I just recently was able to get back into my shop and was very pleased to find out that this summer brought an offering from Field Notes, purveyors of fine notebooks (and other goodies). They release a “colors” edition periodically that has some nifty design apart from their usual brown notebooks (which are great in their own right). I’ve bought a number of them over the past year or two, and I even tried to make it to their Chicago office while I was up there for training (alas, it was not to be as they were closed).

This time around, Field Notes featured an American Tradesman Edition. It is a “corrugated-ish” blue heavy stock cover, with metallic lettering. The inside is full of graph paper. It included a special carpenters pencil and instructions on how to sharpen the pencil.

I saw this pack, and had to get it. It was right up my alley, since I’m a hobbyist woodworker, and of course from time to time need to draw sketches of what I’m building. And I ALWAYS need a good pencil for measuring.

I have used my Field Notes for various things in my hobby. One particular instance was building a simple water play device I found online called the Kidwash. I built in some modifications to it, and donated it to my son’s school for their summer camp and “Splash Days”. Here’s a shot of how I used the Field Notes. Field Notes helped me keep the material list straight.

So I received my Field Notes American Tradesman Edition just in time for this weekend and “Shop Time” (as I call it). I had some time today to prepare the pencil as per the instructions, and get my book ready for the next project.

I started by laying out everything I needed. I just used a simple razor knife to do the cutting. After starting to cut the tip on the skinny side first, I then proceeded to the wide side, and then finished the tip. Here’s a close-up. The book looks good with Teak. And it is Bob the Builder approved (yes, my wife insisted I should have Bob the Builder curtains when I first built my shop in the garage).

I haven’t used the book yet, but my next project is in the planning stages, and I’ll be using my new notebook for specifically that. My son needs Lego cabinets to store our Legos, and when I say “ours” I mean 30+ years of Legos that were mine, and now his.

UPDATE (7/10/11): I started the Lego cabinets this weekend, and of course, started using my Field Notes American Tradesman Edition. Here’s an overview of the project, including my Field Notes in action.

If you want to see more of my work, the various project details are on this website and of course on my Picasa albums.

Thanks again for a wonderful product. I really enjoy using my notebooks. I look forward to the new designs you’ll come up with.

After much ado with the speakers and mounting them, including assistance from the above mentioned friend, the speakers and crossovers were hot glued to the enclosure and the enclosure was sealed up.

After a little testing, they sound just fine. Especially with the Amp6 I built.

Pictures here:
Picasa Project Site

You can see the construction fairly easily, but I’ll be posting the construction notes shortly so if you want to make your own version, it should be easy to replicate what I did.

A couple coats of tung oil and some non-toxic danish oil should work just fine.

The first picture below is the original stroller.

UPDATE (Jun 1st, 2008): The chairs are progressing. I received the stainless screws and hardware I’ll be using. I decided to modify the design and add torque washers and carriage bolts to strengthen the front legs. I also had to make a taper jig with some t-bolts and some clamps to handle the tapers. All the major bandsawing is done, and the curvy parts were sanded with a spindle sander.

UPDATE (Jun 9th, 2008): I have all the parts cut and edges smoothed using the router table. I have also started assembly of the table, where I included a rough tile for accent on the table top. The pieces of the table top were assembled using a biscuit joiner.

UPDATE (Nov 30th, 2008): I finally have had the time to start the assembly. I have the table complete, and 1 chair assembled. The rest should go very quickly.

UPDATE (Feb 10th, 2009): The chairs are completely done.

We bought some cypress 2x materials, as well as some pressured treated lumber for the ground contact stuff. We also picked up a plastic steering wheel (because how can you have a boat without a way to steer it?) We still have to figure out a canopy, as it’s designed to have a canopy above the mast for shade and it is secured with bungee cords.

I also have some ideas about a small ship’s bell, and a pirate flag on the mast.

We have to fill it with sand shortly, but the basic work is complete.

UPDATE: We added a cover with the leftover “sail” material, which was basically fabric cloth we purchased which is primarily used as a garden shade cloth. It has grommets you can add, which was perfect, and with the leftovers, we made a cover for the sandbox, so we don’t have to clean it out each day. We also added a “buoy” that a neighbor gave us while he was cleaning out his garage. Makes it look more “boat-ish”.

So we got the bright idea recently (after cleaning up my shop) to refurbish the chair with some wood. My wife just wanted a simple slab of wood to sit on (to add another backyard chair) but I thought the better of that, and ended up doing a slat-ish style chair. I thought it came out pretty good.