Messing about in the shop

Winter is well and truly here now so, since golf and riding are out of the question, I get to spend time in the shop. Most recently it was spent making Christmas presents and cleaning up a summer’s worth of clutter, but today I felt like playing.

A couple of years ago we got new neighbours, and one of the things they did was get rid of a couple of old log buildings going back 100 years or so. I managed to scavenge some remnants from the original log home before it was moved to a new site and I’d been waiting for an opportunity/inspiration to use them. I had also picked up a plasma cutter at an estate sale a few years ago that I had never used. Today seemed like a good time to rectify all that.

A small piece of tin roofing had a nice patina (for the uninitiated, that means it was rusty)  and I could “see” a stylized sail in it. Combined with a bit of well-worn barn board it made a folk-artsy kind of sailboat.



As a first attempt I think it came out okay but I can already see a few changes I’ll make in the next version.

I also had a few empty beer cans lying about (never a shortage here) that I thought I could do something with. So I made this little tree.

Again, future versions will be better.

All in all a pretty good day just messing about in the shop. And the plasma cutter is just too much fun to leave sitting idle ever again.