I've got to show this off just a bit...

[Tangle]

Actually I'm not sure there is a market that would produce tons of money, I suspect it'd be pretty expensive to manufacture which would further limit the market, and it would likely cost tons of money to patent. But that may be wise to look into.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Rossman]

As a former tree climber I am impressed.

[retsupt99]

I'd like to watch you do that some time...yep, just watch.

I usually trip going up the steps......and at least the ground is not that far away...

[HotGuns]

Actually I'm not sure there is a market that would produce tons of money, I suspect it'd be pretty expensive to manufacture which would further limit the market, and it would likely cost tons of money to patent. But that may be wise to look into.

CNC would knock them out pretty quickly, thus reducing the cost.

Excellent project,and excellent use of skills. It is certainly an innovative project. You have a mill and lathe at the house?

[Tangle]

CNC would knock them out pretty quickly, thus reducing the cost.

Excellent project,and excellent use of skills. It is certainly an innovative project. You have a mill and lathe at the house?

Or perhaps injection molding.

Thanks for the kind words.

Yep I've got a small milling machine and a pretty good sized lathe - both manual.

[Tangle]

As a former tree climber I am impressed.

We're even - I am always impressed with what you guys do. Some of it just seems impossible and you do it routinely.

[HotGuns]

Injection molding would do it but set up costs are high.

So, since you have the stuff with the skills, what else do you make?

[Tangle]

Injection molding would do it but set up costs are high.

So, since you have the stuff with the skills, what else do you make?

OK, but remember you asked

About 8 1911s, although I didn't use my lathe and mill on those - only hand tools - here's a couple of them:


My most unique 1911 I built has the beaver tail separated from the grip safey and is permanently attached to the frame with with some very high strength silver solder. The fit of the beaver tail to the frame was done with only a file and Sharpie black marker. It's worth noting that the seam between the beaver tail and frame is almost invisible from the side view. It shows up a little more from the rear:


And the assembled gun:


Here's a throw line spool that holds 180 feet of throwline made on a manual mill:



One of my class projects - a 600 lb battery powered, four wheel drive, articulated steering (like a wheel loader), radio controlled, utility machine with a 200 lb lift - all radio controlled:


Another class project - a skid steer, radio controlled machine - caught a student performing a wheelie with it:


A unique descending device - made on a CNC machine (I don't have a CNC):


A 'Christmas Tree' that plays Christmas carols and flashes random patterns of red and green leds in time with the music and a flashing 'star' at the top. This is a microcontoller based project. A friend and I programmed the note timing and loaded the notes for the tunes. It plays about 10 carols, turns the speaker off for a round, but leaves the lights still flashing, and then starts playing the songs again:


And some other stuff I don't have pics of.

Well you asked.

[QKShooter]

I really enjoyed this thread Tangle.

Doggone neat trigger mechanism.

I can see you making a crossbow as a future project.

BTW Folks...Tangle is a super talented guy.
Multifaceted is the word I'm looking for I think.

[Rock and Glock]

Neat stuff! Thanks for sharing! The tree climbing looks really cool, but akin to parachuting - jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.....

[HotGuns]

Excellent Tangle, excellent.
As a machinist I can really appreciate the time and effort you put into those things, not to mention the talent.

Thank you for sharing. What kind of mill and lathe do you have? Ever make any guns from scratch ?

[rocky]

Very cool post. I have climbed trees to rappel back down , but not nearly that high. Looks like lots of fun. Great job on machining the launcher too.

[Tangle]

I really enjoyed this thread Tangle.

Doggone neat trigger mechanism.

I can see you making a crossbow as a future project.

BTW Folks...Tangle is a super talented guy.
Multifaceted is the word I'm looking for I think.

All I can say is look who's talkin'! You do things that make me think, "How does he know how to do that!"

I'll post a pic of the actual trigger mechanism soon as I can, probably this evening. I'm really pleased with the way it works and the fact that it doesn't depend on a small sear interface.

Neat stuff! Thanks for sharing! The tree climbing looks really cool, but akin to parachuting - jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.....

I hear ya man! I had to gradually acclimate to height. In fact, here's how bad it was:

I was just learning, I was by myself and I got up to 15 feet. I decided that was pretty high (I know many climb ladders much higher), so I disconnected my footloops and tossed them to the ground. You use the footloops to lift yourself, BTW. It was then I realized without the footloops, I wouldn't be able to unload my ascender and transfer to my descender - I was basically stuck! I naturally struggled trying to lift my weight off my ascender with my arms and I could a bit, but then I had no way to take slack up on the descender because both hands were holding my weight. I thought I'd have to call the fire department to get me down, but quickly realized they wouldn't have a ladder short enough to reach me. I found a piece of nylon webbing on my harness and was able to use it for a footloop and pretty quickly got down. But that day, 15 feet looked a whole lot further down than it looks up.

Excellent Tangle, excellent.
As a machinist I can really appreciate the time and effort you put into those things, not to mention the talent.

Thank you for sharing. What kind of mill and lathe do you have? Ever make any guns from scratch ?

You are so right about the time and effort. I spent a lot of time just building the jigs to hold the pieces to cut the curves.

I bought one of the cheaper milling/drilling machine and a pretty good sized lathe from ENCO many years ago. They are made in China but the equivalents in made in the US were around $1000 more.

Well it depends on what you mean by 'from scratch', the 1911's I built were components from various manufacturers hand fitted together, but I haven't actually built the components.

I'm not sure I have enough tooling, machines, or knowledge to do that. Seems like choosing the right metal for the various parts would be challenging within itself. Also in semi auto machining, I understand Caspian has Ruger 'broach' the magazine chutes in their 1911 frames.

Very cool post. I have climbed trees to rappel back down , but not nearly that high. Looks like lots of fun. Great job on machining the launcher too.

That's exactly why I started climbing trees - to rappel. I was even considering building a rappelling tower and went to On Rope 1 and talked to the owner about it. He invited me to his house to see his climbing tower - a 30 foot telephone pole with arms for rope connections. I got all excited about that until I learned it costs $350 for the pole, $350 to get the pole set, and another $350 to get the hardware in place at the top. Then I walked out into my back yard and looked at all the long, tall pine trees. Hmmm, telephone poles are growing everywhere in my yard and they are free! All I have to do is learn to climb them.

After some exciting rappels, the tree climbing became interesting, the planning, techniques, gear, problem solving, etc. Now I climb trees for the exercise and fun, and still get to rappel.

[QKShooter]

Just always make sure that you take your cell phone up with you just in case you ever have to make a "long distance call" to somebody on the ground floor.


"Then I walked out into my back yard and looked at all the long, tall pine trees. Hmmm, telephone poles are growing everywhere in my yard and they are free! All I have to do is learn to climb them.

After some exciting rappels, the tree climbing became interesting, the planning, techniques, gear, problem solving, etc. Now I climb trees for the exercise and fun, and still get to rappel."

[Tangle]

Good advice! At home, after I learned my lesson the hard way, I always carry a walkie-talkie with me so I can contact my 'groundie', my wife.

But, when I do a wilderness climb out in the boonies, I always go with another climber and I have a cell phone on me; don't always have service but hopefully I can get to a place where I will.

Last time I did a wilderness climb we hiked for an hour and 20 minutes, including stop times, and we were deep in the forest. By deep I mean 'down' in the forest, and far into the forest, and we had to mark our path with surveyor's tape because there was no trail for the last part of the trek.

We had lunch on the ground right after we descended a 100 foot tree and right after lunch there was this really unnerving clap of thunder. We looked at each other, packed as fast as we could and started hauling out of there. We didn't want to get caught in a rain storm and especially not in a thunderstorm. It was up hill all the way out, we hiked at max, and stopped to rest three times for 30 seconds. Yep, 30 seconds - thunder is very motivational. We made it out in 45 minutes.