This is an abused and sad jogging stroller, waiting to be recycled. I live a five minute walk from the ocean, so I would like a way to easily schlep the canoe down there without strapping it on my car. I can portage it on my shoulders, but that means setting up the paddles as […]
Archives for Projects
Various things I’ve made, restored, or otherwise tinkered with.
Launch Day
My wife asked me a few days ago what I wanted to do for Father’s Day. I said, “Let’s put the canoe in the water”. It’s not 100% complete, but it’s darn close enough. I need to put more varnish on the seat hangers, and the gunwhales (especially the scuppers). I need to do the […]
Seat Hangers
So the seat hangers are like this. Little H shaped brackets that are angled in three dimensions to match the curves of the canoe approximately. The top is bolted to the inwhale with the threaded inserts I installed way back when I made the gunwhales. The seat frame rests on the lower horizontal piece and […]
Thwart
A nice clear piece of Douglas fir is going to be my first thwart. I say first, because I have a feeling that this is going to take a few tries to get right. It’ll probably be something that only experience on some portages will tell. Luckily it’s an easy part to swap in and […]
Seat frames
Meet my friend the seat jig. This contraption of clamps and squares is how you figure out exactly how long each section of a square frame needs to be in order to fit perfectly into a space that is curved in all three dimensions. It also lets you figure out how high you want the […]
Varnishing
This past month has seen lots of varnishing. Many coats of varnish getting thinly wiped on, inside and out. Hull and trim. Each scupper painstakingly varnished with a rag wrapped around a popsicle stick. There are no pictures. The boat is just getting shinier and smoother little by little. I’m using Varathane water based ‘Diamond […]
Decks, again
So, back to that canoe I’m building… Haven’t posted on it in awhile. Mostly because I haven’t made progress on it for awhile. Not for lack of trying. I started out with some nice pieces of curly maple which I planned to use as the decks. I messed around with them for ages until I […]
Dutch Tool Chest (part 3)
The hardware for the chest arrived this week. The cast iron handles are great. Super beefy and ready to go on as is. I put a coat of oil on them to prevent rust. The screws that come with them are #12 about 1-1/4″ long. They have […]
Dutch Tool Chest (part 2)
The tool chest is a complete shell now. I used the cutoff from ripping the bottom board as the lowest back board. I put the tongue on top to mate with the rest of the T&G boards. I had to put a rabbet on the other three sides to make the 11/16″ board line […]
Dutch Tool Chest (part 1)
Now that I have a proper workbench in my living room, I need a place to store my tools. Currently they live in a duffel bag and a rubbermaid tote. This is less than ideal. The bag has been schlepping my hand tools for a couple years now. A lot of the time at work […]