Patriotic Coleman Stove
by Kurt Huber | Published 5/28/2017
A while ago the Mrs. bought me home a grungy, rusty Coleman Stove (a 413). I thanked her and put it in a pile of things I might get to one day, but recently inspiration hit. After some elbow grease and a wire brush removed most of the rust and dirt, I busted out the masking tape and the spray paint. The result is what you see here.
First I did the top, just trying to do I pretty accurate American flag...
On the rest of the case I just went a little more artsy, but tried to keep with the theme...
OK I did not do the little stars on the flag with masking tape.. Found the almost appropriatly sized stars at the craft store and laid them out on the proper grid. ( http://www.vexman.net/flagspec.htm )
And I made it so that it "flew" correctly when the stove is open.
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Custom Camp Box
by Kurt Huber | Published 4/23/2017
Recently a customer who bought a Camping Kitchen Box contacted me with a request. Could I make a companion storage box? After some hemming and hawing on my part, I agreed to come back with some ideas. The final result is displayed below.
I do get a lot of requests asking about customizing the Camping Kitchen Box. The writer loves the idea of the Camping Kitchen Box, but they want to know if I can change some of the dimensions If they want to make it taller or shorter that is easy, but if they want to change the width or depth , that is more difficult. For the top and bottom, I use some special tooling that is not easy to change, so to change width or depth I would have to recreate it. I don't usually say no to special requests, but when it comes to width and depth the price I will quote is usually more than folks are willing to pay.
Note that on this box, the standard top and bottom pieces are used (the top having a hole of course), so I got to use most of my usual tooling, and the customer got a reasonably priced solution.
If you are Interested in something custom I am always willing to listen.
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Headlamp Lamp Shade
by Kurt Huber | Published 10/16/2016
When I switched plastic colors (to neutral) I took a picture with it lit up from the inside (inspired by this). I started thinking about making a lantern / lampshade for my headlamp out of some of the corrugated plastic. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts. I came to the conclusion that it was the wrong material for the job, but I was not ready to give up on the idea. It turns out that I had the perfect material just sitting in my Camping Kitchen Box... plastic chopping mats. After trying some more complicated designs, I ended up with a dead simple cuboid design.
I am not planning on selling these, as they are very easy to make. The cutting diagram is below and the video shows how easy it is.
Everything you need to make your own Headlamp Lamp Shade
Materials
- Dollar Tree 11 X 14 Flexible Chopping Mat You get 2 for a dollar. These are thinner than your typical cutting sheet but just right for our purposes.
- 5/8 inch Velcro dots
Tools
- Pencil
- Box Cutter
- Straight Edge
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New Color for the Camping Kitchen Box
by Kurt Huber | Published 9/25/2016
The Camping Kitchen Box is now being made in white...or is white the absence of color? If you want to get really technical, it is not even white, it is "Opaque". Why the change? Well no one has ever said "Gee I really love that blue".. since it was time to order a new batch of plastic so I decided to mix it up.
While I am showing off the new box I figured it would be a good time to take a look back at the previous versions of the box, which are pictured below. The first version of the Camping Kitchen Box was made out of yellow (or maybe beige?) plastic. It was very innovative, but there is always room for improvement. The big changes between the yellow box and blue box pictured below were to the top and bottom which now feature one piece construction and and are essentially mounted upside down from their previous orientation. Both of these changes made the box more structurally sound.
During the time I was using blue plastic, the design has evolved some more. The big changes were using one piece of plastic to form the back sides and doors, and a new drawer design makes them more functional and aesthetically pleasing. The current white box is being built the same as the last blue one made, but rest assured the improvements will continue.
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