good sharp pocket knife or sportsman's tool, plastic baggies for bait and other things, sunblock, a cap to protect your head, and sunglasses. Bottled water is also an essential as it is easy to get dehydrated. Avoid drinks that can dehydrate you.

As I mentioned, the rig used to fish for spot is pretty simple. You can find them already tied at most bait shops, all you need to do is add the weight and hooks. Or you can tie the spot rig yourself using the same idea as a crappie rig, but with heavier line in order to handle the current and other larger fish that may happen to go for the bait you planned on catching spot with. Use snap swivels to attach the tackle to the fishing line of your rod and reel. At the bottom of the rig you'll find a larger snap for attaching your pyramid weight to. And you should have two lines coming off the main leader with a snap swivel on each end. This is where you attach your hooks.

Check with the pier personnel as to when the tide comes in and out. This tends to affect how the fish bite. Normally there is a period as the tide comes in and as it goes out that makes the spot (Leiostomus xanthurus) bite better. The pier personnel can answer as to which is best to fish for that area and what the best weather patterns to fish are. They can also tell you what bait the fish are biting best on, so always ask questions when paying for your time on the pier. They want you to have a good experience and want you to come back, so it's in their best interest to listen and pay attention to what the people that are fishing are doing. And they'll give you good info to help you catch more spot.

As you walk the pier to select a spot to fish pay attention to what the gulls and terns are doing. Where they are is a good indication of where the spot and other fish are. Other things to look for is a place where the water turns from cloudy to clear. Now bait up your hook with a blood worm, piece of shrimp, or a piece of cut bait. I usually cut the blood worm into and use half for each hook. The extra blood will attract the spot. Or if using shrimp or cut mullet, use pieces that are about 3/4 of an inch in size or a bit smaller. Either cast out a little from the pier or just let your spot rig drop along side the pier. If you have no luck catching spot with one, switch and do the other. Also if you have no luck on one side of the pier, try the other. If you can, work your way around the pier until you find a spot that produces; though this may be difficult if the pier is crowded.

I hope this article has been helpful to you in your quest to fill your coolers on the next spot run. Please enjoy spot fishing on the pier during this years fall spot run and stay safe!

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Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/fishing-the-fall-spot-run/

Little Birdhouse On the Prarie

Wed, 09 Sep 2015 13:03:48 GMT

This is my entry into Summers Woodworking's 3rd Annual Birdhouse challenge Contest. The intended species for this birdhouse are sparrows. I used what I had laying around to build it, therefore the design is rustic and loosely based on the house portrayed in the television series Little House on the Prairie. Thank you Brian for hosting the contest. Thank you to all the sponsors. And good luck to all those that enter the 3rd Annual Summers Woodworking's Birdhouse Challenge 2015!

For info on how you can watch Summers Woodworking's announcement video here.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7awYYAhiAU Brian makes some great project videos so please check out and subscribe to Summers Woodworking's channel.... https://www.youtube.com/user/summerswoodworking Also visit his website http://www.summerswoodworking.co/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And now for my stuff.... Donald Vlogsify's Wood Shop on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBIEZrZSZT8Ajw0COy0NwJA Please visit my vlog channel for my goofy stuff. https://www.youtube.com/user/donaldvlogsify Blogger http://donaldvlogsifys.blogspot.com/ Please like me on FaceBook. https://www.facebook.com/donaldwoodshop Follow me on Twitter @redneckknowhow https://twitter.com/redneckknowhow

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/little-birdhouse-on-the-prarie/

Dremel Rotary Tool Wood Carving part 3

Tue, 18 Aug 2015 13:10:48 GMT

Click here for

The Woodwright's Shop With Roy Underhill

Part 3 of my video series demonstrating how I carve wood with the Dremel rotary tool.

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/dremel-rotary-tool-wood-carving-part-3/

Dremel Rotary Tool Wood Carving

Sat, 15 Aug 2015 13:21:03 GMT

Dremel 4000-2/30 120-Volt Variable Speed Rotary Tool Kit - Corded

Available at Amazon

How I Carve Wood With a Dremel Rotary Tool

Have you ever wanted to carve wood but lack the inclination to get out the chisels? Maybe you feel you either don’t have the talent or just don’t have the time to learn the skill that is involved. But you still want to carve some wood that result in some beautiful wood carvings. Have you contemplated wood carving with a rotary tool?

There are other alternatives to hand wood carving out there. There is CNC, (Computer Numeric Control), aka Shopbots. With this tool, you either make a design on your computer or find one already done and set up for the CNC, make adjustments to depth of cut, x and y axis.. etc. then let the computer and the router cut for you. A ton of companies have sprung up as of late offering several options. This isn’t a cheap tool though and seems to have as much of a learning curve as hand carving.

You can do some basic carving for making signs with a router. This option sort of limits you to 2 dimensional designs though. Thus the detail and beauty of old school hand carving isn’t really available. The size, shape, and how a router is built simply limits what you can do with it.

Then there’s the rotary tool. Or what many simply call the Dremel. There’s still a good bit of skill involved, but in my opinion, still a good bit easier to learn than the skill required to carve wood by hand. Wood carving with a Dremel rotary tool is certainly quicker and with some practice you can get more detail than you can doing it with chisels.

I’ve made a series of videos showing how I use my Dremel rotary tool to carve wood. From start to finish I show how I take a block of wood and put a fairly detailed wood carving design on it. Part 2 in the series is below. I’ve posted the intro and Part 1 already in a previous blog than can be found by clicking here .

Or just click here and go to my youtube channel to watch the whole series from beginning to end. I hope you enjoy these videos I’ve made about wood carving with a Dremel rotary tool and get inspired to try it yourself. I find a calming peace in my body and soul when I sit down and carve wood, I hope it does the same for you.

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/dremel-rotary-tool-wood-carving/

Grilled Bear Steak Recipe

Sun, 02 Aug 2015 19:04:28 GMT

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Bear steak can be grilled in much the same way as you would grill beef cuts.

But remember two facts when dealing with bear meat. And I understand that part of this may discourage many from eating bear meat. But I’d rather that than have someone get sick due to my lack of giving information.

I assure you as long as you follow safe cooking practices, your bear steak will be delicious and safe to eat.

#1 - Bear steaks, as well as other cuts of bear meat, do not have the same fat content as beef. For this reason, bear meat will need additional larding or marinating for tenderizing.

#2 – And most important - *BEAR MEAT HAS TO BE THOROUGHLY COOKED DUE TO TRICHINOSIS TENDENCIES.*

TRICHINOSIS is a disease caused by parasites such as a round worm infection. TRICHINOSIS is mainly caused by eating undercooked meat containing encysted larval Trichinella. So be sure to cook the bear steak thoroughly and well done!

A good rule of thumb is to be sure to cook bear meat to an internal temperature of 160° F (71° C).

Now on to the grilled bear steak recipe.

There are two parts to the grilled bear steak recipe. One is the bear meat marinade, and the other is the basting sauce to be applied while cooking.

Grilled Bear Steak Marinade Ingredients:

1 cup dry sherry

1/2 cup salad oil

4 teaspoons prepared Wild Game Seasoning

Grilled Bear Steak Marinade Instructions:

Mix ingredients well in a large zipper bag. Then add the bear meat and move the meat around in the bag to make sure it is coated well with the bear steak marinade.

Place in the refrigerator overnight to be ready for cooking the next day. The longer the bear steak soaks the better, but not longer than 24 hours.

Grilled Bear Steak Basting Sauce Ingredients:

1/2 cup catsup

1/4 cup vinegar

1 6 oz. can tomato paste

1 clove garlic -- crushed

1 cup dry white wine

salt and pepper to taste

Grilled Bear Steak Basting Sauce Instructions:

In a bowl, mix ingredients together and refrigerate until ready to use. Take basting sauce out of the refrigerator 30 minutes before ready to use, stir and let sit at room temperature.

When you’re ready to cook the grilled bear steak, heat grill to a medium to medium-high heat.

Remove bear meat from the marinade, shaking off excess marinade. Discard the marinade.

Place the bear steaks on the grill and sear each side for a couple minutes each side. Adjust heat as needed.

Baste the top side of the bear steak, put the grill lid down and let cook a few minutes. Then turn steaks and baste the other side, close lid and repeat until the grilled bear steak reaches and internal temp of 160° F (71° C). Serve with your favorite sides and enjoy!

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/grilled-bear-steak-recipe/

September Bow Hunting

Sun, 02 Aug 2015 13:52:39 GMT

Bow hunting is an area that I have just gotten involved in the past couple of years. So, I'm by far no expert.

But there are a few things I have learned in my small amount of time at it.

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Deer season in most places opens sooner for bow hunters in some area than it does for the deer hunter that uses guns, and muzzle loaders. I must admit, this is one thing that has peaked my interest in archery. One thing you have to remember is that it is likely to still be hot. September temperatures can still reach into the upper 80's and in my state of North Carolina, 90's are not at all uncommon. So the early season bow hunter has to dress for warmer temps, but also he or she must also make sure the stay hidden from the deer. Many options are available. I recommend one of the charcoal liner suits. One thing to remember is not to wear cotton apparel, as it is very poor at dealing with moisture.

And the warmer temperatures in September will also mean that the bow hunter will have to be on the lookout for snakes. It hasn't gotten cold enough for them to go into hibernation, so, they are still out and ready to strike at those that encroach into their territory. Keep a good snake bite kit in your pocket, and stay aware of your surroundings. As well as a cell phone or some kind of communication just in case you get hurt and can't travel far. Make sure you turn it off while hunting, even the vibration mode might cause sound that you can't hear, but a buck might. Just have it for emergencies.

Though deer don't move as much in the warmer temps, they still have to travel about a bit. Just not as far or as much as they do in colder temperatures. They still move while foraging though, and this could give you the opportunity to make a kill, and start filling you freezer with this season's deer meat. The bow hunter has to learn and take into account these different movement patterns that the deer have in the September bow hunting season.

By September, most deer have shed their winter coat and are ready for the colder temps that will be coming on soon. And the warmer temps that linger on tend to make them uncomfortable, and the more they move about the more uncomfortable the deer get. But they must eat, so eventually they have to move about and forage for food. Usually it will be either early morning, or late in the day toward sundown. They do tend to arrange their pattern of movement so that they don't have to move any more than possible. This is important information for the early season bow hunter, as during the hotter temperatures deer tend to bed close to food sources. Find the food sources, and you know that if there is deer, they are nearby. Just make sure when setting up your stand, or while getting to and in it, you don't spook any deer, that may be as close as 25 to 75 yards from the food source.

Another thing to consider when bowhunting for deer in September is odor control. You are going to be sweating, there's no way around it. And deer will notice this. It is recommended that you, along with washing you cloths in the scent cover products, that you also apply sent cover to your body both before you start walking to your stand, and after you get in your stand. Hunter's Specialties Scent-A-Way has a deodorant and body spray that I put on before I even put on my hunting apparel. After I get into my stand I apply a scent cover up spray, paying particular attention to my armpits and groin areas. I even spray around my boots real good, as I know what my feet smell like after a good sweat, I know the deer will pick up on it, even with them covered up in my boots.

Some early season bow hunters swear by using sex attractants in early fall, even as early as the first week in September. I've had no success with it myself. Personally I think that the temps play a role in when deer go into the rut. And putting these scents down before the weather really cools, alerts the bucks that something odd is going on.

And the last thing I can convey is to stick it out. It's easy to get disheartened when it's hot, you're sweaty, and the mesquites and knats are swarming around your face. But persistence and patience is a must when deer hunting in hot weather.

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com//september-bow-hunting

Picnic Table Ketchup and Mustard Holder part 4

Sat, 25 Jul 2015 16:41:31 GMT

The final part to this picnic table project. I finish the roof top, stain, and add a distressed painted look to it.

I took the basic design from a video that Jay Bates made and added my own touches to make what my brother in law was asking for. The video for the ones Jay Bates made is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCzmI.... Please check his channel out and subscribe, he has loads of good videos for projects and lots of great ideas!

Please Check out Jay Bates channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-7X...

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Picnic Table Ketchup and Mustard Holder part 3

Tue, 21 Jul 2015 16:46:08 GMT

In this one we do assembly of the picnic table and start preparing for to add a roof.

Please Check out Jay Bates channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-7X...

Please visit the OFFICIAL Website of Donald Vlogsifys!!

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Donald Vlogsify's Wood Shop on youtube.

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Making a Dice Game Board From Aspen part 5

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 16:16:50 GMT

The final part of making the dice board and cup.

Please visit the OFFICIAL Website of Donald Vlogsifys!!

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Making a Dice Game Board From Aspen part 4

Thu, 09 Jul 2015 16:23:41 GMT

Putting an inlay of false dice into the center board. Staining and joining the frame to the center board. And I start on the cup with dovetails and rabbit joints. Glue ups, screw ups, and even music from a strap clamp!!

Please visit the OFFICIAL Website of Donald Vlogsifys!!

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Donald Vlogsify's Wood Shop on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBIE...

Please visit my vlog channel for my goofy stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/user/donaldvl...

Blogger

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Making a Dice Game Board From Aspen part 3

Wed, 01 Jul 2015 16:27:00 GMT

Making the mortise in the border of the board, and removing some dings and dents in them.

Please visit the OFFICIAL Website of Donald Vlogsifys!!

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Donald Vlogsify's Wood Shop on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBIE...

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Making a Dice Game Board From Aspen part 2

Sat, 27 Jun 2015 16:30:08 GMT

Here's part deuce of the Dice Game Board from Aspen. Here I work on squaring the board some more and cutting the frame then the miters and start the mortise and tenon. Going to be a part 3 too. I didn't realize how much time I've spent on this thing.

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Making a Dice Game Board From Aspen part 1

Fri, 19 Jun 2015 16:36:15 GMT

So I had this aspen board that I bought because I loved the grain. It was calling out to be made into something. I thought and thought about what I could make out of one board. Then, as I sat playing poker dice with a friend it hit me. A dice board!! So here is the begins.. I'm still working on it. Incorporating a few things I've not done before. Which is why it's taking so long, along with the go do this and the go do thats of life. I do hope you enjoy and come back for part 2. Subscribe and you'll know as soon as I have it published!

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Stuffed and Grilled Red Snapper

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 19:12:52 GMT

Recipe requires fresh 10 Pound Red Drum or Red Snapper.

Part One: Lemon/Butte r Sauce In sauce pan place the following:

1 pound of real butter
1 medium onion diced
3 to 6 cloves of crushed garlic
creole seasoning
or salt and pepper to taste
Tabasco sauce to taste (six to eight drops minimum) -Do not omit the Tobasco
1 tablespoon of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
Juice of 3 lemons
Place over low heat and let simmer for 30 minutes, stir occasionally.

Part two: Stuffing In a large mixing bowl place the following:

2 Bell Peppers diced
4 stalks of celery chopped
3 cans of small cocktail shrimp drained
3 cans of lump crab meat (do not use imitation)
Tabasco brand red sauce( 6 to eight drops minimum)
1 tablespoon Lea & Perrins
Salt & Pepper Very easy on the salt
3 cloves of crushed garlic
1 large onion diced
2 cups bread crumbs

Add approximately half the lemon butter mix created above and combine until uniform.

Thin slice 1 lemon and 1 onion Clean the fish well (the head may be left on if you wish for presentation) On a double thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil place half the lemon and onion slices. Place the fish on top, stuff the body cavity with the mix, put the rest of the lemon and onion on top the fish. Pour on the remaining lemon butter sauce then close the foil to seal. Place on grill, cook with lid closed for about 10 to 15 minutes per side. Slit foil for last few minutes to add a little smoke flavor. Test doneness with fork. Meat should remain slightly firm but flake easily. This recipe can be shared among individually wrapped smaller fish if you wish. Serve the Stuffed and Grilled Red Snapper with home fries or grilled corn on the cob and enjoy!

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/stuffed-and-grilled-red-snapper/

Shallow Water Spring Bass Fishing

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 17:40:16 GMT

Spring bass fishing consists of three stages or phases, pre-spawn, spawn, and post-spawn. Shallow water fishing for bass requires adjustments in technique for each phase. Here, I'll try to break them down for you.

Pre-Spawn

As the water temperature warms to the mid 50's as spring comes on, a lot of bass are still in the deep water. But a lot of the more aggressive fish are likely to be chasing bait in the shallows. When the bass hit the shallow water early like this, they are in search of warmer water and this means they have a higher metabolism.

If the shallow water is clear, try suspending a finesse jig or jerkbait just over the bottom. Also try to wind a flat-sided crankbait around any cover that might be in the shallow water. It's best to use a shad colored crankbait until water temperatures reach 60 degrees, then switch to crankbaits that imitate crawfish. However, if the water is stained, spinnerbaits are a better option for open water, or for cover that is isolated. Use a jig for heavier cover. If the lake or pond has aquatic vegetation, try to concentrate on that first. Big bass love hydrilla because it draws in more bait fish due to it's oxygen producing properties. Hydrilla with the brightest green growth really seems to be an important factor in attracting bait fish and where there's bait fish, there's big bass. Look for rock cover as well. Rocks retain heat and aid in warming the water which attracts those bass with the high metabolism. Then try finding the wood cover during pre-spawn.

As water temperatures warm into the 60's, largemouth bass hang in the shallows longer. This water temperature affect how the bass react to weather fronts coming in and out. As long as the shallow water stays in the mid to lower 60's, the largemouth bass will not move out of the shallow waters as they will in colder water temperatures. They will stay in the shallow water. A prime time to fish combinations of wood and grass cover is when bass move in seeking spawning areas and the water temperatures are in the 60's. Fish the grass first then wooden cover instead of rock covers. Don't neglect the rocks, but hit them only after the hydrilla patches and wood cover. You may find you'll be catching a lot of 2 to 3 pound male bass, but the larger females can be found around prime cover right outside of the spawning areas. So fish prime cover such as blowdowns or a dock that is near the spawning areas.

If the water temperature is in the 60's but the bass in the shallow water don't seem to want to chase what you throw at them, try plastics. Otherwise, try a jerkbait in clear water or a spinnerbait if the water is stained. If the water is really stained bad you may want to try a spinnerbait with a Number 4 or number 5 Colorado blade so that you can get plenty of vibration.

Spawn

The full moon can have a big effect on the largemouth bass that are spawning as long as the weather is stable. But when weather is in consistent and sporadic, bass will spawn on the warming trend no matter what the phase the moon is in. So when the surface temp is in the upper 60's, the largemouth bass are spawning. A good bait to use during this time is Berkley Power Bait Power Hawg Bait 4-Inch. Try a black and blue combination when the water is dirty; grass or pumpkin green in clear water. The depth you fish should also depend on the clarity of the water. If the water is stained, bass will spawn in 4 feet or less. if the water is clear largemouth will spawn in water up to 8 feet. You should adjust your fishing as the water clarity changes.

You can catch a large number of bass this time of year, but if you're out for the challenge of finding the hawgs you'll need to fish the edges of the spawning areas along the prime cover. the smaller bass will be scattered along the bank and in the various cover. But the big bass will be in heavier, darker cover and closer to the deep water. Smaller fish are just not a picky about the cover they use, but the big bass are much more choosy. For the big female bass that get into the heavy cover, your best bet is a flippin' stick. From time to time a spinnerbait or crankbait will bring a short strike from a spawning bass. If you do get a short strike on one of these baits, follow up immediately with a soft plastic lure.

Post-Spawn

After the spawn comes the post spawn and the beginning of topwater season. Topwater lures are effective during this time because male bass are protecting fry and the topwater lures are offensive to these male bass. And the big females who have finished spawning are still lurking in the shallow water and respond well to large top water lures. During this time, big lures catch big fish. Buzzbaits and stickbaits such as the Zara Spook work well during this phase. Floating jerkbaits, large double willow-leaf spinnerbaits, and full size jigs work well to catch big bass during this period also.

Soon after the largemouth bass have spawned, many will return to the deeper water. But several fish will stick in the shallow water as long as there is abundant shade. Use your flippin' stick and a jig around thick trees and along and under docks. Try flipping in the thickest and nastiest stuff that other anglers won't touch. Get that jig as far back in the nastiest stuff as you can and you might be surprised at the big bass you catch.

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/shallow-water-spring-bass-fishing/

Southern Style Cider Squirrel Recipe

Sun, 07 Jun 2015 19:22:48 GMT

Southern Style Cider Squirrel Ingredients:

4 lg Squirrels (gray, fox, or black), or 2 rabbits
Flour
Salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon Powdered sage
1/4 teaspoon Powdered rosemary
3 tablespoon Bacon or sausage fat
1 quart Dry cider
4 tablespoon Butter
1 cup Heavy cream

Southern Style Cider Squirrel Instructions:

Skin, eviscerate, and disjoint the squirrels, making sure to remove the small scent sacs from beneath the forelegs. If these glands are not removed, a bitter taste will be imparted to the dish.

Skin, eviscerate, and disjoint the squirrels, making sure to remove the small scent sacs from beneath the forelegs. If these glands are not removed, a bitter taste will be imparted to the dish.
Soak the pieces for one hour in cold water to which 1 teaspoon salt has been added.
Remove, drain, and pat dry.
Roll the pieces in flour seasoned with salt, pepper, sage and rosemary.
Heat the bacon fat in a deep skillet and brown the squirrel pieces on all sides.
Add the cider and simmer until the meat is alnost tender.
Remove the cover and continue cooking until the meat is tender and most of the liquid absorbed.
Remove the squirrel pieces and put aside to cool. Reserve any pan liquids for the gravy.
Roll the squirrel in the seasoned flour again, heat the butter in another skillet, and rebrown the squirrel until golden and crisp.
Put the squirrel pieces on a heated platter, and keep warm, while you add all juices and scrapings to the skillet.
Make a paste of a tablespoon of flour and the heavy cream.
Pour this slowly into the pan juices, stirring constantly, until the sauce is smooth, hot, and slightly thick.
Ladle the gravy over the squirrel pieces and serve

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/southern-style-cider-squirrel-recipe/

Doodling Technique for Bass

Sun, 07 Jun 2015 17:50:13 GMT

Everything you need for your doodling technique!

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Doodling is a successful bass fishing technique if done correctly.

Bass doodling can produce big largemouth when no other bass fishing technique works. Below are some tips for successful bass doodling.

Doodling is a fishing technique best used on suspended bass when the water is clear and deep. However it can be used on not so deep water as long as the water is clear to stained.

When doodling for bass a 6 foot, medium-light rod is recommended. Bait casting reel for 10 pound test and up, spinning reel for 6 to 8 pound test. Place a small glass bead between the worm and the brass sinker. And use the Texas Rig style to avoid hang ups.

A 4 to 4 and a half inch worm on 1/0 hook, or a 3 inch grub on size 1 hooks are best suited for doodling for bass. Make sure your hooks are sharp to insure maximum hook up potential. Some good brands will be found below that are good and sharp right out of the package.

Paddle tail worms seem to work best when doodling for bass in the spring. But doodling for bass is best done with straight tail worms in the fall. Bass doodling on deep structure should be done with a 3/16 ounce weight and a 5/32 ounce weight on suspended bass.

How to do it.....

Let the bait sink to the desired depth, then shake your rod tip to get the fishes attention. Now just wait about 30 seconds. Shake the rod tip again for a couple seconds. Stop then pull the worm up about 6 inches. Now slowly let it drop back and repeat. If the bass don't respond, slow the technique down a bit. If you feel a bit of a pull, it's likely a bass has taken the bait. Set your hook at this or anything else that feels different.

Bass doodling is best done with a purple worm or grub on overcast days and in deep water. Motor oil works good in summer and fall as it resembles the small shad and fingerlings found in the shallows which turn black in deeper water. Browns and reds are good in spring when doodling for bass. The more stained the water, the darker the color is a good rule to go by.

When doodling for bass in the spring fish uphill either from shore or position your boat in the shallows and cast deep. Use a 1/8 ounce weight doing this. And reverse it when bass doodling in the fall. Make sure your presentation is correct when doodling for bass. Most strikes while doodling are not reaction hits so a poorly rigged worm and its presentation will drop the chance of a bite to nothing. Also a long sweeping hook set works better than a snap hook set as the snap hook set will drop slack and often allow a poor hook set to drop out of the fish’s mouth.

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/doodling-technique-for-bass/

Still Hunting Deer From the Ground

Sun, 07 Jun 2015 14:25:50 GMT

There are a lot of areas where working a climbing deer stand or other such tree stands and remaining un-noticed by the deer is near impossible.

Back in the day Bow hunting for deer was a far different thing than it is now. There was no specific season for bow hunters. They went into the woods for deer along with the hunters who used firearms. And both bow hunters and firearm hunters were on foot.

With the exception of those hunters that nailed some 2x4's to a tree and added a pallet to make a tree stand or used some other self-made platform. Still Hunting know-how was a must. And that's the way you had to hunt before the advent of screw in steps, climbing deer stands, and other such products came along and changed deer hunting forever.

Sometimes I like to get back to basics though. Maybe I'm getting old, but sometimes I just don't feel like dragging that bulky deer stand into the woods to deer hunt. And they take away the pleasure of just walking through the woods. Plus my knees have never been the best for climbing into deer stands to begin with. And while tree stands are effective, deer stands are not a sure bet for producing deer kills, and often can be counterproductive for bow hunting. There are a lot of areas where working a climbing deer stand or other such tree stands and remaining un-noticed by the deer is near impossible.

So what's left? How can you hunt deer without a stand and not run dogs? The answer is still hunting from the ground. This is when we need to get back to basics and hunt like our fathers and grandfathers did. On foot. It can be done, or we likely wouldn't be here to carry on the hunting traditions of our forefathers as many of them would have starved out long ago. You have to be quit and even more aware of your sent and which way the wind is carrying it. But many a deer have been taken by this method of deer hunting.

First, you'll need to think of protection from the insects while still hunting. You'll be standing still and not moving for periods of time, swatting mosquitos and flies, and picking ticks off of yourself can be very annoying and counterproductive to a deer hunter. Luckily we have products to reduce if not eliminate this problem that the old timers didn't have. You'll want to spray your clothing with Permethrin Spray Tick Repellent . This product is odorless, and bonds to the fabric retaining it's effectiveness through several washings.

Then there is your scent that you must minimize. And even more important when still hunting on the ground than it is when hunting from a tree stand. There are several products for this such as the Scent-A-Way MAX Fresh Earth Scent Control Kit by Hunter's Specialties . But you will never completely eliminate the human scent. So when you're Still Hunting from the ground, make sure to stay downwind from the deer. And never cross any trails that the deer are using on your way to your natural blind. Avoid getting attracting scents on your feet. This will lead the deer right to you. The deer are too alert when following these scent trails and will spot the slightest movement you make. So as soon as you start drawing back to take a shot, it's likely the deer will spot you and take off before you get to half draw. Avoid using deer attractants near your blind for the same reason.

Now you'll need to conceal yourself and defeat the deer's vision. This can be another difficult task while Still-Hunting on the ground. Deer are likely to spot a broken tree branch that was not broken before and bolt far out of bow range. You should avoid making any fast movements. Simply turning your head can alert a deer to your presence. It's a good idea to avoid caffeine for a day or so before you ground hunt as any nervous impatient movements will cost you a deer. A turkey hunter can easily tell you how still you have to be.

A person that can't stay still for hours on end may want to think about a fabric blind instead of trying to hide yourself in the brush around you while Still Hunting on the ground. But these have draw backs. I find them much less effective than using natural surrounding cover. The fabric may shine and flap in the wind, and the poles often make un-natural noises. So it is necessary to set these blinds up before you Still Hunt on the ground several weeks before hunting them. The deer will have to get use to them and accept them as part of their environment.

Some other tips for Still Hunting on the ground are to make sure you cover your face with a camo net as well as cover your hands with camo as well as your body. A pocket sized pruning sheer will come in handy for making a ground blind from the natural cover in some circumstances. And wait to draw your bow when the deer are looking the other way. I hope these tips help you have a successful experience Still-Hunting on the ground. And please visit my sponsors, all of which carry great products to make your hunt better.

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/still-hunting-deer-from-the-ground

Rustic Spice Rack 2x4 Contest Entry

Fri, 29 May 2015 16:04:53 GMT

Yup! I finally got it done. My entry for the SUMMERS WOODWORKING'S 3RD ANNUAL 2X4 CHALLENGE CONTEST. A lot of great projects being entered. Wish me luck!

For details about the contest or to enter go to... http://summerswoodworking.com/contest/

and check out Brian's channel SUMMERS WOODWORKING at https://www.youtube.com/user/summersw...

2x4 Trash Talk

Sat, 09 May 2015 16:09:59 GMT

Time for Summer's Woodworking 3rd Annual 2x4 Competition! Yup, I'm workin on my first ever entry! Going to be fun.

Rules and how to enter are available at the links below!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5mAV...

http://www.summerswoodworking.co/cont...

Wild Game Meat Soaking

Sat, 18 Apr 2015 15:04:35 GMT

Wild game meat soaking tips. Know how to soak or marinate your deer, squirrel, rabbit, or elk meat after the hunt.

If you're acquainted with preparing wild game meat such as deer, elk, squirrel, rabbit, or other so called exotic meats, then you are aware that these meats can have a bit of a Gamey flavor. For wild game that is gamey and tough in taste and texture try soaking in a ziplock bag with:

Mountain Dew (works great for wild hog if BBQing, tenderizes meat)
Coke (gives meat a sweet taste and tenderizes)
Beer
Red wine
Pineapple juice
Buttermilk ( In the buttermilk soak, add minced garlic, black pepper, paprika, cardamom, or other spices to suit your taste.)

This is called a soak or marinade. Many of the meats mentioned above are far more prone to being tough and dry if not properly soaked before cooking your recipe. One thing you do not want to do is add extra salt to whatever your soak maybe. This will turn your wild game meat into jerky; tuff and dry as leather.Some salt is good, but avoid excesive amounts.

In the good old days of pioneering the country, before refrigeration; Deer, elk, and other wild game meat as well as beef were salted to preserve the meat and keep it from spoiling. The idea being to dehydrate the meat, because dry meat won't rot as quickly as fresh meat with all the moisture in it; and it does not require refrigeration. This was the origins of beef jerky, deer jerky, and other meat jerkies. This worked great for the trails and lifestyles of the frontier, but not so good if you want a nice tender and juicy piece of deer. Anyone that has ever tasted jerky knows that while tasty, it's quite dry and tuff. So, unless you want deer jerky; avoid the extra salt before cooking, it WILL dry your wild game meat out.

Soaking with the soft drinks will give the deer, wild hog, elk, and similar game meats a unique sweet flavor as well as tenderize the wild game meat. This works well when cooking the wild game meat with sauces such as BBQ sauce, and similar sauces or gravies.

For a less sweet more savory taste to your squirrel, rabbit, deer, and other game, try a vinegar, red wine, or beer soak. Let the meat soak in the refrigerator for 12 to 24 hours. {Be careful of what seasonings you add to the soak, some seasoning have salt mixed in them.} Then remove it from the fridge and let the game meat sit out, covered, for 20 to 30 minutes. The reason for this is that cold meat to hot oven shocks the meat and tends to make the wild game, especially deer and elk tough. Then add your seasonings.

You'll have to experiment with seasonings to find the right combination of spices to suit your taste. I tend to keep it pretty simple, and mix Cavender All Purpose Greek Seasoning, with just a pinch of ground ginger and black pepper, then lightly rub the meat with along with some salt when I'm preparing the meat to go in the oven or crock pot. (This is when you add the salt) Adding a few drops of olive oil to the soak will add flavor and help the seasoning stick to the game meat.

You'll find a deer leg roast recipe using the above technique here, but now a little more info on wild game soaks. No matter which method of soaking you choose for your deer, squirrel, rabbit, or other wild game meat, soaking for 12 to 24 hours is the standard. The longer being better.

Exotic Meats and Game from Fossil Farms

Soaking in buttermilk is best for when you are going to fry the game meat, so it is best to cut your wild game into small pieces before soaking. Add minced garlic, black pepper, paprika, cardamom, or other spices to suit your taste. Put some olive oil in with your meat soak. Then place the squirrel, rabbit, fowl, or other meat in a ziplock bag and squeeze out all the air, and soak.

Pineapple juice will give the wild game meat a sweet and sour taste. I recommend you use this for making sweet and sour fowl, wild hog, and beef recipes. Use your favorite recipes that you would normally use pork, chicken, or beef, and swap it with squirrel, rabbit, quail, or similar wild game meat. Wild duck turns out great in these recipes. Just remember you have to soak wild game, it is a must.

I hope these tips have helped you. Even those of you that don't hunt yourself can enjoy the taste of wild game meat. Maybe you've had friends or family that are hunters offer you some deer, elk, fowl, rabbit, or squirrel, and you turned it down because you didn't know how to prepare the meat for cooking. Please don't be afraid to try wild game.

Use the information above, and try wild game meat in your favorite recipe. You'll be surprised at how much you might like the flavor. And remember, there's no preservatives, steroids, or other additives in the meat YOU hunted yourself.

Enjoy the Outdoors!

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/2015/04/18/wild-game-meat-soaking/

Wild Game Meat Soaking

Fri, 17 Apr 2015 19:32:39 GMT

Wild game meat soaking tips. Know how to soak or marinate your deer, squirrel, rabbit, or elk meat after the hunt.

Mountain Dew (works great for wild hog if BBQing, tenderizes meat)
Coke (gives meat a sweet taste and tenderizes)
Beer
Red wine
Pineapple juice
Buttermilk ( In the buttermilk soak, add minced garlic, black pepper, paprika, cardamom, or other spices to suit your taste.)

Exotic Meats and Game from Fossil Farms

Enjoy the Outdoors!

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/wild-game-meat-soaking

Hurricane Season Facts

Sat, 28 Mar 2015 18:17:17 GMT

Fisherman's Emergency Guide

How a hurricane forms and builds in its travel across the sea.

They are called Hurricane here in the United States. The strongest of the circulating storms, also called cyclones or typhoons in the western Pacific. Hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean usually begin to form in the southern Atlantic off the coast of Africa, usually during Hurricane season, which runs from June 1st. through November 30th.

An Approaching storm during hurricane season.

Click Here to get hurricane season batteries at all-battery.com

What makes a hurricane form?

Hurricanes need four conditions to form:

low air pressure
warm temperatures
moist ocean air
tropical winds

Winds off the West African coast converge and begin a counter clockwise circulation. Sometimes these winds move across the Atlantic Ocean in the form of a tropical wave, never forming into a hurricane, and bringing little more than rain.

But quite often, the warm temperatures and atmospheric conditions are just right and the wind speeds increase and form an eye. At this stage it is a tropical storm. As air rises and cools, moisture condenses and is released in the form of heavy rain and combines with the torrential winds that are now circling the eye. The energy that is released pumps into the rotating cloud mass. This action makes it rise and spin faster. When the wind speeds reach 74 miles per hour, the storm is now a hurricane. The hurricane travels across the Atlantic Ocean, and the wind speeds increase with no hindrance from land. There are five categories in which a hurricane is classified.

The classification system is called the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Intensity Scale. The weaker hurricanes with wind speeds of 74 to 94 mph are referred to as category 1 storms, and while dangerous they normally cause little damage. The most powerful hurricane ever recorded was a category 5 with sustained winds of 200 miles per hour. Some hurricanes move quickly and produce less rainfall, while others move slower and can produce torrential rain squalls with downfalls that often exceed 15 inches of rain.

The forward right quadrant (12:00 - 3:00) of the hurricane is the strongest part of the storm. The eye of the hurricane is clear and calm and can fool the unsuspecting into thinking the hurricane is through, only to be caught of guard when the back end of the storm begins its pass over land. While hurricanes can be tracked, predicting where they will make land fall and when can be tricky. These storms often change course, and can sway from their predicted path by several miles even when just a few miles off shore.

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/hurricane-season-facts/

Deer Hunting Basics - Part III

Sat, 21 Mar 2015 15:14:16 GMT

The deer rut brings with it many opportunities. This is the time when a bucks attention turn to....ER..um..uhh..love.

Yes, the rut is mating season, and the bucks senses are at their weakest. Bucks tend to be more active and venture out more often looking for does, and competing with other bucks for the doe's attention. Similar to human males, bucks seem to forget about anything else when the rut is on. The buck has love in its heart, and bootie on his mind. This makes for prime hunting time, as the prize deer is more likely to be seen by hunters and huntresses. And this is the part of the hunting season when stalking your deer is more productive.

Find areas where there are a lot of does, these areas are great for hunting prize bucks. Make sure you place yourself where you have good viability. The more hunting ground you see, the more likely you are to see a trophy buck. If he's out of range, work your way to him.

The use of grunt calls (which is discussed in part IV), is less effective during the rut, it just doesn't get the bucks attention. You know how it is, when you're trying to hook up with a pretty girl, your own mama could call you all day long and you'll never hear a word. Try to put yourself in a position to intercept a rutting buck as he travels to his "blueberry hill". Find the rub and scruff lines and put yourself there along them.

Find out the areas where the doe hang out, feeding areas in open terrain where you would normally not find a buck during daylight hours. Pay attention to well-traveled deer trails relentlessly during the rut.

Key in on areas that the does use. One sexy doe can attract more than one buck. During this part of the hunting season, start early and stay in the forest for a while. Again this is the time of the season that you are most likely to spot a buck in places you normally won't before and after the rut.

When the velvet is off the antlers, and the buck is horn harden, it's time to mate. As the doe comes into estrus, she begins most of the rut activity. It's at this time that most of the grunting is done by the buck that is looking for doe with intent to jump the doe's bones. Try grunting every few minutes, three to five times. This tells nearby bucks that another buck is after a doe to rut with. The nearby buck will probably come to see what's going on.

There are a variety of deer calls on the market, some hunters choose to grunt without the product; either way, be prepare for some odd looks from others when you practice your grunt. And you will need to practice before trying it while hunting. Deer are not very vocal animals, but when they do voice their opinions, the basic sounds are the grunt, snort, and bleat.

The grunt is a deer call often done by the buck during rutting season. A grunt can bring a buck to you because they do not want other rutting bucks in their territory mating with their does. The productivity of a grunt call is if'y at best, as buck might be frightened if your grunt is too strong and sounding too much like a larger bigger buck. Or your call my simply not sound at all like a deer grunt to your quarry, and they are not willing to fall for your attempt to fool them. (I hate it when that happens)
A snort sound is made most often by doe or fawns that are in distress. A hunter or huntress can often take advantage of the snort deer call because it is likely to bring assistance from other doe and fawns and, if you are lucky, a trailing buck.
The bleat is made by deer that are alarmed, and is a deer call used to warn each other of danger. Not much use to a hunter as it tends to make the venison skin out, and away from the hunter/huntress.

The pre-rut is prime time for using deer calls to get the attention of whitetail because the bucks are more active during this period of time. Try calls and rattles downwind of bedding areas. Use the snorts to mimic the doe more than grunts during the early part of the season. These deer call tactics are likely to draw a trophy buck out during the pre-rut. Rattling may also bring a few deer in closer during the pre-rut as well. When the rut is in full swing though, the more mature buck is likely to have plenty of doe with him and is not likely to respond to your rattle.

Hunt the scrapes and rub lines during the early part of hunting season in the pre-rut. However the bucks tend to scrape and rub less as the actual rut is in full swing. Hunt the food sources if you find no scrapes and rubs. A run and gun tactic is great for the pre rut, go into an area and make a series of grunts and rattling, if there is no response after a few minutes of waiting, move on to another hunting area. Follow parallel to scrape and rub trails to find bedding areas, careful not to cross the trail and not too get too close to the bedding area, and hunt between bedding area and food source.

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/deer-hunting-basics-part-iii/

Grilled Smallmouth Bass Wrapped in Corn Husk

Fri, 20 Mar 2015 19:43:37 GMT

You caught a nice mess of smallmouth bass and all the way home all you have on your mind is, “How to cook fish?" - Well stop by that produce stand on the roadside and grab some fresh corn that’s still in the husk cause I got a plan for ya!

But first you got to clean your smallmouth bass, and fillet them; this recipe calls for 2 pounds smallmouth bass fillets cut into four pieces. But the great thing about grilling recipes is that it’s easy to adjust. Just add or reduce amounts according how much bass you have, so get that done. A good fillet knife is your best friend when cleaning fish.I have used Rapala fillet knives for as long as I can remember when cleaning smallmouth bass or any other fish and game. It's what my father used and Pop just didn't buy junk when it came to knives. They served him well and have done the same for me over the years. If you don't have one, I highly recommend them. You can get them for a very reasonable price at RAPALA.com

RAPALA Fish 'n Fillet® Superflex Knife

Smallmouth bass tastes wonderful on the grill, but you have to wrap it in something and foil seems like such a waste. So, how to cook fish with no foil? You ask… Forget about that aluminum foil, you now have corn husk!! And that will hold your bass, or any other fish, together just fine in your grilling recipes. Plus you have the side dish, corn, to go with your smallmouth bass wrapped in corn husk; and now you have two great grilling recipes going at once! Prepare your smallmouth bass and get them wrapped in the corn husk following the instructions below.

Grilled Smallmouth Bass Wrapped in Corn Husk

Ingredients

2 ears fresh corn
2 pounds smallmouth bass fillets cut into four pieces
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks
Juice of 1 lemon (about 3 tablespoons)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
Lemon wedges

Instructions

Preheat the grill.
Carefully peel away the cornhusks and set aside. Pull all silk off each cob.
Holding the cobs upright, slice downward with a sharp knife, cutting off the corn in rows. Discard the cobs and set the cut corn aside.
Spread out and press flat two or three husks per fillet. Sprinkle a layer of corn on the leaves and lay a fillet at right angles to the husks, one on top of each "packet."
Cover the fillets with the remaining corn. Dot the corn with the chunks of butter.
Sprinkle the lemon juice over each fillet and season with salt and pepper.
Fold the husks over the top of the packets on all sides (to form an envelope shape) and secure with toothpicks.
Lay on the grill for about 6 minutes; turn carefully with a spatula and cook 6 minutes longer, or until husks are slightly charred.
Serve immediately with the lemon wedges.

How’s that for and answer to your “How to cook fish?” question? Grilled Smallmouth Bass Wrapped in Corn Husk is one of those great grilling recipes that taste good and a wonderful addition to your grilling recipes arsenal!

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/grilled-smallmouth-bass-wrapped-in-corn-husk/

Deer Hunting Basics

Thu, 19 Mar 2015 15:48:47 GMT

Deer Hunting Basics

Part I

The very first thing one should consider when hunting is safety. Before you even think about going into the woods, consider taking a hunters safety course from your local wildlife agency. And even if you are just scouting your hunting area, you should take some basics with you. ~A flashlight (be sure the batteries are fresh and the flashlight is in good working order) ~A compass , matches or lighter (These will come in very handy should you get lost in the forest. A good portable GPS system is handy too.) ~A good first-aid kit (It should include bandages, snake bite kit, turn-a-kit, antiseptic, etc)

Deer are usually more active around dawn and dusk and tend to sleep in the middle of the day and late at night. This is thought to enable the digestion process and be a defense against predators which are less active during these times. Venison do feed during mid-day sometimes, but this is a quirk that not likely to be repeated by that deer often.

Before hunting season begins, right after the bucks have rubbed the velvet from their antlers, scout the woods which you are going to hunt. Look for food sources and signs of deer such as tracks, bedding areas and funnels. A buck won't rub the larger tree and brush except during the rut. He will, however leave signs of himself by rubbing his antler velvet on smaller trees and bushes in the forest.

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Start scouting your hunting area in early to mid-summer. Be careful and disturb as little of the hunting grounds as possible. Try to make very little noise. Also try not to leave any human scent. Prepare for scouting the forest the same as you would for hunting in the same woods. Keep in mind though that over scouting can have a very bad effect on the wildlife, and push the game out of the hunting area, or make the animals nocturnal. Search for area where oak trees have a large number of acorns that will shed in the coming fall. Set your tree stands and blinds near these areas before the acorns ripen and the deer start feeding on them. Then leave the area alone until the hunt.

Venison has three goals in life, eat, sleep, and mate. Try to find hunting areas where the ground is covered in greens such as clover or rye grass and other tender plants. Look for trail routes, scrapes, and tracks around the surrounding areas.

Dear sleep in places where the brush and other cover is very thick. These areas are difficult to hunt because the cover limits ones vision, and the noise a hunter would make getting to his or her stand or blind would quickly alert deer to his or her presence.

The rut is the time when the deer mate. A buck is much more active a larger amount of time while he searches for mates. And his senses are dulled during the rut. This gives a hunter a slight advantage over the venison. A hunter is more likely to get a buck in his sights during the rut for the above reasons.

Click here to go to Deer Hunting Basics Part II - Scent Control

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/deer-hunting-basics/

Deer Hunting Basics - Scent Control

Thu, 19 Mar 2015 15:28:12 GMT

Deer Hunting Basics

Part II - Scent Control

Staying unnoticed by that whitetail buck is, of course, very important to a successful hunting trip. It is important that the hunter keep his or her movements to the bare minimum, and he or she must make the least noise possible while getting to the tree stand or blind and especially after the hunter is in the stand.

But most important is the hunters scent. Scent control is one of the most important issues to cover in deer hunting basics. The scent is what, more often than not, gives the hunter away. You have very little control of your scent, and no control of the wind, so it is necessary to try to stay downwind from any possible venison activity. The most valuable weapon nature has put the defensive arsenal of a whitetail buck is its ability to pick up the slightest scent. Because man has a very distinct odor, a whitetail can pick up on a hunter presence very easily. Therefore, scent control is very important!

Many products are available to hide or cover the human scent while hunting a whitetail buck and again, is one of the main deer hunting basics. But these scent control products can only do so much. There for it is still important to pay attention to wind direction while hunting deer or any other wild game. Wind direction can change, therefore a hunter or huntress must keep track of the wind direction. Even the slightest change of the gentlest of breezes can mean the difference in bringing home a trophy whitetail buck and going home with your head hanging and your tail between your legs. There are many ways to determine wind direction, some hunters use butane lighter, others use a odorless powder that floats in the wind, while some tie a feather to their bow with floss. Practice and experimentation will determine which method is best for you, just make sure it requires little movement, maintain your scent control, and will not cause any scent that might be picked up by the venison.

Also, try not to over hunt your hunting areas. It, as well as over scouting can and will have a bad effect on the hunting quality of the area. Every trip to and from your tree stand or blind leaves scent, no matter how well the scent product you use is, some human scent is left behind that deer can and will pick up on. Plus too much activity such as one hunter making too many trips to the hunting area, or too many different hunters can scare your quarry out of the area or make them go nocturnal. Try to have multiple areas to set up your stand or blind. If one area is used all the time, deer will associate it with humans and avoid it. They will also alert other deer to the presence of man in that area as well. Try to stay away from areas that have often been hunted by others, and always keep your scent control in mind. Never cross a game trail on your way to your stand or blind; if need be, walk parallel and as far away as possible from the game trails.

And a note on what some may think of as a bit of a nasty subject. But it happens to us all. The need to relive oneself. Often Mother Nature calls on us, and often when we really don't want her to. It is all too easy for some hunters, mostly those of us that are the male persuasion, to go behind a tree or bush. This is a definite “no no” when it comes to scent control while hunting. DO NOT do this anywhere near your hunting area. This can alert deer and affect the hunting negatively for miles. Try to do your business in the proper rest stops on your way to the woods, by all means wash your hands and then use the appropriate scent cover product.

Hunting safety doesn't end when you leave the field.

Click Here for gun safes!

Click here for part 3 of Deer Hunting basics!!

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/deer-hunting-basics-scent-control/

River Bass Fishing Tips

Mon, 16 Mar 2015 18:30:02 GMT

Most bass anglers are very comfortable fishing lakes and ponds with their relatively still waters. But many of these anglers have problems fishing in current. Ask them to fish for bass on a river such as the cape fear, and you can watch their bottom jaw drop to the ground and their face take on a confused, slightly scared look.

There is a solution to this nightmare of many a bass angler. Learn where the lunker bass hang out in the fast moving water of rivers, streams, and creeks. Here are a few places to try if you dare to take on the river bass challenge, and go fishing for some lunker bass in the current of moving water.

There are places where chunk rocks have been placed to prevent erosion from the current and differing water levels. Many of these places can be found on the Cape Fear. Look for them around bridges and damns. The current will push large river bass against these places. You can often find a largemouth or smallmouth bass as well as white bass and strippers being pushed close into the chunk rocks. Fish these rip-raps on days that the water levels are high and the current is strong. Try fishing rip-raps with a spinnerbait, a jig-n-pig, or a crankbait. Cast upstream into any pockets you see along the bank, and retrieve with the current.

Switchbacks are a good place to try for large river bass. The water's current hits a bank and splits, causing the water to reverse direction. Monster bass can often be found in switchbacks. Baitfish will hang in switchbacks, which naturally attracts hungry lunker river bass. Target the seam along the edge of the divided currents, where they split direction. The current is drastically reduced in these spots, providing an excellent rest spot for baitfish, which of course brings in the bass, largemouth and smallmouth alike.

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Largemouth bass love to hang around shallow wood structures in ponds and lakes. But in rivers, creeks and streams, fallen trees won't hold large numbers of bass. But the bigger largemouth and smallmouth bass will hang around these wood structures. A few bass will hang around fallen trees and other wood structures close to the shoreline of the river. As I learned on the Cape Fear however, the bigger fish from all of the bass species tend to gravitate to the sunken logs and fallen trees that have been deposited by floods or storms in the deeper areas near the middle of the river, creek, or stream. It is quite possible for you to catch a lunker bass fishing these structures with a jig, crankbait, spinnerbait or even a suspended jerkbait. Also try a topwater propbait.

The rock bluffs of reservoirs usually lack a good current, making bass fishing a bit of a let down. Many bass anglers find that the lack of current make the bass suspend in deeper water around these rock bluffs, and are normally slow to strike at any lure you might toss at them. But rock bluffs in rivers are a different story. You can often get an aggressive from a lunker river bass in bluffs found in rivers. Large smallmouth love these swift water rock bluffs in fall and winter. Baitfish are pushed against the rock wall and attract smallmouth and largemouth bass, as well as the other species of bass, including white bass and striped bass. Bass will hang behind outcroppings and shoot out into the current for a meal.

Rock piles, common along damns on the Cape Fear and other rivers, are great smallmouth structures. Crayfish and baitfish are often found around these rock piles, thus making them prime places for foraging river bass. To catch these bass an angler must learn how the differing current strength and water levels affect how the smallmouth and largemouth bass react. When the damn is kicking up the water full blast and the current is strong, river bass will be holding tight to the rock pile. A 1/2 ounce jig that isn't as likely to be carried off the target and will sink fast is likely to work best in areas downstream or at the top of the rock pile. The bass will hold in these areas during strong current darting out to strike passing prey. If the current is slow, bass will hang loosely to the rocks and on the deeper ends of the structure. Use a deep diving crankbait and tap the bottom with it when the current is slow like this.

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You will find many river bass hiding ready to ambush baitfish in current eddies. Current eddies occur when an obstruction breaks the currents flow and the water behind these obstructions is dead calm or sometimes a whirlpool. Baitfish swim into the calmer water of eddies to escape the stronger current, or the injured baitfish will be sucked into the whirlpools. Use a jig, grub, or tubebaits work well in these areas to catch smallmouth and largemouth bass, as well as white bass and stripper bass.

Undercut banks will hold a good amount of largemouth bass. However smallmouth bass, white river bass and strippers are not as likely to hang in undercut banks. The current sweeps away the dirt from the bank leaving part of the bank overhanging above the water. Loads of roots and rock beneath that lip will attract many largemouth river bass looking for cover. Pitching or flipping a jig-n-pig, a worm, or a tubebait into the rocks and roots will often provoke a strike from hungry largemouth. The water is usually murky and muddy along undercut banks, which will allow you to get your boat a bit closer than in areas with clearer water.

Look for places where barges and tugboats moor. The pilings not only provide mooring for the barges and boats; they also attract largemouth bass, smallmouth river bass, stripped bass, and all other species of river bass. The fish hang around the wood pilings waiting to ambush baitfish, so the use of a crankbait will work well here. Use your rod tip to guide the crankbait around the wood pilings making it careen at a steep angle. Use a plastic worm attached to a jig head to work around moored barges and boats, as bass will use the large boats as cover and shade.

Gravel bars will often hold smallmouth river bass. In the summer these are great night fishing spots. The smallmouth bass normally stay deep in the day, move into the shallow water of the gavel bars to feed on crayfish, baitfish, and other forage. You'll have to be quite though as the smallmouth river bass will be in less than two feet of water and will be very easy to spook. During periods of low water, find these gravel beds and look for current breaks such as stumps, large rocks or fallen trees. Return when the water has submerged these structures and fish a jig or a spinnerbait.

Use these tips the next time you find yourself on a river, such as the Cape Fear, fishing and watch the jaws of other anglers drop when you tell them or show them your success at fishing for river bass.

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Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/river-bass-fishing-tips/

Wild Turkey Recipe - White Wine Basted

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 19:53:08 GMT

Stuffed with sautéed onion and mushrooms pate'. The white wine with turkey and sautéed onion and mushrooms pate' for the stuffing make this turkey recipe a winner. And it’s pretty a pretty easy recipe to make too.

Sautéed onion and mushrooms pate' ingredients:

1/4 cup butter or margarine
2 medium onions, chopped
1 cup chopped mushrooms (about 1/4 lb.)
2 qt. fresh white bread crumbs
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. dried thyme leaves
1 tsp. marjoram leaves
1 lb. chicken livers, finely chopped

Wine with turkey ingredients:

1 tbsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1/4 cup olive or salad oil
1 small onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, halved length-wise
2 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp. dried basil leaves
1 can (10 1/2 oz.) condensed chicken broth, undiluted
1/2 cup white wine

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Sauté onion and mushrooms in hot butter in skillet until onion is tender. Turn into large bowl. Add chicken liver, bread crumbs, parsley, salt, thyme, marjoram and pepper; toss the sautéed onion and mushrooms and other ingredients lightly until thoroughly combined.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Mix salt and pepper; sprinkle part of mixture inside turkey. Spoon stuffing into neck and body cavities; close cavity with twine, and fasten wing tips to body with twine. Tie ends of legs together. Place turkey, breast up (omitting rack) in a deep roasting pan with a tight fitting cover. Brush with oil and sprinkle the remaining salt and pepper. Roast uncovered 30 minutes or until lightly browned. This pre-roasting method can help achieve that lovely browned color in this wild turkey recipe, other wild birds, or even chicken.
Remove from oven; reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Insert meat thermometer in wild turkey thigh at thickest part. Add onion, garlic, cloves, bay leaf and basil to roasting pan. Pour chicken broth and wine over turkey. Cover pan tightly. Roast, basting every 30 minutes, for 2 1/2 hours, or until thermometer registers 185 degrees F. Leg joints should move freely. Remove turkey from roasting pan; remove twine. Let stand 30 minutes, then refrigerate, covered, until chilled--overnight. Serve roasted wild turkey basted with white wine cold, garnished, and carved beside sautéed onion and mushrooms pate'.

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Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/wild-turkey-recipe-white-wine-basted/

Farm Pond Bass Fishing Tips

Tue, 10 Mar 2015 18:36:12 GMT

Tips and Tactics for Farm Pond Fishing Success

Farm ponds do offer excellent potential for bass fishing. Anglers that normally fish the larger lakes and other heavily fished bodies of

water will need to make adjustments to their fishing tactics as well as the bass fishing lures they use.

Many of the small farm ponds that are usually only thought of when one decides to go pan fishing or cat fishing, often hide great bass fishing potential. In some cases both largemouth bass and smallmouth bass can be found in these little out of the way ponds. And there are trophy size pond fish in these small bodies of water, which fight with an aggression that just can't be found by anglers in heavily fished lakes. However you have to go about catching them in a different manner than you would use in the lakes that are fished more often.

First things first, these ponds, unlike the larger lakes, are on private property so you can't just put your boat in the water and start fishing. Ask the owner of the land the pond is on for permission before you go anywhere near the pond or the pond fish. This is simply the polite thing to do. After all, you wouldn't care for people you don't know messing around on your land without your knowledge. And whether there is a "no trespassing" sign or not, if you are there without permission, you are trespassing. Once you have permission, please respect the privilege, take your trash with you, and don't damage the property. Do this and the owner may allow you many years of bass fishing enjoyment in a pond that may become a bass honey hole that many anglers dream of.

Now you have the pond owner's permission and you are ready to go fishing. Don't make a lot of noise; the bass in farm ponds are skittish of noises that a bass angler wouldn't think anything about when on a larger lake.

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In most farm ponds, you won't be able to get a bass boat in. You'll have to opt for a Jon boat or a little one or two seater pontoon boat, and you won't want to use the gasoline motor anyway, as the noise will disturb the bass and any other fish in the whole pond, defeating the purpose of being there. Stick to a trolling motor at low speeds where you can use it. A lot of the time on farm ponds, I find that I have to pull up the trolling motor and use a paddle due to depth, underwater structures and weeds. When paddling, don't splash a lot, put your paddle in the water and push the boat forward pulling the paddle out gently to avoid loud splashing.

Like lake bass, you will have to pattern the largemouth and smallmouth that are in ponds. When it's hot, pond bass will be deep or close to cover, when cold they will be shallow and sluggish. You'll want to check water temperature just as you would when fishing a lake to help figure out what the fish might react.

Crank baits work well on pond bass when they can be fished out of Lilly pads and other hang up spots. Use a natural color, that resembles the bait fish that are in the pond, more often than not a pond bass will look at a day-glow chartreuse bait, and keep watching it go by never thinking about striking that crazy looking thing. One of my favorite lures to use on ponds is a hula popper, however the effectiveness on a farm pond is limited to early morning and late evening just as the sun starts to set. There's just nothing like patiently popping the hula almost losing where you are and what you are doing when the water around the popper opens up and a largemouth or small mouth engulfs the lure in a fury of aggression.

Bass jigs work well in farm ponds. The weed resistant nature of a jig make them an excellent choice for working around lily pads, grass and other such areas that a trophy largemouth or smallmouth might be hiding. A jig is versatile; it can be flipped, pitched or cast to a target area. Many different trailers can be used, plastic does well in warmer weather, but pork trailers stay more pliable in the winter months when the water temperature is cold. Pork trailers also work better in the warmer months when the water is stained or murky as they displace more water and make it easier for the bass to find.

All and all, the best all-around lure for pond fishing is plastic worms. You can fish them almost anywhere in the farm pond without too many hang-ups. Again try to keep the colors and styles natural, black, green pumpkin, and brownish colors seem to work well. I've had a lot of luck with the drop-shot when fishing for bass in ponds, and I've also had success with both Carolina and Texas rigs.

Every pond is different, and require different techniques to be successful. Experiment with different lures and casting styles until you find which works best in the pond you are fishing. I hope these tips give you a start to a great amount success and fun with farm pond bass fishing.

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/farm-pond-bass-fishing-tips/

Calling the Wild Tom Turkey

Sun, 08 Mar 2015 16:04:48 GMT

An overview of tom turkey calls and wild turkey calling tips.

Many wild turkey hunters spend alot of time, often staying up late into the night trying to get just the right call from their wild turkey calls. We scratch slate, scrape wood, and work latex reeds, trying with our best to mimic a wild turkey so we can call in that hardheaded tom turkey come the opening day of wild turkey season. Then opening day of turkey hunting season arrives and we get up well before dawn just hoping to outwit what has been called the dumbest bird ever made. And when we fail to bag that wild tom turkey, especially because we failed to call him in for a good shot, that phrase reverberates through our mind, "Dumbest bird ever made?" Yea... right. It has left a many a turkey hunter pondering his own intellect. And often we have swore never again only to find ourselves repeating the same ritual before the season closes and finally bagging the dumb wild tom turkey.

One important thing I've found that a wild turkey hunter must practice is restraint. Many hunters, especially new turkey hunters, get a response from a tom turkey with a call and get excited and keep working away with that turkey call. Once you have located a tom turkey and gotten a response from him, it's best to switch to more subtle calls that imitate the soft sounds of feeding hen turkeys, or just stop calling completely for a bit to see if that wild tom turkey comes in to investigate. So here are a few things I find that work best. The cluck is defiantly a wild turkey call to practice. Many, in fact most turkey hunters overlook this call. And most turkey hens cluck much more than they cackle or yelp. Turkey hens cluck when they search for food, they cluck on the roost, and they cluck while feeding, and that dumb bird, tom turkey knows this. However the average turkey hunters will spend all their time and effort on cutting, cackling, yelping, and rarely cluck as most turkey hens do all the time. In fact one of the most fascinating things I ever saw was an old school turkey hunter working his magic with his turkey calls.

He had a beautiful wild tom turkey about a 150 yards out, and I expected him to start yelping and cackling away. Instead he clucked a bit and then went silent. A short time later we heard the tom and he was closer. That old turkey hunter made a couple more clucks and purrs, then he laid the friction call down and popped a diaphragm call in his cheek and remained silent. The wild tom turkey soon appeared 25, maybe thirty yards away. And soon after that he had bagged that tom.Later he told me when he had the wild tom turkey first responding, he could of talked to that old tom turkey all day long and he'd likely just sit right there and gobble back. So he went quit and the wild tom had thought he'd lost the hens, so he came looking for them. Ahh.. makes sense doesn't it? You sort of have to play the part of a hard to get wild turkey hen to get that tom to come in closer. If you keep yelping and cackling hard after every response the tom gives, he may come in a little closer, but if he thinks that hen, (you and your wild turkey call), is so hot he thinks the hen is just going to come running at anytime, the tom will stop and wait for that hen to come to him. So if you get quiet and seem only half interested, he'll come running.

Sounds like a game alot of single women play doesn't it? Normally a new wild turkey hunter tends not to call enough. Nor does he, or she, put enough emotion into their wild turkey call. Then as they have been calling for a bit, their confidence builds and they start calling way too much. Calling wild turkeys require no fancy wild turkey calls. Turkeys make a lot of different sounds, and most hunters learn enough to make the sounds realistic enough very quickly. But they lose sight of the fact that the right cadence is more important than how well the actual sound of the wild turkey call is. Yes you want the call to sound realistic, but knowing which call and how much to use the call in each turkey hunting situation is more important. Tell the wild tom turkey where you are and keep him interested, but don't over do the turkey call. Make the tom hunt for you.

The basic wild tom turkey call to use on an early morning wild turkey hunt is a series of short tree yelps. Make them sound sleepy, just enough to let the Tom turkey know you are there. Give a louder series of yelps if the wild tom turkey answers, then go quiet. Continuing to yelp at the gobbler as he is still in his tree, and that wild tom turkey is likely to keep gobbling at you expecting you (Being the wild turkey hen) to come to him. Remain quiet and the wild tom turkey may fly down and head toward you. Once you, (the wild turkey hunter impersonating a wild turkey hen), have gotten the wild tom turkey to fly down. You should be able to tell the gobbler is on the ground by the muffled sound of his call. Now is the time to make your play and really get the wild tom turkey interested. Make a few pleading yelps, then a short series of fly down cackles. Whack your hand, which should be gloved against your leg or maybe your hat to imitate flapping wings.

When the wild tom turkey calls again use a series of strong yelps. Begin with the tutt sounds that turkey hunter call cuts, then the yelps, and end with another cut. Now quietly set that wild turkey call aside, slide your diaphragm turkey call in your mouth to be ready to make some purrs and clucks, and ready your gun. Should it seem that the gobbler has stopped, scratch at the leaves beside you to encourage the gobbler to keep coming. But if the tom is still moving closer, be quiet and still. Make the wild tom turkey come looking for you. Should the gobbler seem to fade off or not come in all the way for a good shot, resume your wild turkey calling. Bring up the pitch and excitement of your turkey call a bit, pleading with the tom turkey with yelps to turn him your way again. When the gobbler is approaching you again, ease off the turkey call and let him hunt you.

If the wild tom turkey is already with some hens, that gobbler isn't likely to leave them and come to you. But often there is another tom traveling with him or somewhere around. If there is a group of wild turkey hens, the odds are good that there's more than one wild tom turkey. So don't jump the gun and change positions or just give up too soon. A wild tom turkey that is surrounded by hens can often be made to come closer by annoying his dominant hen into coming in to drive you off and along with her, the gobbler straggles along. To do this use alot of aggressive cackling, cutting, and yelping. Whatever sound she makes to you, give back that wild turkey call with the same rhythm and the same number of repetitions.

I hope this article about calling the wild tom turkey has been helpful and inspires you to practice how you call as well as how your wild turkey call sounds. Remember that knowing when to use the wild turkey call and when to stay quiet, or use more subtle calls can increase your success. Thank you for reading. And please take time to visit my sponsors by clicking on their banners. Each carries some great assortment of wild turkey calls and other wild turkey hunting gear that will help make your wild tom turkey hunting experience more successful.

Source Url: http://redneckknowhow.com/calling-the-wild-tom-turkey/

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Bandsaw Speeds for the Shopsmith

How the Shopsmith Bandsaw Works

Deciding on a Fixed Blade Broadhead

Pneumatic Wood Carving

Winter Bass Fishing Tips

Venison Parmesan Recipe

Dovetail Box from Pallet Wood part 2

So I've done the hand cut dovetail joints and I'm onto working on adding a bottom to the oak pallet wood sides.

Haunted Graveyard Project

A scroll saw project for a Halloween themed youtube contest.

Jack-O-Lantern Birdhouse Project

The Jack-O-Lantern birdhouse was my second entry for the Summers Woodworking's Birdhouse Challenge 2015.

Casket Chisel Cabinet Build

It's Halloween and I need a chisel cabinet. So why not build a chisel casket?

Shopsmith Bandsaw Blade Tracking

How to get the blade to track properly on the Shopsmith bandsaw

Are you having problems with the tires, blade, or both coming off your Shopsmith bandsaw? I’m going to try and help you by explaining how the bandsaw blade should track in your Shopsmith Bandsaw.

Basic Sheepshead Fishing

A wonderful fish for dinner, sheepshead, (Archosargus probatocephalus) also known as PORGIES, often require the fisherman to use different fishing tactics.

Fishing the Fall Spot Run

Get Ready for the Fall Pier Fishing Season Getting ready for the fall spot (Leiostomus xanthurus) run Tips and technique to prepare you for when the spot run this fall.

Little Birdhouse On the Prarie

Dremel Rotary Tool Wood Carving part 3

Part 3 of my video series demonstrating how I carve wood with the Dremel rotary tool.

Dremel Rotary Tool Wood Carving

How I Carve Wood With a Dremel Rotary Tool

Grilled Bear Steak Recipe

Bear steak can be grilled in much the same way as you would grill beef cuts.

September Bow Hunting

Bow hunting is an area that I have just gotten involved in the past couple of years. So, I'm by far no expert.

But there are a few things I have learned in my small amount of time at it.

Picnic Table Ketchup and Mustard Holder part 4

Picnic Table Ketchup and Mustard Holder part 3

Making a Dice Game Board From Aspen part 5

Making a Dice Game Board From Aspen part 4

Making a Dice Game Board From Aspen part 3

Making a Dice Game Board From Aspen part 2

Making a Dice Game Board From Aspen part 1

Stuffed and Grilled Red Snapper

Recipe requires fresh 10 Pound Red Drum or Red Snapper.

Shallow Water Spring Bass Fishing

Donald Vlogsifys Wood Shop
A New Beginning

The Jack-O-Lantern birdhouse was my second entry for the

Summers Woodworking's Birdhouse Challenge 2015.