Just in time for football season

This feels like the end of a pretty productive summer. I got a few good projects in, and even though let the lawn lapse a little (I only mowed the backyard once all season), things are in decent shape around the house right now.

Minus not finishing a painting or two, the big and small projects turned out like they should. I was really happy with how my helmet stands turned out earlier this summer, but looking at the photos of my ND helmet on it something was missing. I couldn't tell what it was until I realized it was the missing decal above the facemask.

A real helmet for sale.

My old helmet. Not quite the same.

It never bothered me before, partly b/c this wasn't an official helmet. When I was a senior I knew an equipment manager for the football team. This was when they were still spending the Fridays before games painting the helmets gold, and I just happened to have access to a few old helmets I had around, so I convinced him to bring them in with him and get painted. One for him, one for my roommate, and one for me. So it's not an official ND helmet, but it's about as official as an unofficial helmet could be.

It's always gotten attention from any sports fan that's seen it since then, and various people have even been impressed enough to offer to buy it off me to no avail. At this point I kind of love it more since I conned my way into it vs shelling out to buy a real one. Because of that, not having the decal never really bothered me but looking at the pics, I wondered if I could find some online.

Of course you can find them online, and even if they're not a perfect fit, since I'm still breaking even on this deal anyway, why not pay $6 for some decals and see if they fit. So that's what I did, and they do, in fact, look pretty great.

And while the missing decals didn't bother me, the yellow face mask always has. And if I'm spending money on decals, why not break out the leftover primer again to take care of that?

Huh. That might explain why the helmet is so small.

So many coats of grey at this point.

Looks good back on the stand though.

Even with my unsteady hand this thing is truly display ready, which is good b/c it's too small to fit my huge head and this is as much use as it's going to get. But it looks good back on the stand, and with football season starting this felt like a good project to get wrapped up as summer winds down. Now if only either of my teams could look competitive this year that would be a bonus. I have the feeling it's going to be a long fall.

After a slight delay, helmet stands done

We went out of town over the weekend, which meant any projects got put on hold for an extra couple of days. I had been having trouble finding time to get a finish on these stands anyway, so being out forced me to get away for enough time that I came back ready to finish these and move on.

Even with the delay, I really like how these came together. Builds like this are a good illustration of how much fun you can have with a new hobby once you get acclimated to it. These were spur of the moment projects, won't serve much use, but I really enjoyed figuring out how to put them together and what finish I wanted to put on them. And really, it would have been easier, and not much more expensive, to just buy two stands. But that would have lead to time waiting for shipping to get delivered instead of time in the shop figuring stuff out, and shop time is way more pleasant than waiting for a delivery.

The Kylo Ren stand needed a bit of black, so while I stained the actual wood of the post, the plywood got a matte black spray paint. I think the contrast looks good. I also think I paid more for the plywood than I did for the helmet (90% off the day after halloween, thank you very much) so this project turned out great even if I don't think this helmet's getting worn in the next movie. Next up I think I have to build a display case for all these Star Wars figures I have waiting for the boy.

I went with a flat blue for the football helmet, using some of the blue furniture paint over the last of my white spray primer. Re-using stuff from other projects might mean I'm inching ever closer to being cost-effective but man do I hate painting with this stuff. It's can be challenging to get even coverage, but ultimately it's going to be under a helmet so I'm not too worried about it in the end. Same reason seeing the plywood bands doesn't bother me too much either. At least you can't really tell how crooked the bottom cuts are with it on the shelf.

Even with the mistakes these turned out pretty good. Having the helmets on stands feels like they should be somewhere more noticeable than our closet, but that's the challenge in sharing your space with the rest of the family. Not all my "guys' stuff" can be out all the time. For now it was a fun project to throw together. 

The fortuitiousness of extra materials

Boy that’s a fancy title. 

I have a felt banner from college that I never had a good way to display but have always wanted to put up somewhere. It doesn’t help that the banner never wanted to lay flat on anything and curls up from the bottom when it’s on a wall. I had it stashed on a shelf in the garage with the intention of getting around to it someday.

Thankfully, I bought more 1x2” than I needed for the two floater frames, and had a moment of inspiration when I realized I was possibly looking at a solution to how to hang this banner. It seems the banner’s “someday” had finally come. 

Quickly eyeballing a frame, with some glue and joiners this was an easy build. The trick, like always, is in the details. I went with the gunstock stain b/c I still love how the table looks, and not everything in the house has to be walnut.

That was quick.

A few quick poly coats for shine and voila, the frame is done. 

late-night staining after everyone else has gone to bed has become a regular event

Without plans I wasn't sure if this would work, but the top and bottom of the frame got two additional runners across to give the banner something extra to anchor to. In the end it wound up working pretty well.

Do I turn a room in to a Notre Dame room now? Probably not.

To get the banner up I went low-tech. I thought about stringing picture wire across the top to hang it, but instead just taped it to some cardboard cut smaller than the frame and then taped that to the top of the frame. The wife immediately noticed it doesn’t quite fill the frame (and pulled the whole thing off the frame, thank you very much), but again I think that’s b/c the banner itself isn’t square and wants to curl up. It's stapled in now and hasn't moved since. In any case, it’s a step up from being balled up on a garage shelf, now I just need to get a thumbs up on somewhere to hang it.