General

I’m playing around with tree generation using Blender with the Sapling plugin. I first traced the outline of a maple tree and used it as a leaf instance. The tree plugin has a ton of... [read more]

I’ve been working on learning Blender, a free open-source 3D program available for macOS, Windows and Linux. I have a lot of goals with learning it, but the main thing is just to have fun.... [read more]

I made a few of the heart bowls on my CNC machine out of redwood and hard maple. Check out the CNC Heart Bowl video over on YouTube to watch me making them. I had... [read more]

YouTube’s automated song detection software is generally terrible, as I have gotten three or four incorrect violations in the past and the songs barely even match. However, in this case it was an exact match,... [read more]

My website has always been a labor of love. I originally started it when I was about 14 years old in 1992 as a way of showing the world my treehouse. It then became a... [read more]

I’ve been spending some time creating vector images out of photographs. My main purpose was to be able to create some cool stencils and vinyl stickers. Check out Making Vector Images from Pictures for Vinyl... [read more]

I recently got a used Lance truck camper to be put on my 2012 F250 long bed truck. The F-250 has it’s backup camera in the tailgate and puts the display inside the mirror. The... [read more]

Check out this video of us brewing beer in my garage.

I like automated vacuum cleaners. They keep the house looking tidy with minimal effort. Roomba vacuums are the quite popular and have been around for a long time, but they aren’t too smart and do a... [read more]

Electric Mini Boat! My friend Josh at rapid whale came up with this awesome mini boat powered by a 12v battery. Check out more details on his Mini Boat page.

Eisley, the super shiba mutt, goes for a bike chase in Moab on the Slickrock trail!

Here I hack together a custom tap handle for my homebrew kegerator setup. Some quick work on my lathe followed by a little bit of minimal woodworking to get something looks a lot better than the stock handle.

Late last year, Lexi told me that she wanted to go to Japan. I’ve always wanted to go to Japan and I figured this would be an awesome opportunity for me to go check out... [read more]

In October 2016 I got a wooden kayak kit. In February 2017 it finally hit the water! It took a little longer than I expected, but I’m happy with the result! Here I am taking... [read more]

Happy days are here! Actually, most all my days are happy days, but the kayak is done! I installed the seat and hatch straps. The seat is just some foam glued in, and in the... [read more]

I did some wet sanding on the kayak after the first coat. The directions say to use 400 grit, but I wet sanded the first two coats with 320, and then switched to 400 for... [read more]

I was gone for a few weeks in Japan, so progress on the kayak has been slow. I’m back to doing some work on it. First I had to sand it a ton. 80 grit,... [read more]

   

Okay! Progress is happening when I have spare time. I glued on the cowling around the opening, cut it to fit and sanded it smooth. The glue-up was a bit tricky…I didn’t have quite enough... [read more]

I used 4oz fiberglass on top, per the instructions in the kit. I was afraid I was going to run out of epoxy hardener, so I only glassed half of the boat at first. This... [read more]

I’ve been busy having fun doing other things, so the kayak progress isn’t too fast. Yesterday I finished rounding off the corners of the top, and sanded through all the grits from 80 on up... [read more]

The next big step in the kayak was to glue the top on. First you put a coat of unthickened epoxy on the bottom side of the top piece, and then use thickened (cab-o-sil) epoxy... [read more]

The next step in my kayak building journey was to plane the end clamps. These need a specific radius that changes depending on where you are along the top of the boat. The kit includes... [read more]

The next big step is to glass the hull bottom. I sanded down the putty with 80 grit, and then went through all the grades all over the kayak: 100/120/150/220.   You then cover it with... [read more]

The kayak is still moving along! I’ve been a bit busy enjoying the outdoors: mountain biking (yeah on two wheels!), camping, and rock climbing.  The next part was to glass the interior middle section; there... [read more]

The kayak is starting to look like a real boat! First you have to level it, propped up on some sticks/sawhorses:   Then install the bulkheads:      And finally, start gluing it together with... [read more]

I got to the stitching part of the “stitch and glue” kayak build! It didn’t take very long….the kit was easy to work with.  I had to push my tablesaw off to the side to... [read more]

The kit came about a week after I ordered it. The delivery company received it in SFO, and was reluctant to deliver it to me right away — they wanted to wait an extra week... [read more]

I’ve been wanting to build my own kayak for quite a while. Ideally I want to make a strip-style kayak; something out of locally sourced redwood would be awesome! For now, I decided to start... [read more]

Exhibit one: A pot that was my parents. The plastic handle broke of years ago and I hacked on a wooden one. It wasn’t lasting….   Cross grain experiment was not strong, so I drew... [read more]

What could be more adorable than a baby rhino? This was in Kaziranga National Park, north east India in 2014.