A Mansion Sized Modular Fort Thingy...

Have you ever wanted to give someone the perfect gift? It happens to all of us at one time or another I suppose, but this time was different. Why? (I can hear you all thinking...) Well, this time was different because I had an outrageous idea, and I had the perfect skills and tools to pull it off. Little did I know...

My kids love building forts in the family room. Who doesn't? We pull the ottoman close the the couch, stack the couch pillows up, and throw a blanket over the whole mess. At their current sizes, all three kids can fit inside our makeshift "fort".... more like a micro fort... but there isn't room to spare, and they are right on top of each other, so the whining commences almost immediately.

So my brainstorm was a Mansion sized (compared to our standby) modular fort thingy, made out of wood cubes and dowels. Unfortunately, procrastination was my crime, and it definitely led to my sorrow on this one. I let the idea grow and mature for FAR too long :)

So, the Saturday before Greyson's 5th Birthday party, which was also to be Lincoln's 3rd Birthday party, I pulled out the man tools and got to work. Fortunately for me, I had already ordered the 1/2" oak dowels and picked up some 4" x 4" x 4' Fir Posts for the project.

I was so excited to set up my new planer. We bought it a while ago, but I hadn't needed it yet. I was apparently too excited to take any pictures, so I shot one of the planer once I was finished with it. (seriously recommend this Mikita Planer by the way!)

I don't have a jointer, and this was planned to be a project that didn't need to be anywhere close to perfection, so I planned to wing it - the fact that the posts weren't really that square wasn't a problem.

Once I planed the posts down to a mostly smooth finish (minor tear-out, not a big deal), I was on to the chop saw to cut the posts down into cubes. I set a stop so I could make repeatable cuts, and was soon happily on my way, chopping cubes like a pro. That was of course, until I noticed that the weight of the posts was knocking the stop back a tad every time it bumped it.

I reaffirmed my thoughts that we didn't need perfection here, because the way these blocks were fitting together wouldn't make a difference in the scheme of things. As much as I like my

woodworking to be perfect, I swallowed my pride and kept going.

My next project was to drill a 1/2" hole near the center of each side of the cubes. As I had 35 cubes, and each cube has 6 sides... 210 forstner bit drilled holes later I was pretty tired.

I called it a day. I think if I knew how much work it was going to take to get things ready for the kids I might have kept working. At least I had Greyson who loved helping me clean up. Of course, the big shop vacuum is a kid magnet!

The following Monday, I forced myself into the garage after a long day at work to make some progress. The Saturday party was looming closer, and I didn't want to be caught presentless.
Natalie requested that I round the edges on the cubes, as Greyson and Lincoln look at all things as weapons. I guess it is a boy thing. After several nights of sanding the edges of the cubes down, (and my hands incidentally...) I finished 31 of the 35 blocks. Since the first "build" was only going to use 16 I had mercy on myself and left the last 4 until some time in the future.

Next I set up the Lathe function of my ShopSmith, but I don't have any of the right chucks nor do I know how to use a lathe. I just used the lathe to spin the dowels while I sanded the ends to a basic level of fit. Once I had enough to build the first fort thingy, I left the rest of the dowels for later as well.

We did a dry run and everything went together fabulously.

We were all ready for the kids.

The day of the party arrived and I brought in all the parts. It was fun to see Greyson and Lincoln catch on and build the fort with me. We threw a king sized sheet over the whole thing and it was the perfect size.

In the course of that one day, the fort was used as a hospital, a pirate ship, a repository of buried treasure, a tower for a princess that needed saving, a perfect place to unwrap presents, and last but not least, we read the boys their bedtime stories with all 5 of us inside.

The crazy part is that I have enough dowels and cubes to expand our mansion sized modular fort thingy to more than twice its size. Regardless - mission accomplished. Now it only remains to be seen whether this toy has the wow factor to stay at the top of the favored toys list for more than 5 minutes... :)

We can only hope!