Wood creations are benefiting a Jay man and many others.
JAY – Nookie Boivin never makes two wooden trucks that are the same.
What started as therapy when he hurt his back in 1987 now is a way to help himself and others. Instead of having pain, he is focused on something else.
He builds a multitude of items, including tractor-trailer trucks he sends around the world to children with cancer or donates to other worthy causes, such as the Maine Special Olympics.
Boivin initially bought a wooden truck. Then he spent many hours fine-tuning truck designs, at times with the help of his grandson Sean.
One of his early trucks sits on a trailer with colored tacks poked in it for the lights. Nowadays, pieces of wood are attached to the truck and trailer to resemble lights.
Boivin’s workshop includes small bins of wood pieces in round and peg form. These are among the shapes he buys in southern Maine for the items he builds.
Boivin picked up a curved piece of wood Monday and placed it in what was fast becoming a truck cab. Once he set the new piece where it was suppose to go, it looked like a seat.
Then he fashioned a steering wheel out of a small peg and a round wooden button. The nose of the truck was on a workshop table, complete with a grill.
He put together another peg and small round wood cap, which became a horn that would go on top of the cab.
Behind the seats, Boivin said, he would build bunks and cabinets. Then he’d build the trailer to carry either pulpwood or a box.
A tractor-trailer that he donated to an auction for the Special Olympics had flags and wooden mud flaps. It took him 70 hours to build.
“Gluing takes a long time,” Boivin said.
By the time he’s done with the truck he making now, Boivin said it would be 34 inches to 36 inches long.
Boivin picked up a piece of scrap wood, which he had tried scoring to pre-make grills for the cabs.
They didn’t come out quite the way he wanted them to, he said, so he used parts of the wood for another project.
A stack of four long pieces of wood were clamped together on a shelf so they wouldn’t warp. Those will be used to build four more trucks, Boivin said.
The items he donated this year to Special Olympics brought in $315. “What’s good,” Boivin said, “is it’s going to a good cause.”
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