u/Coffee81379

I hope this fits. It’s a bit more of an experiment than an actual paddle boat, although it does paddle.

I love the whole idea of being the master of my own stuff, and I’d wanted to build a boat for years. Originally I had a dugout canoe in mind, but then I came across a discarded tarp during a cleanup and decided to turn it into a makeshift boat instead.

To make it a bit more of an adventure, I paddled out to a small island in the Mediterranean, cleaned up the trash there, and paddled back.

It took a bit of trial and error to get the stability right, but it turned out to be a lot of fun and still has some life left in it. I have a feeling I’ll end up buying a real boat at some point though. This project definitely got me hooked.

Until then, this one will probably get a third or fourth life as a cover for my solar thermal panels.

You step in dog shit with your aggressive tread, and there's no stream anywhere close to wash it out.
On the bright side, I had plenty of space at the coffee shop. Everyone left when I arrived.

I just found it funny that my daughter’s backpack uses the same Velcro morale patch system. It’s basically the kid version.

Don’t worry, her hamster patch is already back on before I get myself into trouble

A little while ago I posted here asking for advice.

After a break-in, one of my neighbors helped me out with way more things than I could ever repay. Besides taking him out for dinner, I wanted to get him something practical that he’d actually use.

You all gave me some fantastic recommendations.
I ended up buying the Fenix PD40R V3.0, and I just wanted to say thank you.

It was a huge success.
It hit exactly the sweet spot I was hoping for: practical, simple enough that someone from an older generation can use it without reading a manual, and definitely with enough of a wowfactor when you turn it on.

He absolutely loved it.

So thanks again for all the advice. You definitely helped me pick the right flashlight.
Cheers!

About 5 months ago I posted this improvised foam-filled tire.

For those who didn’t see the original post:
My mom lives a few hours away. I had given her this electric wheelbarrow a few years ago, the tire failed, all the local shops were closed, and I couldn’t wait for parts. The only thing I could find was a can of expanding foam, so I filled the tube with it just to get it working again.

Definitely not the proper way to do it.

A few people thought it would fail almost immediately, others thought it might actually last.

So here’s a quick update.
I couldn’t upload the video, so just a few photos instead.
I wouldn’t call it an amazing solution, but honestly… it’s been good enough.

To see how it held up, I loaded it with four complete car wheels, which is far more weight than my mom will ever put into it. The tire still has plenty of compliance, didn’t collapse, and didn’t develop a flat spot. Also my mom uses it about twice a week regularly.

So for this application, I’d call it a success.

Follow-up on the 500 nest boxes project I’m building for declining cavity-nesting birds in my area.

The idea is to create durable, low-cost nesting structures using hollowed log sections from leftover tree trunks that would otherwise be chipped.

One concern that came up repeatedly, both under my last post and in general discussions, was raccoons.

I never had a good answer to that question, and I’m still not sure I do. But I finally have some first data.
I have several of these nest boxes out with trail cameras. Some have been hanging for months.
Here in southern Germany, nothing happened. Raccoons are still relatively uncommon.

So I drove a few hundred kilometers to northern Germany, where they are much more common, and hung one of the nest boxes there for two nights.
That was enough to capture five different raccoon attempts.

My impression is that if they had figured out how the locking mechanism worked, they probably could have opened it. On the other hand, I was surprised by how much force they used and how determined they were. Watching them hang from the box was pretty impressive.
So I wouldn’t call this design raccoon-proof yet, but I definitely have a much better idea of what it has to withstand now.

I only uploaded a short snippet above. If anyone is interested in a bit more context, here’s the full video. It’s only about two minutes long: https://youtu.be/80WJLu83dG0

I own a small property in rural Greece, and illegal dumping is unfortunately quite common. From time to time, I just go out and clean things up.

Every now and then I'm lucky and find something that still has some life left in it.

This time, while cleaning up an olive grove, I found a discarded tarp along with some other trash. It felt like the tarp still had some use left in it, so I turned it into a boat.
The wooden frame is made from tree clippings from wildfire prevention work. The only new materials are the zip ties, and even most of those are reusable ones. The rest can still be reopened and reused.

The boat worked surprisingly well. I had to fix a few issues once actually got it on the water and ended up adding some buoys as outriggers for stability, but after a few tweaks it did the job.

Paddled out to a small island and cleaned that up as well. No useful finds this time, but quite a bit of trash removed.

Next step for the little boat is a few improvements and hopefully a couple more summer trips. And once it's finally done serving as a boat, the tarp will probably end up as a cover for my solar water heating system.

If I can, I use the reusable ones, though.

I fill my bottle about halfway every evening and freeze it overnight. The next morning, I just top it off with fresh water.

Gives me cold water for a couple of hours without messing around with ice cubes and stuff.

Would probably work even better with an insulated bottle, but I guess that would make freezing it a little harder.

What are your heatwave hacks?

I think with any good cause, the trick is finding a pace that actually works for you.

Over the years I've settled on two ways of picking up trash.

The first one is spontaneous. If I already have a bag in my hand, if I'm already carrying something, or if I'm walking back to the car anyway, I just grab whatever trash happens to be along the way.

That's what happened here.

The second one is integrating cleanup into some kind of fun project or adventure. That's something I do quite a lot as well.

I've learned that neither "pick up everything all the time" nor large organized cleanups are really my style. But these two approaches are sustainable for me, and because of that I've managed to keep doing them for years.

Not a huge haul, just a small bag that otherwise would still be sitting there.

Not sure if this counts as MYOG or if it's more of a redneck tinkering project.

Anyways, I found an old tarp while cleaning up some nature and always wanted to build a boat.
My original dream was a bark canoe, but I figured the tarp was close enough.

To make it worthwhile, I gave myself the challenge of making it work well enough to paddle to a small island in the Mediterranean Sea and clean up some trash there, just to close the circle.

A few things I learned along the way:

- If you have stability concerns about a boat, it's probably worth addressing them early.
What saved me in the end was building a simple outrigger from a few discarded buoys.
For future boat projects, that's probably the route l'll take again, just a bit more streamlined.

- I never really liked polyurethane adhesives, but lately l've become a fan of the ones with a Shore hardness of around 40. The better quality ones are much less messy than I remembered. It ended up being incredibly useful for patching all the small holes in the tarp. My neighbour even uses the same stuff to repair shoes since it cures into something very similar to a rubber outsole. Another advantage is that it cures with moisture from the air, so a cartridge can remain usable for quite a while. Usually only the very tip hardens and can simply be pulled out.

Anyways, if anyone wants to see the thing float, l can also share a link.

Thanks for reading.
Cheers

Hey everyone,

Like probably everyone here, I’m convinced my videos are actually great. 😄

The problem is that I’ll never really know if nobody clicks on them in the first place. My biggest weakness by far is packaging. I have this terrible habit of coming up with titles that are so weirdly specific and niche that I think they’re brilliant, while everyone else is just left wondering what the hell is even supposed to be happening.

So I’d love some outside opinions, especially if this isn’t even your niche.

The video is about me finding an old discarded tarp, building a very questionable boat out of it, paddling it out to a small island, and cleaning that island from trash. That’s literally what happened.

I haven’t even finished looking through all the photos yet, so I’ll probably A/B test different thumbnails later. For now I’d mainly like to know which title would actually make you click if you had never heard of my channel before.

1. I Turned Trash Into a Boat
2. I Turned Trash Into a Boat to Clean an Island
3. I Built a Boat From Trash and Took It to Sea

Feel free to completely ignore the photo and just judge the idea. And if your honest reaction is “I wouldn’t click on any of these because I have no clue what the weird German guy is talking about,” that’s honestly the kind of feedback I’m looking for.

Thanks!

I lent some friends the keys to an old family holiday house I inherited from my grandparents.

Only after they had already left and locked the gate did I realise that I had somehow given away every single gate key. There wasn't even one left on my own keychain.

Sure, I could have climbed over the gate. But the property is pretty remote, I needed to get my car out, and it was so early that I didn't want to call and wake everyone.

So I sacrificed the replaceable T-shank wood saw in my Surge.

About half an hour later, after an unreasonable amount of tiny strokes, I had cut through the chain.

The funny part is that I'm currently renovating the place and normally have pretty much every tool imaginable there. Unfortunately, everything was stolen a while ago. I've since replaced almost all of it, except apparently a metal saw, which would have made this job a whole lot quicker.

So the wood blade got the job done instead.

It's completely dull now, but honestly I'm impressed. Both by the performance of the saw, the fact that I was patient enough to keep going for half an hour, and my own stupidity for not realizing my mistake earlier.

Has anyone ever come across a T-shank blade with wood teeth on one side and metal teeth on the other? That would be the perfect backup blade for the Surge.