Did you ever build any trench art?

There is a whole genre of stuff that soldiers and sailors made while waiting around for battle or movements or whatever to occur. The 98% waiting and 2% action has been a fact of life for military men forever. Look at ebay some time.
My dad talked about while he was in the Phillipines during the war all the guys were taking 50 cent pieces (they were real silver then) and pounding on them with spoons. They made silver rings and some of them were nicely done.
I guess my dad tried it too but since he was a carpenter over there he decided to save his blistered thumb and forefinger for his job and not get them from making jewlery like everyone else did.
Anyway, trench art has been around for a long time.
So I was doing some dusting today.
All you fellows do the dusting, right?
And got around to doing the cannon, which needed it badly.
A little Pledge helped.
Then when i got it half fast cleaned up I thougt I'd photograph it and share it here.
I made this while I was on my second ship in 1975. Not much to do in the evenings so I'd go down to the machine shop where I worked and putter with this thing. There's no rhyme or reason to it. But it's a rendition of a camnon as concieved by a 21 yo kid.
I had access to a lathe and mill, swiped the brass and traded for a little bit of walnut.
It's quite fragile. I'm surprised it's lasted these 40+ years.
Funny story about while i was building it.
The captain used to go cruising around the ship in the evenings. Just snooping around as was his right and probably duty.
It was a time the he would let you relax around him and talk to you man to man.
So he came upon me making this thing and of course I was terrified to be caught red handed misappropriating government property.
But he told me to relax, that he liked the cannon and asked me if I would make one for him. But I told him I was getting out in about a week and wouldn't have time.
Then he asked what I would do and where I would go and he wished me good luck in the future.
Anyway, that's my trench art and cleaning it is a pia. For scale, it's about 12" long and the wheels are 6". And no it wouldn't fire. I purposely didn't drill it all the way through.
I wonder if others here made things while they were waiting around. Maybe share some photos or a story if you have them.

Ultradog MN- Nice work!

The story comes out, I was always led to believe that a Sailor, did his "job" for eight hours, then did a watch of some sort for another six to eight. Then they could sleep, read, work on cannons, LOL or whatever until time to report for work again. Was I mislead? BTW great craftsman-ship. gobble

Very nice work.

Not trench art (unless you call teaching as being in the trenches) but I have made my brother several pieces. One is a 6 pound steel lined brass siege mortar that lofts golf balls about 400 yards with FG black powder, and a .375 4130 deck gun with a 8 inch long bore, no ballistics on it, but it is not a toy. Jim.

pretty work!

That's nice work all right. Did you continue as a machinist? Stan

Nice! Ron Mn

Very nice job, Jerry, just working from memory. For reference purposes, here's a couple that sit at Chickamauga.

really nice!! good job!!

Very Good Work! There's nothing better than something that is hand made from scratch!

(quoted from post at 20:01:48 07/16/16) The story comes out, I was always led to believe that a Sailor, did his "job" for eight hours, then did a watch of some sort for another six to eight. Then they could sleep, read, work on cannons, LOL or whatever until time to report for work again. Was I mislead? BTW great craftsman-ship. gobble

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t depended on the command and the number of bodies available to stand duty. If I recall we stood 6 section duty, that meant every 6 days you had duty and could not leave the ship. We worked our normal day or what ever shift was assigned. We were also on a 4 hour watch at some point during that 24 hour period. It may be during your work shift, right before or right after it rotated on 4 hour duty tours.. It was all dependent on the # of people. I was at one shore station that had 28 section duty so you stood duty every 28 days. I stood quarterdeck watch for a while on the ship I was stationed on. I hated it, dress uniform, hot, cold rain or whatever. We were in a covered area on an exposed weather deck. Other than a restroom break maybe twice in a 4 hour tour we were on our feet the whole time pretty much standing still. We controlled who came and went on the ship. I had other duty rotations that I liked much better and were much less boring. Other than that we worked a normal 8,10, 12 hour or what ever was needed to get the work done. At one point we were in a 16 on 8 hour off situation as a normal work day. They soon found that productivity and the quality of our work suffered too much and put us back on a 12 hour rotation. Just what I saw and lived.

Nice!! work on the cannon. I made this medallion on my tour at Ubon RTAFB in Thailand. Still have it. It is made from some safety wire and two copper seals from the boundary layer control duct from an F4 Phantom fighter jet. I worked on the Phantoms and the C-130 Spectre gun ships while a part of the 8th Tactical Figher Wing(Wolfpack). I wore the medallion on a chain around my neck.

Jerry, very nicely done!

I was on tanks, M60A1's, A3's M1's M1IP's and M1A1s. When we were in garrison we were either in classes training or we were in the motor pool doing maintenance. Monday morning was checks and services (PMCS). Monday afternoon, Tuesday and Wen was training. Wen afternoon was replace any parts that had come in. Thus and Friday morning was training and Friday afternoon was finishing up with any parts replacement and motor pool cleanup. No time for artwork. On deployments and in field training we worked 18-20 hours a day either training or preparing, often with 2 men on watch and 2 sleeping on the tanks, plus putting out roving guards and LPOP's. 4 hours sleep, not all at the same time was normal. Again little time for artwork. Now I did see some interesting stuff done by the support guys. They sometimes had the time to do something like that. But they too were often 5 miles behind us. When I was in the Cav we often operated 30 miles in front of our lines. When your backside in hanging in the breeze that far out you really don't have the time to think of art.

Today I doubt many are doing things like that. They are too busy with their "devices" either communicating with folks back home or playing games.

Rick

My brother was there in 73/74, he worked on C-130's.

I was there in 1969-70 and worked the AC-130A model. This was the first of many C130 gunships that are still pummeling the enemy today.

Maybe not art ,however my father served in Italy , Army Air Corp,1944-45. In one of his letters home he told about making a cristal radio to listen to one local station. joe

I like it a lot.
Kinda reminds me of an Iron Cross.
I would say don't ever polish the copper. The patina is just right.
Give us some notion of the size/scale.
It couldn't be too big if you wore it

The medallion is 3in by 3in. in size, In 1969-70 any size was appropriate. I wore it al the time during my tour. I guess that is why I kept it after returning home.