Earlier this year, while we were finishing the attic, I took a weekend and built a cherry and ash laminated canoe paddle at the Camp Beach Center For Wooden Boats shop – as my own wood shop was in full use for the attic/storage. It was a little bit of a rush build and after paddling with it once, I decided to rebuild and reform it into a better performing paddle. This video will take you through all the steps of the initial build and the refit. The next video in in this series will show the finish steps and some on-water testing.
Tag: Craft
Doing a little recording
I am working on a recording a few songs and clips – mostly for background music on my own YouTube vids. It is going OK as I feel that I am set up pretty well – I have Apple Logic Pro X and Garage Band, a focite audio interface, 3 mics, a couple of amps, and 7-8 instruments that I can sort of get by on. I have no delusions of even adequacy as a musician, but recording the songs has made me take a few momentary flight of fantasy: What if I were a recording artist…….
Artist name: Snugnutz, which is double entendre that references my life as a working enginerd AND is mildly, yet socially acceptable, provocative. It will always be displayed in a proper Tag Font.
Genre: I will call it thrash hillbilly trance EDM nerdcore. With a focus on clog dancing goths in any and all supporting music video projects.
Album titles:
- Yes, there IS rum in my coffee cup
- Don’t Tell my Wife about the New Motorcycle
- Just Nerdy Enough
- You can do anything you want on your last muther fuckin’ day!
Possible song titles:
Torqued
Bottomed out
Mitutoyo
Pipe Threadin’
Huffin’ Sawdust
Reamed
Splinters Suck
Tailings
Higher than Elon
No Capes!
Simple Math
Comic Books and Hand Lotion
Strap Wrench
Not Safety Glasses
Tap Magic
Donut Fridays
Medium Shop Pimpn’
Lathe Loving
My Mom Says I Am Smart
Locktight
Moonshine Bubbles
Tail Stock
6061 HRc60
Thread Cutter
DRO
OG Anvil Rebound
Gots Both My Thumbs
Friction Weld
Jeeps and Mudholes
Tight Collet
Arcade SME
Dust Co-lector
Film Friday – BEES!!
My wife bought me a package bee hive box kit for Christmas last year, which reinforces the fact that I have a wife that is kind and considerate and pretty damn adorable.
Anywho, I thought that installing a new hive would be a terrific opportunity to document all the steps to install bees into a new hive box. I went with a nuc hive instead of packaged bees and a new queen. That is for a later video. The whole process of bringing a new hive into the apiary also allowed me to show all the steps in prepping the pre-built hive boxes/parts and I was able to build and showcase a couple of steel hive stands that I have been thinking about and designing in my head for years. I will also make a video on the design and build of the hive boxes and parts, but that will have to wait until this winter.
I love bees and I love being a beekeeper. The honey isn’t bad either…
Film Friday – Double Feature: Attic and Bath Remodel Status
I spent two FULL days, with a little help from my wife, instaling the baseboard, door, skylight, stair, and window trim in the new attic space. This video includes a few tips and tricks along the way. As this will be my wife’s studio space, she put in some sweat equity filling nail holes, doing a little sanding, and she chose the paint scheme. I will be painting next and will document that whole process as well.
This is Part 1 of our basement bathroom build/finish. We decided to add a basement bathroom when we replumbed the house a couple of years ago. 6 months of chaos insued and we took a two year break before diving back into the bathroom build. This time has been SO much better. We went with white subway tile for the walls, black and while hex tiles for the floor, and charcoal grout. The next step is trim, paint and fixture install.
Film Friday – Attic Remodel: Week 7
This is the last of the weekly updates for the Attic Remodel Project. The heavy work and drywall is complete and I will start trimming and painting the space this week (nights and weekends as I have a real J-O-B) so that my wife will have a studio that is full of light and opportunity. The next and final installment of the attic build will show all the paint and trim steps, some tips & tricks, and will be a few weeks away.
Film Friday – Week 2 of the Attic Rebuild
I know… I have been posting a bunch of videos lately and not a lot of travel, Jeep, Puppy, garden, music, building, or other normal posts. That will change with the coming of Spring and the completion of our attic remodel/rebuild. In that vain, below is the short video documenting week 2 of the process. It looks like it will be a 5-part series.
Mid-week Update
So, this week has been crazy at work and at home. On the home-front, there were birthdays, shopping, it is Income Tax time, we have 3-4 guys showing up every morning at 7:00 with tools in hand to work in and on the attic.
My shop is full. I can’t even get to my table saw and my bench is stacked 5′ high with insulation. I need a little shop time to keep me sane or at least saner… So, I took a little me time and signed up for some classes for spring and early summer where I will get use other folks shops and build/make stuff:
- Canoe Paddle Making
- Claw and Ball Foot Carving
- A 10-Week Letter Press Workshop
- Woodcarving Figures
- Spoon Carving
- Block Printing
- Industrial Sewing: canvas and leather
Film Friday – Framing Double Feature
We are remodeling and rebuilding a 90+ year old attic into a master bedroom. This required completely rewiring to electrical in the attic, moving/fixing plumbing, building a complete floating floor, adding roof supports, etc… Below is thew documentation of the 1st week of the build.
Part I of a 2 part video on the replacement of a falling down 90+ year old shack of a carriage shed with a modern 24X24 garage. This was not a flat mono-slab, green field build. Lots of digging was required and a rebar-filled retaining wall and slab had to be poured in the middle of winter before the first wall could go up.
President’s Day 2018
President’s Day is here and it is time to prune the fruit trees, roses, and lavender. Or at least that was my plan for yesterday. Instead, I spent WAY TOO MUCH time on Twitter – ranting about sensible gun laws and the current US administration. I also spent a couple of hours cleaning the house, washing dishes, working on 2 videos, walking the puppies, and working in the shop. So the entire day was not wasted on-line.
In the shop, I am building a Screen Printers Workbench for a local artist, Amy M. Douglas. She does some pretty amazing prints and oil/acrylic work. We are trading my time for art, so it is a win/win for both of us. Below are a couple of shots taken during the build and I will have a whole YouTube video about the build in a week or so.
I will spend an afternoon this coming weekend pruning, re-stacking firewood, and cleaning the yard – I see a dump run in my future.
3/4/2018 Update:
The bench is done and delivered.
YouTube Partnership Program Rule Change Rant
So, I am going to rant for just a bit, bear with me…
-Mounts Soapbox –
“Ahem… I set a goal to be a better filmmaker, content provider, and maker five months ago. Part of that goal was to reach the 10,000 view threshold to monetize my YouTube account. I did not plan to quit my J-O-B, or be internet famous, I just wanted to use it as a milestone for progress toward the goal and I nailed it on January 4th! 10,000 views!! I was so stoked that I woke my wife up way too late one night to tell her. My account was under review for 2 weeks and I was finally officially monetized for two days – two WHOLE days – before BAM!! I was demonetized with a huge group of small and smaller content providers. Son of a…
While this was a while in coming, it looks like the process/decision was sped up when a guy with 15+ million subscribers named Logan Paul posted a video of a suicide victim. 1st, what a fucking privileged asshat. WTF is wrong with people?! He should be forever ashamed, and spend a great deal of his YouTube revenue on suicide prevention and advocacy. What should’ve happened following the public and advertiser outrage was YouTube suspending or deleting his channel, but that dude generates SERIOUS ad revenue, so… What happened instead was that YouTube took him off the top-tier ad group and YouTube punished the SHIT out of the small folks by demonetizing channels with less than 4000 hours of watch-time AND less than1000 subscribers to ‘protect their core values’? Makes zero sense and this guy will continue to post and earn $$$ even at the lower tier.
OK, fine, fuck’em. I was not doing this for some mythical pot of gold. This setback is just going to make me dig deeper. I am 10% to the new threshold and I will keep slogging on. Keep making and doing. Post better and better content. This will make me leaner, stronger, bigger, better, more… A better speaker, better filmmaker, I will get lighting and sound for my videos dialed, have awesome content, and be a better person from it all. Success doesn’t teach half as much as adversity.
To all effected by the YouTube demonetization BS: Don’t quit! Keep slogging on. Keep making and doing. You too will be all the better for it. Send me your channel and I will follow you and help with the watch hour threshold. As I said, I had just hit the monetization before all of this and we will get there again. It will take some hard work but, we can all help each other out.”
– Dismount Soapbox –
2018 News Year’s Resolutions:
A year ago, to the day, I said that I would do a bunch of stuff in 2017. I did OK, but not great. I could blame it on my old man hip, the surgery, or the recovery time, but mostly not getting stuff on the list done was all me. All my own laziness, stuborness, or my A+ skill level of procrastination. These are the promises I made to myself that I kept:
Take a pottery class
Take a Blacksmithing class at the Pratt
Read 1 book every 2 weeks – minimum
Play my uke, banjo, and guitar with others
Give lots of $$ to Heifer and MFS
Make movies and post: Adventure, craftsmanship, and family.
Make Stuff!!
Ride my skateboard because I am not too old or too fat
Road trip in WA more
Take my wife on vacation
Plant a spring garden
Fix up the front and back yards
The following is what I am committing myself to do in 2018:
- Organize my chaos in the shop and basement.
- Sell, donate, recycle, or throw away shit that I do not use.
- Use my planner and notebooks as tools not as something that I “have” to use.
- Eat my veggies. Seriously. Salads in my future.
- Take my desk at home back and make it a conducive writing space.
- Cut WAY back on sugar and carb intake!
- Lose weight – back to 175! and put on 5-7lbs of muscle
- Go to the gym 3-4 time a week – minimum.
- Box more at the gym and at home
- Write more: Blog posts, REAL letters, Thank you notes, fiction, and non-fiction
- Take more great pictures
Fly my drones more- Take at least a 45 minute lunch at least 4 days a week at work
- Show up to yoga at least once a week
- Take another pottery class
- Finish my CJ-7 Jeep restoration
- Look into getting back into the judo dojo
- Sign up and compete in the Gambler 500 car race
Sign up for a letterpress class at SVC Downtown- Take another blacksmithing class at The Pratt
- Read 1 book every 2 weeks!
- Learn how to play the mandolin and banjo better!
- Play my uke, banjo, and guitar with others
- Build a skin-on-frame canoe for two
- Road and mountain bike
- Take the puppies to Lincoln Park for a walk at least once a week
- Ride the living shit out of my Single -Speed
- Bike to work at least 5 times this year (12 miles each way)
- Volunteer more at the Center for Wooden Boats
- Pay off all credit cards
- Go sailing in Puget Sound
- Turn some amazing and useful stuff on my lathe
- Give lots of $$ to Heifer and MFS
- Make at least 1 movie a week for YouTube and post: Adventure and craftsmanship
- Monetize my YouTube account and increase my presence and standing in that community
- Lessen my Twitter and social media activity…
- See my kids and grandchildren more
- Be involved in politics more: financally and with a time commitment
- Work on my Genealogy database and organize all my info.
- Finish the house remodel – even if I have to pay a contractor to do it (…shudder…)
- Finish the garage/shop/GROP build
- Make.More.Stuff!!
- Ride my snowboard and skateboard because I am not too old or too fat
- Road trip in WA and on West Coast more
- Have two hives of healthy, happy bees
- Kayak lots!
- See my friends more
- Take my wife on vacation
- Plant a spring garden and have a really bountiful fall harvest
- Have an awesome Griswald-like Christmas light display!
I am printing this list out and pasting copies in my notebook, work planner, in the shop, at my desk at work, on the fridge, and in the basement above my warranty voiding workbench.
Film Friday – Oak and Maple Pizza Peel Build
My Father-in-Law, The Chatty Buddha, wanted me to make him a pizza peel and while I have built cutting boards and boat paddles, I hadn’t yet made a peel. I agreed, sourced the lumber from a local salvege store. It used to be flooring, but after some magic with the table saw, jointer, some glue, and a hand plane or three – he has a pizza peel that I gave to him for Christmas. I hope to be enjoying pizza from it for years to come.
Film Friday – Offering Candle Stand Build
As the weather has cooled down, there are some welding and fabrication projects that I need/want to take care of during the short, cold, dark days of winter. This short video details the fabrication of a steel votive candle or offering candle stand that I am built for my wife/our house. It is made to fit on top of the Prie-dieu that we brought back from France. The stand is made from 1/8″ steel channel and plate, though looking back at the video the plate might have been more like 5/16″ ish…
My Own Personal Take on Hand-planes: Buying Recommendations to Use
I use the bejesus out of my power tools. I LOVE my SawStop, my Bosch compound miter-saw is scary accurate, and my band-saw is magic, but there is room in my life and in my shop for lots of hand-tools. I am a child of both Norm Abram and Roy Underhill. I watched them both on PBS every Saturday after cartoons as a small child in 1981 until I was 44 or so. Their combined influence has made me value the old way of doing things without being a Luddite and I can appreciate modern cabinet shop/woodworking tools. Case in point: I have a 3HP Powermatic 3520 lathe and would not even want to think about turning a bowl or platter on a pole lathe with a forged hook knife. On the other hand, while I have not given up a single one of by 5 routers, I found years ago that it is sometimes faster to grab an old wooden molding plane from a shelf and take care of an edge detail or piece of trim. I can be done and dusted with the plane in the time it would take me to find the right bit an set up the router.
Because of my vocal love for hand planes, I get questions all the time from friends and acquaintances about what they should buy, where they should start, how to set something up, sharpening, truing a sole, etc… I thought I would take a minute to go over those things, stand on my soapbox a little, and give the world my opinions concerning hand planes.
.. Ascending my soapbox… Ahem…
- Buy a quality block and #4 smoothing plane – Lie-Nelson, Wood River, or Veritas are great options. Stay away from used hand planes or classics until you get used to how a hand plane SHOULD work. Setting up an older Stanley or Bailey plane, sharpening, replacing parts and flattening the sole will drive you insane if you don’t know exactly what you are doing and will make you want to throw the thing and swear off hand planes forever. Start with the known good and once you know how it should function, then you can pick up a used #2 bench rabbit or a #8 corrugated bottom jointer and tune them sweetly – maybe. I would go over any prospective purchase with a scornful eye and replacement the blade and/or chip breaker on an old plane is required about 50% of the time, in my experience anyway.
Here is my list of the initial planes and accessories you will want/need ( I like the low angle but to each his own):
- Stanley Low-Angle Block Plane
- Shoulder plane
- Smoother plane
- Plane chip-breaker Screwdriver I swear to God you need this, really! When you mare the screw an a $200 plane because you didn’t listen, it is your own fault for not listening.
- Sharpener: get two…
- Buy a nice set of Japanese water stones 1000 to 8000 grit. Watch the videos and keep your blades sharp.
- Also, Japanese planes, like Japanese pull saws and water stones, are FANTASTIC. They deserve their own diatribe, but for the purpose of this post I will stick to western planes with the exception of an edge-rounding plane. I use mine constantly.
Nice to have once you get serious about using hand planes:
- Jack Plane
- Jointer planeSpoke shave Get the flat first then the curved. You probably wont ever need the concave one.
- This Router plane but, if I were in the market for a new one, this Walke Moore version is the nicest I have ever seen!
- Scraper plane – get the toothed blade
- A combination plane, but be wary of used Stanley Record #45/#46s. They can be a beast to swap around and if they come with all the original parts they are spendy!
- if you are going to be doing a lot of drawers or insets, then both a Left and Right Plow Plane are really nice to have
- Wooden molding planes : See below…
Once you have been bitten by the molding plane bug, you will want to run right out and buy a 1/2 or full set. Good luck. There are not a lot of makers out there and the ones that are doing it have a long wait list and are not cheap. Some people, like myself, invest is an older set. My molding planes include a 3/4 harlequin cove and round set (mixed from various makers and time periods) that I have carefully built over the last 9-10 years. The dates for my planes run from 1956 to 1930s to 1850s/70s and I have one from the 1790s that has an uncommon roman ogee shape that I use on boxes and 6-board chest lids. This collecting takes time as there has never been a set standard for what a #8 is, for instance, so there is a lot of variance in sizes between makers. I have replaced a few irons as well.
I often defer to people that are smarter than me and Matthew Bickford and Chris Schwartz recommend a set of #4 and #8 and a set of #6 and #10 hollows and rounds as an initial starter set. I would add that a 3/16 beading plane is a wonder to have as well if and when you start down this road.
To my own set, I have added some additional beading planes – up to 1/2″, tongue & groove planes for 1/4″ – 1″ stock, specialized profile molders, 1/4 rounds, scrapers, etc., but those is my own personal obsessive tendencies.
I failed miserably at finding a classic matched set of snipe-bills and half rounds (NEEDED for linen-fold panels). I have resigned myself to buy new ones from Old Street Tools, but I have to warm my wife to the idea of me spending serious cash on blocks of wood and iron that I will use 5-6 times a year. I have been working on her for 3 years and they are on my Christmas and birthday list every year. No luck yet.
Read Bickford’s Moldings in Practice (if you have bled with me or we have swapped spit, you can borrow my copy) and take a look at the video of the same name before jumping in. Molding planes can be sourced from the following, in no special order:
New planes:
- Caleb James
- Matt Bickford
- Old Street Tools
- Made in England Philly Tools
- J. Wilding Planemaker
Classic:
- Jim Bode Tools for reliable planes
- Liberty Tool has great molding and fine steel planes as well
- I have made some decent finds on Inchmartine Tool Bazaar
…and now I will dismount my soapbox…
Film Friday – Another Hammer Re-Work/Repair
I had a tired, old, home-made, second-hand chipping hammer that was broken and had been so for years. So, I MIG-welded the busted joint, ground the transition, and added a reclaimed hickory handle, which came from a hatchet rebuild shown in a previous video that I posted on YouTube. With the re-weld and addition of copper handle rivets, it should last a few decades now.
Film Friday – Blacksmithing and Forging
I am a novice smith and that is being generous. I do like to forge though and it is awesome when I get a little time to make things for myself. This short film details a couple of the different type of hold fasts (metal work and word work) that I recently made at the Pratt Center for Fine Arts forge in Seattle. If you live in Seattle, have a single maker bone in your body, and haven’t checked them out – do so immediately and sign up for a class or two.
Film Friday – The Garage Sidewalk Pour
Below is a short film documenting all the steps taken in pouring a walkway between our existing patio and my garage/shop, as also discussed in less detail in a previous post. I MAY have overbuilt it… a little… maybe…
Forging and Fabricating
I can do and make bunches of stuff: Everything from joinery to electronics, from wood turning to machining, from bookbinding to electrical, from carving to heavy machine operation, but there are certain things that I have never really been able to do in the world of hand-craft, mostly due to lack of exposure or instruction. Chiefly among these things are/were forging/blacksmithing and metal shaping. The latter composed of shaping and bending sheet metal into forms and objects.
I decided this year to work on those deficits and have been taking some forging and fabrication classes at The Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle. A couple nights a week, I leave work and hammer, shape, weld, grind, and make stuff out of steel. I have been at it for 5 weeks and am really please with both The Pratt and all that I am learning. I have also learned that while I have dipped my toe in these waters, that there is a ocean of knowledge out there. I do not have any want to be a full-time blacksmith or fabricator, but I want to keep learning, so I can add some of the techniques and pieces to stuff that I already build and add to my repertoire of ability and understanding. Below are some of the pieces that I have made, tools I am using, and some stuff that I am working on. I am putting together a little video as well.
Labor Day Weekend – 2017
I was at home for Labor Day weekend this year and spend the time working on the house and yard. I dug up a cubic yard+ of dirt where the garage walkway will be and then built concrete forms, added rebar, and welded wire for a 20′ X 4′ sidewalk pour next week.
I also took a couple of hours to rebuild a 10′ section of fence on our south side. A 40′ (12.2m) tree had grown through it from the neighbor’s yard. He let me cut it down a couple of weeks ago and rebuilding the fence was required. Note: Stamps-With-Foot did not see me roped up, hanging in the harness, topping the tree, so I didn’t get in trouble for being a “stupid man” until later 🙂
One year plan…
So, I have a One Year Plan to make my site and web content better and at the very least self-supporting. I have had this site for 16 years and it is not free. I would like for it to at least generate enough income to pay for the software updates, registration fees, equipment, and hosting costs. A Great Leap Forward without the Maoist philosophy, mass-starvation, mass-migration, and such. It is multi-pronged and here it is:
Shop:
- Stop eschewing progress for perfection.
- Get it set and start working and building and doing!
- Finish current Jeep projects
Website:
- More regular updates
- Split my personal BLOG/website and my “commercial” one
- More video content for this site and commercial site (trying REALLY hard to buy Matt of Many Trades from its current owner – see blurb below)
- Use as a funnel to increase my YouTube traffic
YouTube:
- Monetize Account
- Branding
- Change the page name
- Focus on specific content – craft and making stuff
- Split art, travel, family, cycling and kayaking videos onto second YouTube channel
- Become a better filmmaker
- Spend time in front of the camera
- Use better tools
- Lenses
- Lighting!
- Microphones
- Drones/software
- Camera Mounts
- Make better videos
- Make some of my own music for videos
To kick this off right and so to as not to make plans without follow through, I have now re-branded my YouTube Channel from “matt talley” to “Matt of Many Trades” to match my Instagram User Name. I have used the name for about 25 years and even considered it for a company name (I was building decks, doing some trim carpentry, concrete forming, wiring HVAC systems, residential electrical, welding on red steel, and doing some light remodeling) while in college to pay tuition/groceries/rent. I even have an OLD shirt I had silk screened with a hammer and cutting torch crossed with the name in an arch above. It is about accurate branding and I do/make/build/fix/break a bunch of random crap 🙂 and it is time to embrace accurate branding.
Grilling Cedar Plank Salmon
The very first meal that my father-in-law ever made for me was a semi-traditional cedar plank salmon. It was delectable and I have asked him for the magic recipe a few times since, but it was only this weekend that he had the time & opportunity to go through it all from start to finish. I, of course, documented the whole thing with my iPhone (GoPro battery was dead). As a note, he is a professional chef and on this visit hooked us up with a version of his recipe/process made for and on our tiny 10-year-old, much loved and used Weber grill. The meal was AMAZING! Here is the whole process:
Film Friday – Corner Cabinet Up-Cycle/Rebuild
Way back in November of 2015, just after our return from living abroad for two years, I bought a set of hard used, little loved corner cabinets from a local salvage place. I have spent an hour and there installing, building trim, sanding, de-gunking, stripping old paint, priming, painting, and more painting. It has only taken 18 months, but they are now installed and look like they have been in our living room since the very first day.
Here is a slideshow/video tale of the steps taken in the project: What it was to what it became.
Visit to a Kayak Museum in Portland
I read about a supposedly gem of a kayak museum in Portland maybe 18 months ago. Hmmm… Skin on frame kayaks… A museum… Huge collection… Quirky hours… Hmmm….
After a little inter-web research, I found that the Lincoln Street Kayak and Canoe Museum is the work of one man, Harvey Golden, and the collection is made up mostly of boats that he has hand built after surveying traditional native boats all over the world. I was in!
Mr. Golden uses the museum as a repository for his boat collection and as the home of his publishing house, White House Grocery Press. The museum is open to the public here and there as he is in the office and has set hours from 5-7 on Wednesdays. Knowing all that, I was almost vibrating to get a peek at his boats and paddles. I had stopped by the museum a couple of times when visiting Portland, but the timing was always off and I was never in town during the posted open time Wednesday afternoons. I was going going to be in The Rose City for a long holiday weekend and sent Mr. Golden an e-mail asking if he might, by chance, be around when I was in the city and to my great surprise, he got right back to me and agreed to let me stop by one Tuesday morning – I brought him a coffee when I showed up at the planned 10:00 on the dot.
His collection of boats, paddles, gear, accessories, and models is amazing – as are his books on the subject of kayaks. Here is the kicker though and why I am spending some time discussing a specific museum visit: he was amazingly generous with his time and spent over an hour and a half with me to explain the collection, bits & bobs, details, accessories, etc… I really, really appreciated it. His generosity of time is not something I see a lot of these days.
If you are into kayaks or boats in general, stop by the free museum and take a look at his books as well. I am about 70 pages into the super-detailed and annotated Kayaks of Alaska and want to build them ALL…
Film Friday – The Garage Build Film Part 2
Below is Part 2 of a 3-Part series documenting our garage/shop build. Like Part 1, this film is made from pictures taken during the build with a voice over commentary. Part-3 will be a mix of videos, stills, and some drone shots.
There is a “hidden track” at the end…
Film Friday – The Garage Build Film Part 1
I’ve had a number of people on various web forums, 6 sets of neighbors, a few friends, and a ton of folks in our area ask me some detailed questions about our garage build: size, foundation, demo, siding, wiring, roof, the car lift, etc… As I have been making some videos while rehabbing the hip, I thought that I would turn my garage build into a three part YouTube series to answer most of the questions and have all of the information documented in one spot. The first one is done and up now and the second should be done in a few weeks.
This one and the next are from pictures taken during the build, with a voice over. The third will be a mix of videos, stills and some drone shots. I learn something every single time I put a video or slide show together, so my hope is they get more and more watchable.
I didn’t have the time or facilities to do it in this video, but I would like to use my own guitar, banjo, ukulele, fiddle, and mandolin picking for the soundtrack on future videos. My son, brother-in-law, and any friends I can con into it will also be future soundtrack contributors.
Film Friday – Baidarka (Skin on frame Aleut kayak) build movie
With the hip related bed rest, I have had some time to catch up on some film-making and finally finished this little slideshow film documenting the entire process of a 9-day father/son traditional kayak build that I blogged about this past summer. The next build will be either a small motorboat or a wood-strip cedar canoe.
Let me know if you have any questions about the video.
Boat Lust
So, you may or may not know this about me, but even though I currently own a couple of small boats, I have MAD Boat Lust. I am a member of the Center for Wooden Boats, I get Wooden Boat Magazine & Small Craft Adviser Magazine every month, go to the Lake Union, Seattle, Portland, and Port Townsend boat shows every year… I follow four sets of Blue Water sailors on YouTube, am trying to con my wife into taking a sailing vacation (I am getting a hard NO! on that one currently), and almost bought a used 22′ lead keel sailboat last summer for “my son.” I tried to sell it as his “learner Boat” and play up the father/son bonding time angle with it and my wife saw right through it. To date, however, I have not come home to tell my with that “We” just purchased an Amel 55 blue water sailboat, a 47′ diesel powered Cabin Cruiser, a Chris-Craft in need of some “light repair”, or a Hans Christian 33 kept in Bristol Fashion that “I” am planning to live on since said purchase would leave me homeless, devoid of my puppies, and divorced.
If my son, The Ruminator, lived in Seattle I wouldn’t mind a swing keel Columbia 22 or a Catalina 22 to gunk hole around the Sound in with him. A Catalina 270 LE would make my heart go pitter-patter as well, but I am a realist (-ish) and very aware of my current budget and available storage space. A sailboat that I would only use a few times a year and have to pay moorage on, would make me very unpopular at home. But, if someone has a 19′ WW Potter taking up space in their life that needs a new home, I would be game…
While what I WANT is a sweet little sailboat, what I NEED is a small outboard that that sits on a trailer in or beside the garage, that I can pop over to Blake or Vashion Island on, run up the Duwamish River a little piece, do a little salmon fishing on with my son or friends, haul a crab pot or three in season, find a secluded weekend beach for summer camping, etc… It needs to have a cuddy cabin to get out of the shifty weather here in Puget Sound, some storage space to keep gear dry, needs to be light enough to be pulled behind the jeep when fully loaded, and fast enough to handle the tidal flow in the PNW.
Buying a finished boat, even used, like a Ranger Tug 21, a C-Dory 19, or a Boston Whaler 21′ Cuddy are WAY out of my price range, I have been perusing Craigslist for a 16′ -21′ hardtops, but the ones I have found are either gold plated & upholstered in unicorn foreskin or needs to be sunk. So, in due course, I have been thinking about building the boat of need mentioned above. I know, I know… I have a shit ton of projects already with the shop and house, but I won’t start the boat until Stamps-With-Foot agrees that the house is good and all the little projects at home are squared away. Happy wife, happy life.
To digress a bit, my current home-built boat want is a Devlin Boats Dunlin 22 Cruiser with all the bells and whistles, but that too would be spendy, require me to quit my J-O-B to obsess over the details properly, I would have to rent out boathouse space for the duration of the build, have the time to build it, and would probably cause my sweet bride to up my life insurance just before “accidentally” pushing me into a wood chipper.
Back in reality, I am looking hard at building a couple of boats, including a Devlin Noddy 18. It is something realistic to build over the fall and winter, in the space I have available in the F-Bomb Garage, and within my current budget. Powered by a 4 stroke 50HP Honda or Yamaha, with homey little extras like: a sardine wood stove in the cabin, a crab pot winch arm on the stern, and lots of LED lights. 
Devlin Boat Works in just south of us in Olympia and in addition to being a design house, they are a boat works and build all manner of craft there at any given time. I sent a couple of e-mails and made some calls about the possibility of going down this summer if they have a Noddy or similar hull under construction. We will see if it can be arranged.
I will have to wait just lust a little while longer to satiate my boat lust…
Update: May 2017
Nope. Devlin is off the list. I can’t find anyone on the boat forums that has built the Noddy AND I have not had a single phone call or e-mail replied to. I don’t need to do business with someone who I have to beg to take my money.
My Wife’s Prized Chandelier Almost Made Me Poop Myself
We are in the house remodel home stretch. Just small trim details left on the main floor. One of them being my wife’s chandelier installation. I had planned to install the kitchen floor this past weekend, but Stamps-With-Foot had other plans. She sat me down over coffee Saturday morning and made it clear that my plan was out and that her sparkly lamp was in. Always a fan of choosing my battles wisely – into the dining room I went.
I needed to caulk the new dining room crown molding and prep it for paint before I could install the ceiling medallion/escutcheon for the light. It took two passes and some light sanding, but all the cracks and gaps are filled and we were ready to hang the crystal and steel behemoth around 4:00pm on Saturday. I had my wife sitting in the attic holding the chandelier by its safety cable while I wired it to the ceiling junction box. Like in a really bad sit-com, there was a “ping” noise, the safety wire popped, and the stupid-expensive hunk of cut glass and metal headed to the floor. It happened like it was all in slow motion. Now this thing is not small. It is not light. It did not come with handles. From the top of a six-foot ladder, I instinctively reached way out and grabbed her prized chandelier as it fell. I teetered for a second on the top of the ladder, having flashes of crashing to earth and how many stitches I would be getting, before the ladder stopped moving and I was able to slowly walked the beast down to the floor. I did have to check my britches as it was a rough couple of seconds, anything could have happened. Thankfully, just one single tiny glass bit cracked in half from the jolt – super glue will be the answer. The ceiling medallion also popped loose and I had to pull it down, remove the adhesive and remount it, afterward clamping it to the electrical box and taping the edges to the ceiling so that the glue would set up overnight.
After getting the medallion in the air, I went to Home Depot, purchased some 1/8” stainless steel cable and with a swaging tool -everyone should have their own… 🙂 , I remade the safety cable. After waiting until the next morning, I spent an hour installing the beast. My wife danced around with giddy joy when I flipped the switch after all twenty of the 45watt bulbs were installed. Happy wife, happy life…
I will be done painting the trim this week, the blue and yellow tape will come down, and then the dining room is 100% done. On to the Kitchen.
Not Looking for a New Job, But…
Port Townsend School of Woodworking is looking for a new Executive Director. It is my dream job! I read the job notice early one morning before Thanksgiving and it checked all my boxes. I have the EXACT qualifications for this position and then some. It was like the sky parted and a ray of warm sunshine fell upon me. I needed, my soul need this job! I had a momentary lapse into my new fantasy life:
Waking up on our 43′ sailboat moored near Ft. Walton Park.
Fresh cup of coffee in the galley.
Kiss my still blissfully sleeping, blanket covered, puppy snuggling wife as I head off the boat to start my day.
Stop in by my dock-side garage shop and feed the cat (an imaginary cat as I do not have one currently, but would need one for my dockside garage shop in Port Townsend...)
Walk or cycle to work.
Spend my day smiling – the scent of fresh wood in the air around me and surrounded by people also doing what the love.
Stop by a cute local store on the way home for a couple of things and pick up flowers for my wife.
Write a few work e-mails and do a little work on some personal wood projects before dinner.
A fine meal of local veggies and fresh-caught fish with a glass or two of a 2009 Pomerol wine.
Read a little, write a letter or two, play a game of chess, and/or maybe some Netflix before going to bed in our cozy aft cabin.
As I day-dreamed about this new life, I got WAY ahead of myself thinking about how I was going to break the news that we were selling our house in Seattle to my wife. I was fully into the dream right up until I read the last little bit: “…Starting Salary: $45K to $55K”. Dammit!
I guess I will keep my day-job and just huff sawdust in my free time. I sent the notice to my boss without any explanation and I got back something to the effect of: ‘I was worried until I got to the end. I think we will be seeing you for a while longer…’
A Walk-in Closet for My Wife
As part of the now 10 month rehab, remodel, rebuild of our house my wife wanted some space to hang her clothes and put her shoes and boots that was not an afterthought. A place that, for once was not crammed or disorganized and was purpose built. It was decided that we turn a small bedroom/office into a walk-in closet.
I sketched out a few ideas in my notebook and went over them with her. She removed a large shoe rack and opted for more clothes bar space. She also wanted a bunch of drawers to store smaller stuff in. I initially drew everything with a built in dresser, but changed it a little and made room for a free-standing French dresser made in Revel in the 1930’s that we acquired while living in Toulouse. There is 27 feet of linear hanging space using iron pipe (no sag), 24+ shoe cubbies, shelves, drawers, storage, and two full length mirrors.
I spent most of this past weekend getting the flat panel section dividers up, installing the clothes bars and adding top shelves. There are three areas that are made for off-season storage: coats in the summers/short sleeves in the winter. For these spaces, I decided to line one wall each with cedar. While some people might line the whole closet with cedar, I would advise against it unless you and your significant other wants to smell like a lumberjack constantly. Too much and the smell, while pleasing for me, pervades everything.
I lined two of the three spaces this weekend and got to use my old-school hand miter saw. While manual, it is faster to use in the closet – no dragging in a stand and cords and creates a LOT less dust than my big power Bosch miter saw.
I still need to add shelving on one side, put up all of the upper and lower panel trim, fill my nail holes, sand, paint, and bring the dresser in, but the space is usable and has allowed us to unpack all the boxes that have sat in our bedroom full of clothes. I will take the clothes back out on the day that I sand and paint.
Here is the progress to this point:
