My Son's 4th Birthday.

My Son wanted a pirate party for his 4th birthday.   So my wife and I made a scavenger hunt for him and his friends.   Since my younger son was almost a 1 years old, I thought it would be good to build a boat around a wagon so my younger son could keep up with the older kids.  The most fun I had on this project was painting the ship. And this was probable the fastest project I have done in a long time.  It took about 3 hours total.  Most of that time was waiting for layers of paint to dry.
     I like when projects like this get used multiple times.  A few months later my wife and sons used the wagon in a charitable fun walk.   It fit right in with the theme.   There team name was the Whale Watchers.   So I told my wife that the boat was Ahabs.  She was not too fond of my Moby Dick, whale killing, reference at a kids event.

The Pirates Treasure Chest

Arrr, me matey!

Last weeks Weekend Build.

My oldest son's birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and he wanted a pirate themed party.  So I thought I would build a treasure chest to hold the birthday booty.

My wife is creating a treasure/scavenger hunt and the "x" that marks the spot at the end of the hunt will be the treasure chest.  The best part of the chest that I like is the working replica pirate lock.  (E-bay is a wonderful treasure trove of goodies.)

I wrote up the build of the treasure chest and posted it on instructibles.com

'Back to the Future'

     A movie prop that has intrigued me since I was small is the Flux
Capacitor. It was used in the movie Back to the Future in the time
traveling vehicle the DeLorean. The flux capacitor is what makes time
travel possible.
      I have found a few builds on the internet that have helped me
start the project. I want to build a authentic prop replica but
replace the lights with LEDs.
     I worked on the electronics and got the lights working but I have
not had time to look for the correct parts to build the box. Some of
the parts used on the movie prop where rare at the time of the movie
shoot. Now 25 years later they are even more scarce. So this is an
on going project to find the parts.

Birthday gift - Treasure Chest

     For my son's birthday, in two weeks, I plan to build a wooden treasure chest to hold the goodie bags. I have the plans roughly drawn out.   The box area will be 1.5' x 1'x 8".  I am planning to document the build this weekend and post it to www.instructibles.com.

     However, the big news I have today is that I found an authentic looking, working pad lock with a skeleton key.   When I first thought of adding the lock,  I figured it was going to too cost prohibitive, but with wonderful ebay, I found a few of them and they were priced reasonably. 

     I can't get a picture of the lock off ebay, but I will post it when it arrives in the mail. But in the mean time here is the auction listing.  Ebay listing of pad lock.