Jams Of the Week, Rival Sons, Clutch and Jungle Rot

Music drives our soul and constantly we are checking out new songs and videos on sites such as youtube. Have a listen to some great tracks below. Finally got the new Clutch album in our paws and listening to it non stop. As for Rival Sons, what can we say. They are one of the best rock bands touring today, so please we ask you, come tour the south! Lastly, our new favorite death metal band has to be Jungle Rot. They lay down a thick molasses of thrash infused death metal and its ready for our headset at the gym.

Talk About Crazy, The Billy Don Burns Story

Billy Don Burns is a true Country Music Warrior. He wears his battle scars with honor, depicting the stories of his life in his songs with brutal and beautiful honesty. He's respected far and wide for his long career in songwriting and performing, and he's still out there. He's lived it and breathed it through lifetimes of country music passion and pain. Carrying the guitar like a sword on his back, he battles for the Poet. He battles for the Artist. He battles for the souls who defy modern convention. And every time he strikes a chord in some smoke-filled Honky Tonk, he wins. Billy Don Burns started out in this business working with legends, and somewhere along the way he became one himself.

Talk About Crazy, The Billy Don Burns Story is now being shot and filmed with numerous country music luminaries and will be in production for all of 2013.

get in contact with us directly on this project  -  billydonburnsmovie at gmail.com

Original cover photo for Billy Don Burns newest album, photo by Lance Dawes

Rusty Knuckles Featured On MacGyver Contest

Yeah, we are damn stoked. Our plan of attack on how to strip electro plated brass just got featured as a select project on Instructables.com MacGyver contest. Get over there and vote for us!

Link to the contest page

Check out our How to strip electro plated brass with oven cleaner instructable

Our instructable is now a feature project on the MacGyver Contest

Brent Loveday of Reno Divorce, Also Performs Solo

Reno Divorce may be his main gig, but Brent Loveday also tours and regularly performs as a solo artist. Check out his music and more, over on ReverbNation.

Brent Loveday tshirt art

Brent Loveday of Reno Divorce fame

Along with playing in Reno Divorce, Brent Loveday is a well known solo artist

Remove Brass Plating Easily, While Channeling MacGyver

Recently I purchased in bulk for one of our projects and by mistake, ordered the wrong finish on our D Rings for our leather belt loops. Instead of wasting time and money to send the D Rings back, I started researching about how to remove brass electro plating from the nickel plated finish that we originally wanted.

Instead of spending hours with sand paper I learned about the quick process of high strength oven cleaner and the magic that it uses. Well, not necessarily the magic of one as great as Gandalf, but the magic that resides within sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. Depending on which oven cleaner you find, check the information on the spray can if you are interested in the exact chemistry. I got lucky and scored this Easy Off from the Dollar Store.

To make the process even easier and much more ideal for my eyes and nose, I dropped the D Rings into a plastic bowl and sprayed them with the oven cleaner to cover them thoroughly. With the D Rings covered I let the chemicals do their magic and left them to soak for about 16 hours. After checking on them once to see if they were done, I noticed they needed a bit more time and added some more oven cleaner.

After a full 24 hours the D Rings, all the brass electro plating had been removed and now I just had to clean them off with some towels. Included is a photo of one of the cleaned D Rings in our custom leather belt loops. Whatever you are deciding to clean a brass or gold plating finish from, do it in a well ventilated area as the chemicals within the oven cleaner are quite strong.

Check out the post we wrote up for this on Instructables.com

Get the brass removing process started. Go buy some oven cleaner and grab a plastic bowl

The D Rings ready to go into the chemical bath.

Dropped into the cup and ready to spray down.

The brass plated D Rings soaking in the chemical bath.

Make sure to thoroughly coat the brass that is to be removed.

Almost done, at this stage it was about 16 hours of chemical soaking. Add some more oven cleaner and keep soaking for a few more hours.

D Rings are all finished

One of our signature style belt loops using engraved Indian Head nickels on the snap rings

Lucky New Keychains For Stevie Tombstone

Have a view of the new keychains that we worked up for Stevie Tombstone. Thanks to Mike over at TWT Motorcycle Parts for his soda etching magic on the aluminum plates. We forgot to take the photo of the painted keychains before sanding, so the final image is what the finished product looks like after color is applied.

Aluminum plates are soda etched with logos.

Cutting down the plates on the Jet milling machine

Need to cut some metal, this is one heavy duty cutting blade that also leaves no excess burrs

Slicing and dicing the aluminum plate

Final keychain already to roll. Or in the words of Stevie Tombstone, this is the new lucky rabbits foot

Rusty Knuckles Custom Motorcycle Leather Tool Pouches

Our leather products are made one at a time, right here in the shop. Every one we make goes out with a lifetime warranty. If a seam breaks or a rivet pops off, mail it back and I will fix on the spot. Damn proud of each leather item that goes out and knowing it was made per order. Thanks to Gary Sattell for his purchase of our signature distressed brown tool roll. 

Check out our leather tool rolls

Working in the lather lace around the corners, always the toughest part

leather shapes are cut and placed into our pattern for hand sewing

Lace is thick and will get tighter over time as leather shrinks into shape

Last hole is ready for the brass rivet

Tool pouch is getting into the rough shape

Rivet placed into place and ready to be cut off and domed

Final tool bag in distressed brown and ready to ship to Australia! — with Gary Sattell and Rusty Knuckles.

Lacing around the sides and corners for the perfect custom look

I use grommets for the back to enable zip ties to go on in an "X" patter for a tighter fit. Use the #75 pound test strength zip ties to insure the bag and tools ahng around for all the road travel

Our personal tool bag placed on the front forks

Interview With Parsons and Justin of Fifth On The Floor

Fifth On The Floor, adding a healthy does of great songwriting

 Check out the post on From Out Of Nowhwere, to listen to the full interview


"This week on Special Music Unit Rob sits down with Fifth On The Floor’s Justin Wells and Jason Parsons to discuss their brand new release Ashes & Angels. If you’ve ever listened to Sirius/XM’s Outlaw Country channel, then there is a damn good chance you’ve heard this week’s artist.  Produced by Shooter Jennings, Ashes & Angels harkens back to a louder, rowdier style of country music than today’s crop of Top 40 country artists.  Fans of The Allman Brothers Band and Waylon Jennings will find a record right up their alley.  Hell, even if you are a straight ahead rock fan, this album will serve up the goods.

Rob talks with Justin and Parsons on topics ranging from Armadillos to whiskey and along the way discuss the new album track by track.  As an additional bonus, this week’s show features exclusive live tracks from Fifth On The Floor, recorded at a recent show at Route 33 Rhythm & Brews in Wapakoneta, Ohio.

Grab a beer, crank it up, then head over to Fifth On The Floor’s website, Amazon or iTunes and order the cracking new release Ashes & Angels."

Fifth On The Floor - Ashes and Angels, get your copy now!

Ronnie James Dio, Before The Metal

Planting a flag in the sand and starting at ground zero is always the toughest challenge. Often times, you hear of a band "making it" yet they have been touring non stop for ten years. Sometimes you never think on investigating where great talent has come from and then it arrives in your inbox. Thanks to New Releases Now, we just found out about the legendary Ronnie James Dio previous band, which helped to hone in his heavy metal chops. We miss ya Ronnie! Click on over to the link above and check him out back in the day.

Ronnie Dio and the Prophets

Wrench N' Roll, Is Off To A Great Start

It is indeed a great time when folks from all parts of the state and ever from the far western edge dipping into Tennessee, rally for a show and make one night of good times happen. Our new event series in Fayetteville, NC is really starting to take shape. Check out some of the photos of the bands from the showcase, taken by BPHwest.com

J.B. Beverley laying down some electrified riffs

Husky Burnette, Rory Kelly, J.B. Beverley and Buck Thrailkill are rallying together

Guitar shredder Rory Kelly knows how to entertain

From one guitar shredder to another

Billy Miller is always on point and giving the backbone a deep groove

Damn proud to have Husky Burnette on the team

J.B. Beverley and Buck Thrailkill are a great dynamic duo