How did you get started? (not paddling)

[Guest]

I understand the comparable ease of architectural programs, once you get the hang of them, but I still like to draw with pencil and paper, it is more gratifying for me to do. I'm somewhat stubborn about the old ways of doing things and it keeps me drawing.

I am at the other end of the spectrum, my artistic abilities ended somewhere south of the stick figure level and I can barely draw a straight line with a ruler. I tried some wobbly free-hand sketches of a basic addition floor plan, tried transferring those to graph paper to get sense of square footage design efficiencies and realized that the effort was frustratingly beyond my ken.

I am no master of electronica; it took me years to switch from my old Nikon, which I understood, to a digital camera, which I still do not. I have never taken a photo in a setting other than automatic with the digital, although I did once inadvertently shoot some wobbly video of earth-trees-sky-trees-earth while walking around with the camera somehow set on video mode. It took me a full day to stop opening the battery compartment thinking that lever controlled the zoom function.

I was anxious that the 3D Home Architect program would be likewise unmasterable, but it was dead simple even for a technophobe like me. Even when I did screw up a wall or door in a redesign attempt I could just hit the delete or back button and try again. There was a lot of “If I move this wall here and slide a closet in there it shortens the hallway and….hey look, the bedroom square footage stays the same and I gain another closet”

I know I lacked the architectural vision or experience to see those opportunities in my mind’s eye, but being able to drop and drag, delete, resize or reposition parts of the structure, and then look at it in a 3D view from any angle, complete with furniture or tools* in place was exactly the crutch I needed.

*Well, not really tools. Like the program Alan used mine didn’t have drop and drag shop tools. It did have every manner and size of furniture and household appliances, so I just found like sized tables and kitchen equipment and relabeled them. That did make the 3D view of my shop bizarre, since it was populated by floor lamps, refrigerators and washing machines.

The Chief Architect and 3D Home Architect programs are nearly identical and I think some earlier versions are now free downloads.

My pre-addition shop was a simple rectangle. Playing with that program while designing the shop expansion I realized that I could add a small mud room/firewood room and small office without sacrificing the length and width of workspace needed for tools, benches and boats. The mud/firewood room is between the house and shop and gives me another door to help keep out odor, dust and noise.

Using the architectural program to emplace faux-tools and benches and shelving it quickly became apparent that those extra office and mudroom walls inside the shop would be advantageous, and I added a narrow wing wall between my seated height and standing height benches. Even that short section of wall is now fully and functionally occupied on both sides.

I’ve said this before but the most functional shop idea was adding the small office space. That area is my office, clean room and warm room (much easier to heat 64sf than the entire shop.

Actually the best part of the shop design was originally unintended. I had planned an exterior window in my office, and exterior windows in my shop. And halfway through the build I discovered that I had a window that had been removed from the upstairs addition available to reuse.

The office walls were not yet framed in and I put that window in the interior wall between my shop and office. I jokingly call it my Louie Depalma window (old TV sitcom Taxi). Little did I know how functional it would be.

When I’m working with something smelly or best not breathed for prolonged exposure I just open the office window to the outside and the office window to the shop and run an exhaust fan in one exterior shop window. I can work unaffected in the office with clean one-way air flow. In the winter a small heater makes the office toasty and in the summer when I have the large shop doors open to the outside I put the screens in both office windows for a bug-free zone.

That easy to heat, keep clean and odor free office is my man cave within a man cave, and is undoubtedly the best why-not design feature of the renovation.

 

[Guest]

you all give me confidence to try some new things. Hopefully this spring I'll begin bringing an old tandem canoe back into floating/paddling shape so I can hand it off to my daughter, son-in-law & grandsons so we can get out more.

Snapper, that is exactly how I got started resurrecting old canoes. When we were young married with two kids, a Grumman and a pack canoe we soon needed a second tandem for family padding.

I found a beat to heck tandem. An early plastic canoe branded “Whitewater” (and made in Iowa of all places). Whitewater it was not; it was zero-rocker flat bottomed, with massively recurved stems and a full length keel. A keel that not only extended the length of the hull and up both stems, but also topside along the length of the plastic deck plates.

With some glass and resin and gunwales repairs I had an ugly tandem that floated and served us until I found a better dumpster-ready tandem to take its place.

BTW – The “repair” to the battered plastic gunwales was a section of garden hose split lengthwise and adhered with construction adhesive. A few years later I gave it to a young family ISO a cheap starter canoe and last I knew that fugly fix was still floating.

That was back before I even knew what I didn’t know; using auto store E-glass and poly resin, I’d never even heard of epoxy, S-glass or peel ply. It has been, and continues to be, an evolutionary learning experience.

BTW – In the evolution of processes, the stick and implanted stone technique was another. I was a woods kid growing up, and knew every stream, spring, bog and hill with a 10 mile radius of home. I knew every tree and I always had a shapely walking stick, usually made from something with an odd burl or a vine wrapped spiral.

It occurred to me that I could make my own vine spiral, using a length of copper tubing and a live sapling. Well, cool, that works, how about a making restrictions and bulges using hose clamps, like something turned on a lathe but grown that way.

Well heck, if I’m going to put a hose clamp around the tree why not put something under it and let the tree grow around it. Hey, that works; I could inset a stone cabochon by drilling into the tree and kickstart the process.

But nothing has been as much fun as working on canoes and kayaks. It is a slippery and very satisfying slope you are about to tumble over. Enjoy the ride.

 

[Jim Dodd]

As I recall I have always had a passion for the outdoors. When I was a very young child I used to roam in forested areas and pretend that I was an explorer. I had a cheap sheath knife that was too dull to really be useful to me. One day I was trying to chop some branches to make a small lean-to, but the crappy knife just wouldn't get the job done. Frustrated with tears in my eyes I sat down against an old stump. I must have fell asleep because when I woke up I seemed to be under ground in a work shop of some sort. There were bearded dwarfs making all sorts of cutlery and sharpening it as well. They showed me how to make a nice sheath knife and how to maintain the edge properly. I learned that you needed to start with good quality materials and take as much time as it takes to do a good job. When we were finished with the lessons they led me back out through a hole behind the stump I had rested against. I asked "how can I thank you?". They simply replied "pay it forward". Though I have returned to that place many times as an adult, I have never been able to find the opening since that day.

Was your first knife like this one Rippy ?
Few things have survived my childhood. This is the first knife my Father bought for me.
I sat many times in the woods, all those Fairies must have been in Eastern Iowa, cause I saw nary a one !

 

[Jamie]

Years ago I bought my first of many Chestnuts and for a little while I thought I'd like to restore them as many do, I fixed up a couple with a lack of tools and limited woodworking ability. Enjoyed working on them but canoes take up lots of space in the shop (garage), quick weekend project canoes are fine but I no longer look for Chestnuts that need a complete rehab.

These days, other than my technical Mon - Fri job I tinker in the shop on smaller woodworking items.







It started with a few things for the wife, then I started making multiples and selling the extras. There isn't much money in it but as with buying and selling canoes, this hobby pays for itself.

 

[Rippy]

Was your first knife like this one Rippy ?
Few things have survived my childhood. This is the first knife my Father bought for me.
I sat many times in the woods, all those Fairies must have been in Eastern Iowa, cause I saw nary a one !

Jim, when I started writing my above story my mind was on my childhood knife at first. It was the same brand as yours, and I believe about the same size, but your's is much nicer . The handle was plainer being black plastic and rectangle shaped just like the one below. I found this picture on line. I haven't seen my first sheath knife for years and don't recall what ever became of it. Looking back i realize that it was not the best quality, but at the time (about 3rd grade or so) It was something I dreamed about buying as I saved up for it. Back then I would shovel the neighbor lady's side walks for 25 cents, 50 cents if it was extra wet and deep. I remember looking at this knife through the display case every time we went to that store. I guess I always have been drawn to knife display cases. Dave

 

[Rippy]

Jim, just realized that my knife was not the same brand as your's.

 

[Jim Dodd]

Our up bringings were so similar ! Took me back down Memory lane !
Thanks !

Jim

 

[Guest]

This thread has included some interesting career path stories. Here’s mine.

By the early 70’s I had worked a dozen different jobs.

Apartment maintenance crew. The bosses kept a huge Burmese Python in the parts room. The story was an offhand “Yeah, that’s one of the babies; the mother got loose and we can’t find her”. A lot of summer hires wouldn’t go in the parts room even to steal stuff. And when tenants were busted for keeping a pet rabbit we were always able to help “Find a good home”.

Welding crew. God I sucked at welding, although I was good at setting fire to the welding truck. Mud jacking crew; 2 hours of drilling and setup, 20 minutes of work, two hours of clean up and it’s time for lunch. Of course I was the clean up guy, everyone else worked 40 minutes a day.

Fence crew; I can still set fencing, I just don’t want to.

Janitor in the State Highway department offices. I mostly remember dividing the janitorial crew into teams and staging eraser battles in the expansive drafting room. Some of the drafting desks there had tape style dispensers with press-on roadways, bridges and railroads. I would occasionally add a random road or rail spur to nowhere to the plans. When I come across some screwy county road I still wonder.

Lots of dog and cat stuff. I worked for a veterinary practice, a breeder/border, and for the SPCA. The SPCA was a kill-shelter with unreasonable rules about who could adopt what. I surreptitiously passed a lot of doomed animals out a side window and tallied them as euthanized,

When the recession hit I was unskilled labor and couldn’t find a job that paid a living wage when I saw an ad in the paper for “Research Volunteers, $20 a day”

Even better than just $20 a day, the gig included room and board for weeks at a time. Of course it also included being a human guinea pig for infectious disease vaccine challenge trials. Sign me up.

Those were some good times. Twelve to twenty young ne’re do wells locked in a quarantine ward in the early 70’s. The after-quarantine parties were epic and went on for days, until we were all broke again.

heck, the still under-quarantine parties were epic. One struggling artist roommate made his living as a guinea pig, including a gig as a human subject for teaching rectal and genital exams. Turn your head and cough. Next. Turn your head and cough. Next.

This was a sealed ward, flying an actual quarantine flag like some diseased ship of yore. The old geared cranks had been removed so the windows could not be opened. Said roommate did a pencil rub of the crank gear and made his own between inpatient visits.

You can’t really smoke week in a sealed environment. But it you crank the window open just a touch, roll a joint, stick it on the end of a soda straw and set it on the outside windowsill you can puff away. With an exhale straw on the other side of the window and the curtains closed and no one will smell the wiser.

It is hard to make a career as a human guinea pig and eventually I had been exposed to every disease and vaccine they were working on. Swine flu and A. Victoria, cholera and sundry E.coli diarrhea strains, you name it I’ve either had it or the vaccine. My passport vaccine page is a thing of wonder.

I was finally ineligible for any more studies and it looked like the good life was coming to an end. The last day as an inpatient my morning physical was performed by the Director of the Institute, who I had come to know well.

I walked into the exam room, demonstrably turned my empty pockets inside to scatter the lint and said “Doc, I need a real job”.

35 years later I had been a laboratory assistant, a laboratory technician, a volunteer recruiter, done epidemiological surveillance, worked as stool nurse on inpatient studies and been special projects officer for outpatient studies in South America.

In the end I had worked on the plans for three medical research buildings, and finished up my last 20 years as facility manager for a 200,000 sf medical biotechnology complex I had helped design. I may not know home design, but I dang sure know what works in a wet lab, clinic or vaccine ward

“Doc, I need a real job”. Never has a life turned more on five monosyllabic words.

 

[Iskweo]

Short version:

I grew up in farm country in Southern Ontario. Lots of hunting and fishing, helping with my sisters horses, stuff like that.My dad was the local constable and went everywhere with a .45 in his back pocket...cuz ya never know. He used to shoot starlings out of the kitchen window with a 12 ga also. I learned later in life that I was in fact a redneck. Who knew? I thought everybody lived like this. The upshot of all this is that I learned to have a keen eye for anything that was free and to do most things myself to save money.
After high school I had this brilliant idea to join the military. They taught me to be a mechanic, which was good. I also ended up living in Alberta for almost two decades. I loved it there until it got too busy. I split town with my GF for her reserve in northern Manitoba. That was interesting. I liked it there but had no work so after a couple of years we moved to Winnipeg. I worked various places, ended up single again, and eventually got a job with the Govt as a mechanic on the Air Force base fixing ground support and aircraft maintenance equipment. Super cool job, and it pays good. I am also a senior union steward and part of the local executive. Right about this time I stumbled onto Karin in a chat room and talked her into coming out for a canoe trip. She liked it so much she moved here.

I am an incurable tinkerer. I have lots of ideas and not enough time to try them all ( or money for that matter). My place would remind you of Fred Sanford's house...lol. I find boats and other projects to keep Karin busy. I find stuff for me to think about fixing. I dont always get very far with that but I could if I wanted to.I love the outdoors, my gardens, and especially canoeing. Brad can attest to the fact that both Karin and I are extreme fishing machines.

My ultimate project is to build an ultralight airplane ( cant have a real one with my heart issues) and use it to access the back country. Like Joe Foss or Gadabout Gaddis ( 1960's fishing shows).

Like I said, I am the thinker and Karin is the doer.

Christine

 

[snapper]

Mike - I appreciate the vote of confidence in my trying new skills. I will admit that I'm not totally without abilities to make things. It's just most of what I do would come under the category of small projects. With my penchant for 17th/18th century re-enacting I've done a lot of leatherwork (axe & knife sheaths mostly) but I've also hand sewn most of my clothing; i.e wool overshirts, linen shirts, leggings, coats, westkits, winter & summer mocs, mitts, etc. I've also done a bit of finger weaving so have a decent 12' sash that was a winter project one year (I should have started with something shorter - LOL) and have sewn up a bunch of period correct packs. Probably the biggest canoe related projects I've been involved with was in making paddles. Years ago we had access to a high school shop so I joined in a class where we made bent shaft paddles. From there I made a couple of paddles for my daughters. I also attended one of Caleb Davis' single day workshops and made a nice cherry paddle that I use when re-enacting. Hopefully all of this will lead me to getting that canoe in shape for my daughter, son-in-law & grandsons; especially since we're planning a summer 2016 trip to the Adirondacks.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper

 

[snapper]

Christine - Thanks for the blast from the past! I met Joe Foss with my dad at a sportsman's show in NYC when I was a kid and he and I would watch Gadabout Gaddis each week when it was on. Your comment brought back some wonderful memories. Thanks!

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper

 

[Guest]

I remember looking at this knife through the display case every time we went to that store. I guess I always have been drawn to knife display cases.

I wonder how many of us of a certain age remember those trips to the hardware store with dad, standing at the counter as he shot the bull with the proprietor while we gazed longingly at the display case of knives.

That was a weekly tradition, and I still remember the knives in that display case.

 

[Jim Dodd]

I wonder how many of us of a certain age remember those trips to the hardware store with dad, standing at the counter as he shot the bull with the proprietor while we gazed longingly at the display case of knives.

That was a weekly tradition, and I still remember the knives in that display case.

I remember them well ! Such great memories. A local bar was also a sort of sporting goods store. The owner had a glass case with lead head jigs galore ! My first fiberglass bow 10# came from this shop. I had to stop in often to get new strings.
THOSE WERE THE DAYS !

Jim

 

[snapper]

Add trips to the lumber yard, lots of fishing outings & the monthly camping trip and you've summed up the best part of my childhood with my Dad.

Until next time..be well.

snapper

 

[Guest]

Add trips to the lumber yard, lots of fishing outings & the monthly camping trip and you've summed up the best part of my childhood with my Dad.

I fished with my dad dang near every weekend between ages of 6 and 16. Either the upper Conowingo pool on the Susquehanna at our family cabin, or on Lake Champlain at the old family homestead near Rouses Point.

I remember one of those knives that held special fascination for me. A long, slender single blade with a pearl handle. I was mostly a cheap Barlow pocket knife kid (and still have two).

Well, I don’t just remember that wicked folding pocket sword. I’m holding one. I found one for a few bucks years ago and bought it just to satisfy a childhood urge.

It is, of all things, a Sabre 677 melon knife. It still looks wicked cool, even to adult me, but it is pretty useless, even for slicing melon.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Sab...Sw5375HjM:&usg=__e42bD4Z7Q3xy2RKmjRsF5E-B9WE=