I love discovering a blog like Paul Elkins’. He’s an obsessive designer and tinkerer who’s made all sorts of bikes, trikes, boats, trailers, tree houses, stoves out of mail boxes, and even mobile homes for birds (see above). He writes of his life-long passion for designing and building:
I’ve been doing this idea hatching thing since I was a kid. I received my first serious sketch pad on Christmas morning when I was 8 years old. Each day I’d think of something weird and sketch it out, and every year, another book would appear under the tree. I have at least 26 of these sketch books now, filled with hours and hours of figuring and redrawing, making lists of pros and cons on an idea. Many hours were spent drawing cartoons and the human figure. These sketches led to paintings and other forms of art, but that’s for another future blog. My real passion was and is design, with subject matter varying from bicycles, trikes, cars, boats helicopters, submarines, home design or whatever happens to cross my mind. Each idea has to be original, or an elaboration of something I’ve seen or read about. At 16 I built my first recumbent bicycle which was never photographed or completed. Several other recumbents were made as time went by. It wasn’t until I was divorced and started to enter my 40’s that most of what you’ll see here really started to materialize. Some of these ideas have miraculously worked out great and I’ve spent many hours enjoying them, while others have not. For the ones that did, I have pride in knowing that my mind and hands had a part in their creation and existence. For the ones that didn’t, I chalk them up as a lesson.
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