Family Cars

Looking through old slides and other photos, I saw several automobiles that I vividly remember from my childhood.  Also some others that just look really cool, but which predate my arrival on this planet.

Ford F-Series Pickup 1st Generation owned by Russell and LaVon Phillips

Cleaning Old Slides

I have spent the past several months scanning old slides that were taken by my father and grandfather.  Some of the loose older slides were very dirty and smudged.  I originally scanned these "as is", but after some reading online decided to try cleaning them up.  I used a spray bottle with 99.5% pure alcohol and some microfiber cloths.  The images below show the before and after photos.

  

Click on any image to view a larger version.  Left and right arrows allow you to quckly tab through the images and compare the before and after versions.

Repairing a Colt 1861 Navy Revolver

I was visiting my mother in February this year and chanced across the above revolver in an old chest full of things from my great grandfather, George Francis (Frank) Crawforth.  I posted this photo to Facebook asking if anyone could identify it and two of my mission companions, Gary Mackelprang and Glen Leewright informed me that it is an 1861 Colt Navy cap and ball revolver.  This one has a serial number of 12101, which the Colt serial number website says was manufactured in 1863.

I contacted several gunsmiths about restoring it and they all informed me that the gun is too far gone for full restoration and would not be worth the cost.  The cylinder is rust welded to the cylinder pin and will not rotate.  I tried several methods of loosening the weld, but none worked.  In the end, I have decided to clean it up and put a trigger guard and grip back on the gun.  The plunger is also missing, and that will need to be replaced and the trigger is broken and needs replacement as well.  Since the cylinder does not turn, I can't fully repair the action, but I can get the trigger and hammer to work.

I'm documenting the repair process below.

Two Methods of Converting 8mm Film to Digital

A couple of decades ago I got a copy of some of my grandfather's old 8mm home movies he filmed in the 1960s.  These films were played on an 8mm film projecter onto a screen and recorded again using a VHS camcorder.  I got a copy of this tape.  About a decade ago, I digitalized all my VHS tapes using a VHD to DVD converter deck.  This included the tape with my grandfather's movies.  Then a few years later, I converted the DVD files to mp4 format to share with family more easily.