Silly Grandpa

On Christmas morning I unwrapped a gift that had been made for me by my incredibly talented grand daughters.  I found an assortment of wood pieces that had been hand painted by the little artists tied up with some string.  Well, I had no idea what the collection was but what with the string and all I figured I was supposed to make some kind of hanging decoration or something like that.  I left the pieces alone for a bit and then later in the day, wanting to play with my Christmas 'toy' I figured I'd make a collage out of the pieces.  I took to arranging them this way and that and decided upon a configuration I liked and glued the pieces together.  Before too long I got a call from the kids asking how I liked the puzzle.  What puzzle??  Then I cracked up because I had never thought of it being a puzzle and now that it was glued together I'd never see it assembled.  Silly Grandpa.  Things happen... got to go with the flow.  So, here is my puzzle-collage!

The now-known-to-be puzzle pieces, glued and clamped into what I thought would be a good looking arrangement.  Great to have something to play with on Christmas morning!

 

After attaching a little hanger to the back and regluing a couple pieces that had come off as I hammered on the hanger my hand-made puzzle-collage hanging on the wall.  Nice :)

 

 

And now my breakfast area looks to much the better, what with a glaring empty space now being occupied with the new art piece.  Thanks Hannah and Riley... it's wonderful !!  Of course I will always be wondering if I could have figured out the puzzle and what it would have looked like :)

 

 

Little Engine

So the cold weather really came to Georgia this week and that made it time to turn to 'inside' projects that have been waiting for just such a time that I would not be working or playing outside.  Last Christmas my daughter-in-law gave me a little building project knowing that I like to make things with my hands and such.  Bless her heart... her intentions were so good.  Of course now I know that she probably got this sucker from some old people torture web site!  I'm figuring it's going to take a few days to be able to focus my eyes normally.  Regardless, the project is completed and it will go along side my other little projects although the others aren't quite so little.

I think this is the first project I've every worked on where EVERY tool I used was bigger than the final assembly was going to be.  I stopped to take this on day 2 I think it was because it seemed I just kept going to bet more tools including the dowel to use to bend pieces around.  That's the work in progress sitting on the pale yellow instruction sheet.  Easy to follow instructions.  Of course not a word of direction... just pictures.

 

Just after I finished... 4th day on the project... I'm thinking about 14 hours.

 

 

 

All done.  Just a shot to show that this little sucker is indeed little.  No way to show the complexity of the project and I won't relate any conversations I had with myself along the way when dealing with the incredibly small and fragile/thin pieces.  Regardless... thank you, Samantha, for giving me a cold weather project to keep busy with :)

 

 

 

Van Awning

As some may be aware I'm taking off for a week-long trip in Florida and having discovered the very nice Florida state park system I'm going to be camping for 6 of the 7 nights.  No problem, I'm all set with my nice new spring-hung cot, little fold-up table, and my experience gained last year as to what I need to bring (little) versus what I can leave behind (a lot).  One thing I would have liked to have had was an awning for the van to provide a bit of shelter if it rains.  I looked around on the web and there are many available.  I didn't like any of them for one reason or another and I was a bit taken aback by the price of the suckers.  So, being a person with a bit of free time and figuring I can rig up something that is easily attachable to/removable from the van, easy to set up and take down, and costs as close to $0.00 as I can make it.  Well, I made one that I'm rather pleased with and got it done for $6.84 in new materials, using a brand new tarp I bought for something some time ago and found on the shelf in the garage a couple of weeks ago.  All in all... I'm rather pleased :)

OK... that's the handsome frame mounted onto the pretty useless cargo rack.  A couple of u-bolts and a bit of chiseling (of the wood) and I've got myself a frame that goes on in less than 5 minutes and is removable just as easily.  Whether or not it's going to fly off at highway speeds is yet to be found out but my confidence is high that all will stay in place.  But what about protecting the paint on the top of the van, you might ask.  Well...

 

... this model is equipped with nice heavy duty real rubber bumpers.  These pretty suckers protect the van and due to there aggressive tread pattern there should be no slipping.  Thanks for letting me take the blown bicycle tire, David.  I knew I'd use it for something some day, just not this soon :)

 

It took less than 45 seconds to hang the tarp from the mounts on the top of the frame.  This was my second attempt, actually.  It's pretty windy today and the tarp was blowing off the mounts.  I needed something easy to put on but that would stay in place to hold the tarp until I got the poles up.  So...

 

... I went back to the bicycle tire and crafted myself some rubber hold downs.  These soon to be patented slit rubber all purpose hold downs will be available soon.  Again, thanks for the tire, David :)

 

Poles up and secured and all is ready to go.  Total time to erect... less than 3 minutes by myself.  Note the color coordination of the frame and poles.  Nothing less than first class.

 

Same shot, this time with the side door open.  Plenty of coverage and plenty of room to stand upright within 4 feet of the door or so... a bit of bending over approaching the poles.  Now I'm ready to try this sucker out and I am definitely looking forward to it :)