Enjoying the imperfect

    When I first started in woodworking I made a lot of boxes. Wooden boxes have always fascinated me because of their variety. A box can be plain joined with butt joints and nail or it can be an extremely intricate puzzle box with many intricate, interlocking pieces. When I started I didn’t have a lot of skill and I joked that only a mother could love what I built. But I did love them, loved the wood, loved the tools, and even though they often looked a bit odd I was pleased with what I learned from each of them. Fast forward to my latest project: The Frankenstool.

The Frankenstool!

    We need stools to go at the island in the new kitchen and there are some gorgeous off cuts from the deck and the countertop so my plan is to use those off cuts to make stools that match the counter. I’m not crazy enough to just start cutting into the good wood so I searched around for a bunch of scrap that I could use for the experimental stool.
    I like the look of a three-legged stool and one of my favourite hand tool YouTubers has a video and plans. Like most other projects this one could be done with power tools but I wanted to try it without. The longer I work the more fascinated I become with the work that is possible when a skilled woodworker uses hand tools. I bought the plans and started in.
    I have a piece of fir that was part of the bar top in the basement when R first got the house. It was an incredibly ugly thing complete with black and gold mactac on the front of the bar. The fir top was just painted. I cut a chunk of that fir to use for the seat. My stock of 2X4 lumber is running low and I thought of buying some but I’m trying hard to find things in my stash that I can use before I buy any more. I managed to round up enough 2X4 for the legs and the stretchers. Some was fir, some was spruce and all of it was knotty. It would do for practice.
    I admit to using the bandsaw to rip down the 2X4 for the legs and stretchers. I’m not yet proficient at using a rip saw on long cuts and I didn’t want to take the time on this project. The other consideration was that we were going camping for a week. I wondered if I would be able to construct the stool using hand tools, clamps and the picnic table as a workbench. I got some of the work done before loading up two boxes of tools and heading out to camp.
    There are some tricky bits to this simple stool. In order to get the legs into the seat you have to drill three angled holes, ideally all at the same angle. For that I used a brace and bit. I have a good brace and a number of bits that belonged to my grandfather. The plans called for 1” round tenons and I didn’t have a bit that big that would hold well in the brace. I did find an adjustable bit in my collection and ended up using that. As for all the angles being the same, well not so much. It’s amazing what skilled craftsmen can do by eye but it takes practice and I need more. Because it was only a prototype I carried on anyway figuring if the thing actually held up to being sat on, it would be a small victory.
    

making the round tenon

What delighted me the most about the build was making the round tenons to go into the holes. The plans said to find the centre of the square stock and mark it, then to take the brace and bit and score a circle around that centre mark. Next, mark the depth of the tenon and pare off the edges little by little until you have a round tenon that fits in the hole. Since the drill bit is the same one used to drill the holes in the seat, the fit can be quite accurate.
    I worked away figuring out how to use clamps to hold work to the picnic table. Some days I worked until my hands were too cold and I had to go into the van to warm up. Some days I didn't feel like working on it so I didn't.
    

By the end of the week and was able to finish the stool. I won’t claim it’s a thing of beauty. I am surprised that, given where knots have come out and other weaknesses in the wood, I’ve been able to sit on it for the last few weeks and it hasn’t broken. It is quite comfortable especially with your feet on the floor although the stretcher across the front is in a very good place for a foot rest too. You do have to be aware that there are three legs and not four, and given the crookedness of the build, it pays to be cognizant of where the three legs are at all times. I nearly took a header one day when I was preoccupied and misdirected my weight as I sat down quickly. Consequently, I’ve decided this is not the design for the kitchen stools. I want something with four legs that anyone can sit on comfortably and safely without having to first go through a briefing. I think the Frankenstool may eventually become firewood, but I may make another one of this design to replace one of the stools I have in the shop. Both are quite rickety and I'm expecting one of them to break any day.
    

    

While the Frankenstool is far from perfect, it delights me. I can see many more possibilities for building with hand tools and maybe on the next one I’ll do a better job of the angles. Meanwhile, I can use what I’ve learned by making the Frankenstool when I make the four-legged version for the kitchen. Stay tuned.

Camper vans I have known

We are in Little Elbow campground. When we leave it will be closed for the season and already there are many campsites that are closed so that the workers can paint the tables in preparation for the next season. We have been coming here for 35 years. At first in a tent with R’s parents, then in Kermie, the slime green Volkswagen van, then in Flopsy so named because of the imprecise steering. Now we have Vinnie, the Road Trek. 

When we first came with Kermie we used to, on a whim, pick up on a Friday night and head for the eastern slopes of the Rockies. Sometimes we’d leave as late as 8:00, pick up subway sandwiches and drive out to stay for a couple of nights. On Sunday morning we’d get up early so we could drive back into the city, shower and make it to church on time.

There were many campfires and much conversation until the wee hours of the morning, and, in those days, there was also wine and scotch for Richard and fuzzy navels for me. That made the stars brighter and the relaxation after a week of work seem deeper. 

One time we camped in the sunshine only to wake up to a van covered with snow. It must have been May because I remember needing to get back into the city for the high school graduation ceremonies. Before we left we went for a short walk, not long enough to be considered a hike, down the muddy road that led to a backcountry campground. We didn’t walk that far and when we returned to the van our boots were covered in mud and the huge soft snowflakes clung to our toques and settled like down on our shoulders. 

We brushed ourselves off, knocked as much mud off our boots as we could, and cleaned the snow off Kermie without a snow brush. We neglected to bring one. After all, the weather was summer-like when we left. We drove back to the city gas heater cranked up to keep us warm

Each of the camper vans we have owned has had its own special quirks. Kermie, the VW, had an air-cooled engine which meant that the cabin couldn’t be heated in the same way a vehicle with a water-cooled engine could. The gas heater could take the van from below freezing to tropical fairly quickly. There were two problems however, the heater used roughly a liter of fuel per hour, and it was quite stinky. The smell was not only unpleasant, it coated the windshield with a slimy film. At that point Kermie was the vehicle that Richard drove to work. Instead of turning on the gas heater, he wrapped up in parka, heavy boots, toque, scarf and heavy mitts for the drive.

It was a long straight drive and by the time he had to make a turn the whole drive train had cooled to the point where it was stiff and turning was difficult. Richard had to haul on the wheel as if he was driving an 18 wheeler without power steering. Another Kermie quirk was that the throttle had a tendency to freeze in the open position so that the driver needed to put the roaring beast in neutral, drift into the nearest parking spot, get out, engine still roaring, walk around to the rear engine compartment, wiggle a rod, which caused the engine to calm down, hop back in the van and continue on the way.

After a few years of this and a change in focus for us from canoeing to cycling, we decided it was time to sell Kermie. We sold it to the shop teacher at my school. He was delighted to get it and had the skills to put a new engine in it.  I lost touch with him when I moved schools but I hope Kermie gave him years of enjoyable trips.

After Kermie, we bought Flopsy from Richard’s mom and dad. It was a bigger van and had a V8 engine. We joked that it could pass anything on the road except a gas station. Because of the interestingly floppy steering, driving Flopsy was fairly hard work and it reminded me of the overcorrecting I did when I first learned to drive. At first I turned the wheel too far one way, then I turned it too far in the other direction in an attempt to compensate. The difference with Flopsy was that you never quite got to the sweet spot where you could keep the vehicle straight with only small movements of the wheel. You’d be driving down the road with the wheel canted to the left or the right to stay in a straight line. Then a gust of wind would come up and you’d slow as Flopsy did a little dance and you recovered control once again. Because of that, I didn’t like driving Flopsy and poor long-suffering Richard did most of the van wrangling. 

There was a lot of that. In addition to bringing Flopsy to this campground for short getaways, we drove it out to the Okanagan and the west coast to visit friends and family. On one of our first trips, we decided to visit Tofino. It’s the only time we have ever been there. We had a great time flying our kite on the beach and hanging out with a colleague who happened to be in the same campground.

Then it rained. I’m a pretty sound sleeper but Richard woke up to water pouring in through the high side-window. He quickly moved all the items sitting on the ledge below the window and placed towels to soak up the water.  The morning found us in a hardware store buying silicone sealant in a tube to fix the leak. We hauled a picnic table over to the van so Richard could reach the window. It wouldn’t win any prizes for beauty or skill but the silicone stopped the leak.

Poor old Flopsy had no garage to protect it from the winter weather so it rusted. In 2013 when Flopsy was 29 years old, we drove it to the Yukon to hike the Chilkoot Trail. It rattled and banged along and we decided to add a trip to  Inuvik via the Dempster Highway after we finished the Chilkoot Trail hike.

There are advantages to driving an older vehicle on a road like that. It’s gravel and, with the vehicle being in less than pristine condition to start with, there is less worry about rock chips. Parts of the highway are made from local shale and those sharp pieces can slash tires in an instant. We were very lucky in that we made it from Dawson City to Inuvik and back without a flat. There was an unusual noise by the time we reached Inuvik so on the advice of a guy we met on the ferry, we took it to The Midnight Mechanic. The parking area outside the shop was a mud pit as it had been raining for a couple of days. 

Both the owner and the dogs looked suspiciously at us when we pulled in. Richard explained to the owner that he had been recommended to us and, with that, he relaxed a little. He had a look at the underside of the van and told us to come back in a couple of hours. We headed into town in the rain to sit in a café and drink coffee while he worked on it. 

When we returned, he told us he had found a bolt missing and had replaced it. He also found a few other things which he fixed.  He charged us a very reasonable fee. We thanked him and headed on our way.

On one of the ferries on our way back south, we met a woman who had worked in the post office in Inuvik and who had just retired. As we chatted, we mentioned the mechanic. She laughed, “Well, it’s a good thing that you got to him this week because next week he’s headed to jail for serve time for a drugs conviction." Maybe that accounted for the suspicious reception we initially got.  Regardless, the work he did held up until we sold Flopsy at the end of the next season after a trip from Calgary to Newfoundland. But that’s a story for another day.