Just Some More Geocache Swag

I finally finished making the rest of the presidential quote cipher disks I started on a while back.  Man, talk about an elephant sandwich of a project.  At the start I was pretty darned pleased with the fact that these were all unique and all hand made.  In the middle of the project, though, I was actually pricing laser engravers because, you know, the “screw this where’s the TV remote” part of the task hit a lot earlier then expected.

In order to break up the monotony a bit I switched gears and gave myself something new to focus on.  Nothing too difficult... something the boy and I could work on together.  

In the interest of time, I am going to depart a bit from my usual style of hyperbole and over-explaining my self-talk to simply relate the facts of recent trip to Lowe’s to get supplies for this project.  You can, using your imagination, fill in the emotional gaps.  You will most likely be right.

Me: Where can I find the wooden biscuits?  I see the biscuit joiners right over there so I am guessing they are nearby... I suppose I am just missing them.

Employee #1: Blank stare.  Pause.  What are you looking for?

Me: Biscuits for use in making biscuit joints.  I am positive I have seen them around before.  Plastic cylindrical container, holds about 100.

Employee #1: Pause.  Biscuits?  Could you describe them?

Me: Wooden, football shaped... things, I guess...

Employee #1: And what are they used for again?

Me: Making biscuit joints.  Look, I don’t think that anything else I say right now is going to help out and I don’t want to waste any more of your time.  Is there someone else I could talk to?

Employee #1: Bobby is the only one here other than me.  Pause.  Uncomfortable silence.  

Me: Could you get him, please?

After a time a Santa-esque man shambles up and I describe to him what I am looking for.  

Employee #2: Hmph... my brother-in-law bought a biscuit joiner about three years ago.  He has never even taken it out of the box.  Pause.

Me: I see.  Do you know where the biscuits are?

Employee #2: No.  Sorry.

Me: Ok.  Thank you.

Employee #2: Is there anything else I can help you with today?

Me: No thanks.  You guys have done enough.  I will ask the manager on my way out.

I left to do some more shopping.  Five minutes later the wife and I were literally chased down by a third employee waving the container of sought-after biscuits with Bobby-Santa in tow.  I thanked them and went on my way.

All I was going to use these for was to make some fish for a mobile for his room, nothing fancy.  As I write this I can’t for the life of me recall why we decided that making a fish mobile would be a fun thing to do... Maybe it had something to do with part of a school project he brought home...   It doesn’t matter, I guess.

I cut the biscuits on the bandsaw and got rid of most of the uneven parts and fuzz with a Dremmel.  SInce this part of the job was super-quick I decided to cut myself an extra fifteen of them to use for my next batch of geocache swag.  

He painted his whatever colors he felt like, and I kept mine all green.  After they dried we glued googly eyes to them, one on each side for his mobile and just one on one side for my stuff.  

I made some little “plaques” for my fish out of a hunk of scrap cedar, sanding the edges to make them a little more interesting to look at.  After the front label was added and a simple cryptogram was glued to the back they were pretty much done.  A coat of gloss sealant on the front and some shellac on the back helped to waterproof the paper.

Oh, yeah, the cryptograms.  All fifteen encode the same message, but all fifteen use a different mono-alphabetic scheme for no other reason than that I like to put coded messages in the stuff I make.  That’s it.

I attached the fish to the actual mobile part of the mobile but I thought the thing looked a little... I don’t know... I guess it looked different in my head than it did in my hand.  I was expecting the boy to be as disappointed as I was but he just said “That.  Looks.  Awesome.  I love the red ones and the orange ones!”  So there it is, hanging above the desk in his room.  I’m glad he likes it.

Breaking up the cipher disk project like that gave me the second wind I needed to push through and make the rest of them. I took the last bite of the elephant sandwich a couple of weeks ago and I even have seven “blanks” I can use for something in the future.  Sweet.

One last thing.  I found my 250th cache a little while back and went online to buy a pin to put on my backpack like I did for my 100th find. The only thing they had for a 250th find was a medallion you could put on your bookshelf or something.  Pfft... Weak.  The boy and I dug through his craft box and we came up with what you see on the left.  After waterproofing it and epoxying a small safety pin to it I was done and it sits next to my metal “100” one right now.