Randy discovered another hobby; mold making and casting plastic resin.
These new GR-8 plastic resin cast shuttles work great. The operational feature of the screw tension adjustment is a little more consistent than the wood shuttles. Because they are a little easier to make than the wooden shuttles they can be offered at a more economical rate. The single bobbin resin shuttles can be purchased for $ 28.00 each.
The shuttles range a little in size. Most are the medium size as pictured, approximately 2 1/4 inches including hook. The larger size is about 2 1/2 inches in length. May not have size choice when ordering.
The casting material used comes as off-white or white. The off-white has a resemblance to bone, so reference the color as pseudo-bone.
The casting material can be colored with a variety of dyes: green, black, yellow, orange, blue, and red.
It is hard to consistently control the exact color so the above picture shows the variance between a lightly colored mix verses a heavily colored mix. As such, the shade of color for a particular shuttle made may not be exactly the same as another, but somewhere in between.
The dye colors can be dropped in the resin mix to provide a swirled appearance. Each shuttle done this way has a different pattern.
The plain resin single bobbin shuttles are $28 each. No shipping charges.
Carving is a lot of fun but very time consuming, thus, much more expensive. Now, having created molds for the following shuttles, they are reproducible and can be offered at much lower cost.
The following carved shuttles can be purchased for $ 38.00 each.
Carved Celtic knot Carved Roses
Raised Love-heart with red coral inlay Raised Love-heart with malachite inlay
Other inlay material: lapis, pink coral, turquoise, and ground silver. Shuttles with inlay materials will cost more. Ask for a quote.
Carved Dragon face Raised Dragon
The resin shuttles can be scrimshawed (needle and/or knife etching). The following are examples and exact replication may not be available. Contact Randy for design considerations.
Scrimshaw Dragon face Scrimshaw Flowers
Casting can be done with semi-clear plastic, called water because of the milky appearance.
Small trinkets can be placed in the mold to capture the design in one end or the other of the shuttle. These types of shuttles are limited to availability of "trinkets" that can fit within the shuttle's body. The embedded single shuttles are $ 40.00 each.
Randy has a NEW PHONE NUMBER.
He can be reached at rhoutzdgo@gmail.com or by snail mail:
GR-8 Shuttles
Randy Houtz
128 Eagle Ln
Ignacio, CO 81137 USA
(970) 764-5802 (evenings)
To order shuttles or books, contact Randy at the address, phone number or email address listed above.
-- Checks on a USA Bank in USA Dollars. This is the preferred method of payment. Make check payable to Randy Houtz and mail to the address above.
-- Credit Card or Paypal. Randy does not have the means to accept credit card or paypal payments. However, he has arranged to have Debbie Arnold of Debbie Arnold Designs accept such payments and mail him a check. Here's how this process will work:
1. The customer contacts Randy Houtz with their order and lets him know they will pay via credit card or paypal.
2. Randy contacts Debbie Arnold of Debbie Arnold Designs with the amount and she sends the customer a paypal invoice which can be paid with money in a paypal account or a credit card. The customer does NOT need a paypal account to make payment.
3. The invoice will include items being purchased and a percentage to cover the processing fee and cost to mail payment to Randy. 4% for USA orders and 5% for International orders.
4. Customer pays the invoice.
5. Debbie acknowledges she received payment to both the customer and Randy and mails Randy a check for the total amount less the added processing fee.
6. Randy ships the order as soon as shuttles and/or books are ready.
Web page designed by Debbie Arnold, DS9Designs. Please email deb_tat@hotmail.com about web page problems.