Tinkerer's Thoughts

DIY Children's Swing Here is a simple and fairly cheap small swing for little toddlers under 40lbs.

My friend, Ross, wanted to fix his fishing pole guides but did not have all the necessary equipment. Luckily, he had a friend that had rod building equipment. I had mentioned to my friend that one day I would like to wrap a custom pole. So my friend said hey look at the stuff you would need. The most expensive piece of equipment was the rod dryer. His friend's dryer was retail bought at some online fishing store, I want to say Cabela's but I am unsure of that. The dryers can be pricey. So my friend and I looked up cheap DIY alternatives. We found many and the concept was the same. Slow rotating motor with a cup to hold the end of the rod. Here is our take on a dryer. Some of the parts to make this was given to me by Ross, thanks dude.

Finally completed, woot. Whewww, I took over a year, but worth the time. Well, the actual time put working on the uke really was not that long. From my last post, I've been inundated with sickness, the holidays, more sicknesses, planning my baby's 1st bday, weddings, more birthdays and even more sicknesses.

Well, I let the Tru-Oil cure for more than just a few weeks mainly because I did not had time to work on the uke. I had five weddings to go to in October, so that pretty much ate up each weekend. Good times though. So here is the uke fresh from sitting around for about 6 weeks. I just put on enough oil that made me feel good. I'm going for a satin sheen and I did not completely pore fill. Might not be a super smooth finish but I'm happy with it.

My first attempt at cutting the body template was a bust. I used a forstner bit to remove material about half an inch to the body outline. Then I thought I could could use a sanding drum for a Dremel in a drill press to shape the template. The dremel drum could only remove very little material at a time, so I gave up on that idea. I do not have a bandsaw nor a scroll saw. I also do not have the funds right now to get one. I found an old coping saw in my wife's grandpa's tool shed. Unfortunately, its rusted beyond belief and the blade needs replacing. I used the saw anyway but cutting through 1/2" MDF with an old rusted and dull saw just was not happening. I will have to get a new saw. Luckily, there is a 1/4" MDF board laying around that I can use to make a template out of. Cutting through the 1/4" board should be much easier than the original 1/2" board. Then maybe I can use this template to cut out the 1/2" board with a router. With the body o...

Why build one? Why not? My quest to build my own solid body ukulele was inspired by How to Build a Stratocaster Style Guitar "The Hard Way" and the many awesome DIY quilted maple guitars. I eventually want to build a quilted maple top Les Paul and figured why not start with something cheap and small, hence a ukulele. My plan is to make an 18" tenor sized Les Paul solid body ukulele.  I actually started this project before building the Stewart MacDonald Tenor Ukulele Kit . I put the solid body project on hold to build the kit. I have come to a point where I can't do much on the kit since the finish needs to cure so why not pick up where I left off on the solid body. For wood, I didn't feel like forking over $$$ for wood blanks. I like the look of guitars that have the stringer look so I thought why not just glue up 1x2's of mahogany and douglas fir. I know this is not the best method or even the best wood but these woods were readily available from th...

Shishi Toilet?!? Shishi Toilet? Shishi doo doo? OMG! Potty training is tough. Shishi is the Japanese American word for urine. We asked our daughter that every 15minutes when we first really started potty training. That didn't work out so great, we realized we just had to take her and let her sit. Over the course of several weeks, she could finally tell us when she needed to go. My wife got tired of lifting her onto the toilet and asked me to make a stepping stool. I was more than happy to oblige. I had old 1"x12"x4" pine boards laying around. I wanted the stool to be as simple as possible with just those boards. So here is an easy stool with just two 1"x12"x4" pine boards. My boards weren't nice looking so I covered the stool with wallpaper. Table of Contents Summary Materials Tools Plans Assembly Summary Simple, quick, cheap and easy stepping stool. The stool can be built in just a few hours. I'm not sure of the cost becaus...