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I work mostly solo in the shop, and everyone who works alone has developed a bag of tricks for when an unavailable extra hand is needed.
One of the perplexing tasks was putting seat drops on machine screws and somehow holding them in place against the inwale while I fitted the exposed machine screw ends into the holes in the seat frame. Truss drops aren’t bad, I can clamp the center of the truss against the inwale. Peg drops or \_/ drops are more problematic since there 4 un-clamp-able pieces that need held in place simultaneously.
To hold the individual drops in place while installing the seat I use tiny little DIY’ed rubber washers that fit tight when slid up the exposed threads.
P1230018 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr
Same thing for anything that gets double hung with two machine screws per side, wide yoke ends or kneeling thwarts or etc; just easier to have that stuff held firmly in place while installing washers and nuts.
There is some history to those saved rubber circles. Years ago I made a set of gauge marker templates to spray paint “Canoe Zero” and incremental foot measurement marks on bridge abutments for some streams that didn’t have any other gauges. History note: There had been “Canoe Zero” marks on some of those small streams, courtesy of a local paddler and guidebook author, but most were gone or faded to invisibility. If I could still make it out I used his estimation as a Canoe Zero starting point.
I had an overabundance of wood drawer dividers from construction leftovers and stenciled/jigsaw cut out “0 . - . 1”, “1 . - . 2”, “2 . - . 3” templates. Easy enough to spray paint a gauge at low water, just spray paint the “0 . - . 1”, set the 2 on the “2 . - . 3” template over the just painted 2 and work my way up. Just needed to be painted someplace easily visible from the bank if I stopped by to check the gauge.
Those worked OK, if a bit multi-board clunky, until I came to the first circular bridge pier. A flat board was no good on a round concrete surface.
But I had a 6” wide roll of black rubber sheeting, more construction leftover, and cut the (pre-stenciled) numbers, dots and dashes out of that. Much easier to cut the numbers out with an Exacto knife than a jigsaw.
Even easier, I could unfurl one 5 foot long strip of rubber and spray paint every number from canoe zero to four feet, and if eventually needed go back and refresh the numbers exactly so.
And do so in unobserved psssstttt, psssstttt seconds while, eh, vandalizing a bridge pier. My graffiti was less offensive than the teenage stuff already there, but I still didn’t want to get caught in the act.
(BTW, spray paint for marking asphalt lines lasts much longer than standard spray enamel. Pricey though)
The little black rubber circles are the ¼ and ¾ foot mark between numbers and centered 6” dash, removed with a grommet punch. I still have a couple of 6” Exacto knifed dashes in the box as well; must have found a use for the rest. Never throw anything away!
Got a favorite “spare hand” shop trick?
One of the perplexing tasks was putting seat drops on machine screws and somehow holding them in place against the inwale while I fitted the exposed machine screw ends into the holes in the seat frame. Truss drops aren’t bad, I can clamp the center of the truss against the inwale. Peg drops or \_/ drops are more problematic since there 4 un-clamp-able pieces that need held in place simultaneously.
To hold the individual drops in place while installing the seat I use tiny little DIY’ed rubber washers that fit tight when slid up the exposed threads.
P1230018 by Mike McCrea, on FlickrSame thing for anything that gets double hung with two machine screws per side, wide yoke ends or kneeling thwarts or etc; just easier to have that stuff held firmly in place while installing washers and nuts.
There is some history to those saved rubber circles. Years ago I made a set of gauge marker templates to spray paint “Canoe Zero” and incremental foot measurement marks on bridge abutments for some streams that didn’t have any other gauges. History note: There had been “Canoe Zero” marks on some of those small streams, courtesy of a local paddler and guidebook author, but most were gone or faded to invisibility. If I could still make it out I used his estimation as a Canoe Zero starting point.
I had an overabundance of wood drawer dividers from construction leftovers and stenciled/jigsaw cut out “0 . - . 1”, “1 . - . 2”, “2 . - . 3” templates. Easy enough to spray paint a gauge at low water, just spray paint the “0 . - . 1”, set the 2 on the “2 . - . 3” template over the just painted 2 and work my way up. Just needed to be painted someplace easily visible from the bank if I stopped by to check the gauge.
Those worked OK, if a bit multi-board clunky, until I came to the first circular bridge pier. A flat board was no good on a round concrete surface.
But I had a 6” wide roll of black rubber sheeting, more construction leftover, and cut the (pre-stenciled) numbers, dots and dashes out of that. Much easier to cut the numbers out with an Exacto knife than a jigsaw.
Even easier, I could unfurl one 5 foot long strip of rubber and spray paint every number from canoe zero to four feet, and if eventually needed go back and refresh the numbers exactly so.
And do so in unobserved psssstttt, psssstttt seconds while, eh, vandalizing a bridge pier. My graffiti was less offensive than the teenage stuff already there, but I still didn’t want to get caught in the act.
(BTW, spray paint for marking asphalt lines lasts much longer than standard spray enamel. Pricey though)
The little black rubber circles are the ¼ and ¾ foot mark between numbers and centered 6” dash, removed with a grommet punch. I still have a couple of 6” Exacto knifed dashes in the box as well; must have found a use for the rest. Never throw anything away!
Got a favorite “spare hand” shop trick?
