Well, Summer arrived officially a few days ago on Sunday, which was actually Father’s Day as well!
Last week, Janie and the kids moved up to the Summer house for the next 8 weeks, and I’m back to being a weekend warrior for a while. The days up there are precious few, and so I try to get up there as much as possible.
Since our place on the St. Lawrence river essentially IS the Canadian border, and I know that I’ll be going back every Summer, during the Winter months I often make plans to meet Canadian customers to exchange bonnets for restoration. I did that with one bonnet a couple Summers ago, but this year no less than THREE gentlemen convinced me to do so…
I also usually have my eye out for E-Type cars and parts for sale in upstate New York for the same reason, and this Spring I also managed to snag a complete Series 1 IRS assembly about halfway up there, and a little off to the eastern side of the state. So last weekend I left home in Maryland a day early and “swung by” Wappinger’s Falls, NY on the Hudson River to pick up my IRS.
As if that’s not enough, I also made plans to stop in and visit another customer just north of the pickup spot in Poughkeepsie, NY. He and his sons recently purchased an older commercial building, and are in the process of converting it into a fabrication and restoration facility alot like Monocoque Metalworks, actually – although on different cars. Their experience is in building Cobra replicas, and their plan is to build Cobra Daytona Coupes and also a replica of the Ford MK4 J-Car…
After all that, I headed up to camp, met the customer and grabbed the bonnet, then had a fun Father’s Day weekend with the family and headed home. Here are some photos – enjoy!
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- I left pretty early, and went up through Princeton, NJ, and then up through northern New Jersey – shown here…
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- I’m usually alone – this time I had a friend… This is my trophy whitetail deer from 1995 – which was just about the last year I hunted deer. This guy was from Steuben County, New York, and at the time, was the 145th largest whitetail in the record books – which had been going since 1896. We have this hanging up at camp, but since the house is Winterized each Winter, I bring him home every year and take him back up. 3 years ago, while loading him into the car at the end of the Summer, I put a tool bag into the back seat and shoved one of these antlers into my right hand about an inch. Yes – he got his revenge finally, and yes, I was in fact gored by a deer that had been dead for 17 years…
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- Crossing the Hudson River…
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- A shot of that bridge.
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- Stopped at a crossroads in Wappinger’s Falls, NY, I saw this quite colorful building that just said “Nesting” on it… Weird!
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- On the other side, I could see it said “Nesting Dolls” – see the one on the door – they are those dolls where they open in half and then a smaller one comes out, etc. You see some weird stuff on the road!
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- This was an interesting backwater leading out to the Hudson.
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- And I thought this was an interesting building at a crossroads very close to my destination…
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- …which was here! This house was built in 1864, and it’s restoration has been a LONG project for the owner – tackling a little bit at a time each year, among many other projects!
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- The IRS unit I had purchased was leftover from a parted out Series 1 E-Type that this gentleman had purchased about 20 years ago when he was restoring a ’69 2+2. he said he had a few other E-Type parts if I ws interested, and walked me out to this “garage” behind the house, that was actually OLDER than the house!
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- I love old buildings like this – the mystery of what’s inside is irresistable – and this one did not dissapoint! Hmmm…. what do we have here?…
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- Not one, but TWO Model A Fords! Among other treasures all over the place – there was lot’s of cool old stuff, including…
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- “some front suspension parts…” Needless to say, this also went home with me – this is GOLD, baby, and I was LOVING IT!!! And I can’t believe I don’t have a photo of these – I will try to add it, but I also snagged a pair of NOS, ORIGINAL BRITISH LEYLAND Series 2 front wings!
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- Here is an 8-foot, hydraulic squaring shear at Jim’s new shop that I could make good use of here! I weas envious of the machine, but NOT the moving chore they must have endured!
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- There was quite a collection of impressive machinery, and the building itself was HUGE! The possibilities of what they can – and will I’m sure – DO here are endless!
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- Another shot of that shear…
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- Now this was REALLY cool! This is a new, German-made fabrication and jigging table, complete with an entire clamping system!
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- Oh the possibilities!
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- Here are the jigs and fitting for it.
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- Back on the road, and headed back scross the Hudson at Poughkeepsie to head up to camp for the weekend!
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- This is a late 60’s Plymouth Sport Fury convertible. In the summer of 1989, just after I graduated high school, my father bought a 1968 just like this – it was black with a black interior and black top. That car was GIANT – it actually did not fit in our garage! It was a real bomb – in black primer, tired, and had a vice-grip inplace of one of the convertible top clamps – in other words, IT WAS GREAT! I drove it down to the beach one weekend with my girlfriend when the Jag was laid up with a stripped ring gear on the flywheel (long story…), and that was fun! I have never seen one since!
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- Friday was my day to pull the cover off and launch the boat, but mid-day. my customer came down from Montreal, Quebec and dropped off the bonnet for his ’63 FHC – plus some extra pieces he had picked up along the way as trading stock – which we GLADLY accept as an alternative payment method!
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- Later that afternoon, I got the boat launched for the season, and the next morning was absolutely beautiful, so we took a ride all through the Brockville narrows area, and spotted this “pirate ship” as the kids call it…
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- What a shot! It’s great up on the St. Lawrence, and I HIGHLY recommend a vacation in the Thousand Islands!
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- This thing was HUGE once we got up close, and I’m pretty sure it had a STEEL hull!
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- Early in the evening, I mowed some land that we own behind the house with my 1949 Ford 8N tractor – which I ALSO highly recommend! I purchased this tractor for sale on the side of the road down here in Maryland in the Spring of 2005 for $1,600, changed the oil, bolted on a 5-foot bush hog, and have been using it to mow this 3-acre field for 11 Summers without missing a beat! You can’t even buy a decent ride-mower for that, and this is one hell of a useful machine!.
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- Father’s Day was great – it rained for most of the day, and the kids and I played a long game of Monopoly in the afternoon on the screened-in porch. Just good old-fashioned fun up at our Summer Camp! Now it’s Monday AM, and I’m headed home, on the hands-free phone in the truck discussing what parts we need to form up with Brent, who is back down in Maryland opening up the shop. I gotta tell you, as you can see, E-Types (and just antique machinery in general…) are pretty much a 24×7 thing for me, but I LOVE THIS JOB!!!
