All posts by Kings Reyes

About Kings Reyes

I am a 46 year old Father who has many hobbies and am more like a Do It Yourself-er type of person. I am a decorated War Vet., and have been to nine different countries. I have two plus jobs and intend to blog about my many experiences in hopes that they can help others achieve more. View all posts by Kings Reyes →

The Fat Bat

June 5, 2015MDRMbats, Halloween, woodworkKings Reyes

The Fat Bat

This is one of my simpler wooden projects I had made for the yard. I call it “The Fat Bat” and as you can see it is roughly 38″-40″ in width and 24″ in height. This one is made from 1/4″ plywood and got double coat with a high gloss water-based paint. You could give it a coat of a water-based clear coat to make it last longer, but I did not since it is displayed for a couple of months outdoors and the rest of the time indoors in storage. I did use a good multi purpose paint for the projects.

The following contains the grid coordinates to make this project should you wish to.

I started the project on grid paper and then transferred it to wood.

I then used a scrolling jigsaw to cut out the shape. Any jigsaw will work fine,but I am using a Skil jigsaw outfitted with a scrolling jigsaw blade which makes cutting irregular patterns on wood or other surfaces easier than regular wider jigsaw blades.

This jigsaw has a scrolling feature which allows the cutting blade to move around without turning the saw, the blade is controlled by the top knob on the jigsaw. Works really well, but like I said; a regular jigsaw outfitted with a scrolling blade will work just as well.

I applied two coats of a high gloss paint and primer in one type of paint. I later added two grayish coats and other details to complete The Fat Bat project. I drilled a small hole so that I could run fishing line through it and hanged it outside for display.

Several years ago I did a simpler project using 4′ x 8′ sheets of insulation board. Worked pretty well but remove the clear plastic before applying any paint.

I had used a keyhole saw to cut it. Using insulated board makes cutting easier and less noisy, but the overall projects might break in high winds. Still, I have used it in several projects where the cuts are not as delicate.

The-Grinch-Who-Stole-Christmas-weak-points

Some of the weak points were the base where the Grinch was anchored to the ground. I should have made it more secure by not cutting the Grinch’s body.

I really liked the end result because of a more realistic look to the hairy parts which was a breeze to create on the insulation board verses if I had used real wood, but because some of this projects were meant for an eBook and not made for the long run; I decided not to use wood. The insulation board was lighter to carry and move around.

If you want you can check out this project and many more on an eBook at Amazon.com where you can find the Grinch and many other projects should you wish to try some out. As time goes by I will include here as well. The book is called Christmas Art; Making Outdoor Decorations for your Home by Kings Reyes Chapa.

Til next time; See You later.

Charlie Brown Christmas Part 2

December 16, 2014HOLIDAY DECOR AND MORE!Charlie Brown Christmas, decor, handmade wooden projectsKings Reyes

“Charlie Brown Christmas Part 2”

Okay. Today is Charlie Browns time to shine! Last time we did Snoopy and the tree, so today is Charlie’s turn.

Here are again a rough draft following is the grid coordinates to Charlie.

Charlie Brown's-Christmas-grid-coordinates — Charlie Brown’s-Christmas-grid-coordinates

Here are some additional pictures for you all.

"Bam!-Here's-Charlie-Brown!" — “Bam!-Here’s-Charlie-Brown!”

Bosch-jigsaw-does-a-short-shore-at-cutting-Charlie-Brown-out

I-Can't-Wait-To-Decorate-Someones-Lawn-Charlie-Brown — I-Can’t-Wait-To-Decorate-Someones-Lawn-Charlie-Brown

I just hope you all can see them more clearly because I sure can’t! Time to save up for some reading glasses. In the main picture I decided to color Charlie differently to make the project more interesting. Hope you all can make them, the crew will look Amazing on any lawn!

I don’t have any coordinates for Woodstock. I just drew him on wood and that was it. Oh, I also lightly engraved or carved them up a bit for added details. Here is a better closeup; I hope that helps. Maybe in the near future I will include him. That all depends on time…ticktock…ticktock, I’m out of time.

Til next time, C-Ya Later!

REBOOT TIME

December 14, 2014AESTHETICALLY PLEASING...Kings Reyes

“Okay-okay!!!” So I didn’t get those six pack yet! I didn’t get in much shape like I had dreamed about either. Maybe that’s all she wrote and its all downhill from here???

But maybe, just maybe, there was a disruption in the space time continuum!? A ripple in space that has stopped me from pursuing my life-long goal of getting in shape!?

“Space time continuum? Ripple in space?” Sounds more like I am still in dream mode to me. “MDRM” Making Dreams into Reality Mode has not taken off yet. I need to wake up and go. So on Monday I am taking off full blast before my candle burns out for sure.

Will see what happens now.

Charlie Brown Christmas

December 14, 2014HOLIDAY DECOR AND MORE!Charlie Brown Christmas, outdoor decoration, woodworkKings Reyes

“CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS”

When a friend told me he wanted a “Charlie Brown Christmas” decor, I ended up making two of them. Both are almost the same, but slightly different. In the following I hope to show those who want to learn how I made them; hope you will stay for the ride. We will start with the tree and work on Snoopy and Charlie later. For those who might be interested, I have a book out called “Christmas Art; Making Outdoor Decoration For Your Home” available at Amazon.com. Have time, check it out. It gives 14 easy projects to make. The cool thing is, you don’t have to be an artist to do this projects.

CHARLIE’S CHRISTMAS TREE

A pair of two slightly different trees for Charlie Browns Christmas yard decor.

Here is a rough draft picture and following are the grid coordinates for the tree and Snoopy.

I always start with a rough draft on grid paper, that way it is easier to adjust accordingly to the size that I want and make any necessary changes before I cut boards. For this project I wanted the decor to look more realistic in size; so the characters had to look like the size of children. I am using 3/4 inch plywood for this project just in case, the tree branches will be more stronger. You can use whatever size you like.

Here are closeups of the two different trees.

In this project, I exposed the two boards that would hold up the tree.

This tree support was covered up by that famous blue scarf belonging to Linus?

Anyways, have fun and I hope to cover Charlie’s coordinates next time. Yes before Christmas.

Frozen’s Olaf

November 11, 2014HOLIDAY DECOR AND MORE!Frozen characters, handmade wooden projects, OlafKings Reyes

Frozen’s Olaf

Just in time for the Holidays! I did this project for an old friend of mine from my hometown here in Texas by the Rio Grande Valley. Stands at around 44″ tall and by 24″ wide. I enjoyed seeing this project come to life.

The Stuff

I screwed 1/2 ” pipe clamps to the backside to be used with 1/2″ rebar as a stake.

I use two clamps with stainless steel screws. Make sure you are not using too long of screws or it might (will) go to the other side.

Here I got two different types of clamps and bars. 1/2″ clamps are for the 1/2″ re-bar and the 3/4″ clamps are for the 3/4″ cement stakes. I recommend using the 1/2″ re-bar. Its cheaper and works fine.

Some Tools

I own two jigsaws; a Bosch and this one from Skil. Both work great! The Bosch has more power, but this one has a scrolling feature that allows the saw blade to completely go around making sharp turns a snap!

The Project; Frozen’s Olaf

Here is a picture of the rough draft and following are the grid coordinates to the project.

Alof's=grid-coordinates — Olaf’s=grid-coordinates

Hopefully you can zoom in on them! By the way, this project and many others are in my Christmas e-book selling at Amazon.com called…”Christmas Projects for the Family.” While there, checkout my Halloween e-book as well, it has fourteen projects selling for only $2.99; called “Halloween Projects for the Family.”

Best of luck!

P.S. I might be undoing the way I categorize things and just post whatever comes to mind. “What are your thoughts on that?”

Til next time, C-Ya Later!

“The Double D’S; Debt Detective”

November 10, 2014"KA-CHING!"Kings Reyes

“The Double D’S; Debt Detective”

“As of my last post back in God Knows When!?”, I have managed to remove three fast loans from my profile…until three weeks ago.

“WHERE HAVE MY DREAMS GONE TO NOW? TROUBLE BREWED IN MY HORIZON”

When we least expect things to go wrong…they sometimes do. My spouse had to go into the hospital for surgery and she would not get admitted unless a down payment was given ($3000) of the unknown total amount for the surgery. I am still waiting for the total as I write this. She has been out of work recovering for the past two weeks, today was her first day back. Hope she is handling it well. Even with health insurance (she had a $5000 deductible) things can get really expensive when it comes to anything dealing with medicine.

BACK ON THE SADDLE AGAIN

“Let me get my sorry ass out of the hole and off the dirt again.” I am determined to make 2015 my year out; no matter what gets in my way…Okay-okay, so long GOD gives me the strength. So…I had to renew my fast loans and know I am re-figuring how to get out of them for good. I was down for a while having to get them and having to figure a way to stay on top without filing for bankruptcy. I have decided to call on my creditors and inform them why I am not going to pay up until the following month, hope they understand.

NEW PLAN OF ACTION

I am selling my 2005 Dodge truck and hoping to get around $6000 at least. I have been busily building wooden outdoor decorations for the holidays and that has proved fruitful, at least for now. I also wrote two books, “Halloween Projects for the Family” and “Christmas Projects for the Family”. They both can be found in Amazon.com using the titles. I hope someone discovers them soon. I have two projects pending for Christmas, they are the characters from Frozen totaling $250 profits. I intend to save money from all those projects, selling metals, and what not until I have enough to pay off one of those fast loans. Of course, selling the truck will save me, but I intend to go after all my bills one at a time until I have no more. Tomorrow I intend to refinance my little girl’s car through our credit union in hopes to save a little there as well. We will see what comes down by the end of this month.

Best wishes to you all strangers and best of luck.

C-Ya Later!

Charlie Brown Halloween Decor

October 4, 2014HOLIDAY DECOR AND MORE!Kings Reyes

Charlie Brown Halloween Decor

MEMOIRS

When my little girl was younger, I used to make all sorts of outdoor decor’ for the holidays. That was fun back then, but as parents know they tend to outgrow these things, so I quit making them; until recently when I decided to write about them. During the past two months I have completed 13 projects for an e-book I had been working on called “Halloween Projects for the Family” selling for $2.99 at Amazon.com and in the next couple of months I will share them with you.

“Charlie Brown Halloween”

This first project is titled “Charlie Brown Halloween” and is a lot easier to make then it looks. This one is made out of 3/8 plywood, but I recommend beefing it up to 1/2 for stability. Painted with paint and primer in one for durability, but it is really up to you. Here we go…

Plans

I always start my work on paper, I suppose most folks do as well. This way I can edit the project before any actual cuts on wood. If you can zoom in you will notice numbers all over. That is because I made a plot and grid system so that I can easily transfer Charlie Brown unto my cutting board. What is also pretty cool about the grid system is that you don’t need to know how to draw and you can make you final project bigger simply by multiplying the numbers by 2 or more? For example, grid (2, 5) will become (4, 10) and so on.

The Points

022

While this may look like chicken scratch; once you zoom in you should be able to see much clearly the points and descriptions on what they represent. I suggest to look at the unpainted finished Charlie Brown as you go along and to connect the dots in sets so as to not have too many numbers and dots on the board. Another suggestion is to sand the board before plotting, that way all you have to do is sand the areas you had to cut.

Don’t forget safety folks. Til next time; have fun , be safe and go make something!

See ya!

Kings Reyes C.JR.

“It’s The Great Pumpkin”

September 28, 2014HOLIDAY DECOR AND MORE!Charlie Brown's "It's the Great Pumpkin", HalloweenKings Reyes

“It’s The Great Pumpkin”

I just finished publishing an e-Book on Amazon.com about how to create 15 outdoor wooden projects for Halloween, the easy way. The book provides grids and coordinates that you apply to your surface and trace to reveal a picture. Kind of like connecting the dots. You then paint your project for displaying. The book is called “Halloween Projects for the Family” and sells for $2.99.

While I have tested and created most of the projects, except three; I have never intended to sell them, but local folks are starting to ask for them. The top one is not on the e-Book, it was created after the book came out and sold for $200. dollars. “How cool is that!” I’m making money from my hobbies. The person contacted me through Craigslist and asked me if I could and for how much. That’s all it took.

Til next time, C-Ya Later!

The 24 Day Challenge; Day 10

June 3, 2014AESTHETICALLY PLEASING...Getting Fit, Shape up now, The 24 Day Challenge; Day 10Kings Reyes

The 24 Day Challenge; Day 10

Day 10; May 28 has come and is going faster than I had expected. What has changed? What did I expect to happen as I near the completion of the First Phase of the 24-Day Challenge? Do I feel differently than 10 days ago?

DAY 10

Start of day 10 in the morning I took my last Fiber Drink and the recommended tablets and headed out for work. This evening I intend to workout legs doing the usual squats, leg extensions, and curls. Plus the little “ab” workouts that I do. While I have noticed an improvement in muscle tone, the tone in my stomach eludes me. Perhaps I need to give it more time. Time is something a still have left; at least til a year and a half. I will continue to hold on to my dreams of having a six pack before that time arrives.

Til next time; C-Ya Later.

Kings Reyes

“The 24-Day Challenge; Day 9”

June 3, 2014AESTHETICALLY PLEASING..."The 24-Day Challenge; Day 9", Get Fit Now, In ShapeKings Reyes

“The 24-Day Challenge; Day 9”

Day 9 and I’m off from work so I woke up late; its 1030 am on a Tuesday. I started my day taking my Diabetic medication (I did forget to tell) and my ProBiotic Restore Tablets. I also took my Catalyst to prevent muscle loss while I diet and my Fiber drink. The Catalyst is a three times a day tablet so I will take it again later for a late lunch with the Meal Replacement shake and again for dinner with my Omega Plex tablet.

As for my evening workout; I will workout my back, biceps, and calves. Of course, I will do my usual ab workout plus the pull-ups that I still can not accomplish. Nevertheless, I will continue to build up on those muscles needed for that task and keep you all posted.

All workouts are for 3 sets and 12-15 reps each. For now that’s all she wrote. Til next time; C-Ya later.

Kings Reyes.