I made a thing that isn’t made of wood or metal.  It’s an insulating hatch for the attic stairs, and it’s made of rigid foam paneling, hot glue and duct tape.  So long as a hot glue gun counts as a hand-tool, it was made with only hand tools (mostly a marking knife and a rip cut panel saw).  The project came out pretty great, if I do say so myself, even if it’s not super pretty.  It took about 2 hours total to knock together.  Had I a table saw, it would have likely been about 20 minutes.

I even managed to use the existing rabbets to great effect.

I’ve spent the last couple of days figuring out how to describe the process.  How the skills of hand tool woodworking translate to more than just furniture making.  But it’s just a foam box to keep the heat in, that needed to be a certain size from a limited amount of materials.  So really any maker skills would apply.  With a little thought, though, I was able to use only two panels with very little remaining scrap when finished.  Three panels would have been easier, though resulting in much more waste.

And it fits.

This is another one of those fixgasm projects: little effort for out-sized effect.  It’s markedly warmer in my house now that the hatch is in place.  So there’s that.

It’s that time of year in New England that’s great for around the house projects (like the inverse of spring cleaning).  My plan for the next couple of weeks is to hang closets, organize things, rearrange my workshop, that kind of stuff.

Will keep everyone posted.

JPG