New and Improved 60th Anniversary Red Ryder by Restomod

There she is kids, the newest Restomod off the production line. This gun was part of a package deal for stock work and I was really impressed with the quality of the roll stamp on the butt stock logo so I decided to keep it and the factory paint.

Not stripping the metal work and fire blueing it saved a lot of time and effort and the result is quite nice, aside from some issues on the left side of the gun most likely the result of whatever removed the cheezy latigo loop. See below.

Whatever. The unit still has the factory power plant, the factory plastic trigger but it's an older one with out that annoying anti-bear trap mechanism. I did replace the plastic lever with a new production Daisy metal loop and installed a fiber optic front sight.

These work really well and should be a part of every Daisy upgrade you do. Of course keeping the original butt stock doesn't mean you have to leave it stock, so I did some curly maple overlays on the wrist, chucked the original fore end for a new curly maple unit with out a barrel band and Voila!

It should have looked this way when it left the factory. 

That's today's update, if anybody would like to pick this piece up drop a comment and we'll see what can be done about that.

Restomod Daisy Update for 15 AUG 19

Greetings All,

It's been quite a while since I posted here at Bludgeon & Skewer so it must be time for an update!

Here's a trio Restomod Daisy Model 1938's. Note the Tyrolean-ish buttstock. Keen to look at and shoot but difficult to make. 

I've acquired a goodly collection of Daisy Model 1938 Red Ryder's and a smattering of Daisy #111 Model 40's and have been converting them to Rest-O-Mod Model Mark 1's and well as a foray into the new standard, the Mark 2.

The Mark 2 features all the design elements of the Mark 1's with the addition of a new factory Model 25 50 round spring loaded shot tube and the necessary mods for it to fit these older model Daisy's. The plus side is the elimination of the need for gravity to position the BB in the chamber and the plus plus side is that the copper muzzled Mark 2's are running at an average of 35 FPS faster than the stock "split" shot tubes are capable of.

The ready rack is getting packed again so it might be time for a "Blow the Dust Off" sale.

Is there a Galactic market for Restomods?

Sure hope so.

The planetary market for highly modified antique Daisy products is far from brisk, minuscule would be an overstatement and sustainable is a pipe dream. Fortunately I have quite a few pipes and am a big believer in dreams.

I'm personally hoping the hoopla resonating in the UFO/Bigfoot/Paranormal communities as a result of the TicTac revelations bears fruit in the near future in the form of an official visit by at least one of the 23 races/cultures/collectives of alien/extra-dimensional/extra galactic beings to establish a trade mission. It is probably time for the planetary powers that be to admit that they've monetized everything that's nailed down and most of the moving stuff and all this secrecy is standing in the way of more profits.

So with an eye to the future I want our alien/extra-dimensional/extra-galactic brothers and sisters to know that there's at least one person on planet earth that wants to start horsetrading. That would be me, I currently have a great selection of primitive lever action bean shooters that would be the talk of the town on Cygnus 4 or any other spot in the known and unknown universe. 

If interested, drop by in one of those new scorpion shaped two seaters some of you guys have been tooling around in lately. Once you get your hands/claws/tentacles/whatever on one of these Restomod Daisy's you're gonna want take it home. 

Please note that supplies are limited and it's first landing/contact first served. I'm not inclined to accept Booliean trade units in exchange but will cheerfully complete the transaction for nugget sized diamonds, unobtanium or appropriately packaged 5 gallon containers of element 115.

See you soon!

Restomod Daisy 1894 Rides Again

This is a damn good lookin' Daisy Model 1894.

 It looks equally good on the other side too!

Yep, still lookin' good.

The other thing about this build is that it was so much trouble that I'm inclined not to do this again.

Instead I think I'll focus on more of these.

This was a Ebay rust bucket when I got it, you can head over to Restomoddaisy on Youtube if you want to see just how bad it was. Now it's handling like it was made for me, (OK, it was) hitting like a brick at 325FPS, stacking rounds at a consistent 1" high and 1" wide at 30 feet and cuttin' cans with ease. All I need now it one of those Austrian Hats with the feathers and some funky shorts with suspenders.

Rest-O-Mod Update

Greetings All,

It's been a while since I've put up a post here at the B&S site and lots of stuff has been happening the most peculiar of which was an explosion of hits last month that I can not explain. This site's been up almost 10 years and has mostly been an exercise in futility, a pleasant enough experience for me and the tens webcrawlers that have wandered through monthly but sorely lacking the reach required to generate any kind of revenue. 

Last month was different, 3500+ webcrawlers vs. 90+ which was the standard for years.

That's kind of hard to explain so it's basically unexplainable.

I'm going with the idea that the webcrawlers bots are addicted to images of fiddleback stocked Daisy BB guns. Yeah, that's the ticket, enough of the endless AI experimentation has leaked out to the internet-o-sphere to give the webcrawlers a sense of awareness. Skynet smiles when it senses cool BB guns!

So here's some crawlerbait, lets see if the hit rate expands yet again.

A tasty pair of wide body Daisy's. Model 99 at the top, Model 95 below it. Both available to the discriminating collector for a fraction of the price of a pre-64 Winchester.

For something completely different as well as totally unnecessary, this Rest-O-Mod Mini Krink is the winning ticket. Heavy, unwieldy and indescribably cool this 400 shot repeater will do more to illustrate your lack of marksmanship skills than any device known to man. Affordably.

The ultimate combo pack! Three custom Red Ryders for the price of about 47% of one FX Crown PCP! These don't need dry air compressors by the way and the FX Crown does not have Fiddleback stocks.

Ok, these are props for a failed Steampunk movie production that focused on the Woodwind's vs. Brass war of 1817. Tempting?

Rest-O-Mod Starter pack. Some fabrication and assembly required.

That's it for crawlerbait. If by chance an actual human with an interest in this stuff stops by and wants to know more, send me an email or drop a comment and I'll see what I can do.

Rest-O-Mod Daisy Model 1938B Chinese Red Ryder Upgrade

There's a lot of angst about Daisy's current production Red Ryder built with Chinese parts assembled in the USA at Daisy. The up side is this is manufactured to Daisy specs and because it's made in the land of low production costs it's still really cheap. Especially if you haunt the aisles of your local Walmart and wait for the inevitable $24.95 mark down price. Be patient, it'll happen.

Once you spy your intended target, buy two of them and head home chuckling with glee as you now have two for the price of one which means you can mod them any way you want. When you get done you'll have a functioning one-off that'll do anything a factory gun will do but that has your very own style stamped on it. The perfect heirloom pass down.

The stock Walmart Red Ryder is as basic as it gets with Daisy. The standard unit is equipped with the plastic lever, bare bones front sight, annoying bear-trap trigger and safety and the legendarily inconvenient leather thong. A quick and dirty upgrade is to simply replace the plastic lever with a new cast aluminum unit from Daisy, replace the stock front sight with one of Daisy's nifty fiber optic front sight units and get that leather thong out of the way.

If that is enough and you're done, fine. But if you want to add a couple of easy touches that really make the gun stand out then redo the stock. The current production daisy has a Chinese hardwood stock of some description, I don't know anything about wood in China but this gun had something akin to poplar on it. The wood is very light and this unit had a tightish grain pattern hidden under the coat of stain/finish applied at the factory.

I decided that I would do some applique work on this one so I removed the factory stain with a wipe down with acetone followed by a light sanding to 220 grit. Next I went to the scrap bin and pulled out some trims from other stocks and glued them up on the wrist of the butt stock and fore end to provide some pop. I then hit it with two coats of my wood dye formulation for fiddleback maple and let it air dry for a day or two. Once dry, I applied a heavy coat of Danish oil followed by a light coat applied with 320 grit wet/dry paper to knock down the fuzz and let that sit long enough to dry. Then it's polishing time. The effect is pretty nice and very smooth to handle.

Every time you do a project, you'll discover something. This time I discovered I'll just replace the forearm entirely as the applique just doesn't cut it in my opinion. I do like the butt stock modification as it retains the Red Ryder logo and improves the grip.

So, there it is. A unique take on an american classic made in china. Cool, functional and ready to chase cans all over the back yard in style.

Rest-O-Mod Daisy #102 Model 36 post 1958

Pretty ain't it?

Today's offering is a Rest-O-Mod Daisy #102 Model 36 built in Rodgers Arkansas sometime after 1958. This little gems registration number is J947883 which is the key to deciphering it's actual build date.  If one of the readership is possession of the holy grail of Daisy Collecting "It's a Daisy" by Cass Hough and can take a peek, let me know what you discover.

This little guy was in pretty fair nick from the get go, good paint, good compression and most of it's original screws. No reason to strip the factory paint and fireblue it so I slapped on a glue up fiddleback maple buttstock and fore end on it and called it a day.

This is a top shot of the buttstock showing the line where the stock halves are joined.

Same shot with the fore end. The slotted screw is attached to a flanged bolt that has been profiled to fit the barrel shroud and attached with black JB weld. Good secure mount without the need for a barrel band.

Here's a shot from the aft end of the rifle. I decided to use brass screws on this one as an accent.

This is close up of the right side of the receiver showing the polished aluminum lever and the two holes for mounting a Daisy model 303 scope if you were one of the lucky guys or gals whose parents added that dandy item to your Christmas cache.

Here's the roll stamp on the top of the receiver with all the pertinent data. Just a few scratches in evidence.

Finally, a left side view of the mini beast.

That's all for today, If you want to see more stuff, head over to my Ebay Store by searching Rest-O-Mod Daisy in the ebay search bar.

Thanks for looking.

Rest-O-Mod Daisy Rides Again!

Time to put up another effort by Rest-O-Mod Daisy. Today's feature is a Daisy Model 75 Scout made in Plymouth Michigan sometime before 1958.

This little gem was an outlier for my standard procedure of turning nasty, filthy, rusty, busted old Daisy's into objects of affection. This gun was pretty clean to start with. The plastic forestock was bowed but show me a 60 year old daisy that isn't. The butt stock was straight and the it shot hard enough to punch a hole in an aluminum can at 25 feet. Wonders never cease.

The trouble is I love messing with these Daisy's. So I restocked it in scrap fiddleback and had to configure the grip out of walnut. I'm happy with the result although it required some gap filling. I make no claim to being a Japanese craftsman although I can spell the word.

Slapped a Rest-O-Mod steel butt plate on with solid brass screws. I know it violates the dissimilar metals school of thought but, OK, so what?

I also imported the revolutionary reverse Schnabel fore end from my "Mares Leg" project I did a while back. When you're mounting the gun after the reload cycle your support hand will slide back to the bulge and stay put. Snap off the shot and repeat, it's wonderful way to build muscle memory.

The main drawback is that this little guy has a factory length stock. That makes it a chin gun for me but for 6 year old, it's pretty damn manly.

There you have it, another Rest-O-Mod Daisy in living color

They are the coolest stuff ever.

Remember your first BB gun In FallOut 3? Neither do I.

This is what it would have looked like.

One of the joys of being a parent is the fact that your kids come up with great idea's from time to time. Forget about that hole to China in the back yard, that was long time ago and they only made it down to 4 1/2 feet or so.

I have been tinkering with BB guns their whole lives and they, like most of their generation, have spent countless hours on first person shooter  gaming platforms. Behold the result!

There is a game called Fall Out 3 that is set in a post-apocalypto world that actually features a BB gun as the first weapon you master before venturing out of the security of your "vault" to adventures in the scarred and mutant filled landscapes of  the ruined country side.

The first gun thing appealed to me and the fact that it sure as hell looks like a Daisy piqued my interest. If I can upgrade the rusted, broken old Daisy guns that I convert to Rest-O-Mods, surely I degrade the more modern plastic lever/safety guns to look like they've been through the apocalypse.
And still shoot.

So there it is. A Fall Out 3 Tribute daisy.

What have you got in your vault?

A Daisy Model 25's rebirth

Not much to look at is it? I got this Daisy model 25 as a basketcase years ago. No stocks, an odd Hodge podge of parts , mismatched receiver and barrel assembly and no shot tube. Lots of Daisy's end up in this condition because the owner/operators (young boys) have a penchant for taking things apart and not putting them back together. Then it's off to the closet/barn/shed where it sits dormant and forgotten growing a nice patina of rust.

The stocks on this one are curly maple and look OK but they didn't come with the gun. I just wasn't happy with the thinness as I built these as straight factory style replacements. I also wasn't too keen on the rusty receiver and painted barrel and decided to finish modding it.

Step 2, if you count the first set of stocks, was to remove the rust and paint from the receiver and fireblue them. After a couple of tries it got to an acceptable level and I started looking at the wood again.

I settled on doing a glue up curly maple stock with a finger groove wrist. Probably won't do that again. I do like the transition from the wrist to the butt stock proper and I'm gonna try that again in the future.

I also broke out the gold stick and drove myself nuts trying to fill in the  oh so faint roll engraving on the receiver. It finally stayed put and is quite a nice accent to the new stock set.

A slightly better picture with reduced glare.

 The total package. Quite a long way from photo number one and hopefully good enough to keep it over the mantle, not in the shed.

The next gun on the list is a Model 94 Red Ryder with no internals or stocks and my youngest son says I need to redo it as a Fallout Las Vegas tribute. What ever that is.