The Puzzle Box

I wanted to make something nice to give to my wife for Christmas.  She had been asking me to get her a jewelry for some time and I put it off because I was formulating a design.  I originally thought I would make her a traditional jewelery box with a bunch of little drawers, but I got thinking about our 4 children rummaging around in her things.  It needed to lock, and keys can be lost.  So I started looking for plans for puzzle boxes, but the problem is no one wants to part with their plans (try buying plans for a puzzle box sometime, near impossible).  So, I put pencil to paper and came up with my own plan.  The construction process went mostly smooth, but I did end up cutting a couple part several times to get them perfect.  In the end I had made a kid proof, walnut and Natural Maple jewelery box that required 10 separate movements to open.  My wife loves it and claims it as her one-of-kind lock box, so if you were wondering, no I can't send you the plans.   

Chevy Tracker (in the beginning)

 The biggest personal project that I've been working on over the last year has been my little Chevy Tracker.  There is an old saying "The last vehicle an mechanic wants to work on is his own".  That's not always true, but it is often hard to find the time.  I would suspect that many of you  will look at the pictures of what I started with and say why bother!  Well, several reasons come to mind: because it was all that was available in my small community, because the 4x4 ability of these little vehicles is amazing with just a little work, JUST SO I COULD SAY I DID!

 As you can see the condition of the exterior of the truck wasn't in very good condition.  There where some major dents and dings but there was almost no rust, so everything was solid.

The driver's door wouldn't open all the way because there was a huge dent in the fender blocking the door.

 The interior was trashed (literally).  I took a whole bag of trash out of the truck.  The seat were worn substantially.  The front seat doesn't match the backseat.  Even the drivers door panel was broken and the handle was gone and had been replaced by a vise grip.

The engine was a story in itself.  When my father and I first looked at this rig we brought a battery to start it.  Added some oil and turned it over.  It started!!!!!!!!  Ran a little rough, but I figured it just needed a tuneup after sitting a couple years.  One of us joking said "wouldn't that be funny if all the oil had just run out on the ground".  About that moment is when we noticed the oil running across the ground.  After closer inspection we found the hole in the block.  Number 3 cylinder had a broken push rod that had come through the block.  Amazing it still ran on 3 cylinders.  So the engine was the first thing to be done I new that it would take a while to rebuild an engine to put in.  At the time I didn't know just how bad it would be, but that is another story!!!!

My New Mallet

I have had a new found purpose in my personal woodworking.  I have historically been a power tool kinda guy, but my friend Jared has been opening my eyes to the many great reason to use more hand tools.  As you may know some of the best hand tools are the ones you make, so I have made a list of several tools that I'm going to make.  Well, last weekend we decided to knock one of them off the list.  Here are some pictures of my new chisel mallet, and if you look closely at the striking surface you can see that I have already used it.  Please take a close look at the splines holding the head on.  Had to add a little artistic flair, than again the whole thing is almost to pretty to use.

This is not the beginning, but it is a good place to start!

Well, I wish that I had started a blog for myself years ago, but I'm always busy doing a million other things and simply don't spend the time to make one.  I guess you could say I'd rather spend the time DOING stuff than just writing about it.  The problem is that I live here in Alaska and the rest of my family is in the mid-west, and they have voiced a desire to see the things that I build.  I will be throwing some historical projects into the blog to highlight some of the things that I been doing over the last couple years, but for the most part this should serve to document the current projects.  I hope you enjoy and please feel free to comment.