Necessity has often been the driving factor for many DIY projects

Necessity has often been the driving factor for many DIY projects. This could be said for anything from changing the water pump on your truck to replacing the bearings in your washing machine.

Bobby Harris of Fort Gibson was often asked “Why did you get into Cerakote and Hydrographics?” and the answer is simple —necessity.

“In the past, I’ve had work done by gunsmiths that included bluing, trigger jobs, stock bedding, and even rebarreling,” said Harris. “However, I’ve seen five area gunsmiths either retire or pass away, which has left a void in the local market as these openings have not been filled by the younger generation.” This has caused Harris to teach himself a number of different gun-related modifications that he often paid a gunsmith to perform.

“I’m not at all rated as a gunsmith but more of a hobbyist that can do minor improvements that help the overall accuracy of the firearm such as bedding the action, changing triggers, floating the barrel, lapping the scope rings, basically many things that don’t require machine work or in-depth gunsmithing,” explained Harris.

You see, Harris wanted to start a project where he would build another custom rifle. Harris could do most of the work except for chambering and threading the barrel to the action. He started the process of locating a donor rifle so he could use the action.

“After six months or so, I finally found a candidate at a pawn shop that had a rusty barrel and the bluing was worn thin but the action was flawless,” said Harris. “I made a deal and came home with a great donor to start my project.”

It seems the previous owner had put camo tape on the barrel which caused it to rust. After a more thorough inspection, Harris discovered that the rifling in the barrel was in perfect shape and the rifle shot great. Little did he know that his local gunsmith had just retired, so the project gun sat idle for about a year. One day as Harris glanced at the project in the gun safe, he thought to himself, —’I wonder if I could fix that?’

After weeks of research, studying and taking online training classes, Harris decided to try to Cerakote this gun. This created so many challenges such as having to find someone with a sandblast cabinet big enough and needing an oven big enough for a barreled action, not to mention needing special fixtures to disassemble the bolt. Harris felt he didn’t have anything to lose since he was planning to re-barrel the gun anyway. If he didn’t like the way it turned out, then no big loss. Harris had to try twice but got the Cerakote applied and the gun turned out far better than he could have ever imagined. After showing it off to some friends, the inquiries started and more “practice work” started coming in.

I had him do a rifle scope for me a couple of years ago when he was first getting started and it turned out perfect. As the word spread, Harris soon found out that others had the same thoughts as he did and were searching for someone to do this type of cosmetic repair or just a color change. Harris soon became very confident in his Cerakote abilities, so he thought about trying his hand at Hydrographics, I mean after all, the internet makes it look easy.

“That’s where things went wrong as Hydrographics is much harder than it appears to be on the videos. Each graphics film reacts differently to the applicator, the volume and droplet dispersion of the applicator is critical, everything from water temp to soak time will affect the way the film is applied. It is a very subjective process,” said Harris. “I have wasted hundreds of dollars’ worth of film and reworked more projects than I care to admit, but you learn through failures and I’ve failed a lot in this process. Finally, things started coming together after building a new dip tank with a digital controller to help stabilize water temperatures.”

Harris has been fortunate enough to be trusted with some big projects and people wanted to see more of his work so he created a YouTube channel entitled “6 Mile Outdoors” so they could see some of his projects and hear him ramble a bit.

Soon, word of mouth got around as friends were showing off their newlycoated or camouflage firearms and more inquiries came in, thus the birth of a small business in 6 Mile Outdoors. Harris smiled and said, “I’m still expanding and taking on new challenges but growing up with a father that had a ‘can do’ attitude taught me to, at least, attempt new challenges.”

I know that Harris has a lot of talent and I salute his efforts for forging a new and growing sideline business. Reach Kilgore at jkilgoreoutdoors@yahoo.com .