I grew up on a farm and was repairing vehicles and tractors before I could drive on the roads.
I learned to weld on the farm and already had that going before I got to shop class in high school.
Dad built a carport when I was 9 so I got into carpentry.
I remember mixing Weldwood glue in a bucket and assembling these trusses in a stack on the slab with hand nails and those plywood gussets. That is the patina that has set onto that wood in the open carport over 55 years. Straight grained doug fir like you don't see anymore.
I've designed and welded dozens of things, I like to invent things that folks don't know they need yet.
My sister had been dragging my BIL up and down out of the pool for decades after his injury and I drew this up on a napkin and welded it up with the Lincoln tombstone buzz box.
The subject was the Cooper's hawk on the fence, but it captured the lift too. It uses the power of a garden hose on the well to lift over 200 pounds. The cylinder is removed for winter storage here.
There is a lot going on there. I put pavers where that pool noodle is that cradled his wheelchair securely, then he grabbed that trapeze bar and easily lifted himself across to the adapted shower chair at the same level.
That little curved bar pivots at that end and rolls on a caster at the end out of sight. He would swing that bar around and it would drop into the corner of the pool, and that was his handrail to pull himself around the arc to the pool.
He could use it completely unassisted. We put it in a 2x2x2 concrete base that was outside of the pool slab so it did not interfere with normal kid pool stuff.
We used it one summer unfinished to make sure it was right, then we had it powder coated.
I learned cabinet building from a neighbor and remodeled our current home in 2013~2015.
I will design all the cabinets and do the trim in the new home I am building. It is a happy place for me, I have wood fever.
My work experience comes in handy too. You could say I'm a handy guy.
