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N9BOW

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  1. N9BOW

    My Life

    By N9BOW,

    I grew up in North West NJ, Sussex County. I'm an Appalachian Mtn. Born and Raised Country boy. I'm not from Joisey  
    Proud son of the Skylands region of NJ , near the border of NY, NJ and Pennsylvania in the Kittatinny Mountains.


    My family has history as some of the first inhabitants of the Milbrook Village in the Delaware Water Gap. A pretty popular tourist location with one room schoolhouse, black smith shop and all the trappings of the old world. http://www.njskylands.com/hsmillbrookvillage
    My Nanna, Pop-Pop and family were some of the initial inhabitants of what is now National Park...Part of the Tocks Island Project. The Gov. gave life rights to land owners and the plan was to flood the region for a giant reservoir.... Thankfully this beautiful land never was flooded but we lost family legacy and land. I will take you through this journey of my life and family as I have time and reflect on the things that made me who I am as an outdoorsman and naturalist. My hope is this will give some insight into who I am and what I stand for and the foundation of my youth and the cornerstone of my psyche. In short I have a love of the outdoors instilled by my Grandfather and Father. It's a journey I hope you will take with me as I relive the escapades and moments that are at time cringeworthy, funny and worthy of personal growth and the love of all things in the Natural world. Check back as I up date and record my life.
     
    Pop-Pop (Joseph Lowick..."Joe")

    It's the mid 1970's - Dog days of summer have passed. Damp fall weather is setting in on the Ridge "Kittatinny Mtn Range in Sussex County NJ".
    Been raining a couple days now.... but Pop-Pop said on his weekly visit to say hi (watch the fights on the Cable TV)........ "You come help in the garden and help me get prepped for the Indian corn" I got a surprise for ya. Then he unceremoniously spat in his hills bros. coffee can. A process repeated all day every day as evident by the stain on his white short whiskered chin.
    Surprises always meant Eel fishing the Delaware River with a drop line. It also meant a stop at the store to pick up pickled pigs feet, more RedMan for Pop-Pop, and Yoo-Hoo for me.
    If we  were lucky and got an early enough start, we got to bring the pitchforks and hunt for baby Lamprey Eel. (Pop-Pop would scoop the pitchfork into a brush/twig pile known to house and protect the young Lamprey Eel from fish and other predators and scoop it out onto the embankment where the fun ensued) Lamprey Hunt = A fast reflex game great for kids catching the squiggling young lamprey before it can get back in to the creek. We hunted the feeder creeks for about an hour looking for Lamprey nests as we called them (not allowed any more). If we got skunked we reverted to use the garden worms we dug up before leaving to head over the mountain.

    I can only remember doing this twice growing up because it was a rare occasion.. Other times we'd just pick Indian artifacts along the Delaware in the plowed up fields being made ready for winter wheat
    Anyway - Pop-Pop didn't disappoint. We got to go Eel fishing but the real surprise would come later.......My first time working the Eel Weir. Pop-Pops commercial Eel Harvesting Operation. 
     
    The Weir 
    Hawkeye and Pierce just had a back and forth that caused a belly laugh with Dad and I to close out the night's episode of MASH when I heard the front door creek open to Pop-Pop saying his customary entry....No-Bah-Dee Home!
    He appeared out of the dark entry into the glow of the TV light spilling from the living room into the dark foyer. "YOU READY????" Now,.... I wasn't sure what ready meant...I had been Eel fishing that Saturday and ABC's Wide World Of Sports wasn't for another couple days. So it wasn't "Ready" for Boxing and Howard Cosell and the fights we loved to watch.. Always got a kick out of hearing Pop-Pops commentary on the fights... even more so then Howard's...which is saying a lot. He said get your play coat.....
    I obliged...I didn't ask Mom or Dad...apparently didn't have too....it was a given this was ok...I guess cause they never said... school night or you'll catch a death of cold or none of that silly stuff.
    Off we went....Just down the road from the house at the bottom of the hill was the Paulinskill and the town Gristmill

    that just so happened to have the most fabulous Eel Weir I have ever seen or come to know... I've seen Many.
  2. N9BOW
    I took the day off today to get a long weekend.

    Plan to take the Excalibur out on the water and try out the new Lehre 5hp outboard and the new transom configuration. I hope this runs well. I have seen issues with water coming up close to the motor on lots of the Scadden toons out there but with the Excalibur XX I have the rear cross section of pontoon where you sit when you don't have the frame installed, so I hope that keeps the water surge from the toons down. We'll see!

    Eventually I will cut the cargo plate down to fit inside new transom configuration. This should all but eliminate the water if any that may want to surge up around the motor.





  3. N9BOW
    Transom design for my Scadden Excalibur XX with the two person LaserX frame. I didn't want to use the regular cargo plate that comes with the frame due to it not being wide enough or strong enough to handle my 5hp lehre propane motor. I decided to Mod the second person frame section and make it modular take down configuration. This way I could make a transom that was completely attached to the first frame when I want to run this inflatable in zodiac orientation and then reassemble back to the two person when I want to run with another person.
     

     
    To start: I ordered 4  8" pieces of aluminum tubing from North Fork Outdoors that they use to connect their sections, so I could pin my cuts back together (it turns out I had to turn down the 4 sections (outer most parts of frame) as they were a different thickness tubing). luckily the local weld shop had some tubing they could turn down for me.
    I purchased 16 tab locks to hold the sections in place (5/8ths I believe).
    next I marked lines across the top of the tubing where I was going to make my cuts so i had registration marks to line back up after cutting.
     

    After cutting the frame pieces apart I drilled each section (starting with the small foot piece) and worked my way from the final transom assembly back out to the two person original frame. This was pretty tricky. The important thing to remember was drill and pin one hole at a time and think about what you are doing before any drill holes are made otherwise you could end up with pins and tab locks that dont match up. Fortunately it worked out great and no mis matches.

     
     
     
    I then had a block of aluminum welded to the seat section, which I turned upside down so I had room to screw tighten the motor and make sure the new transom block was not too high for my short shaft motor.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
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