The Tar Heel Outdoorsman

 "Hard hard can it be?"  After hours of YouTube videos, I thought I had this whole boat painting thing figured out.   My Jones Brothers skiff was looking a bit faded.  The 20+ year old cream/off-white gel coat was in need of some major cutting and buffing, and there were some cracks and gouges and an errant screw hole for a swim ladder only filled in with silicon sealant.  Just the conditioning and buffing would be a major undertaking.  On top of that my ablative bottom paint, that wears off on its own, that I'd done myself, was starting to look rough.   Then, I'd stumbled across a picture on Facebook, of someone who'd painted the same hull as mine with the Alexseal brand topside paint with their "roll" additive, which smooths out the paint after rolling it onto a surface.  I was mesmerized with the pictures online, drawn to doom scrolling online forums like Hull Truth, and others.  It looked too good to be true.  As anyone who...

If you're a bit too much into gear, like me, let me show you a relatively cheap and easy way to organize and store all your stuff.  And maybe it'll even allow you a nice platform to sleep on during your outdoor pursuits, when even the dirtiest "roach motel" with a haze of perpetual cigarette smoke is miles away, or if the Holiday Inn isn't in your budget at the moment.   There are companies that make these type of truck bed storage systems, such as Decked, etc.  However, this is a cheaper, and simpler alternative, though maybe not perfectly waterproof or perfectly thief proof.  Still though, it's better than an open truck bed, with gear and tools and spent shotgun shells and Hardee's biscuit wax paper from an early morning wood duck hunt and who-knows-what-else strewn about in a homogenous mix and you can't find whatever it is you need that's somewhere in there.   If you're into gear, there's also a further chance, like me, you enjoy testin...

Who wants to build some big ol' sawhorses?  This is the first of a few DIY projects for those of you, like me, who are always starting another project, another project to better do something---to more efficiently store gear, to make outdoor pursuits a bit more pleasant, or in this case, make your truck a truck again for whatever "truck" activities life sometimes requires. If you've got a camper shell, you probably got it for the practicality.  Your truck is now essentially a "SUV," with all the extra storage, double the storage than those flat "toppers" that sit level with the bed rails, storage protected from the rain, wind, and a bit safer from the opportunistic thief who eyes those tools or hunting gear in your open truck bed.   However, sometimes you want to use your truck for "truck stuff."  That's really why you have a truck after all, isn't it?  Hauling some trash to the dump, moving a couch across town, the list goes on.  ...