Carved Doorway

Almost twenty years ago, the owners of SOLO approached me about making an unusual doorway for the main lodge of the school. They were going to enclose a small porch to make an entryway and they were interested in having a unique entrance door that would compliment the lodge. Because of the large scale of the building, we needed something that would be both bold and compliment the natural wood of the exterior. After much discussion, we decided on a large scale, deeply carved doorjamb, left to naturally weather. The next step was to decide on the nature of the design that I would carve.
           We talked about many ideas and sifting through the different suggestions, we ended up with two predominant influences. One was the carvings and the doorways of traditional Haida lodges from the Pacific Northwest; the other was the doorway carvings of Old Norse wooden halls. It sounds like a strange marriage of influences but I saw many themes in common, both cultures produced designs that are filled with organic elements, and both have traditions wherein doorways are symbolize transition and are more than just a way in and out of a shelter. Moreover, while these two cultures are separated by time and a polar icecap, they each developed similar techniques of deep relief carving that read well from a distance.
           I spent time working these ideas out on paper and bouncing them off Lee and Frank, who own SOLO, to see what they liked. I found one of my sketches, so you can see some of the earlier ideas we played with.

           The final design came together and I spent several days building the doorjamb out of slabs of pine four inches thick and almost twenty inches wide; then began the carving process. As I carved the doorway over the next few weeks, SOLO students would come out between classes to watch me work. Normally I do not like working with an audience, but I found that answering their questions helped me to clarify my own ideas and so this too became a part of the creative process for this project.
           The actual carving was done with simple tools; two sizes of knife, three sizes of paring chisel, a drawknife, a mallet, and a large slick.
           When the time came, there were plenty of willing hands to muscle the doorway into place.

           Part of what I find so intriguing about the creative process is how people react to your work. That reaction reveals so much about how we as individuals relate to change and ideas that are new to us. The doorway at SOLO has proven to be an excellent example of this, while the predominant reaction has always been positive, there have also always been a small percentage of people who don’t like it. In some cases to the point where first time visitors arrive at the school, take one look at the front door, and immediately try to find some other way into the building. I find this fascinating and surprising, and I suppose that in it self is revealing.

           I have fond memories of this project, and now that it has been in place for nineteen years, I am particularly impressed with how well it has held up. I also feel that by creating this entrance I was able to contribute something to a school and community that have always meant a lot to me.

If you are interested in finding out more about the SOLO community check out their new blog SOLO Adventures.

Skis

Years ago I ran an out door program for a private school. The objective was to take athletic kids who were not competitive and give them the experience of membership in a team without competition. Each season we would all practice basic out-door skills; working safely with camp stoves, tying basic knots, navigation, food preparation for groups, packing a pack, that sort of thing. We would also attend presentations on subjects like leave no trace camping, wildlife habitat and the environments where our trips would occur. At the end of about a month of this kind of outdoor education mixed with physical training the students would be asked to sit down on their own and set goals for the team for the season. Then, with faculty help, we would try to establish safe and effective paths that could be followed to reach those goals.
            One winter season the students set as their goals to do a large number of winter camping trips in the White Mountains on backcountry skis. The students were hugely enthusiastic about this and it put me in the unenviable position of having to say no. I explained that the school had already convinced their parents to spend money on outdoor winter clothing and boots, and it would be hard, if not impossible, to now turn around and ask them to buy skis, ski boots, bindings, and poles. There was some discussion and research done on renting equipment, but it would have caused a logistical nightmare, and the savings were really not all that significant. Then the students posed a different question; “Couldn’t we make our own skis as part of the program, and then go on trips with the skis we make ourselves?”
            I loved the idea, but explained that while making the kinds of skis we needed would be relatively simple, we would still need a source of wood, and bindings, boots and poles that were affordable. Several days later, my team marched into my office and informed me that our problems were solved. The father of one boy was a wood buyer for a furniture company and could get us high quality planks of ash, 2″ thick, for $25 per kid. The parent of another kid handled inventory for a major outdoor distributor, he could get us a last years model of a backcountry boot and three-pin binding and could out fit us in an any size but men’s nine for $25 per kid. Parents had already been consulted and agreed that the $50 per kid to outfit them with backcountry skis of their own making was a bargain, when could we start? Since one of the main goals of the program was to have, the students determine the direction of each season’s activities and to follow through on their own goal, I really couldn’t back out now. So began three weekends of ski making, followed by three weekends of trips on skis.
            The plan was to make a simple solid ash ski to a very old, Norwegian, design. The camber would be cut with saw and planes, and the tips would be steam bent. Most of the work would be done in, my then, unheated shop with hand tools. The one exception was the cutting out of the basic ski blank from the 2″ thick ash with a band saw (I basically did that part) and, now that I think about it, some students opted to do some decorative carving on their own with a Dremel tool.
            I found the original handout that I made for making the skis. It is not presented here as a how to, but just to give the reader a little better idea of how simple the skis were in concept and construction.

            These are pictures of my own skis, which I still use.

            The students scraped, planed, and sanded in the cold until the shop was ankle deep in ash shavings. The tips of the skis were steamed in an old metal trashcan half filled with water, and set over a propane burner. We made simple bending jigs for the skis while they steamed, and then with much drama, bent the tips (as I recall we did have one ski tip break, but had a spare blank so all was well).
            The finished skis varied a lot, much like the kids who made them. Some were simple bordering on crude; others were beautiful as well as functional. We made something of a spectacle as we skied in various mountain passes in the White Mountains. People would ski up to us and exclaim; “Are those wooden skis? Did you make them?” It was great to see the kids respond and watch them relate the creative experience that they had just gone through. They radiated enthusiasm and pride. One shy boy, who rarely spoke at all, went so far as to ski on his own up to a group of total strangers in order to ask them; “Are those fiberglass skis? Can you BUY them?”         
           

Tool Chests

When I was an apprentice (see the previous post), one of the requirements was that each of us was to provide some sort of toolbox or chest to carry his or her own tools. Some apprentices bought a toolbox. More often, an empty five-gallon pail that had once held joint compound was commandeered. In my case, I built a shallow pine box, more like a drawer really, that I could lash to my bike rack. It also had a long shoulder strap, making it possible to carry it as well as something else. It was nailed together out of scraps, and it looked like it. Lucky gave me a hard time about it, and I ignored him.
           Perhaps as a reaction to my toolbox, Lucky singled me out early on in my apprenticeship to show me how to make hand made, traditional dovetail joints. The tutorial took about an hour. I remember thinking that it looked like a lot of work, especially when screws and nails were so readily available, I may have even said as much. In any event, it speaks to Lucky’s wisdom that he taught me the basics and did not try to persuade me of the merits of the joinery. Rather, he took the approach he most often did, one of; here is a skill you need to master, learn it.
           I learned to make dovetails, but it was several years before I really appreciated the elegant simplicity of them. I had completed both university degree, as well as my time as journeyman, and had taken a teaching job at a secondary school. I had no money to spend on power tools of any kind. What little money I did have I used to snap up antique hand tools at junk shops for next to nothing. I would then recondition these tools and put them to work. The more I worked with these handsaws, augers, and planes of multiple types and descriptions, the more I appreciated how beautifully adapted they were to the jobs that they were designed to do and how efficient they are. This came as a surprise to me because, I suspect like many people, I had equated hand tools with laborious, slow physical effort. I found instead, that I could produce beautiful woodwork with these tools, without a lot of effort, and that, unlike most power tools; I really looked forward to using them. I in no way missed the high pitched, nerve jarring, teeth on edge scream of power tools, the wrestling matches with power cords, batteries and chargers. My shop became a contemplative place, where I could create and work things out. A place that I left feeling relaxed, a place I looked forward to returning. As my collection of tools grew, I was looking for better ways to store and protect them and it was at this point that I rediscovered the dovetail.

           As I started to make dovetailed chests for my tools, I found the process to be fun. I also got faster at making them, my joinery got better, and my sense of satisfaction grew. Unsatisfied with the handles I could find and afford, I began to play with rope handles. I started to make dovetailed sea chests as wedding gifts, I made toy-boxes, and blanket chests, and I got a lot of pleasure out of these projects.

           I do have power tools. I use them, and appreciate that they have many merits, but given a choice, I am still more likely to pull a beautifully tuned bench plane out of the chest it lives in, and leave the planer silent.
           I don’t have any idea if Lucky knew that his one hour tutorial would set off such a chain of creative events, but a visitor to my shop today will see that it is dominated by dovetailed tool chests. It is also clear that I came to appreciate the merits of this elegant joinery, witness the name of this web log. Sometimes there is a lot more being taught by the teacher than the student is aware of, that one-hour session was one of those times.

Apprenticeship

When I was eighteen, I had the good fortune to meet a master builder who had an unusual apprentice program. The deal was this: a two-month trial with pay for the apprentice at minimum wage. During this probation period, each apprentice was taught very basic skills, and was provided with lots of laborious tasks. At the end of the two months, the apprentice was given a evaluation of how well he or she had acquired the skills taught, what the aptitude of the apprentice was for mastering new skills, and most important how well the apprentice managed his or her time. This all happened on active job sites working with other apprentices, and occasionally a journeyman who had gone to the next level. The system was, as far as I know, unique to this particular master builder, who had learned it from his father.
          At the end of the two-month trial period an apprentice would either, be asked to leave, or to continue his or her apprenticeship. As the apprentice mastered more skills, and became more useful, his or her pay slowly increased. The goal was to be tapped as a likely journeyman, which meant the same workload as the other apprentices but that you were also expected to learn additional skills. Journeyman were sent out to jobs, or parts of jobs, on their own, checking in only when necessary. They also were assigned the most highly skilled work on larger jobs and were paid more as well.
          I signed on as an apprentice initially because I needed a job to pay for college and was hoping to learn some craft as well. My apprenticeship and eventual move to journeyman, not only helped pay for college, but ended up being a profoundly important part of my creative education as well.
          Working for Lucky (my master) was an amazing experience. He was uncompromising about producing work of the highest quality, and he had extremely high expectations for those of us who worked for him. He expected his apprentices to be well-spoken, well read, and present themselves as professionals. We had a dress code, were expected to provide certain of our own tools and they were to be kept sharp and in proper working order, and woe betide the apprentice who failed in any of these respects. He had a very short fuse, and being “chewed out” by Lucky was not an experience one wanted to repeat, particularly because he had absolutely no qualms about telling you exactly what he thought of your work or behavior at high volume and in public. He could also be generous and took time to point out quality work and give due credit in public as well. I was fortunate in that I managed to dodge most of his worst tirades, but I was also a quick learner and really appreciated what he was trying to teach.
          The reward for being a quick learner was that Lucky singled you out to work with him, which was also intense. His talent, and patience, as an instructor more than made up for his short fuse and mercurial temperament. Articulate, and direct, his teaching sessions were rich with pearls of wisdom and hands-on demonstrations. “See the whole project”, he would say, “not just the interesting bits”. Another of his pearls was; “There are no shortcuts, just more efficient ways to do each step of the job at hand”. While he was working with you, he expected your undivided attention; but if you provided this, he treated you as his equal. The jobs and the skills were constantly changing and his knowledge of craft was seemingly inexhaustible. Whatever was called for, making hand made clapboards with froe and drawknife for an historic home, recreating 18th century moldings, mixing horsehair plaster from scratch, or timber-frame restoration, Lucky would produce the tools and skills needed and tackle the job as though it was just another day’s work, which I suppose it was. The sheer chemistry he knew about paint was by itself an education.
          The jobs varied enormously. We worked in several very well known museums and worked on notable homes maintained by historic preservation societies, but we also worked on ordinary homes that needed a new deck, or a new roof, or a simple addition. Regardless of the job, what Lucky required and expected, was efficiency and quality; anything less was substandard work.
          As the years have passed, I have come to realize how indebted I am to Lucky. In some ways, the education I got from him rivaled what I was learning at Universities in Boston and Florence. My apprenticeship was a time of revelations. Each day seemed to bring with it exposure to some new craft or aspect of craft, challenge, sometimes drama, and often humor.  I was conscious of the fact that, as an artisan, I was being weaned of some terribly sloppy and unproductive work habits. What I was unaware of at the time, was that Lucky was subtly indoctrinating me with disciplined work habits, and an appreciation for organization. For those lessons in particular, I am very grateful.

Passamaquoddy Bay

               I first discovered the Passamaquoddy about a decade ago when I was invited on a kayak trip by a friend who runs a Sea Kayak touring company. The trip was a revelation for me. We set out from St. Andrews, New Brunswick, and I was impressed by the twenty-eight foot tide and the lack of lobster buoys, since the lobster fishery in Canadian waters is a winter fishery. This also meant that there was a significant lack of commercial vessel traffic. We were only a forty-minute drive from Calais, Maine, but it felt more like a thousand. As one drives from St. Stephen to St. Andrews, there is a very noticeable shift in the geology from granite ledges and fir trees, to red sandstone and cedars. Paddling past sandstone arches sculpted by the tides and beaches of pink sand in a northern climate is a very different experience from the barren beauty of the granite ledges of the Maine coast.

              The trip included seven clients and two guides, and I went as a guest of the guiding company. Mine was the only skin boat, certainly the only bairdarka in the group. I think that at first my skin boat, handmade paddle, and paddle jacket drew a certain skepticism, but as the trip played itself out I won many converts for the baidarka. The weather was good, the company engaging, and the food was excellent. Sitting around a campfire on the beach each evening and discussing the geography, the history, and the marine environment, was a true education and the beginning of a love affair with the region.

               A chain of islands crosses the mouth of the bay and separates it from the rest of the Bay of Fundy. This gives the whole Passamaquoddy a feeling of protection that is misleading. While the island chain does protect the inner bay from the swells of the Bay of Fundy, the entire tidal contents of the bay must flow out and in around these islands twice a day creating extraordinarily dangerous currents, standing waves, and whirlpools. Another factor of these strong currents is that they stir up the small marine life in the water making a fantastic feeding ground for finback whales, minke whales and occasionally the rare right whale. There are strict protocols concerning approaching these animals no closer than 100 meters, however, no one told the whales. On one occasion, I was a part of a group of paddlers just drifting along, minding our own business, when a pod of curious whales surfaced all around us. This is not only a very rare experience but also a potentially dangerous one. It left all of us both awestruck and feeling very small.   

                Over the years, I have been drawn back to this area again, and again, because of its great beauty, the abundance of marine mammals and coastal birds. It is a spectacular area for kayakers to explore with a guide or as part of a guided trip, but, and I cannot emphasize this enough; these are very dangerous waters. Even expert paddlers who guide in other parts of the world would be wise to get a local guide with experience. Seascape Kayak Tours has been doing this longer than anyone else has in the area and has won a number of awards for the quality of what they do, check in with them, in my opinion they are the best.

               Another part of the attraction of this area is the many creative and inspirational people I have met over the years, like Harry and Martha Bryan. Harry and Martha moved to the area to homestead in the 1970s. Harry is a boat builder and Martha works in canvas, they do beautiful work, and that alone is enough reason to visit, but they are also an inspiration to those of us that think we should leave less of a footprint in passing through this world. Harry’s inventions, his bio-diesel sawmill, band saw, and peddle-powered tools, are as neat in their own way, as his boats. The Bryans are just one example, another is a wonderful and funky inn in St. Andrews called Salty Towers. Part B&B, part Inn, part art gallery, it is also a bit of a local hangout for musicians and artists. Jamie Steel, who runs Salty Towers, is one of the prime movers of the St. Andrews Paddlefest, held each May. Paddlefest started in the early 90s as an Earth Day celebration and beach clean up, and was the brainchild of Bruce Smith, of Seascape Kayak Tours. What was once as a one-day event for local sea kayakers has evolved into a weekend event that combines sea kayaking, beach clean ups, and live music in several venues.

              I wanted to share my reflections on this beautiful place because it has been a source if inspiration for me as an artist and outdoorsman, and because this truly unique area is currently threatened by a scheme to build a Liquid Natural Gas Terminal on the U.S. side of the bay. The project would involve building a pipeline across Northern Maine and introduce regular traffic of LNG tankers into the bay. There has been a lot of heated debate about whether bringing LNG to the area would be a good thing or a bad thing. As near as I can see, it would be a good thing for those people who stand to make fortunes off the lack of sound energy policy in the U.S., and a bad thing for the rest of us. I only bring this up (politics is not one of the themes of this site) because any readers who have found my description of the area interesting might want to check it out sooner, rather than later…there may not be a later.

You can find out more about this subject at http://www.savepassamaquoddybay.org/

Wooden Hats

One of my hopes for this site is that visitors will get ideas for projects of their own. Quite often, I have gotten ideas for projects by looking at objects from other cultures, or other times. One set of examples of this are my wooden kayak hats.
           When I first started building baidarkas, and was researching their construction, I kept running into pictures of native Alaskans in their long-billed wooden hats. The hats looked unusual enough that I wanted to know more about them.
           My experiences in experimental archaeology have taught me that, if you cannot find something out through the historical record, then one solution is to set up an experiment. I set out to make my first wooden hat in order to test it so I could determine for myself what might have been the practical advantages of such headgear. I did not use the exact same woods (I used what I had at hand, as I suspect the original makers did) and I employed more steam bending than carving technique. What I made had as close to the same shape, size, and weight, compared to the originals as I could get, and then I took it out and tested it.

           As it turns out, quite a lot has been written about the cultural importance, and the potential spiritual importance of the original Alaskan headgear. A great book, which I only came across after starting these experiments is, Glory Remembered; Wooden Headgear of Alaska Sea Hunters, by Lydia T. Black (Alaska State Museum, 1991). There have even been speculative writings on the possible camouflage provided by these hats since they change the profile of the human paddler into something less recognizably human to the mammals that were the prey of the Alaskan hunter. What impressed me, however, was that this was a great and very practical hat for kayaking. Completely waterproof; it provides terrific shelter from rain as well as sun. It is cool, light, if you still think it looks funny; then it also provides entertainment value.
           I have grown so used to these wooden hats that, when I am in one of my boats, I feel totally exposed without one. Oh yes; you can also use these wooden hats as a spare bailer.

         Making wooden hats, like making wooden paddles, or making boats for that matter, is slightly addictive. Now I have a collection of hats.

The Wheelhouse in Winter

One of the delights of the wheelhouse is the metamorphosis that occurs when we get snow. Snow has the ability to transform almost any landscape, but when I built the wheelhouse, I did not appreciate the magnitude of that transformation. The first time I went out to the wheelhouse after a large winter storm, I was surprised and enchanted by the transformation.
        A building with a steep conical roof, set into a hillside, buries itself in snow. The combination of the snow sloughing off the roof while the building has already been built into the ground gives the illusion that there is more snow here than in the surrounding woods. Entering the building has the quality of entering this subterranean chamber that hasn’t been opened in centuries.

        Of course, digging out of the snow has a different quality to it, and I am grateful that this is a retreat and not my main residence, but I do not want to sound like I am complaining. A world where nature does not have the last say would, I think, be a world diminished.
        I appreciate most that, after I had put so much thought into the size, and placement of the building, the proportions, the relationships of window and door to wall, the volume of space to human scale, nature can trump my design and magic can fall out of the sky.

The Children’s Book

       When we bought the boat (see the boat page) my nephews and niece were quite little children, as were the three girls of the couple in Oregon who co-own the boat. As owners and stewards of this grand new project, we adults were very excited, and were having difficulty in conveying to the aforementioned children just what it was that we were excited about. As you can see by reading some of the other posts on this site, handmade gifts for these children is a long-standing tradition with me. So, I reasoned, I would make a children’s book with the boat as one of the main characters.
       The only problem with this plan; is that I am not a writer, and I did not have any kind of plot for a book. Then, while going through some photographs from the summer for inspiration, I was reminded of a short cruise I had done with a friend in Canadian waters. There had been four of us on the cruise: me and the wolf-hybrid who is my constant companion, my then neighbor, and her three month old, black lab puppy, Merlin. We had a lot of fun watching Merlin try to figure things out on the boat, particularly because he was a natural clown. This became the model for the book, Merlin’s view of the boat.
       The story was mostly fluff, but nice fluff. I am an illustrator, so putting together some pencil drawings for the book was easy. The layout for the book was done using a book design

 program that we use at work, and I printed out a bout a dozen copies of the book, which I then hand-bound as gifts. Aside from the writing and illustrating, I learned a lot about the creative process of making a book. I learned about bookbinding, book design, and layout, folding signatures, glues for book binding, end papers and materials like buckram.
       That should have been the end of the tale; however, again through an opportunity at work, I had the chance to put the book in print with a limited print run and decided to go for it. I should emphasize the fact that this was somewhat spontaneous decision, I had no plan for marketing or distribution and simply planned to sell the book out of the back of my truck when the opportunity arose. I will say book signings with dogs were fun.Merlin could always be

counted on to charm a crowd, and we were able to raise some money for some good causes; like the local Humane Society. The Friendship Sloop Society also sold a number of copies, and we have given away a number of copies as thank-you gifts to people who have helped us in some way with the boat.
       The project was fun and I learned a lot, particularly about some traditional forms of bookbinding, but publishing a children’s book is financially very risky. Unlike most of the rest of the book market, you are competing with every other good children’s book written and still in print. My little book is fun, but it can’t compete with books like Charlotte’s Web. The book paid for itself and made a tiny bit of money that I put right back into the boat, but the best part of this project was the learning process and creative process of making the book.

You can see this book on Amazon by clicking here.

To see other books that I have illustrated, click here to go to TMC Books.            

Making Toys With Children

I just got back from spending Christmas with my Sister and her husband, or more correctly with their children. I brought projects to do with the children, and they had some projects for me as well. We did all the usual seasonal things; we read “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” out loud, and there was the requisite baking of Christmas cookies, and we went to a candlelight service on Christmas Eve, at which my oldest nephew, predictably, dripped hot candle wax all over himself, but most of our time was spent in the basement making things.
           I love making things with my nephews and niece. All three approach the creative process from different directions. This is due, in part, to their different ages, their ages range from six to eleven, but they also have very different personalities from one another. We worked on a range of projects from Christmas gifts that they had already started to make for other children, to model airplanes, but the project that was telling and illustrates the different creative approaches was our own version of a pinewood derby.
           I brought with me a number of pine blocks, all slightly different in size, and all pre-drilled for axles (getting the axles parallel is the biggest challenge and they do not have a drill press). I also supplied a bag of wheels, a bag of axles, and a bag of odds-and-ends that could be adapted to make headlights, tailpipes, or whatever they chose. The idea was that each child would pick out a block of wood and determine what shape to make his or her car body, and what accessories to add.
           My youngest nephew dove right in; he was not particularly interested in shaping the body of the car much, but rather had a host of ideas about what to attach to the car. Interestingly, he was adamant about attaching parts to his car in such a way that they could be removed, or replaced; “No glue.” He told me, “It takes too long to dry, and then I can’t fix it.” He would get either me, or his father, to help him cut dovetails and drill small pegs, that at six-years-old he could not manage himself, but he knew exactly what he wanted, and there was never any question of making suggestions or offering an alternate way of doing something (believe me I tried several times).
           My niece spent more time thinking about what she wanted, and then presented me with a carefully detailed description of what she wanted to make, complete with a description of the driver (a giraffe named Charlie) and passenger (a snail named Angus). She then asked me to help her lay out the steps to get the completed car she was after. Because what she had in mind to make was more complex, there were several points where she asked my help to execute a part of her plan because she did not know how to cut a certain shape, or get a specific end-result. My only real contribution to the design was to suggest that we make the neck of the giraffe-driver hinged in several places so that Charlie would have an articulated neck.
           My oldest nephew worked almost totally on his own while all the while accusing us of stealing his ideas. He knew exactly what he wanted to make and only grudgingly acknowledged that he got the idea of having a driver for the car after he saw what his sister was doing. His driver was a porcupine named Spike who had quills made of the ends of toothpicks that were glued pointed end facing out. The only drawback to this design is that it works rather too well. We all got jabbed at different times while trying to pick up Spike’s car.
           I need to point out that all three of these children are already well versed in how to hold and use certain tools safely. Additionally, I deliberately bring tools that are child appropriate. For example; the shaping, or carving, of the car bodies was done with a coping saw, block planes, large rasps, files, and sand paper. We also used several sizes of push drill, sometimes called a “Yankee drill”.  These tools can be used by children with relative safety, since most of the tools are used by clamping the block of wood in a vise and then gripping the tool and using it with both hands, making it more difficult for the child to get in the way of the tool. A very little work did have to be done with a small carving knife, and chisel, but this work was very closely supervised. No one got injured, (except for getting stabbed by Spike, the porcupine) and the two biggest problems at the work bench were that the glue kept getting spilled and resolving who got to work at which vise when.

Some of the pinewood derby cars: Charlie and Angus are in the car at the left, the car in the middle was the pace car that I made, and you can see Spike in the car at the far right.

           On the last day of my visit, we put some planks together to form a ramp and had a series of races. The car belonging to the six-year-old consistently won (no one was more amazed than he) but the truth is that we all had more fun making the cars than racing them.

           The winning car; on the left at the starting line of the racing ramp.