The Turnbull scars…

I’m bombarded with emails and phone calls every day.  I haven’t answered a call on my home phone literally in years because of the marketing calls (anyone important calls me on my cell phone), and now I’m starting to get marketing calls on my cell phone, too.  Sorry, folks…if I don’t recognize the number, you’re going to voicemail, and just so you know in advance, I don’t need any work done on my home and I’m not in the market for solar panels.  And email, wow…delete, delete, delete, delete, and on and on it goes.  Once in a great while my inbox will have a marketing email I’ll take a look at, though, and this morning was one of those times.

The email that caught my eye this morning was from Turnbull Restorations.  A quick word about Turnbull…they are a company back east that restores firearms and they’re known for their color case hardening.  That’s a process that adds magnificent colors to selected bits of a firearm to enrichen their appearance dramatically.  It’s what you see on uber-expensive shotguns, Colt Single Action Army revolvers, and a few select lever guns.  Turnbull has mastered the process, and Mr. Turnbull makes and restores some of the world’s finest firearms.

I’m surprised color case hardening hasn’t shown up on custom bikes.  A few years ago, engraving on selected bike bits had a brief half life on custom Harleys and the like.  I thought that was kind of stupid, actually, and it never got an “oooh” or an “ah” from me.   But I could see it working with color case hardening.  Say an all black bike with color case hardened clutch covers, handlebars, and a few other pieces.  Just for accent.

Anyway, the email that caught my eye was about Doug Turnbull’s personal rifle, a restored and rechambered 1886 Winchester, and the scars it bore from the various hunts he’s taken.  It referred me to the Turnbull blog, and I just spent the last few minutes reading that story.  It’s a good one, and it’s one that hit home.   I’ve got a few nicks and dings on my favorite rifle from its outings.   You might enjoy the Turnbull story, too.  You can read it here.

That got me to thinking about some of the scars on my motorcycle.  I like a bike that has a few battle scars on it.  Not the ones induced by careless motorcycle technicians during routine maintenance (don’t get me started on those), but the ones that come from real trips to real exotic places.  Or the ones that occur naturally through aging.  I’ve got more than a few of those on my personal RX3, and each one of them tells a story.   That might be a topic for another blog.   We’ll see.  In the meantime, I’m going to poke around a bit on the Turnbull blog.  I love looking at those color case hardened Turnbull guns.