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Making toy guns for my grandsons has been one of the bigger thrills of my tenure. It started out quite innocently enough, my first grandson was playing at our house one afternoon and he asked me to make him a gun. I drew a small rifle on a piece of plywood and proceeded to cut it out with a jig saw. After a little smoothing, voila, a toy gun. He played with it and left it at our house when he went home.
For several weeks after that I kept thinking about trying to make him a toy gun that more resembled a real one, keeping in mind to scale it to size. My daughter in law wasn't too keen on guns. So without asking her, I started to lay out a replica of a Winchester Model 94 Rifle. After the gun was mostly completed, I asked my daughter in law if it was O.K. for me to make a gun for her son. She already knew what I was up to and relented.
It was big fun, making that gun. The last stage was to paint it. Gail,[my wife] and I worked on the painting and finishing together. It was a fine re-creation of an Old Western Rifle.
We gave it to him for his birthday. By now his younger brother was old enough to go outside and play, so when they were both at our house I would give the younger brother the original plywood gun and my older grandson had his new birthday gun. In the midst of playing cowboys, the younger son said "mine's not even painted." Well, that did it. I promised him a new gun for his birthday.
And so it went. From that day forward I have been making toy guns for my grandsons for their birthdays. Every year they print out a picture of the gun they want and I scale it down to their size and duplicate it. As they grow, I make the guns a little larger.
Now here's the best part. These boys do not lack for toys. But when I am sent photos of family vacations, one or more of those guns are in the pictures. Even their friends think the guns are cool.
So, today I arrive at their house in the early evening. It's still daylight out and as I pull up my oldest grandson is running across the street with the M16 I made for him. Hiding in the garage is a neighbor boy holding a Thompson Sub Machine Gun from a previous birthday and as I enter the front door of the house, my youngest grandson is just on his way out carrying his Side by Side Double Barrel Shotgun.
I don't know what floats your boat, but this was just about the best moment I could have with these boys. They will probably not remember very much of me when they grow to be men, but they will remember the guns.
Making toy guns for my grandsons has been one of the bigger thrills of my tenure. It started out quite innocently enough, my first grandson was playing at our house one afternoon and he asked me to make him a gun. I drew a small rifle on a piece of plywood and proceeded to cut it out with a jig saw. After a little smoothing, voila, a toy gun. He played with it and left it at our house when he went home.
For several weeks after that I kept thinking about trying to make him a toy gun that more resembled a real one, keeping in mind to scale it to size. My daughter in law wasn't too keen on guns. So without asking her, I started to lay out a replica of a Winchester Model 94 Rifle. After the gun was mostly completed, I asked my daughter in law if it was O.K. for me to make a gun for her son. She already knew what I was up to and relented.
It was big fun, making that gun. The last stage was to paint it. Gail,[my wife] and I worked on the painting and finishing together. It was a fine re-creation of an Old Western Rifle.
We gave it to him for his birthday. By now his younger brother was old enough to go outside and play, so when they were both at our house I would give the younger brother the original plywood gun and my older grandson had his new birthday gun. In the midst of playing cowboys, the younger son said "mine's not even painted." Well, that did it. I promised him a new gun for his birthday.
And so it went. From that day forward I have been making toy guns for my grandsons for their birthdays. Every year they print out a picture of the gun they want and I scale it down to their size and duplicate it. As they grow, I make the guns a little larger.
Now here's the best part. These boys do not lack for toys. But when I am sent photos of family vacations, one or more of those guns are in the pictures. Even their friends think the guns are cool.
So, today I arrive at their house in the early evening. It's still daylight out and as I pull up my oldest grandson is running across the street with the M16 I made for him. Hiding in the garage is a neighbor boy holding a Thompson Sub Machine Gun from a previous birthday and as I enter the front door of the house, my youngest grandson is just on his way out carrying his Side by Side Double Barrel Shotgun.
I don't know what floats your boat, but this was just about the best moment I could have with these boys. They will probably not remember very much of me when they grow to be men, but they will remember the guns.
posted by Terry L. Burr | 8:42 PM
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