Scrap Wood = Great Memories

It's inevitable; no matter how hard I try, there always ends up being spare lumber after I finish a home project - whether it be fencing cedar or spare 2x4s that ended up being warped. What does a guy do with that stuff? Around here, throwing away perfectly good wood can cause a self-guided tour down the Guilt Canal; in the end the wood piles up in various places because we're all afraid of putting a tree in the landfill. So we cut it up into manageable firewood for camping, lean it up inside the garage, or just stash it out in the backyard.

My solution has been to save it for "projects" that include my sons. The results of the projects to me are less important than actually involving them at some level. Right now I'm trying to teach David how to hold and swing a hammer; at five years old, he just starting to gain that type of coordination. And he's a lefty like me, which means he's better tuned to learning in his own way rather than some established method. In any case all this wood-smacking work we do is something David and Jack may remember when they grow older, thinking about the goofy stuff their Dad used to build for them out of scrap. Sometimes the results are cool too, so it's not like we're out there just bending nails and hitting our index fingers with hammers.

Wooden Hydroplanes
Take, for example, the Seattle phenomena of Wooden Hydroplanes. I've started building them again after 30 + years in hiatus. These aren't dainty models that lie under glass. These are "pavement rated boats with assisted bicycle propulsion." Several generations of kids growing up in the Puget Sound found a way to mimic the hydroplane racing they saw on Lake Washington, by nailing together some scrap wood and towing the things behind their bicycles. I was no different; the boats I built were pretty roughshod, but fun nonetheless behind a bike. When tied 6+ feet behind a bicycle, wooden hydroplanes skid out to the side in corners - just like the real thing - and bounce along the pavement in perfect form the same way the big boats would skip across the water. Watch a hydro race sometime and you'll see what I mean. Even the new high-tech boats that race these days behave the same on the water.

The materials and tools for building these are simple and cheap:

• 2x4s of any sort
• 1" thick anything that is wide enough to be cut as a hull
• Roofing nails
  
• Sabre Saw
• Circular Saw or Hand Saw
  
• 2 cans of $2 spray paint from Ace Hardware

Building these really involves some trial and error, so having scrap lumber is a plus; there are some plans available from The Seattle Times, but in my opinion they're kind of wimpy and not meant to last. The main component of my boats are the 2x4s; they are studs or pressure treated...it doesn't really matter. With them I make the bodies and the tails. The best hull material I've found recently has been from reclaiming old pallets and cedar fencing boards. I even get some of our 2x4s out of pallets. A quick check on Craigslist with the search term 'pallets' will usually come up with someone who is trying to get rid of them. If anything they make awesome firewood.

David named the first boat I built "The Heavy Hauler." Black in color and made with a particle board hull, it may not last another season of the local "Cul De Sac Cup" as the hull has started to chip heavily along the leading edge. Later versions moved away from particle board entirely, but not before I built the red boat (currently known as "Number 59"). The orange boat is "Number 10" and required a new hull after one of the sponsons broke during a circuit of the course (hence the white material). Currently in the works we have a yellow boat with a dual tail and split hull (pictures when completed); it will employ a checkerboard design on the sponsons, per David's requirements, but it doesn't have a name yet.

Wooden Race Track for Hot Wheels
When you're all done with a 12 foot long 2x10, what happens to it? I asked that question this summer after I "rediscovered" the board in my backyard. It had cost me close to $30 by itself when I bought it back in the late 90s, so i didn't want to cut it up for stuff. Plus it's pressure treated wood, which means it's not a good idea to use it as firewood due to the chemicals. So again, what do you do? Well you tilt one side up high and run cars down the board...DUH! It was a natural solution thought up by David one afternoon, and it led to a two lane self contained race track. With the help of some old cedar fencing I took down last year, plus a healthy portion of roofing nails, I was able to create two separate racing lanes from one end to the other. They converge at one point at "The Diamond of Destruction," which has become a road hazard so successful at ruining races that it may come off (look in the detail pic and you'll see the diamond - hardly anything gets past it). While it may look the part, I didn't just chuck this racing board together; each piece nailed to the board is cut individually and then sanded smooth on the wall that would touch the car running down the track. The cars launch with the help of rubber bands strung across the starting gate. The end of the course has a jump and collector box for the racers. With enough angle on the racing board the cars careen down the chutes and into the box. It's great fun.

Since we now have a pretty consistent source for our scrap wood (pallets), our chances are good for coming up with more "projects," even if it's just nailing stuff together!