Funky Finds takes place spring and fall at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in  Ft. Worth.  Located in Cattle Barn 2, it has a distinctive ambiance for a craft fair.  All items being displayed must be hand made by the vendor.  There was the typical assortment of jewelry and home decorative items, a few wood and metal working booths, but only one booth offering mixed-media consisting of car memorabilia and woodworking.

Although it is a "barn," the interior is all concrete and steel with electric outlets every few feet along the concrete back wall.  As a vendor, it is convenient b'cuz you can bring your vehicle right up to the entrance, you don't need a canopy to protect your booth from the elements and the premises are secure overnight.

Since last year I made a point of creating another spot-light clock and a couple of Mustang wall clocks because these items have always been hot sellers.  So, of course, none of them sold.  The FireFlight script emblem I had purchased for $1.00 at my first event as a vendor three years ago did sell.  Suzanne said she will miss  it b'cuz it is so unique.  I will too.  (I could have purchased two at the $1.00 price, but I feared they would never sell and "who needs two of them?")

Funky Finds was a two-day show.  This next weekend I am doing another indoor show at the Texas Motor Speedway, but it is three days.  Attendees at this event will be classic car enthusiasts, but the craft fair will encompass both car and non-car themed items.  I have done this show before and I am looking forward to it.  The only drawback is that my lovely wife will be out of town (state & country) so I will be a lone wolf.

Last August Suzanne and I bought an 800 SF cabin in the Cypress Cove community of Spring Branch, TX on the north shore of Canyon Lake.  Following the purchase we had a gravel drive and a perimeter fence put in.  Although I made a couple trips from our home in Denton to the lake to oversee these improvements, November was the first time that we both visited the property since our purchase.  We had Thanksgiving dinner with son and daughter-in-law, Karl and Connie, who had built a new house in the same neighborhood the year before.​  Younger daughter, Sugar, and her boyfriend, Lane, have recently moved to Texas and joined in.  We did not take any formal pictures of Thanksgiving dinner, but some action shots are shown below.

Although a new sofa-sleeper and king mattress had arrived at the cabin before our arrival, the week following Thanksgiving involved shopping for basic furniture and fixtures: Bed frame, dresser, microwave, stove and refrigerator topped the list.  Karl and I installed a new toilet and hung a rain gutter on the end of the roof above the new gravel drive.  The dresser we brought home turned out to be damaged, so it was returned and we await a replacement.  The stove and refer we selected at Lowes were also unavailable immediately, so Karl has three items to pick up for us this month so that we will have them by the time of our Christmas visit.  Connie, a Texas-licensed real estate agent, found this place for us and Karl has been intimately involved in its improvement.

Below are some more pictures of the property.

We plan to spend some time back at our cabin, while older granddaughter, Summer, will be here from California for Christmas.  We hope to get the remaining major furnishings in place and make our new second home feel truly homey.  Photos of the interior will be posted when its furnishing is more complete.

Following an October 3-day craft show at the Texas Motor Speedway, I did two high school craft fairs in November: Billy Ryan High and Guyer High Choir shows.  Suzanne did the Ryan H.S. show with me, then left for her African safari tour the next day.  My good friend Alan came down from Oregon the following week and helped with the Guyer show.  Although it was my first time at both shows, I was assigned good locations - especially at Guyer where I was the second booth from the front door!

I was close to not only the entrance, but also next to a side walkway, so I was able to spread out a little.  I could even display some hanging items on the back side of the vertical racks (left photo below),  The new '57 Chevy headlight-ring clock sold right at 9 :00 AM when the show opened - it was in the empty spot at the upper, left corner of the display wall.

Above are angle views of the booth. This was the first time I draped cloth over the back of the display racks.  Compared with the Ryan H.S. booth below, I think it makes the items stand out better without the distraction of the background.

At Billy Ryan High I was placed in the gym, the farthest room from the school entrance.  However, this is a very large show (like Guyer) and there were many other craft venders in the room.  Traffic was steady,  I sold three items and handed out many business cards to people who may wish to have a custom display created. 

​Notice in the right photo that you see through my display racks into the back of the booth behind me.  I felt that this reduced the effectiveness of my own display.  I addressed this at the Guyer show with maroon cloth clipped to the back of the racks.  I believe an improvement.

Above are views of the two side tables of my U-shaped display.  I sold one of the two mustang plaques I made recently and the second of the two log boxes I made.last year.

What I thought would be a two week project turned out to be two months.  Nothing new!  Our house came with a poorly designed and constructed book shelf in the small, fourth bedroom, which we converted into a dedicated office early-on.  I took down the books a couple of years ago and used it to display my hood ornament creations, but it quickly became too small.​  There was no back to the shelves, other than the painted drywall.  They tended to sag in the center.  And they were the standard 12 inches deep.

So I designed a floating, four-shelf system that would run the full length of the ten foot wall rather than stop short of the outside wall with a window and would be 16 inches deep.  I also decided to panel the entire wall from the wainscote to the ceiling.

Above is the wall with the old shelves removed and plywood panels installed and stained.  Since the window on the left exterior wall is only five inches from the corner, the shelves have to taper as they approach the exterior wall.  An assembled, hollow-core shelf is leaning against the wall and another is sitting on a box to its right.  The shelf system will consist of eight shelves; four 16-inch deep shelves on the right half of the wall and four half-tapered shelves on the left side.  The shelves have not yet been stained in this photo.

Above, the eight shelves have been set in place (after staining) and braced at the front edges by a 2x4 below and short pieces between the shelves.  My initial thought was to place three vertical supports at the front, dividing it into four sections horizontally.  Temporary vertical face frames are clamped in place.

The four-section design seemed to make the whole unit look too checker-board-y.  So I revised it to three sections, which gives it a more horizontal flow (to my eye).  I finished the shelves and face frame with clear tung oil  I have refilled the unit with my favorite ornaments - not including the ones that I take to the craft shows.  Oh, and the tung oil renewed the original lower paneling very well too!

The annual Denton Arts & Autos Festival was this Saturday.  This was my second year as a vendor.  Last year I made eight direct sales at the show and several more as a direct result of it.  This year I made only one sale during the show, but did receive several custom orders and multiple inquiries, so a little time will tell the actual amount of business it will have produced.

​The weather could hardly have been better.  No early morning rain like last year.  Clear, warm and a bit of mid-day breeze to keep it from getting too hot.  The crowds were constant for the entire six hours, never too congested and no dead periods.  We had pleasant conversations with quite a few attendees and other vendors.  Some friends dropped by our booth and chatted.  And quite a few pet pooches were in the crowd - all well behaved and friendly.  Except for the "ordeal" of the set-up and take-down, it was a very pleasant Saturday.

To finish my entry in the July post regarding the recent acquisition of a 1950 
​Chevrolet hood ornament, above are photos with comments on the completed project.  I am lacking 1951, '53, '57 and '58 to complete the 1950s for Chevrolet - so that is six I have done thus far.

​I have 1935, '36, '37 and '39 Chevrolets, but not the '39 Deluxe ornament with the Lucite fin behind the wing.   The '30s are hard to find and expensive.  I also have done 1941 (with the Lucite fin), '47, '48 and '49 - so I have two to find for the '40s (there was no civilian auto production for 1943-45 due to the war).

I was fairly excited this week to complete the four Packard winged-swan hood ornaments.  One is of the all-metal variety; three were just bodies designed for illuminated Lucite wings.  I am fairly confident that the one all-metal and two of the illuminated ornaments are genuine Packard.  One of the Lucite winged birds has a noticeable design variation that leads me to believe that it is an aftermarket knock-off, but one done very close to the genuine Packard style.  I was a preschooler when Packard started putting these swan (some refer to them as cormorants) hood ornaments on their vehicles, so I do not remember them when they were relatively new on the road.  Plus, we did not live in an area where Packards were common.  Packard's only real competition was Cadillac - there was one of those in our neighborhood in the mid-fifties.

Above are the '48 Packard and a '48 Caddy.  The vertical wings of the Packard ornament are a prominent feature and led to many aftermarket copies for those who aspired to Packard but couldn't afford them.  I have seen knock-off swans mounted to a number of other hood ornaments - using the stock ornament as a base for the Packard bird.  What I have not been able to confirm is whether the lighted swan-wing ornaments were available from Packard as an option or whether they were strictly aftermarket.  The body shape is identical to the all-metal, factory Packard, but that would be easy to accomplish.  Cadillac used the flying goddess and continued her through the early '50s.  Cadillac's signature feature was the tail-fin.

Another item that I am excited about is a 1950 Chevy bird emblem.  Chevy had used bird-based designs previously, but this was a new, modern design which they used in various forms through the 1956 model year.  I have been looking for an affordable example for some time and I found one just last week.  This one has the usual amount of corrosion/patina for its age, but the tail is broken off.  This is not significant to me, because it does not detract from the bird image and I can simulate the missing tail length with the carving of the mounting.

As you can see above, the bird arrived with pretty heavy corrosion (polite word is "patina").  I cleaned the right side with a rotary brass brush in my 1/2 inch drill.  I will clean the other side and the under-side, then begin to shape a block of wood to mount it on.  The original ornament was 16 inches long; this one is missing the last two inches, which includes the second mounting stud.  I plan to carve the shape of the tail into the block of wood and I will have to fashion a new mounting stud or socket into the remaining tail. I actually enjoy working with slightly damaged examples because it provides greater opportunity for creativity in the process of mounting.  Remember, it is not my intent to restore these items, but to create art with them as they come to me.

Finally, I am in process of making new display shelves for the office.  The shelves above left were in place when we bought this house.  They were obviously prefabricated, not of very high quality and not suited to the room.  They do not maximize use of the available space, so I have designed shelves that are deeper, wider and have four shelves in place of just three.  I hope to utilize them to display ornaments from nine classic brands of automobiles: Cadillac/Oldsmobile, Buick, Pontiac, Chevrolet, Ford, Plymouth, Studebaker and Packard.  Why these brands? you ask.  Different reasons, but largely because they have had interesting ornaments over the decades of the early 20th century.  I've never been a particular fan of Plymouth, Packard or Studebaker, but they unquestionably have produced an interesting string of hood ornaments.  While Plymouth adhered closely to the ship motif, Packard designed a wide variety of shapes and sizes . . . as did Studebaker.  My Dad owned two early Buicks and I learned to drive in his second: a '51 Special 2-door hardtop.  There are other brands of cars that I admire, but Porsche, VW, Mercedes and Jaguar were very narrow in their ornament/emblem design - together they would hardly fill one shelf.  So I have focused on these brands.  I found that I need to focus, because there are an awful lot of hood ornaments out there and one person can only do so much.  I would rather do a few marques well than just a haphazard smattering of everything.

Attendance was down Saturday, according to some veteran vendors, but we were fortunate as it turned out, because tornados touched down just east of Dallas.  “The National Weather Service confirmed four tornadoes touched down in East Texas on Saturday where four deaths were confirmed.  The tornados’ strength ranged from EF0 to EF3 with one EF3 carving a path for 51 miles in Henderson County.  The most severe damage was reported from the Canton area of Van Zandt County where the Canton Fire Department said one person who died had been in a vehicle that had been tossed by the tornado along Highway 64.  Gov. Greg Abbott, who toured the area Sunday, said: ‘It looked like in areas that were filled with trees ... that they'd been ripped down as Tinkertoys, just completely knocked down. You saw homes and other buildings that were completely flattened, as well as others that were nothing more than rubble. ... It was just large swath after large swath of devastation.’ "​

​The wind and drizzle we received in Denton was merely an inconvenience.  Sunday proved bright and sunny most of the day, but the winds kept temperatures in the sixties – a significant change from the high of 88 on Friday.  Attendance was good, though, and vendors felt that they almost made up for the slow business on Saturday.  Personally, Suzanne and I enjoyed most of our sales on Sunday, with one fellow purchasing four items, one for him self plus three Christmas presents.   I also made connections that should be beneficial in the long run: a source for cut mesquite logs, several individuals who wanted custom ornaments made and the operator of a classic car show we did not know about at the end of September who invited us to be vendors this year.

The only down-side was that my right hip and leg are killing me from the unusual activity of set-up and take-down of our booth and wares.  Today is Monday and I am staying off my feet pretty much all day.  But I’m sure that it will be worth it, once I can walk again.
​

My column of hood ornaments under the Automotive tab is getting pretty long.  A while ago I reorganized it chronologically by brand.  The trouble with that is that it is difficult to know which ones have been added more recently.  So I will feature recently completed ornaments and emblems in this blog.  That will also give me the opportunity to make more detailed comment about them.

The mid-fifties Chevy's were popular in their day and have developed a huge following since.  The 1955, '56 and '57 models are especially iconic - they are now referred to as the "Tri-Five" Chevy's.  Like the original iteration of the Ford Mustang, nostalgia items from the Tri-Five are always in demand.  This is a horn ring from a 1955 or '56 Chevy.  I bought the chrome ring at a DFW swap meet last fall.  The painted cap I bought on eBay and refinished it.  I drilled a hole in the center and installed a quartz clock.  This is not yet sold.

Above is a hood ornament from a 1956 Chevy that I sold to a fellow who drove a '56 in high school.  The '55 and the '56 hood ornaments are very similar and are often misidentified on eBay.  Chevrolet used the bird and the plane theme for decades.  In the fifties they combined them into airplanes with a bird's head.  1957 dropped the hood ornament in favor of two recessed, round, finned spears that look to some like machine-gun ports.

This a 1955 Chevy hood ornament.  The most noticeable difference from the '56 is that the tail is longer,  Another difference is that the wing tips were bolted to the hood with short legs.  Since I wanted to display the bird-plane as though it is flying, I fabricated auxiliary wooden wing tanks and attached them to the wing-tip mounting brackets.  This model is not yet sold - someone will come along who once owned a '55 and grab it.

Chevrolet used the same dashboard for 1955 and '56.  Above is the radio speaker grill.  Both radio and clock were optional back then.  (As was a heater.   A/C - are you kidding?  That was available only in Cadillacs and Buicks.)  I fit a modern quartz clock into the original clock hole.  The original, perforated metal grill material was missing from this frame, so I bought a woven stainless steel wire grill and fabricated a replacement.  The BelAir script and Chevy logo came from the rear quarter panel of the same year car.  It is set in a walnut plaque that I carved to simulate the original dashboard.  This was sold to another fellow who drove a '55 Chevy in high school.

Above are comparisons of different model-levels and years of the Tri-Five dashboards, instruments and steering wheels.

So here are the Tri-Five.  When I was in grade school our next door neighbor bought a brand new, yellow '57 BelAir 4-door hardtop.  BelAir was still the top model - Impala was to come out in '58.  4-door post sedans were common, but a 4-door hardtop (post-less) was rare.  I would love to have that car today!

Christmas morning Karl went over to a neighbor’s house at 8 AM and spent the day cooking a turkey for about twenty guests for Christmas dinner that afternoon.  Everyone brought side dishes.  We joined the festivities in the afternoon and had dinner with Karl, Connie, Summer and Sugar.  The reason that Karl cooked a big dinner at someone else's house was that the couple has traditionally hosted a large Christmas dinner for a number of friends, but the husband died last January.  Karl offered to cook in his stead so that the tradition could continue.  I did not bring my camera along, since I felt that photography would be inappropriate.  But it was fun to meet many of the people Connie & Karl have made friends with during their nearly one year living in the trailer at the military trailer park and resort on Canyon Lake.

The Saturday before Thanksgiving, Denton Senior Center hosts a Blue Ribbon Bazaar.  It is basically a Christmas Bazaar, as many vendors have Christmas-themed craft items and no one is awarded ribbons, blue or otherwise.  I set up three tables of my automobile-themed crafts.  No particular connection with Christmas or any other holiday.  I had great aspirations, based on the fact that last year I sold several auto-related items and no lapidary or  jewelry items at all.  Plus, most of the visitors are of the senior citizen variety who would remember these classic car ornaments.

I set the tables up in a U.  Ornaments were roughly grouped by brand: Chevy, Ford, Plymouth, Studebaker, Chrysler.  Behind the tables and to each side I had two vertical grids to hold wall plaques and clocks.

As has often been the case at other shows and swap-meets, many attendees to the event paused to inspect my wares and commented on one or another make or model car.  Many commented that they had never seen automobilia like this before and thought that it is a great idea.  But only one person felt a need to take one home.  As with last year at this event, the purchaser was a woman, not a guy.  Of course, she bought it for her son.

This was my fourth show this calendar year.  Sales were not brisk.  Lots of conversation and favorable comments, but scant buys.  I am sure that I just need to find the right venue.