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. 

Building wood windows.

 So finally after 3 weeks we are done with building 7 double hung windows for the "Tea house" at the Western Development Museum in North battleford Sk. We had to replace the old windows because they were in bad condition.

The new windows itself are made out of 30+ year old Fir wood planks that were roughly 3"x12"x12Ft.

First we had to cut the rough lumber into proper lengths so we can transport it into the shop for the next steps.

First we had to figure what the exact size of the windows are going to be and than we started doing the math and list of material and cutting lists to speed up the progress, keep in mind all 7 windows are the same size so it would of been a waist of time to do each window individually. 

 After cutting everything to the right length and width and cutting and making all the joints the windows are ready to get put together. 

 After all the windows and the frames are put together we start putting the first layer of paint on.

Time to put the Glass in and start window putting.

An old window nailer from 1940s, works still great! 

After doing a couple of windows it started to look better.

Taking the old windows out and putting the new ones in! 

 Final product.

Your favorite wood working tools?

I'm a young carpenter in my second year of schooling as a "Heritage carpenter" at the Algonquin college in Perth, Ontario. I'm currently working at the western development museum in Saskatchewan as a summer student and love my job with all my heart!  I have been collecting tools for a almost a year now old heritage ones that I fix up and use again and new ones ( i am a big fan of Lee Valley tools) I believe in buying good tools ones and they are going to treat you well for the rest of your life time! Any of you guys have favorite tools you like using? Or special jigs that you find handy? Tools that you could not life without? Any tips or advise?