<<If you came for the Cabal Fang workout of the day, it’s at the bottom!>>
Lately I’ve been inspired by Mr. Watt to get back into making stuff. Since I’m a creature of habit, I’ve been setting aside Sunday afternoons. When the yard work is done I do a little crafting.
Yesterday I had three things on the list, but I only go to two of them. The first one was to put latches and a handle on the old box we use to hold the membership scroll at my martial arts club. We used to just hold it shut with a leather strap.
I used a rusty spike and some leather scraps for the handle and added some brass chest latches (our martial art has an Early American, Enlightenment era, ancient lodge sort of aesthetic). While I was at it, I hot-glued some tan corduroy to the inside for padding and decoration. At some point I’m going to go back and put dots of epoxy over the screw heads and paint them so that they look more rustic.†
My next project was to turn a wine bottle into an incense burner. I’ve been wanting to try this for a long time. Finally did some research and got it done. Quite simple really. All you do is drill a couple of 7 mm/.25″ holes in the side of the bottle about 6 cm/2.5″ up from the base. Yeah right — did you ever try to drill a hole in a glass bottle?
I used this bit and this method.‡ It was so easy that I made another one for my daughter. I burned some incense in mine during this morning’s contemplation session and it worked great.
Now for the Cabal Fang WOD.
Calisthenics: 6 x 15 of Wide Push-ups, Front Lunges, Steam Engines, Knuckle Push-ups, Side Lunges. If you can get it done faster than 19:54 with good form, well you got me beat.
†When I was a kid I fantasized about being a movie prop master. I used to make all kinds of stuff — replicas of objects, weapons and spacecraft from my favorite sci-fi tv shows, scale models of rockets and planes, “ancient” books, and so forth. I still play around a little. Like when I made these Firefly ammo boxes and storage crates.
‡ The fellow in the video uses a yellow rubber guide. I made one from a scrap of rigid leather. I just drilled a hole in it the same diameter as the glass bit. Worked like a charm.
Robert Mitchell Jr. 