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Shop time during the coronavirus lockdown

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I'm a residential building contractor, although now that I'm in semi-retirement mode, more of a small project contractor. Anyway, I recently remodeled a so-called butler's pantry from a 250 year old estate which had a solid walnut countertop fabricated on-site at least 75 years ago during a 1940's renovation. I'm assuming the walnut came from logs which were 75-100 years old judging by the slow growth annual rings, so the wood is probably 175 years old. Rather than tossing the thing into a dumpster, I saved it like I do with many useable bits of wood. Today, I removed the hand hammered zinc sink, and cut the material up into usable blanks for canoe paddle shaft, blade and grip accents, and some strips for making canoe slotted gunwale spacers, etc. I have no idea when I'll start using this, but it's fun imagining all the possibilities....a couple of the pieces have some nice crotch figure which will make cool book matched decks too!

On another job, I salvaged an entire cherry private library with raised panel doors & shelves from a fire restoration job where firefighters sprayed water in another room which made some of the cherry at floor level become stained. Insane that the insurance company paid to re-build the whole library! I saved tons of full 4/4 stock for re-use. More canoe components!

An anticipated cedar strip canoe build is on hold while my specialty lumber supplier is closed during the lockdown. No access to buy the necessary clear western red cedar until they re-open, but at least I can make paddles!
 
Patrick

As a old cabinet maker myself , I enjoyed your post. Keep them coming
 
I've been Cheat Carving with our shop's Shark CNC Router.
There are not a lot of choices in the Vetric Clip Art Library, that relate to canoes.

Here is a Moose that would look neat on a canoe deck.
J
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Penns Woods, nice work! That's way beyond my skill... I can make a tight joint in my casework & interior trim, but artistic freehand stuff? Way out of my league!
 
Penns Woods, nice work! That's way beyond my skill... I can make a tight joint in my casework & interior trim, but artistic freehand stuff? Way out of my league!

No Free hand here ! It's Clip art downloaded to a computer, then transfered to the CNC Router.
 
My better half wants me to begin working on re-siding our Pennsylvania bank barn before I start building a canoe. Little did she know I already had some of the lumber and stain on hand to start, so I put the first coat on today for the siding on one end of the barn. Wasn't a hard decision since the clear western red cedar supplier nearby is closed!!
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I bought the pdf version of the Northwest Canoe solo Passage last night. Frankly I didn't know what to expect but for $4.99 I figured I couldn't go wrong. I thought I would get a table of offsets which would be OK, but; trouble is, now I don't know how to expand the pdf file to full size for making station molds. Any ideas to assist me? Thanks gents.

Pat
 
Nice job Fitz.
On a related note I’ve been meaning to just make a reminder as all of us are in our shops, some more than usual and maybe extending our skill sets, to be very very careful and vigilant on safety. You don’t want a trip to the ER for stitches or who knows what. In most places are already very stretched too thin.
Jim
 
I have wanted a heavy duty canoe tripping bush knife for some time. I put this one together over the last couple of weekends. Store bought heavy blade, pretty snakewood scales. It will need a sheath now.

SnakeBite.jpg
 
There are a lot of skilled people in these posts. I'm a wood butcher. Got a set of plans for one of those folding picnic table/bench things, started on it yesterday. Problem is, last time i was in the hardware store, the guy was coughing like he'd just inhaled a football field sized bong. So I'm not going back in there for a long while. I need a new skill saw, and my good jigsaw has no blades left, so all I had to cut with was my table saw and a really crappy jig saw. So the wood butchery got taken to a new level! I remembered last night that I actually have quite a few hand saws, lol, so I will dig those out today.

I got permission to bring my partially built canoe home on Monday! I've got 15 minutes to get into the school and get it, could be some feats of strength as I try to muscle the strongback and canoe onto my trailer alone, but where there is a will there is a way.

Keep posting pics people, your work is beautiful!
 
Ok, I built this today, rough but functional.
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Gonna move it to the back yard tonight, even though I won't be able to have a fire with it, lol.
 
Looks great Robin ... I have to live through you as mine is on the other side of the border until further notice. I enjoy pics of your projects.
 
Been contemplating a painted bottom on my old Merrimack for a while now and decided with all the time I have I would include that in my spring get ready for the water spruce up. Patched the above the waterline hole the grandsons somehow put in it last summer, taped it off, sanded it down and put the first coat of paint on it this morning.

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I like the new color! Very nice! Curious, what type of paint did you use, I have a Malecite rebuild going on which includes a paint job.

I had a quart of Epifanes so that's what I'm using. I know that Mr. Gage has used Rust-Oleum at a much lower cost.
 
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