My final (for the moment) bullet/shell/ordanance based "ible" The shot glass set

I made one of these to give to our host ship during RIMPAC in 2012, however they were very popular and I ended up making 39!!

I was VERY fed up of doing them by then

Again apologies as I havent got a full set of pics, unfortunately the rest of the pics are still on my camera which is lying in about 2000ft of water somewhere off Vanuatu!! Don't ask I was hugely p****d off when it fell out of my pocket!

Step 1: The Shell

I started off with one of our 5" shell casings, these are stainless steel although painted green

Step 2: Remove Primer

I took the primer out (I had to make a tool for that as nothing was available)

I then cut the primer down to about 5" long

Step 3: Cutting the Shell

I had to cut the shell by hand as it was too long to go in the lathe onboard, stainlees is pretty tough, and it was about this time that I missed the old brass shells!!

I put masking tape around to give me a line and also protect the surface that I wanted to polish

Step 4: The Base (and This Is Where the Pics Run Out!)

The base is about 2' deep, I screwed the primer back in the wrong way around so that I could mount this in the lathe to clean the cut edge and polish the inside ( I used scotchbrite and water to remove the burnt residues, then cardboard and metal polish to get a shine)

I then reversed the primer so I could polish the outside

Step 5: The Final Object

Once polished, I cut a piece of 12mm ply to insert in the aperture to hold the shot glasses, I cut 7 holes (centre for primer and 6 for shots) and sanded and stain/varnised it.

The shots themselves are made from cut down 20mm CIWS shells (brass) and polished and hold 100ml each.

I also used an upended 50cal (1/2 inch round) in the top of the primer as a handle as it was a snug fit in the primer (I also put a roll pin through it as you don't want it coming off as it would make a hell of a dent in the table!!) and a bit of knotwork to tidy the whole thing up.

I also hand engraved the outside (name, ship etc, I printed this out, stuck the paper on and engraved through)

And there it is

Hope you like it