Do It Yourself Better! Learn about
me, and why this site's for You!

That's me (Bill) from a few weeks ago - on a do it yourself project staring down the cut-line. That pre-painted plywood plank is 8 feet long, 16 inches wide, and the cut will produce a 28.5 inch cabinet door for my shop - tough, scary, controlled cut! I'm just like anyone else - I accumulate more than I can store and I'm trying to get my shop in order!

As you learn about me, I hope you will see that I really have a wide experience in do it yourself projects spanning almost 50 years from tinkering with my tricycle as a toddler to building 40 foot ocean-racing catamarans, and then home projects of cabinetry, stone work and more.

But first, let me introduce my family who let me have fun with cool do it yourself projects and sometimes pitch in! From left to right: Alex, my firstborn is now US Army and a father himself with a second on the way; Diane - the finest mother and wife a husband could ever have; Robert - clowning around as usual is US Coast Guard ; and me!

As a child, I would watch my dad in fascination as he did things, especially if they made noise! When he cut wood for a do it yourself shelving project, I got as close as I dared. I wanted to see him behind his radial-arm saw and watch the dust fly. The smell of fresh-cut pine was intoxicating!

As I learned by watching, and occasionally helping, I'm sure my boys have also learned the ways of self-reliance and how to build using their own hands and creativity!

After returning from the Navy, I entered the computer profession as a Field Engineer. I got to travel the country representing various companies as an ace technical troubleshooter. I worked at fascinating job-sites like the Baghdad Copper Mines in Arizona where I observed huge engineering plants processing ore. I worked in the oil-patches of central Texas and marveled at the drilling and pumping operations that moved crude through a myriad of pipelines and automated valves to the refining centers along the coast. I worked at NASA for several years in the Radiant Heat Laboratory and the High Temperature Interferometry Laboratory. I worked for G.E. for many years supporting the CAD/CAM operations of Southern Companies and Combustion Engineering where I visited civil engineering or nuclear power facilities they were involved in.

In all those positions, I observed, listened, asked questions, and learned engineering at every level. Aerospace: Civil: Structural: Mechanical: Electrical: Packaging: Transportation ...

I learned Program Management, Cost Analysis, Scheduling, Logistics, and Risk Assessment.

I took those lessons home for my own do it yourself projects, wherever they would help and want to share a few photos to illustrate where basic engineering principals will allow you to accomplish your goals.

This is a do it yourself project that's special to me - I designed this 16' spoon-bowed cutter as a project while I was studying Naval Architecture. What's important here is the special turning cradle I designed to protect the hull, and give leverage to the block-and-tackle you can't see. Please understand - in every photo I show, I am the only person working! That means I can't show the details of an operation in progress! My hands are too busy. I saw something very similar at NASA's Stennis Flight Center where they used massive cradles to roll the the space shuttle's external fuel tank. This allowed me to paint the bottom, and mount and hang the hoist system and centerboard.

These next two photos are just for fun and bragging! Same do it yourself project but from so long past that my oldest son, now adult, was only 4 months old!

He had been playing on the seat lockers - he fell off and landed on his head! That's me - papa trying to sooth him before Diane comes out and scolds - ME!

After a summer of fun sailing Celerity II (named in honor of my original failed 40' restoration project) I sold her and bought the plans for my next do it yourself project - a 40' ocean racing catamaran!

This cute photo shows Alex, then about 9 months, perched atop of a "cooking" hull panel on my "open-face" vacuum mold. I hope you can get a feel for the size of this project. It dwarfs everything around it! Just to get started, I cut the side out of my 3-Car garage and built a 16' extension! Each hull-panel half was comprised of 10 sheets of 1/8" ply in two layers. Each end butt had an 8:1 overlapping bevel scarf, and each opposing face of ply was slathered in a controlled layer of epoxy. The mold has an under lining of 10 mil poly with a layer of 1" bubble-wrap over it with bubbles up. Once all 10 pieces were in place, an additional layer of bubble-wrap was laid over the ply, bubbles down, and the final 10 mil poly envelop wrapped over, sealed to the under layer of poly and sucked down with two industrial shop-vacs, one on each end. What is phenomenal, mind-bending, and unbelievable about this operation, this do it yourself project? I did it by myself - start to end, and once I mixed the first batch of epoxy, I only had 30 min. to get the epoxy laid on all 10 sheets, and all 10 sheets PRECISELY laid down so that the scarf bevels overlapped correctly, the bubble wrap placed, the poly envelope in place and sealed and vacuum applied! Every time I hear the term "as busy as a one-armed paper hanger," I just smile and think back to vacuum molding those catamaran hulls! Above Alex's head and to the right are three finished moldings. You would think this was the last piece, but alas, ultrasonic testing showed one panel had "cooked-off" too fast and was unsuitable. Bummer - but thanks to the Non Destructive Testing Engineer I hired, when we "autopsied" that panel I learned what had gone wrong, and what I had done right on the other panels. I didn't invent the "open-face" vacuum mold, but I completely reworked the engineering so that I could do it by myself at the frantic pace required by curing epoxy!

Even though these catamaran hulls are considered ultra-lite by boat building standards, they weighed 600 pounds! Anyone considering a do it yourself project of this magnitude better understand safety, both your own, and your project materials! Maneuvering any of the constituent pieces was HARD work. The molded half-panels were rigid in one plane, but very fragile along their length. I built special structures to cradle the non reinforced panels for the turning operation (no photos of that!). Once the panels were cut to their final shapes, it got even worse! Once again, I was too busy to take photos - what a shame, that was engineering at it's finest! But speaking of fine engineering, look at this photo as I rotate the hull. I've always admired the pyramids and how earliest man was able to wrestle immense objects with seemingly brute force. That's a myth - they moved things with block-and-tackle, and leverage! That's what I'm showing here. Out of view are two trailer winches attached to the bitter ends of the lifting bridals. I replaced the 6" handles with 2' handles! Easy-squeeze! I could pluck those 600 lbs. off the floor by working back and forth between the two winches. The lifting tackle was attached to two blocks. The turning bridals were low-stretch yacht braid looped around the hulls. Although this might be the first time this hull was rotated, I promise you, over the years of finishing, painting, and transporting those two hulls, I did this operation 100 times at least!

Going forward 25 years is another quirky project - my gazebo! Sometimes I get so wrapped up in a project that I totally loose touch with external events. I try hard to remember important things like birthdays and anniversaries, but other things? Here I am fitting holding jigs to the ends of two main roof beams of my gazebo. My back-yard neighbor took this photo. Why? Because the day before she could look over her back yard and only see my roof line. When she came out this afternoon - something had changed! She yelled across the fence - "Bill, there's a hurricane coming!" "What's that? I couldn't hear you from all the wind!" Yep - tunnel-vision, got to get these end-beams in place. Didn't know there was a hurricane. But it sure was hard holding onto 10' lengths of 2X6 in 40 mph gusts!

And so I leave you with a few thoughts. If a normal(?) guy like Bill can build things, why can't you! What do you see around your home, yard, or business that could be improved? Sometimes things hit you out-of-the-blue. Gosh - a gazebo at the end of the pool would tie all of the stonework, gardening, and fountains together. Or when my wife brought a magazine home and pointed to a page - "That's what I want to display my music-box collection in!" Sometimes it's standing in the middle of a tropical downpour and watching your backyard flood to realize you've got to do something about drainage! If you're like me, and delegated care of all things outside, and find yourself spending HOURS mowing a tiny yard, you have to ask yourself the question; "How can I make this more efficient?" Wala - a landscaping project jumps out at you - redo the gardens so you can mow in straight lines!

I'm glad you dropped in to visit. I hope you know me a little better and what I have done, and what I keep doing - thinking, dreaming, planing, building, doing, and most importantly, doing - do it yourself projects. I rely on myself to get things done. Visitors are always welcome. Sit down and enjoy a cool drink as you watch me build - but please, don't offer to help unless you're ready to get elbows deep in dirt, mortar, tar, and sawdust!

Use my "Contact Me" page if you would like to make suggestions, ask questions, leave a comment or report any problem you have with my site!

This do it yourself project was built from plans in Wooden Boat Magazine's 10'th Anniversary Edition - the Nutshell Pram. Even after 25 years, it's beautiful!

I chose to use a sprit-sail for my Nutshell because this rig projects a huge sail area with a very low center of gravity. The secret to this rig is artful design and execution.

I've had so many comments about this boat and it's rig, I've added a page, Sailboat Rigging - The Nutshell Pram to answer all of your questions!

And finally, if you've stayed this long, here are links to Photo-Archives of two of my boat building projects. Other Do It Yourself Projects will be added after I assemble the photo galleries so check back from time to time. These are PDF files of just photos - hopefully organized in chronographic order, but with no text blurbs describing what's going on. Stay with me, and you WILL get better info!

Do It Yourself - 40 Foot Ocean Racing Catamaran

Do It Yourself - 16 Foot Cutter