Stephen B. Thomas

BEL #841

I have a brief update, both on Boot tasks as well as my own personal projects.

First: the box grader. There's a fancy attachment that goes on the back of the tractor, connected with the three-point-hitch. It's called a box grader, because it's shaped like a box, and it evens-out road surfaces.

There are two phases I've learned about when it comes to grading a newly-cut road (in our case, we had a 32-ton excavator that roughed-out the pathway for an access road we want to develop over at Basecamp). So the first phase of using the box grader is with what I call the "ripper hooks," which dig into the earth, and catch on the biggest rocks so they can be removed. The second phase is with the "grader blades," which fill in the ruts dug with the ripper hooks, and flatten the peaks of the furrows on either side of the ruts.

I've become better at using the box grader, and am learning more each time I use it. For this access road, here's what we started with. The dotted line marks where our "backyard" fence crosses the access road. It'll later be replaced with a gate.



Here's how it looked after a few passes with the ripper hooks. Apologies if the photo really doesn't show things clearly:



I still have some grader blades to use, but right now I think it's much improved. The pot-holes, the center "peak," and the biggest of the rocks are gone.

Over at the stewardship acre, I did more work to connect the roof frame supports together. They're still lashed together and haven't had final fasteners installed to connect them. I'm thinking bolts, but if I go with wooden fasteners (which, at least for the roof, is unlikely right now) then I'll use dowels and pins.

The roof frame is roughly 11ft x 11ft, and currently looks like this (leaned up against the frame):



I cleaned the "nubbins" from these supports, which will be affixed to the roof frame. They'll be placed about 7ft apart, and will attach to the tops of the walls running east-west. I plan on notching them so that the roof frame sits inside them, and then I'll notch the walls so that these supports will sit inside the tops of the walls.



I was puzzling over the way I would attach canvas over the roof frame and provide adequate support. Thanks to Hans Quistorff's suggestion on having bowed supports that run underneath the canvas. I think once the roof frame is complete, I'll fell some junk-pole sized supports and attach them at the positions shown in this mock-up:



That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!

As a kid I remember watching Sesame Street, 3-2-1-Contact, Electric Company, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, and probably my favourite: Secret City. "Commander Mark" was my go-to art teacher as a kid.



Now as an adult, I can reminisce watching episodes of Woodwright's Shop, with Roy Underhill. His work just becomes more interesting and valuable as time goes on.

Julian Perradian wrote:I have a few questions, mostly so I can determine what to purge from my belongings and what to bring:

Hi Joules! I'll see you in a couple weeks!

Looks like you could benefit from having a look at the FAQ, allllllllllll the way down at the bottom of this page:

https://wheaton-labs.com/bootcamp/

Still in the dark about a few things? Then please "Reply All" to the email that Paul already sent you when he confirmed the date of your arrival, and I ought to see any specific questions for which you don't yet have an answer.

Hans Quistorff wrote:Tensioning the canvas on the frame?   [...] the ends put into mortises in the frame made a bow that held the center of the tarp tight.

I think that's a million-and-a-half dollar suggestion. Thank you...!

Here's this year's "Mazes" set. I found a Java applet online that lets you make random mazes, and I'm turning them into coasters...! So each coaster in this set is a unique round, "polar" oriented maze.

US$25 for a set of 6, shipping included. If you're looking for a different-style maze, then I might be able to work it out with you. Send me a PM and we can start the ball rolling.



And yes, they can be solved. There's a path from one opening all the way to the other on each one.

Thanks for looking...!

Tom cut in line at the Barber Shop.

(Author's note: This one is just so notoriously, egregiously bad. But I simply couldn't resist. My apologies...!)

Here's the "Wild Animals" set. Six coasters for US$25, with shipping included. Features a toad, grizzly bear, bison, rattlesnake, bobcat (?), and a beaver.



Drop me a PM if you're interested. Thanks!

M Pearson wrote:Just out of curiosity, have you been a boot for 4 years now?! You must really like it Are you doing one of those programs where you end up owning a piece of the land?

Yep! I've been here since May 2022, though I've traveled for a couple months at a time maybe once a year. I still stay in a big canvas tent most of the time.

I think the easiest way to explain my situation is that I've been granted stewardship of an acre over at the Lab, and I don't own it. I'm permitted to stay there, rent free, for life, and build stuff and grow stuff on it. Right now I am a part-time Boot, having stepped-down from the High Commander spot this past Spring. I spend time with the Boot team in the first half of the day, and on my own projects in the afternoons and evenings. When I'm able, I do construction over at the stewardship acre in the afternoons. I hope to keep documenting those tasks and my progress in this thread.

It's a massive understatement that I'm grateful to Paul for his generosity and for granting me both such great opportunities while here at Wheaton Labs, and for providing a "soft landing" into what seems to me to be pretty close to an authentic homesteading lifestyle. He granted me stewardship of that acre, and I really do want to turn it into something even more special in the years ahead.

M Pearson wrote:Also out of curiosity, it seems in your early days 4 years ago you were doing the SKIP program and quickly did 20 BBs, but that since then you haven't continued adding more. What made you change your mind on that?

Being the High Commander is a demanding position (well, for me, anyway), and after I achieved that threshold amount of BBs I stopped pursuing the PEP stuff, and just focused on supervising the Boot team. Nowadays, I am working on personal projects and/or spend time over at the acre, so achieving more BBs just isn't on the radar at the moment.

It's funny to note that, after all the experiences I've racked-up at Wheaton Labs, had I documented them anyway I would likely have exceeded PEP1 by now, and would be well on my way to PEP2. So it goes...! I still do several errands for the Boots outside of typical Boot time, that being part of High Commander-type stuff, or Nest Labor projects that are part of Boot life.

BEL #840

Back in the swing of things today, over at the acre. I made a promise to myself that the only way I'll feel justified in attending Missoula's Halloween weekend movie viewings (I've gone every year for the past four years) is if I finish this willow feeder to my satisfaction. I have less than a month and a half to make it happen, but I don't want to miss out on it. So back to it with a vengeance I go...!

I have a funny idea about the roof. I want to make a frame and cover it with canvas. It'll remind me of life in the tent, plus it'll be light-weight and allow natural light to permeate the structure. It may be a terrible idea, but it's the one I'm obsessed with at the moment. The poles I had started several weeks ago are now dried and ready for use. I cleaned-off the remaining branch stubs and "nubbins" with my hacksaw and hand-rasp-thingie.



With four poles cleaned and refined, I laid them out in the grass next to the building frame. It may not look like much, but each of the poles is roughly 11 feet long.



I opted to carve out notches in the thick ends of the poles, and set the narrow end of the adjoining pole in each notch. Here's the mark I made for my first go at the notch work.



With my saw, I roughed-out the width, then followed-up with hammer and chisel work. I love it when I'm reminded how much I enjoy using a nice, sharp chisel for this sort of thing.



I'm undecided as to how the pieces will be finally connected, so I just temporarily lashed these two together after the notch was set. I marked so that a 3-inch section of the pole will stick out off each end.



I am leaning heavily into  using wooden pegs/drawbore joints to keep things held together, though I am concerned about wood rot. I have some finishing oil so I might use that to make the joints water-resistant, to a degree. Still undecided.

Anyhow, I was unable to finish all the notches this afternoon, so I set two pieces aside for processing, then left the lashed-together two leaning up against the building frame.



That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!

I'm hoping to assemble a few sets of wooden coasters for the upcoming holiday season. These will consist of 6 coasters (about 4" diameter) of a specific theme, all made with public domain images (except where noted below), most of which were originally printed from woodcuts. Assuming you have an account here at Permies, each set will cost US$25, shipping included for the continental USA (this is the "special Permies hook-up price").

The themes I have planned are as follows:
- Wild Animals: forest-dwelling animals, including grizzly bear and rattlesnake
- Pollinators: winged insects including bees, moths, and butterflies
- Mazes: round maze patterns, each one unique (not public domain, but randomly-derived with a Java applet on a computer)
- Trees: ...a bunch of trees
- Antiquity: woodcut imagery, illuminations from old books and documents, and illustrations

Here's an example: I finished up the "trees" category just last night:



As I finish my initial sets of each theme, I'll add images to this thread so you can preview them.

If you're interested or curious about these sets, please comment here or drop me a PM. I've also just shipped out my most-recent custom job, and have room in my schedule for more. Send me a PM to start the ball rolling. Thanks!