All the construction steps for the cabin top are below, but first a quick training update. As you may recall, I signed up to compete at the Northface Endurance Challenge 50 mile ultramarathon on June 6 in Bellingham, Washington. This will be my first foray into ‘ultra’ territory which is typically defined as distances greater than 30 miles. I’m really, really enjoying the training which basically consists of 2 long runs per week, back to back. On Saturday I ran up and down Moose Mountain trail in Kananaskis for 4 hours, then I ran it for 5 hours on Sunday.
Running a hilly trail is easier in ways than a flat course. The constant muscle changes from climbing up the steep incline to running down hill seems to ‘spread the load’ a bit more than the relentless flat and level run. I feel better after 4 hours than a flat run for sure and feel like I can keep going.
The Northface Endurance Challenge Gortex 50 is a TOUGH race with over 13,500 feet of elevation change over 80 km of mountainous trails. The rule of thumb for predicting finishing times for a double marathon is to take your best marathon time, double it and add an hour. This would put me at 8 hours, but that isn’t the case with this race. The WINNING time for my division last year was 9 hours! This is one TOUGH race.
My training run on Moose Mountain is a 7.3 km, 2000 foot climb up, then 7.3 km down. I timed myself on my 5.25 hour run on Sunday and calculated that if I could hold the same pace for the entire 80 km race, I could finish in 9 1/2 hours. That’s wishful thinking though because I will surely start to slow down after my 5th or 6th or 7th hour! I will be happy if I can break 10 hours.
OK, on to the cabin top building steps:
26. Here is the completed jig station box. It’s flat and square and very rigid with coasters so it can be moved in and out of the shop.
27. Ken is tracing the jig station patterns onto some 1″ thick MDF wood.
28. The jig stations are cut out and assembled onto the box at pre-specified spacing
john on May 12, 2009
Looks really good!!
David Tangye on May 14, 2009
Nice work, and and really great explanation of the process.
Anonymous on May 14, 2009
Great job !
Fernando Bittencourt fron
Brazil
Anonymous on May 14, 2009
This is exciting stuff. I wish the Discovery Channel were covering this. Maybe they can catch your next project. By the way, Rich is not completely accurate about the Mormon thing…the boats he described sat on the water like a bird. The reason he thought that it was a submarine was probably because of the shape that was described and the air holes that were used (since the boat was going into severe weather). The boat was completely left to be driven by weather and the currents, so it was not a normal boating condition.
RedorBlack on May 16, 2009
Nice to see more of the process, but I see you left out the actual sand removal process… trying to make it look neat and easy?
Was that a shopvac operation or sweeping?
Adventures of Greg on May 17, 2009
We used a shop vac to suck up the sand
Martin Pernicka on May 21, 2009
Looks good! Hey, it's great you see you up and in force again! Your pages are live guides for building ANYTHING using the foam & fiber techniques; Senior industrial designer my self and in the tricycle projects for people with restricted mobility, I am also part-time tutor at UdeM's School of Industrial Design. Indeed, I strongly recommand to my students, to ANY students, to follow your progress – and devotion to make it happen.
Keep it up and thanks for sharing your experiences.
We are watching you! đŸ™‚
Ă€+, as we are saying here!
MARTIN, (Montréal)