When a geocacher reaches 1,000 finds a gathering of some kind will often be held in their honor. This gathering could range from a formal event to a few friends gathering together somewhere on their own. Sometimes a major prize is awarded. Typically these take the form of golden ammo cans. My caching buddy SmooveTalker hit his 1k milestone earlier this year so I thought I would create such a prize for him.
Having never tried something like this before it was an interesting challenge. I polled a few friends of mine that had done this before to gather ideas before I started off. After gathering the needed tools I pulled out the newspaper in the garage and got started. Here’s how I did it (in case others want to do the same):
Step One: Buy An Ammo Can – I expect most geocachers already know how to procure one of these items.
Standard Issue Ammo Can
Step Two: Sanding – Sanding turned out to be a very important part of the process. I worked on the rusty spots on the can as well as the yellow stencilled letters. The Army doesn’t want these letters to come off! They resisted the best sandpaper I had available. If I ever do one again I think I’ll ask around to borrow an electric sander. As it was the can turned out great! I was very satisfied with the results.
Step Three: Primer – I was going to skip this step until my friend Rob mentioned it. Turns out it was really important. Thanks Rob! I eventually added two or three coats of primer to the can.
After The First Coat of Primer
Step Four: Applying The Gold – It’s really just shiny gold spray paint. Watch out what kind of spray paint your buy. Lowes had a flat gold and a shiny gold. It makes a difference! I recommend doing this in the daylight as well as adding several coats. If you do it at night (like I did) then it will be harder to see where the primer is peeking through the spray paint.
2-3 Coats of Gold Spray Paint
Step Five: Add a Faceplate – Any local trophy shop can produce a good looking face plate. You can probably pick one up for less than $20.
Congratulations SmooveTalker!
Step Six – Put it all together – Here’s the finished product!
Finished Product
The presentation made the effort worthwhile. I put together a multi-cache in his honor that involved about 7.5 miles of hiking. I carried the ammo can out to the end of the multi and let him carry it back.
Success!
Congratulations SmooveTalker!
