COOKSHACK

About nine years ago I got hold of (for the labour of removal) several hundred 1"x 8" rough sawn six foot spruce fence boards, and about twenty 4x4 cedar posts about seven feet long. Since then I have used this material in various ways around the place but, on perusal of my junk pile (one of them), I discovered that some of the boards were starting to go bad on me. When I had to put more than half of them on the brush pile for my annual solstice bonfire, I decided the rest should be put to a more useful purpose, to wit, a structure to house cooking facilities at the Manor.

My sister, an inveterate antique hunter, gave me an old cast iron box stove which she had picked up in Heinz Creek and had used as a coffee table for several years. I took the thing apart and put new bolts in and had myself a sturdy little cookstove, rusty and with a few cracks here and there, but very useable. My father, a genius with a stinger, welded some of the cast parts back together,(very tricky, welding cast iron). The stove is an Acme 31a, patented 1886, and was designed to be taken down into eight major components which would nest together for shipment in a 40"x24"x8" box. (A mental back-engineering and wild guess combo exercise, there.)

Some serious pencil calculation showed me eight cedar posts which could be used at a length of 82", and enough good lumber in the 1x8's to get four feet out of each one. Swift mental math said an eight foot by eight foot shack was in order. I built on the level ground about twelve feet from the Manor, had the walls up in a couple of hours then had to go hunting some 2x4's for the roof trusses. I put the roof peak at 40" above ceiling because I had some twelve foot 2x4 (cut in half gives a six foot run of roof with an eight inch eave)and this left a child height loft above the stove area. Three left over 5/16" OSB panels sheeted in the roof and the peak was covered with an old piece of aluminum siding* bent to fit. Some smaller pieces of left over OSB covered the gable ends (I screwed these on in case I want to remove them to improve ventilation in the summer).

On hand in my recycle area (junk pile) I had several five foot sections of furnace vent pipe and two 5" elbows. On hand in the stove I had a six inch stove pipe hole and exactly zero 6" to 5" adapters. Think, thank, thunk and Mr. Maxwell House to the rescue, guess he knew my problem because he built his 1 kg. can to fit a 6" stove pipe hole. Some quick work with the tin snips, some judicious forming around a piece of 5" well casing (which I always keep around just in case). some hay wire**, and la voila, an adaptor. Up five feet, elbow, two feet through the wall and an old furnace vent cap (to prevent scorching), elbow, and another four feet into the air. Haywire here and there to keep it all in place and we are cooking with wood.

I bolted a couple of old lumber wagon wheels to the public side of the building and arranged some bits and pieces to give it a chuckwagon look, to the imaginative eye, and stood back and admired.

Return to The Manor
Return to Me

* I can't say with any certainty that this is or is not the one that killed the partridge, but somebody should have told that bird that if you want to fly through a house your odds are slightly improved if you aim for a door or window, preferably open.
[(BB+b/0)+(V+)+Al = (S!)+(ph)].
Big bird + nothing on the brain + high speed + aluminum siding = loud noise + partridge heaven. Do the math.
I have a pretty good supply of 12" wide siding (acquired in the usual way), and have found a multitude of uses, from signs to downspouts, for the stuff, none of which have included putting it on the side of a house.

**The handyman's real secret weapon, no matter what Red Green may say. Some day I will write a monograph on the multiple uses of this wonderful invention, or maybe a tone poem.