Sunday 31 August 2014

Lake Superior

It's been a couple of weeks since I wrote on my blog. I finally moved back from Saskatchewan to Ottawa ! On my way home I camped at the lake Superior right on the beach with my GF. We had such a beautiful view and weather it was incredible :) I will upload more pictures in the next few days.

Wednesday 20 August 2014

Awesome view!

Today we where fixing some little spots on a roof, the work itself not that interesting but the view was amazing!!

Saturday 16 August 2014

Old tractors, Steam engines and old cars. "Those were the days" Festival

Last Saturday and Sunday we had the "Those were the days" festival at the Western Development Museum in North Battleford. 
The Festival itself attracts almost 2000 people each year and is with one of the biggest events in the region and for the museum itself. People get to see the old steam tractors in action, get to drive in old cars, tast awesome traditional food, see BBQ competitions , play on bouncy castles and so much more. There is something to see and do for every age group.
Please take note that a lot of the festivals activities are run by volunteers that donate their free time to this and make events like this possible. A big thanks goes out to all the volunteers!!! 

Like every year we set up most stuff the day before the event (so Friday or Thursday) but this year we had extremely bad luck with the weather, on Friday night we had a really big thunderstorm that destroyed 4 big tents into bits and pieces so we had to improvises a bit during the event. 
I got the chance to take a couple of pictures and wanted to share them with you guys, I hope you enjoy them!  



5 pm Saturday and Sunday was the time for the parade were the old cars, tractors and steam engines were shown in action to the public. A volunteer commentated on each one as it drove bye for the audiance. 




The old car shop has a huge collection of tools! 

 An old farmer who is an volunteer at the museum showed kids how to drive an old tractor. 
 This is probably my favorite pictures out of the whole weekend! Those two guys are awesome in so many ways. 





The Steam engine guys and car guys were playing pranks on each other all weekend long, I do not know who started it or what the reason for it was but it was funny to watch.

For the whole weekend we had 9 professional BBQ teams coming in to compete against each other. 2 professional judges decided who got to win the grand prices of $1200 
 We also had a armature BBQ competition over the weekend. Any visitor was allowed  to enter. 4 teams competed against each other and 3 judges decided who won.
 


 Wanna go for a drive? No problem, volunteers drove visitors around in there old cars.



Probably runs better than my current car haha.





 Parade day 2 did not run as smooths as the day before, 3 tractors did not even make it to the start line..

Giving up was not an option! Volunteers helping each other out. 



Molding planes

Found those old molding planes at the museum, I would love too own a couple of them even though they are hard to maintain.

Monday 4 August 2014

Chess board

A friend of mine ask if I could teach her some woodworking stuff so I decided to  show her how to build a chess board. 
The chess board itself is made out of 2 different hard woods and one softwood and each square is 1"x1". It took us roughly 8 hours to finish both chess boards (I made one my self and I showed her how to make one as well)

To make the chess board you need two different kinds of woods, one dark wood and one light wood. I planed each board down to roughly 1-1/4". 
        Next I ripped 8 stripes from each board (8 stripes for each chess board, 4 dark 4 light).
  Lay everything out in an pattern and than glue it on plywood, Make sure you use enough glue specially on the ends other wise little pieces will fall off later on. 
 Now you rip 1" stripes across the board. I flipped my board upside down to avoid tear out.
 After you done all this you should have 8 stripes with each 8 tiles. Do the same thing as before and glue everything side by side but make sure when you clamp everything down that you put equal pressure on every side. 
 If you do it right it should turn out like this, there is glue and paper on it but that does not matter since I will use the belt sander later to flatten everything down and make it nice and smooth. 
 Last but not least you have to decided what kind of frame you make around it. Let your creativity kick!

 Finished product! I did not put any stain or clear coat on this because I think it will ruin the nice color of the wood. 




Saturday 2 August 2014

Modern looking mirror

I wanted to try this out for a long time now and finally got the chance and time to do it this weekend! 
This mirror is made out of 100% recycled wood (Fir wood) cut individual into size and shape. 
The finished mirror it self is 32"x23". 
I am not sure yet if I should keep the mirror or sell it.

I chose fir wood because it has a nice grain too it, I like the color of the wood and we had a whole bunch of left over pieces that I did not wanted to throw out.
First I had to get the frame off the mirror, It was only glued on so it was not that difficult but be sure to take your time with it so it does not break on you!
For my back I chose recycled window frame bored. I ripped them into the right width and than glued them together. After that I glued on the mirror itself with a quick drying glue.
I lifted the mirror up so I am able to use my air gun underneath it. I used glue and nails to hold each wood piece.
To cute every piece into rough shape I used the band saw and than finished it with the belt sander.
After roughly 3 hours of work i was 1/4 done! 


I put roughly 8 hours into this and 20$. It is not perfect but does look nice. It is also an really easy project to make I think.