Fishing Rod Rack

I needed something to keep the fishing rods out of reach from the “little anglers” (Read: little tanglers). Inspired by Carter’s project here.

I realized after I created the pattern in Illustrator (see below for template PDF files) and printed it out that I only really needed space for 5 rods and not 9 so I shortened the design by overlapping the paper template that I printed out.

The plan was to put the kids rods in the holder as well but their rods are so short that at a 16 inch spacing the other rods were at too steep an angle. I ended up spacing the racks 32 inches to hit the next stud. The kids fishing poles will fit up there in a few seasons when they get upgrades. The big holes are actually 2 1/4 as I didn’t have a 2” hole saw as laid out on my template. The big holes were slow going on my 8” drill press. Small holes are 1” on my template and in the wood.

You could space out the two ends further if you had longer rods or wanted to store the fishing rods at full length.

Here are the templates I created that you can download in PDF format.  One end is called side A and the other end is side B.

Side A - Fishing Rod Rack.pdf

Side B - Fishing Rod Rack.pdf

Cars Birthday Party Theme

My Wife saw a photo somewhere on pinterest of a Lightning McQueen cut-out of plywood that the kids could change the tires...and well...here is our plywood McQueen complete with changeable tires.

 I had a leftover piece of meranti plywood from a parade float lying around that we were using to shoot hockey balls at instead of denting up the wall.

The image I used as my guide, to draw McQueen, was taken at an angle so I skewed the image back to "side on" as best I could (you can see the reference image on the plywood in the above photo.)  The plywood was previously cut to 4x6.  We wanted something that was taller than most of the kids so I stretched the proportions of the photo so that when scaled up to size it would fill as much of the plywood as possible.

I drew a grid on the plywood to scale up the photo.  Then just used the grid a guide to draw McQueen.  I traced the lines with a black marker, cut him out, and painted him with some Dollar Store craft paint (the red paint was the only colour that did hid the grid).

I put one bolt in the centre of the tire, counter sunk the bolt in a piece of leftover flooring and set in place with automotive glue.

The kids loved changing the tires and taking the nuts on and off.   If I did it again I would either hunt for larger nuts and bolts to use or counter sink the nuts in a piece of wood.  The younger kids had a hard time screwing the nut back on, but it sure kept them busy!

Ka Chow!

Bird House

I came across a photo of a bird house (see link) that looked pretty cool so I decided to make my own version.  This is the result.  I used some left over hardwood flooring (Maple).  I ripped the pre-finished flooring into strips and cut tenons on either end.  The tenons on one piece are on the face of the maple strips and on the next piece the tenons are on the back of the so when stacked in the groove they're staggered in and out.   The exterior is pine stained dark and the screws are stainless steel.  The bird house is 11 inches tall 6 inches wide and 5.5 inches deep and the hole is 1.25 inches.  The bottom has quarter inch holes for drainage.

My cut list was as follows:
Pine (1x6)
2@ 6x5.5 (top & bottom)
2@ 10.5x5.5 (sides)
1@ 10.25x4.5 (back)

Maple (Flooring)
7@ 5x1.5

The hole should have been  1 1/8 inch for a black-capped chickadee but I didn't have a 1 1/8 hole bit so I when with the next closest hole saw being a 1 1/4 bit

1/4 inch drainage holes in bottom.

Gap at the top for venting and a hole in the centre to hang up the bird house.