Another hobby or two

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It's easy to get involved with life if you live long enough.
Here are a couple of "other" builds I have made in the past 15 years.

The truck is named "Snowflake" by our daughter, back when it was painted all white.
one tone Pete. Set up on an old motorhome frame. The cab is 1964. The hood and grille are from the same
era, but different trucks. The fenders are homemade to fit the smaller tire size. The flatbed has a dump kit.
Now powered with a 1994 Cummins 12 valve, pumped up a bit, fuels to 3,500 RPM, 5 speed main, 3 speed brownie,
geared for 62 MPH at 1850 rpm. Been on the road as is for 15 years now.

The boat, another 'assembled" build is made up from 5 old dead boats, some wood and fiberglass.
Now powered with a 292 chevy straight 6, from an old shop truck, and 1971 era Mercruzer outdrive.
Custom designed by us, the way we picked out using the same "doodling" style of drawing like I have used
for bikes.
Big enough to sleep two, have a small private porta potty space, (wife approved) small galley, and room to fish under cover,
as it sometimes rains in Oregon. (LOL)
Built on a small budget, like most of my projects, Under 5 grand for everything, trailer, trolling motor, and electronics included.
We named it "Flotsam" since that's what it is, floating boat wreckage. Works great for us though.
cariecarie re.JPG


I have met folks that have that much invested in their fish finders.

The last item has been named CarrieCarrie, and was built quick on an old boat trailer when we needed more room to move
our things 3 years ago.
It turned to be a great time to move. just before the covid mess. When everything was locked down, we were working on rebuilding
the old, 1937, house we are now in. No real changed to what we were doing.
CarrieCarrie now has the garden tools, spare truck and boat parts, and some bike parts.
It's being used as a small farm shed, and that was the plan.
Built for around $150, trailer was free.
snpowflake re.JPG
flotsam re.JPG
 
this truck was never meant to be a show truck.
Built just to remember some of the best of driving days past, and work.
Like dumps runs, and pulling the boat. And picking up horse droppings for the garden.

i thought of building as a 4x4, but this is what was built.

Could not afford to repeat this build.
Not that many around any more who have ever driven a twin stick or care.
Time marches on.
 
One of my wife's "hobbies" is gardening. More like an obsession. She has a degree.
She knows all the Latin names of the plants, flowers, and trees.
I benefit from her knowledge and love of flowers.
But today, she found a weed hiding under out a shrub.
one mile from the Pacific, lots of rain, and mile temps can really fuel the weeds.

This one is only about 2 months old.
cathie finds a weed re.JPG
 
I saw that boat in the background of another of your posts. I'm glad to see it up closer here. I dig it. And that Peterbuilt, fantastic. I like your stuff. Thanks for sharing.
 
Thank you so much for your kind comments.
Sometimes I really wonder about myself.
Almost everything I have and use has been treated about the same.
Old junk, discards, broken, unwanted or too much trouble for most to fix.
I do enjoy the challenge of making something useful from castoffs, but sometimes
I wonder what it would be like to buy new, or be able to afford that path.
 
i also have found that this latest round of building bikes, and test riding them, has about
given me a new lease on life. Hard to stay old when finding joy in peddling around.
I was getting slow, tired, and weak, heading for a wheel chair maybe. So I built some trikes.
The test rides on the bike builds have made me wake up. i can still pedal, balance, and go.
Now the trike seems like a Caddy.

The boat was built from 5 dead boats, plywood, and fiberglass. We designed together, Flotsam
is a fitting name, as that's what it is. Floating boat wreckage. But we also love it the way it is.

The one ton Pete was built from many old truck parts. The frame is from an old motorhome.
The cab was off a wrecked truck, and sitting on the ground. And so on.
 
I was getting slow, tired, and weak, heading for a wheel chair maybe. So I built some trikes….
This was kind of my story too. I was a total mouse potato, and way over weight, until I started skating again.

I couldn’t jog or run, and I could barely walk without pain.

But I found I could push a skateboard around and I did that until I was 70 pounds lighter.

I built over two dozen custom skateboards in the process.
 
But I found I could push a skateboard around and I did that until I was 70 pounds lighter.
Now that is great news.

And I find I can still push pedals, even on two wheels.
I only need to drop 50 lbs or so.

When I'm riding on most of the bikes I've built, the pace is slow and easy, with gears and soft
seats. And that's just what I was aiming for.
Ever since the faceplant, in 1985, and the "funbikes" , all have been 'cruzin' style.
Until I wound up with the Redline 24", and the recent Intense race frame to fix.
I'm leaving those "as is", single speed freewheel.
And both of those encourage a faster pace and younger feel to riding.

Even so, I need to be careful. 73 is passed middle age, and I don't bounce back like I used to.
 
Thank you so much for your kind comments.
Sometimes I really wonder about myself.
Almost everything I have and use has been treated about the same.
Old junk, discards, broken, unwanted or too much trouble for most to fix.
I do enjoy the challenge of making something useful from castoffs, but sometimes
I wonder what it would be like to buy new, or be able to afford that path.
Folks, it’s like this.

Do you remember the movie Apollo 13?

Here we had some guys that were on the edge of disaster and the ground crew had to figure out how to save them with whatever was available. They had to build a working air filter with some socks and duct tape and other bits of flotsam and jetsam.

It’s the ultimate engineering game.

Kustom kit is not just about what you can design and build when you have unlimited time, money, resources and knowledge at your disposal.

It’s about what you can do with limited time, equipment and resources, relying on your hands and brain.
 
And i was finding less and less people willing to "make do", improvise, and fix old stuff,
until I started lurking around on RRB.

Repairing things is becoming a dying art.
And new things are designed to break.
 
. . . . 73 is passed middle age, and I don't bounce back like I used to.

I don’t skate like I used too. I wear lots of gear in case I have to bounce.

I was pretty gung ho from 2008 til retirement in 2017. I got my kids and grandkids all out skating too. Not my wife, but she used to chase me around on her bicycle.

I didn’t start thinking about bicycles for myself again until recently, because of the physical therapy my wife needed after she broke a knee cap. Now I get her out there on the bike frequently.
 
…The boat, another 'assembled" build is made up from 5 old dead boats, some wood and fiberglass..

I have an old 14’ Olympian trihull from Smith made back in ‘76 and it has been extensively repaired and remodeled. I remodeled it three times myself.

That was a speedy little craft with a 40 horse two stroke on a stripped & reinforced 30 horse hull.

My truck and my boat are both very small, and the boat doesn’t use any gas at all now since I took off the Evinrude and converted to electric power.

I drove drygoods for the AAFES (the “PX”) out of Ogden, and I was a Teamster in California for a couple of years during the engineering glut. Local equipment delivery for a rental outfit.

After that, I never wanted any huge vehicles, because of the cost of fuel and maintenance, and just the effort to wash the things. Driving a large truck or towing a big trailer is not a vacation to me. I feel like I should be getting paid by the mile!

But I got plenty of fiberglass in my arms and epoxy under the fingernails.
 
I have often gone overboard with something till I run it into the ground, then pause, then
start it all over again.
This is the 6th or 7th bicycle binge.

Boats the same. Started with a windsurfer, then a 'Snipe", as by then I lived close to Fern Ridge lake,
and went sailing near every day for 10 years, Then the "fishing", A canoe, too tippy, a 14' cartopper,
rebuilt and fixed, still too small in rough water, a 17' bowrider , fiber, built a "hardtop" for that one,
The best fishing boat, as I could fish the front, and she could fish the back. My wife is the one
who likes to fish. So, alas, the "Invader" had to go, as we could not spend the night in it.
so on to the current "Flotsam" seen lurking in some recent pics. This also has a private porta potty
space that works great for the wife. Also use it sometimes to "camp" on dry land.

Banjos the same. 30 plus years of tinkering, assembling, then building. Yes and some playing too.
I keep thinking that if I had spent all that time practicing, instead of building, i might be able
to play the thing by now.

The "toy truck", is much the same. After years driving big rigs, this one seems small. Fullsized
pickup felt like gocarts.
Put together from a lot of discarded truck parts, and built on an old 1 ton motorhome frame,
I'll never be able to get back the money and time it took to build it.
With fuel prices as they are, can't use it much.

But I have pretty much done what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it and lived an everyday
life at the same time.
Had to work of course, and that was not always fun, but it paid the bills.

I often think, "If I had it to do all over again, i would most likely do it all the same"

Including coming back to building bikes again.
 
I’ve only had this one little boat.

Nobody in my family on either side ever had a boat as far as I knew unless you go back to my Irish ancestors who were building boats before they came to America. The German half of my family were piano makers out of the black forest area.

But my dad was in the Navy for two years in World War II until he got wounded and sent home. I still have his 1940’s Blue Jackets Manual which tells you everything you need to know to be a sailor.

I started reading that about the age of six and so wanting a boat was a natural thing I guess. The first things that I read after I finished the 6 Little Golden Books my parents bought me, were the Blue Jackets Manual, Motors 1957 (still have it), and a long gone Physics text.

We were stuck indoors a lot due to Canadian weather patterns. I spent a lot of time reading my dads books and magazines as a kid. Then we moved to Phoenix where you could go outside and build stuff and we did.

I’ve built a few cars and motorcycles over the decades. I painted a number of them for other people and myself.

I got tired of painting things so large and I ended up just doing skateboards because they were more fun.

Unfortunately I don’t have pictures of most of my early work from the late 1900’s, because I was never into photography until I got a digital camera about 20 years ago.

Before that I had an Instamatic with flash cubes, and I probably took about 20 pictures with that in it’s lifetime. I lived in places where you had a hard time getting photographs developed and they had to be mailed away.

<edit> We didn’t get to stay in Phoenix. They sent us back to the Canadian border.
 
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I had one. An "Instamatic" With flash bulbs.
Used it a lot.

The "cockpits only" shot I included in the bike picks was taken with it. 1972. Niles Canyon, SF bay area.
Trivia: They started making movies in Niles. Before Hollywood got big.
The route of the first transcontinental railroad ran through Niles canyon.

Don't even remember how I got a lot of those shots converted to digital, but
they're on my 'puter now, a blast from the past.

Those big projects can become "too much".
Then I go back to smaller ones for a while. Like banjos.

Or in the recent case, bicycles.

When we moved here, we bought a 'distressed" property. Spent lots of bucks and time
rebuilding the main house. Way too much. Still lots to do, but we have moved from the
travel trailer into the house and been comfy even if there is more to do inside.

The bike projects have helped a lot with the overload of "too much to do on the house".

And RRB has helped with the bike projects.
 

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