Canoetripping Woodworkers: Post your scrap wood projects

[Guest]

The gel coat experiment on shop scrap carbon fiber circles was a success. The properly mixed get coat set up firm and hard in a couple hours time and was easy to apply. Would use again.

PC130077 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Why cut out carbon fiber circles for a gel coat experiment? I will give you a hint, three and one half inches is the diameter of a standard beer coozie, and someones blue barrel folding tabletop needs accessories.

More prideful, and funnier, he shared it non-stop as a side table for drinks and food. Every few hours he would take everything off and carefully wipe the surface of drips and dribbles.

Hey Ed, it is not a Gustav Stickley original. And it has two coats of epoxy and multiple coats of spar urethane. Let it be.

Once again Brad provides a really good idea.

I see custom coasters in Ed's future. And then there ya go Ed, be as fussy as ya wanna be.

I see custom carbon fiber and gel coat drink coasters for Fussy Eds folding blue barrel tabletop.

Originally shiny carbon black on one side, dull gray black on the other. The white gel coat went on the dull gray side, and I now have heads or tails ebony and ivory.

PC140083 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

There was some Rockwell tape well stuck to a couple of the scrap pieces. I covered that, and the other center holes with more attractive High Intensity reflective tape. For a reason beyond mere aesthetics. Now Ed and friends can aim for where to set their beer at night. Without fear of the dreaded condensation ring.

PC150090 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

The Plain Jane white gel coat sides are now boring.

Anyone who had young children during the mid ninties remembers the Pogs craze. Pogs, for Eds inner child. The directional TENT and BOAT arrows are because, well, ya know, Ed sometimes has directional problems late at night.

PC150089 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I will lay some Spar Urethane on them. Wet sanded between coats because, well, ya know, Gustav Stickley.

 

[Odyssey]

Oh, I like those lettered labels very muchly. Great idea. Only why not label them with faux adverts, something Ed and his admirers might appreciate (and ridicule him for)? You know Mike, the kind you have a history of camouflaging the outside of mailed packages with. A real conversation starter. After-all, nothing says "I like you, you're okay" like some good natured ribbing over some brewskies. I wonder what a complete set of Mad magazine coasters would look like?! (What, me worry?)

 

[Guest]

Oh, I like those lettered labels very muchly. Great idea. Only why not label them with faux adverts, something Ed and his admirers might appreciate (and ridicule him for)?
After-all, nothing says "I like you, you're okay" like some good natured ribbing over some brewskies. I wonder what a complete set of Mad magazine coasters would look like?! (What, me worry?)

The tent and boat directional arrows are, I hope, good natured ribbing of the first order.

BOAT because Ed, AKA Nightswimmer, was netnamed the first time I met him, on a night paddle from camp at Kinzu. We were all quite surprised when Eds sea kayak suddenly turned turtle, and got to watch Topher coach a cowboy rescue. I am not sure if Ed still owns a kayak. Several canoes though, so all in all a good thing.

TENT because on one often remembered and retold occasion we could not find Ed at the Raystown Rendezvous encampment. Not in his tent, his boat is still here. Lots of flashlight searching in the nearby woods turned up no Ed.

Lost things are, of course, always found in the last place you look. In this case, sleeping under his truck on the gravel parking pad. Whoever decided to look there must have known Ed well.

If I was to make Ed custom coasters for every mad moment I would need a LOT more carbon fiber. Highlight from the last trip, Ed standing atop a picnic table late at night, dangling a moonshine soaked cherry gripped by the stem with his teeth, slowly lowering it into Randys gaping maw like a mother bird feeding a hatchling. It was the only time I saw Randys wife look the least bit disconcerted.

PA063901 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Despite political differences that span left of Bernie and right of Goldwater I love spending time with the old Raystown crowd.

BTW, I was a sixties Mad Magazine kid. Maybe the influence shows.

 

[Odyssey]

Okay, now you and your crew are starting to scare me. Just a little. lol
Good times.

 

[goonstroke]

This little project is aluminum not wood, but it's scrap, so I think it fits in this topic.

I'm trying to make a more comfortable seat for a boat with a sliding tractor seat, a pedestal with bars 6.5" apart like a lot of Wenonah solos. The stock seat is OK for a couple hours or so but I'm looking for something I can sit in all day.

The inspiration is some seats I've seen in wood/canvas canoes (maybe Chestnuts?) that are made of strips of hardwood attached at the sides. I've never sat in one, but they look like they would be comfortable.

Anyhow, the strips in this seat are 0.5" aluminum tubes. The substructure is 1" square tubing, and it's all riveted together with 3/16 and 1/8 aluminum pop rivets. It looks rather "hand made", since I don't have a drill press and anyway what's the respectable way to crimp aluminum tubes? It's ~22" wide, which allows the tubes to flex a bit.

The scrap story here is that the black aluminum tubes came from an old pop-up trade show display that my company was throwing out. What could be better than turning marketing paraphernalia into canoe outfitting? That's almost like making bannock out of manure or something.

I have no idea if this seat will prove comfortable or practical in actual use, but come spring I'll give it a try.

 

[sweeper]

I built a stand out of barrel scraps for my Japanese Pull Saws.

Not canoe related but I'll use them for my canoe mods.

View attachment soCu1SjX_beYWglz3LHpG832fOnR932GTtkZ2-4_E5g3dohrLCvIDUJ7SmFMN2zkw3iRd1T9FItM-lPrX4UoLwxCWKfnSBO0IjPU

View attachment 1ni2Mpgi_Wc2OlBtIfxQKatga-MwYfZdRoVUGHvYxJ8QwUCgvt2CoVWAXS0JMQMTSt05wPufWQGeKJIeNKTk07kQjdEgkF1qn1XH

 

[Boatman53]

I really like that saw rack Sweeper. Nice job.
Jim

 

[southcove]

Partly as a way to finish off a small stack of cut 1/4" finished ply and partly to satisfy my own curiosity, I am making up several carryall boxes, roughly 22 x 13 x 13" high. Fastened up only with epoxy and fiberglass tape and some glue for the trim. Wood strip top over more plywood.

What is different about these two from others I have built, is that my friend is going to make his into a stealth cooler, lining the inside with some kind of EPS foam he has from a bird destroyed (pecked and ripped apart he said, imagine those birds!) soft cooler...

I am going to try mine with a sandwiched liner (3 layers) of CCF and relflectix. Not thinking either foam style will be worth more than a day trip worth of cold holding ability. The inside of both boxes will be fully expoxy coated as will the underside of the tops, as defense against the inevitable melting and standing water.

I suspect I will just float the liner in mine, since I don't see the application/need quite as much as he does. In any case the boxes find dozens of uses all year long at my house.

(Something else I never got around to this winter...finding a new picture account, as none of my shop pics will post up on the forum, being too large and too much MP. Can email those to anyone who is curious. Some build pics and some finish looks )

 

[Guest]

We have some highly skilled woodworkers here, how about home built furniture?

Most of our DIY home furniture is simple but solidly overbuilt, largely from hand selected 2x4s, planed and sanded. And then screwed, glued and pegged for triple action belt and suspenders. You could set a 56 Chevy on most of our tables with no worries.

Rock solid, if a bit clunky. I copied most of the tables and benches designs from furniture a friend had made from the hatch covers of, IIRC, WWII Liberty ships.

2x4s hand selected for attractive knots and grain. Glued, screwed and pegged. I actually do stand on this coffee table occasionally.

P3020580 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Side tables, same basic design.

P3020582 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P3020587 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

A couple of chests, lined with cedar. Hard to have too many cedar chests.

P3020586 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Dining room table and benches. Note the dog bone feet on the bench legs. Those bench legs are two pieces of 2x 10, glued and pegged together for a 2x20 slab and then cut to curved shape.

P3020585 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Note that those legs are angled out from the bench seat. The most disheartened I have ever been in the shop was cutting those critical angles. Or moments after cutting those angles.

I cut them all the same. Ooops, both legs on both benches were leaned in the same direction. To make them properly angled out two needed to be recut. Which made the leg on that side shorter, so the other side had to be cut down as well.

It was a Munchkin bench, with seating at chin height. I was not buying another 2x10 and starting over gluing, pegging, cutting and sanding. Note the dog bone platform shoe height solution. Stylish, eh?

Bookcases. Dadoed 2x4s with Lauan back and sides. The Lauan sides looked awfully drab, so I dressed them with cedar shakes.

P3020590 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Dating the era of this furniture build, the massive entertainment center. The spaces in that entertainment center were custom sized for our television, stereo equipment and speakers, plus an inch of extra sideways space.

P3020591 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Also a disheartening build at a couple moments. Disheartening moment number one, I had made all of the paired dado cuts in the 2x4s. Eight 2x4s, fifty two dado cuts. Whew, that spacing was a beast to figure out, especially the middle ones with dados on both sides.

I was finishing up the final sanding with 220 in a belt sander, holding the last complexly dadoed 2x4 on the sawhorses with one hand when I let go. The belt sander fired the 2x4 across the shop, where it rammed a block wall and broke into 3 pieces. I dang near burst into tears.

Disheartening moment number two. Remember those custom shelves with the extra inch of width? I wish I had, I forgot about the dado inset, which is a half inch on each side. The tuner and tape deck fit without a millimeter to spare. And the speakers were a millimeter too wide. Arrgghh.

We have a few pieces of furniture my father built 60 years ago. This breadbox table, now a bedside book repository, is older than me.

P3030595 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I am hoping the 2x4 furniture will likewise last for generations.

Got homemade furniture at your place?

 

[BWCA66]

Bedroom ceiling is all cedar scraps from paddle making.

 

[sweeper]

I like it, I have a couple pieces of 2x4 furniture my father made back in the 50's and you're right its 'Rock Solid'.

I've spent the winter in the basement building Lamps and Lights

These Instrument Lights are made from Wine or Whiskey Barrel Staves too small for most of the other things we building one without.

View attachment aE0aVvrwe9f-9vM_OXUVtZl9rajY8JJqYRq6xRq_2itPOnLtk62lu_vxoq7JINYZVooPqzrpcTdA-rR0BbvB5es9mH7IQ81GLXdmView attachment MZFbjOMh6XrpLg4rCU4ZoD6hwulZsxawSnyL7vd_KFhmzMv0Uhxws5pEunZipzr4EfxxDf1IkzqorQMXI2rAFfWWfF_61n281-rV

This is our Lobst'ah Trap Light that built the other night. It still needs a finish and then a two lamp fixture added

View attachment YoFDMFqZ74dfhnw2YX4RcRyfsiLycOGVmNRt1JyDcK46xOGjYb9v0noh3xNOlQJlE4VSaXhsIp-BYajHCi_n676BVhKjwhgtwBwB

View attachment 0ukIZ9JxciUsBXpxoXcrxTeV-VDina8XBxA7jHgURhmzhzNbAuQP4FlCDqfJ-tfhI90AVXrUmpedk0HUmzUuek_ssda50iEBKZMD
View attachment cCbPgaSFTUZf_LupfUwnz6Uy7wUH8bhcpYWlYyTgs_XaZ6OUjIesuGPSHazqn7QhO_RJCD9dUPqlqt-A3UaMikPCF0COtj2tmCOcView attachment hakGiD9HRUtAfz_sDV2jJ1oi6rMMAhYyfMEUHrYPGVL6uFCX0PYUIpIbxQjT38DvjddgYUoZUGPoQZYzBn27jSKA9yswGxDknklC

 

[Canotrouge]

This is one of my latest piece I made.... No screws or pegs and just a little hide glue and I can tell you not only you can stand on it but your great great great grand children will be allowed to as well!! The secret, JOINERY!!

 

[Boatman53]

Very nice bench. I really like it. In my world joinery trumps fastening all the time. Thanks for the pics.
Jim

 

[DeniseO30]

Piano bench! Philippine mahogany been laying around my shop for many many years I sold my baby grand that my son and I restored lo and behold I round up with a free spinet without a bench, so... Stain to match the old piano was a mixture of Kona and red mahogany

 

[dougd]

My wood working skills in one pic! I did use sandpaper to smooth it out!

 

[Canotrouge]

My wood working skills in one pic! I did use sandpaper to smooth it out!

Sweet, what kind of wood? Did you use finish on it? Hand tools or power tools? Japanese or Western? Laminated or solid? lease tell us more!!

 

[dougd]

Well Canotrouge, I can't let out all my woodworking secrets that I've spent years on perfecting! Besides, it's the only one I've made so far!

 

[sweeper]

Here's a wine rack I built from white wine bottom stave and a whiskey barrel stave on top. It was supposed be 2 staves like the one on the bottom forming a flat X but I didn't have a stave good enough to do that. I did have the 2/3 whiskey staves and like this version better. The spacers are the last of my supply of ebony black piano keys.

View attachment 7uSSchkKsYOQM1LOLNoU7QY_ryJCiRXnsLTC0bb7C3aawk4wmnqLxCpkzq4MHensNyWP6LbdnN2o8MrLQLHqUuUMXi5Te8mswCzy

 

[DeniseO30]

Makes gossamer curls! Beech scrap from my reproduction Roubo bench build,. Yes the hole for the pin was drilled in the wrong place on the first attempt. The handle the knob and the wedge are white oak Lol

 

[sweeper]

Nicely done and it works, you can't beat that.