Battery Charger





Battery not shown as it was in the camera so I could take this picture.



Well I wouldn't necessarily recommend this method to the average person and I'm certainly not going to show it to Olympus when I collect on my warranty for my 'Tough' Camera which despite all the fancies takes horrible pictures, is prone to light issues on the lens, doesn't handle bright or contrast at all, has horrible color rendition and has perhaps the worst battery of any electronic device I've ever owned including cell phones, I do show it if only because of the level of ingenuity, MacGyveresk and cleverness which it demonstrates and for which I'm not only know for but proud to agree with!

Not only that but I love my run on sentences!

The makings of an aftermarket battery charger--Take four dead 1.5w batteries which I assumed had about 1watt each since they would no longer run my gps, gang them together to make roughly 4 watts which though not enough to charge 3.7watt min battery designed to max at 4.2 watts. Sure enough I was able to get one more day of photos because of this nifty little gadget. Wire compliments of Doc found under a hut and the magazine left for reading material and the duct tape from Michael. Thanks to all who contributed!

Architecture, Life and Google Earth.

This image on Google earth caught my eye while perusing New Zealand's south island. It reminds me of the sophisticated type of site plan you get when you work with your surroundings. When the rivers and roads, the views and the sun all inform your site and your buildings.

A wonderful site plan, so architectural it looks like a rendering, but is an actual site along Tepako Canal Road on the South Island of New Zealand.

Alvar Aalto was a true master of integrating buildings with their surroundings and I have to thank Kieth Loftin (UCD graduate Architecture professor) for passionately explaining such things to me early in my design career and for forcing his students to draw our site and buildings with a single continuous line over and over until we generated these types of believable arrangements where the topographic lines and the buildings work as one.

Alvar Aalto Site Plan

Of particular note is the shadow line created by the formal tree plantings. It's geometry and massing set the stage for the relationship towards existing portions of the built environment, including the old farms and roads, the new roads and canal, and the surrounding fields that are neither split nor contiguous.

Mt Adams on the PCT, 2011

It is this type design which I've been aspiring too create for 20 years, but have found myself burdened with the details of running a business which continues to displace daily tasks farther and farther away from design.  Recently inspired by hiking 285 miles of Washington along the Pacific Crest Trail (September 2011) coupled with a need for a total life overhaul, I'm very seriously considering thru hiking New Zealand on their newly completed (2011) Te Araroa trail.

Te Auaroa trail, New Zealand.

The trail is 3000 km (over 1800 miles) running from the Northern most tip of the North Island at Cape Reinga all the way to the southern most part of the South Island terminating at a Bluff on Foveaux Straight.  My intent is to hike the whole way this winter (it's summer down there!) and then come back mid April and hike the entire PCT. 

dbBrad on the PCT with nothing but a backpack and happy!

Design Inspired by Nature

When I look upon the marvels of this planet, I see dwellings. Dwellings that mimic the landscape, draw upon it's lessons and accent it's features. Humans within the landscape, living in the cliffs and under the hills, and up in the sky.

Nature inspires me to dream of buildings that employ crystallization like rocks, structural systems like the Xylem in a tree or the exoskeleton of an insect, buildings that filter light and clean the air like a rain forest or that store their energy in complex starches like the tail of a lizard or a Yam.

Above all however, is the concept that the buildings work with the earth, within the ecosystem which it resides and utilizing the local features available to it. Historically, human development has done exactly the opposite.

A quick study done years ago while getting my Masters in Architecture from UCD. The premise was to take a complex idea derived from nature and graphically represent it in a clear, concise drawing.

Most likely I was inspired by:

a) my love of Structures I and II and Mechanical Engineering

b) the value of analyzing, simplifying, developing and representing (graphically) developed during Precedents by Mark Gallertner,

3) The teaching's of Keith Loftin in a design studio who instilled in me a process of design so simply I'm only now truly understanding how it has helped me develop my own design process which has further develpment into my own language and style, identifiable amongst other architects works as 'oh, that's dbBrad's work.'

A green wall system using old futons and fallen branches.

The GWS (Green Wall System)
and futon recycling project-another dbBrad original

Recycled steel left over from another project, discounted/damaged hog wire panels doubled up and off set to make a 2x2 grid, old door hinges, fallen branches and some door hinges complete the list of materials.

Cutting and fitting the panels.  Note the offset 4x4 panels to make a more dynamic 2x2 grid, perfect for moss and plants.

The simple frames are made of hog wire and 3/4" angle iron.  Four little welds in the corners and about a dozen tacks between the hog wire mesh and the frame complete the basic panel.

Welding the WWM (Welded Wire Mesh) to the angle iron frame.

Recycled door hinges are welded at the bottom so I can open it and maintain it.  I weld right through the holes and fill them up which makes for a quick strong nice looking weld.

The panels are hinged for assembly and major re plantings. Gravity and time can be problematic with moss, earth and decaying wood so with time will settle out and need re-doing, but it's far from a quick process to take them back down.

There are no baffles inside my wall. It's 8' tall and the mossy branches I collected which run vertically and fit into the corrugations of my container. The remaining space is filled with sawdust and mulch.

And then the recycled futon is installed to act as a drainage plane for the container, a membrane to help support the material and keep it from sluffing and my hope is to provide great water storage and growing medium for the moss.

Zip strips were used to hold the logs to the mesh.  the futon was just tacked at the upper corners to hold it in place during assembly.

The panels get tipped up and bolted to carriage bolts which I welded right to the container.  Four bolts will hold it tight and ensure it cant fall of during transport.

The moss panel being hoisted into place on the side of my container/shop.

There is a gutter running along the entire top edge of the container.  This is to shed water that drains off the roof from dripping onto my tools and work space, but is also the support for the awnings which are welded to the outer edge of the channel.  This serves to hold them out for the side of the container, allowing for the thickness of the moss panel as well as to direct water to the panels where it waters the moss.

The finished moss wall panel

My primary objective with the container is to create a great shop.  My goal with the green wall panels is to create an interesting container and to explore the concepts of living buildings that are affordable.   I've got a lot of work to do yet, but it's looking good so far.

Squalicum Beach Table, SOLD!

This is one of my favorite BAPOWS ever. In fact I may have dreamed up my acronym for 'Bad Ass Piece of Wood' as I trudged this 200 pound, round edged and awkward chunk of wood down the beach to my little truck. With all the odd and heavy objects I've salvaged from so many places, I don't remember which of my friends was there to help me with this particular challenge, but I'm sure they remember.

Squalicum Beach Table at the Fire House in Langley with 2 Callapaters (Callahan Platter) and a Bowlahan (Bowl Callahan)

It came off a beach in Bellingham, undoubtedly a scrap from the decommissioned Georgia Pacific mill down at the wharf. It's a toxic site that the City of Bellingham was given, but they've also inherited the mess.

From a nice Seattle Times article about the history, function and closing of the GP Mill.

I fear the burden of cost will go to the taxpayers while the benefits of development rights will go to private developers who already have enough money and the potentially wonderful site will become private residences with little value to the public. I hope I'm proven wrong!

The simple, crisp and timeless design of the Squalicum Beach Table by dbBrad.

But back to the BAPOW, which once dropped from the little wonder truck I used to own, sat in my yard for over 5 years. It was a bench for a while, then a step, then a post, and now a table. Each time I moved it I contemplated the table I knew it was to be, but it took me a long time to resolve the design.

Detail showing the Pipe connection to the PAPOW on the Squalicum Beach Table

I knew from the get go that the half holes in the ends should be used as part of the connection, but never really knew how to make the connection. Where to screw, where to bolt, how to minimize welding and fabrication and above all how to create a connection that was true to the found object as well as the table's legs-to-be.

Close up of the corner of the Squalicum Beach Table elegantly displaying it simplicity

I didn't even know for years what the legs were to me made of, but because I always had a chunk of pipe around, I would perpetually fit one in the ends of the wood and wonder about how to hold the two pipes tight enough to support the weight of the table.

The base of thje Squalicum table, Beautiful even by itself, has no fasteners. The top gets set in on one end, then I jumped on the other, distorting the shape of the bottom tube enough to allow the two piece of channel to move about 1" apart so the other end could index into the half hole which came as part of the BAPOW top.

At some point moving from Bellingham, the BAPOW crossed paths with a large chunk of metal I had salvaged from Skagit River Steel and Recycling for the FrEdLey Project but didn't get used. It happened to be just long enough for two legs. In fact the table is the height that it is because I only wanted to cut the channel once, respecting the materials while creating no waste and honoring simplicity.

dbBrad furniture on display during the Whidbey Island Artist Tour.

Then the Artist tour came along. I was Still working on the Lois Remodel and Lois, an amazing photographer, was gracious enough to let me show some furniture in her driveway. This was one of the 5 pieces I managed to finish up for the tour.

Moch up of a 4'x8' table with glass over the woven wire mesh. The legs, still being itterated in my head, but probably something along the lines of an elegant pillar of concrete post war, with nothing but steel rising from a beautiful base.

And then Callahan and I decided to mix our wares, and they moved into Callahan's Fire House in Langley. And now, the Squalicum Beach Table has sold for $2300 and was shipped last Friday to Chicago, where it will reside in an entry of a house I hope to one day see. I sure no matter where it is, the table will be happy with a life much more promising than that of a beach or a scrap yard. I know the new owners will enjoy this piece for decades to come.

My favorite view of the Squalicum Beach Table, showing the simple design with no connections of any type. It could be called a cantilevered trestle table perhaps or a half round friction based cantilever supported Bapow, but never in my life have a seen a table that had no screws, bolts or any type of connection between the legs and the Top. A dbBrad original.

Callahans Glass and dbBrads Furniture...

...like peanut butter and chocolate in a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup: two great things that go great together!

dbBrad's furniture in Callahans FireHouse with the doors open, as seen from second street, Langley WA.

The following dbBrad pieces are available for sale at Callahan's Firehouse in Langley, WA.

Callahan can't keep his art on this table, The Captains Table, because it sells so fast.

The Two Legged Table by dbBrad shown with accessory Callaplater (Callahan's Platter)

SOLD Squalicum Beach Table SOLD

College Book Shelves

I'm thrilled to be working with Callahan and have the opportunity to display some of my unique, handmade, one of a kind furniture designs in what I think is one of the most vibrant, economically sustainable, community/experience based retail shop in Langley.

Containerations

CONTAINERATIONS: Modifying a container to create a mobile, self contained, secure work shop.

another dbBrad original design.

My container, a Genstar, on the bottom of a pile.  It took ConGlobal about 10 minutles to get it free and place it on my trailer!

After an exhausting search of overpriced metal boxes on Craigslist, I finally decided a steel shipping container, not a truck box, tent, trailer or shack, was the right structure for what I needed.

The new dbBrad container and trailer, fresh off the boat!

I have lots of large tools which I need on my job sites for the type of work I do, but I've grow tired of moving them.  Not only does it take the crew a whole day to move tools, but additional time to get them powered up, to repair damage and to get them tuned up and working properly.  And hoisting 800lb tools into the back of a truck is dangerous.  This container made into a shop but which is portable is my solution of how to keep big tools dry, safe, near by and ready to use.

The hoist and winch of the trailer for loading and unloading the container, with new heavy duty hold downs and stops.

The container was purchased from ConGlobal in Seattle.  Doug DeVries, the sales manager, was accommodating, helpful and knowledgeable. It's been an interesting learning curve about the different types and lengths of containers and the parts and fittings used to fix and secure them and the different products available to customize them, such as weld on windows, nifty little vents, and locking/attaching devices of which there are several.

My entire metal shop is mounted to the door so I can open it all the way and keep the metal dust away from my wood working tools and supplies.

However, most of the containerations I've seen have lacked in architectural detailing and even function for that matter.  The opportunity to do something wonderful with a container that can be stacked 9 high and hold 24,000lbs is amazing, but so often they are little more than dark small spaces with 2x4 walls framed on the inside.  Why use the container I say if you're not going to utilize its structural properties.

A finished Green Wall System Panel; an experiment in containerations, living walls and futon re-use

I wont be stacking, cantilevering or tricking out the interior, but I'm using the container as a structural shell, and I'm giving it architectural detailing in an attempt to create high function and aesthetic.

My 12" table saw on the fold down door under the awnings in progress.

So for me, if you're going to purchase all the steel and structure that come with a 5,000lb steel box, do something dynamic with it.  I'm using the sturdy frame to bolt my large heavy tools to; using the corrugated panels filled in with wood for structural decking; using the metal channels around the bottom to weld hinges to; using the metal walls to weld shelf supports, brakes, vices and tools too; and using the metal as a backdrop for a green wall.

dbBrad green wall system, another experiment in alternative construction methods.

Recycling the old is part of making way for the new.

Having intent to recycle isn't enough. It has to get done. Sometimes that means sorting and making an extra pile, or going to a recycling center before the dump, or running an ad on craigs list, or calling around to see what thrift stores are accepting. It also means not letting the item sit in the rain until a home is found.

Brad Hankins of dbBrad happily dissassembling this rack of toxic, busy and boring particle-board shelves.

These white, busy, boring and less than healthy particleboard (melamine) shelves were creating a health issue for a chemically sensitive client with a very accute olfactory sense. Joan made a commitment to her new home to remove these shelves and install a heatlhy, cleaner shelves of a more contempporary nature, but not if it meant a trip to the landfill. J. Benedetti, an avid thrifster (dbBrad word meaming to be hip in the art of thrift stores) had already made arrangements for the shelves to be taken at WAIF.

The shelves temporarily stored until WAIF was ready for them.

Like everything, it's always more complicated than it seems. Though the arrangements had been made, it still took two weeks and a barrage of e-mails and phone messages before WAIF and dbBrad would connect and make the exchange. Ultimately I had to store them in a shed until WAIF had room and then load and deliver them. As a result, I got to smell the off gassing for myself. The cedar cabin used for storage had the rich smell of fresh cedar when we moved them in, but as little as two weeks later, the air in the room became stale and smelled of glues, formaldehyde and chemicals.

Brad Hankins gives the Benedetti shelves the usual 'climb it and see how strong it is' test!

It's comforting to know that other people, concerned enough that finding a home for what they don't want, is as important as bringing home what they do want. In this case clean air, timeless design, no toxicity, and a clean contemporary look to display her favorite thrifster finds were motiation for the owner to "exchange" her old shelves for new shelves!

J. Benedetti and Brad next to the steel shelves under construction

The pencil edge detail on both the glass and the steel really make these shelves crisp, and the lack of any visible supports for the adjustable shelves gives it that extra refined look.

Benedetti glass being delivered

BAPOW, Introducing the Flintstones Table!!

From Bellingham wharf came a large piece of wood. It had no home, no one wanted it, no one could load it and it was destined to end up floating in the bay.

Beautiful Fir 5x5's stacked on the BAPOW

The BAPOW (bad ass piece of wood) came free (except for the 3 people, 2 hours each to load it!) along with the purchase of the 5x5's from the Bellingham Wharf Deconstruction of the GP Mill. This huge square log weighs about 800 lbs and measures 14" x 26".

The Flintstones Table Early on.

From the living gate project I had two 30" steel disks left over with no home. I decided to combine the unused steel and wood and, low and behold, about 9 hours later a table is born.

Fred Flintstones and Barny Rubble's!?

It's called the Flintstones Table because of its prehistoric nature and because it was made mostly from rubble!

Bapow Table Handing from truck.

To move it to Langley was fairly simple, we just tipped it up on it's wheels, backed the truck under it and with a single cable were able to support it mostly hanging out the back of the truck. Unloading was a snap.

Whidbey Commons new draw for their lovely outdoor seating area being backed into place.

It's now at it's new home in Langley, Washington, located off the alley between First and Second Streets behind Whidbey Commons. Centrally located for all to enjoy!

Flintstones Table at Whidbey Commons Coffee House.