Milo,
I can do all the work myself. Cutting steel and welding come fairly easy to me. I am by no sense of the letter a pro at welding, but after many hrs of welding simple things, it is fairly easy. All i have to do is get the raw material which is easy. So the only cost to me is the steel, time and a couple cans of paint.
I grew up in a house hold that stored guns in gun racks that were 4ft off the ground, i remember my dad hammering together bullets before i could even see over the bench. It was great exposure, i want my son to capture this same experience but i don't want him to be playing with them. I know when i was young my brother left his BB/pellet gun in the closet in the front room, as all curious kids do they snoop and emulate their siblings. So i played with the BB/pellet gun. I would put pieces of fuzz into the chamber and pump it up a few times and blow the fuzz across the room. What i didn't know is that if you pulled the bolt back far enough, a BB would drop down and stick on the bolt. This is what I did. I was 5-6 years old when i put a BB into the wall. A short time after, i was shown how to use the rifle and became very proficient at tagging birds.
The yard was void of most animals.
Missed,
I've heard a lot of stories just as you've stated with melted down stocks and equipment in fire rated safes. If it's going to burn, it'll burn. Murphys law...
xdeano
