DIY Winter Blind

Greetings to all photographers new and old. Well winter for me is just around the corner. With it on the way I need to be prepared for heavy down pours and the occasional snow storm. Most of my blinds are fairly waterproof but they will only put up with so much water. That is why I decided to build a new winter blind. I already had one but it was in such disrepair after all these years that I decided to build a newer and better one. One that will keep me snug and dry and be exceptionally useful for photography. Lucky for me I spent a number of days over the last few winters shooting out of the blinds at the Sacramento national Wildlife Refuge Complex. I learned a few good tricks looking at how they built their blinds.

I started off by going to the lumber yard. There I picked up a free 4' x 4' pallette. Just asked nicely and they gave it to me as they get tons daily.

My materials list
(4) sheets 3/8" plywood 4' x 8'
(8) 1' x 2" x 8' fir
(8) 2" x 4" x 8'
(3) 1" x 6" tongue and groove pine
(3) hinges

For this project i would say that you need to have some carpentry skills. I'm not a skilled woodworker but I do know how to use basic tools. So if you aren't very confident with this sort of thing just get someone to help you who is. Give them some free beer, lunch or maybe a free portrait session. Just work out some sort of a trade.

The first step was to cover the pallette with plywood. Next I framed up the sides and the stood them up. Following that I added some framing and screwed the back on. The next and most complicated step is frame the roof. Then to keep it all nice and dry I screwed on the roof and then the sides of the top. One needs to get in and out of the thing so the next job was to frame up the door and put the hinges on. After that I cut in the opening in the door the camera window. Making the slider assembly wss next on the agenda as well as cutting a small piece of plywood for the slider itself. Whoo hoo!

The last part of the project was to cut the window openings in the sides and the back. I then cut one by twos to hold the sliders for three camera openings. The final step was to cut the tongue and groove into sliders.

Obviously that is a quick description for a couple of afternoons of work. In a following blog I'll cover how to build a shooting table.

Good luck and God bless,

chris