One More Tool I Must Have

I saw something very cool at Northern Tool today, while buying a jack I don’t need. FOR TEN DOLLARS MORE THAN THE INTERNET PRICE. They had a tiny sandblaster. The brand name is “Badger.” It has a little jar on it that holds about a pint of sand. I’m wondering if this would be a handy thing to have.

On the one hand, I’ve been intimidated by sandblasting, because I don’t want to buy a cabinet. On the other, who cares about a pint of media ending up in their yard?

I wonder how big a job this thing will handle.

I bought a Northern Tool T-shirt. It says “Borrowing is for the weak.” They had a poster I liked. It said, “There is no shame in not owning tools, just like there is no shame in holding your wife’s purse for a minute.”

You Need Many Copies

I bought a new low-profile jack because my old one won’t fit under the car. I came home from Northern Tool, looked at my comments, and saw two people suggesting I put something under the tires to raise the car. Now I feel like a complete moron. But I can take that jack back.

In other news, THE COOKBOOK IS OFFICIALLY SHIPPING. So if you’ve been putting off buying it, the wait is over. I hope you enjoy it. It’s a thousand times better than the first one.

Crap

I have all these tools now. Compressor, floor jack, welder, hoist…you name it. I should be able to do anything, right? Wrong. Yesterday I couldn’t even rotate my damn tires.

I’m not happy. I bought a low-profile jack at Northern Tool, and I even asked T-bird owners how low it had to go to get under my car. But yesterday the silly thing would not fit under the jacking points. I was sitting out there with my pretty, mint-condition impact wrench and my urethane hose and my Helm manual, ready to go, and I had to pack it in and put everything back in the garage.

Can you believe it? I have no idea how other T-bird owners rotate their tires. I guess I’m going to have to go to a damn garage and pay twenty dollars. I could do it with the T-bird jack, but it’s horrible.

As long as I had the compressor pumped up, I decided to put the needle scaler on the hose and take a look at the iron railing on the back steps. The iron goes straight down into the concrete, and water accumulation has nearly rusted it through. In addition, there are layers of rust and old paint on the iron. I hit it with the scaler for a few minutes, and the crap really flew. Problem: it won’t fit into all the corners and bends. I’m not sure what to use in the tight places. And it doesn’t get all the rust off. It just polishes it down so it’s pretty rust.

I should saw the iron off at the concrete, weld new pieces onto the bottom, drill out the concrete so the old iron is gone, shove the new bits in, and fill it with epoxy. Or maybe I should fabricate a whole new railing.

I could get a sandblaster, but I’d have to leave the sand wherever it landed. No cabinet.

I thought I had a fifty-foot hose, but apparently, it’s a hundred feet. I must have forgotten. It’s pretty sweet. It goes all the way through the house and out the back door.

Is it possible to have enough tools to guarantee that you can do nearly anything you’ll need to do? I don’t know. But I am determined to find out.

Rain

Temperature, 75. Humidity, 86%. Chance of rain, 60%. Welcome to another beautiful day in the Magic City. It was supposed to hit 90 today. Yo, Al Gore! You dropped the ball again!

The best way to describe the weather today is that it’s like living inside a damp grey sweater. It’s a shame I quit drinking coffee, because this is one of those days that requires over a quart. And the rest of the week won’t be much nicer.

Naturally, this happened on the very day the pool pump started smoking and quit. Yes, I mean the leaky pump I complained about. Leak fixed; motor dead. What will happen when I replace the motor? Maybe a sinkhole will open up and swallow the pool. I should set up a video camera.

Other irritating things have happened. I had an old JVC shelf stereo I was going to put out in the garage. I sat it on the floor so I could try it out before going to the trouble of rigging shelves. I stuck the CDs from two box sets in the funky 1980s magazine. And things went fine. Next time I turned it on, nothing happened. Yesterday, I gave up, took it apart and got my CDs back. But I have a part left over, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out where it goes. I guess I’m going to have to junk the whole stereo, which is too bad. It was a piece of crap, but it would have been a fine addition to the tool area.

I’ll say this. When you force an old magazine-style CD player open and twist up a lot of the parts, and then you have to straighten the bent bits and put it back together, it’s surprising how useful an ordinary claw hammer can be.

I can probably get a similar stereo for under a hundred bucks. But that ruins the fun of free stuff.

I think my parents paid $800 for this doodad, back in the Reagan years. Twenty watts per channel. Not a good deal.

I guess a magazine CD player is never a good idea. Don’t they always get stuck eventually? When that happens, kiss your CDs or your stereo goodbye. You have to make a choice. This stereo was used very little, but the plastic gears inside it are rough and yellowed. Maybe it was built to self-destruct.

I have a horrible DVD player which I hate. I paid like $90 for it years ago. Panasonic. I should stick it out there after I dump the JVC. Better to have five CDs on a carousel than six in a disk-eating magazine. I’ll still need a receiver. Bet I can find a junker for twenty bucks. Now that I think about it, I have my mother’s ancient CD clock radio, which would probably do the job. The speakers from the JVC are okay, so whatever I do, I won’t have to replace those.

My other plan to gentrify the garage: I want to take my $9 Home Depot fan and put it on a little shelf about six feet from my workbench. I want it situated so I can reach over and turn the knob when I walk into and out of the garage. I’ve found that no matter how miserably hot it gets out there, I can survive with the fan on me.

It’s really going to hurt, throwing that pretty, new-looking free stereo on the trash heap. But you don’t pay a hundred bucks to repair something which is worth fifteen.

Orange Rules

I am still trying to figure out which sliding compound miter saw is best.

Looks like 12″ is the way to go. They cut bigger stuff, which is meaningful if you’re hoping the miter saw will routinely allow you to avoid setting up your table saw.

A recent review puts Makita on top. Bosch came in second because they don’t cut accurately. Geez. That’s a deal-breaker. For me, a lot of the fun of a miter saw is making super-accurate cuts. Ridgid also did very well. The big problem with the Ridgid saw is that it tends to come open when you carry it. Do I intend to carry it? NO. The Makita saw looks like a great item, but it has a limited range of movement, which is a bummer. And my existing Ridgid tools are great, and they have that insane lifetime warranty. And the Ridgid is cheaper by far than Makita and Bosch. Let’s face it. If I get a saw, it will be a Ridgid.

Here’s some news for Bosch fans. A guy on Ebay has been listing the Bosch 5412L for $489 plus shipping. That’s over a hundred dollars lower than just about anyone. He lists the saws one at a time, and they get snapped up in a hurry, so if you search, you may not see them. The key to catching him is to search for his username, which is “mybumperpointswest.”

I don’t want a Bosch, but if you do, you will thank me for that information.

Here is the hard part of the deal. Would I be able to force myself to sell my precious 10″ Ridgid miter saw, which is in mint condition? I doubt I could get more than $75 for it. And as with all my pretty, shiny tools, I feel like it’s my baby. But clutter is bad.

Can’t I…can’t I just keep it for a while and see what happens? Wouldn’t that be okay? It wouldn’t take up much room. Honest, it wouldn’t.

I don’t think I can stand it.

Right now I have my miter saw set up on the Workmate. But if I wanted to be a real man, I would create a permanent station on the west wall of the garage, and I’d also mount my router there. I keep meaning to try to turn my old computer desk into a router table. If I could do that, maybe I could use half for the router and half for the miter saw. I don’t know if it’s true enough for a router table. It’s a thick MDF (I think) desk with a melamine top.

Here’s another strategy I might try: forget buying a new saw and go have pizza.

It has worked well for me in the past.

Question for the tool people: would I be insane to try to replace a sidewalk about 30″ wide and thirty feet long? I’m pretty sure I would have no problem creating the form. This would be to replace an old broken sidewalk which subsided and apparently snapped a waste pipe. I’m hoping that if I put in a better sidewalk with rebar or mesh it won’t crack or subside. Not sure how to prepare the dirt. Do I need some sort of giant vibrating machine to pack it down? The old sidewalk was apparently laid down with no preparation at all, over soft dirt. And no reinforcement.

I figure I’m looking at a little over 2 yards of concrete, so Sakrete is out of the question. Getting rid of the old sidewalk would not be fun. I’d have to find a way to break it in 2-foot-long chunks and cart them away on a handtruck.

Again, the pizza strategy looks viable.

Learn From my Woes

I’ve been having lots of fun over the last week. I won’t go into the details, because I don’t want to experience the psychic trauma all over again, but I can tell you some conclusions I have garnered from my ordeal.

1. While the Supreme Court reviews the constitutionality of applying the death penalty for crimes not involving killing, they should also consider applying it to anyone who embeds a drain pipe in a concrete floor.

2. Anyone who installs a roof vent for a plumbing system without putting a screen on it to keep roaches out should be forced to spend a week in a small cardboard box with said roaches. After being smeared liberally with peanut butter and honey.

3. We need to pass laws sanctioning the flogging of building contractors on sight, based on general principles.

4. The outhouse is a greatly underrated invention which deserves a second look. In fact, if I ever have a home on a big enough piece of land, I think I’ll install an outhouse purely as a precaution.

5. Having been through so many hurricanes I have lost count, and having been deprived of electricity, running water, phone service, and the Internet, I am pretty sure running water is the hardest thing to do without. When you can’t make full use of your house’s plumbing, it becomes difficult to keep your body clean. You can’t do dishes. You can’t do laundry. And the situation in your home generally deteriorates as the effects of dry living cascade into other areas.

I think number 3 was already obvious.

If you ever have to fool with your house’s plumbing, please listen to my advice. Do not run pipes under anything you can’t remove and replace in ten minutes. I read about one sap who installed a multi-thousand-dollar concrete driveway over a drain pipe that subsequently went bad; imagine the horror. Do not listen to a plumber or contractor who says it’s okay to build over pipe because “it will never have to be dug up.” As Murphy could tell you if he were here, anything that can have a problem requiring it to be dug up, will. It’s better to have a two-mile run of pipe under your lawn than a ten-inch run under a concrete slab.

Avoid cast iron pipe at all costs, even if PVC makes noise, because sooner or later, cast iron will flake off and give you permanent clogs that can only be fixed by replacing your pipes. Use the biggest-diameter drain pipes your plumber is willing to install. And whenever you have work done, take pictures while it’s in progress. It will scare the hell out of your plumber, motivating him to do the job right, and the photos will be useful later when things go wrong. Especially if you have to sue.

Plumbers still seem to know what they’re doing, but I can’t figure out what happened to all the competent building contractors. Did someone kidnap them and bury them in the Everglades? Who built all the nice old houses and buildings we see every day? These days, contractors will look you in the face and say, “It is impossible to do this job right, regardless of what you pay, because all the people who know how to do it right are dead.” That’s not an exaggeration; they actually say that.

I suspect that the single best reason for stopping illegal immigration is to keep our houses from falling down. We used to have a system of apprenticeships and exams. Now we have ignorant peasants who stand in front of Home Depot, waiting to find out what arcane areas of construction they’ll have to master on a given morning. “Enrique, what do you know about masonry?” “Todo, senor.” “Enrique, what do you know about wiring a house?” “Todo, todo.” “Enrique, what do you know about cooling gas molecules with a current-controlled CO2 laser?” “No proleng. I feex.” This is why the paint on your walls went on without primer and your shower was plumbed with half-inch electrical conduit.

That’s not completely true. American workers do horrible work, too. Inventors keep changing building materials and practices, making things simpler and easier, so less skill is required. But the American construction worker is too fast for them. He manages to lose skills so quickly, it’s impossible to for inventors to keep up. In the past, the main benefit of doing your own construction was the lower price. The quality was likely to suffer. These days, contractors are so inept, you are likely to do much better work even if you start with no skills whatsoever.

I hope we never have to say that about doctors.

More

Somebody had a tougher weekend than I did.

And Then I’ll Shut Up

Why is it that EVERY Butterfinger bar I buy on impulse at Home Depot is broken in half when I unwrap it?

Also, why do I keep unwrapping them quickly, assuming nothing is wrong, only to have the upper half of the bar fall on the floor of my car?

Happy Father’s Day.

With Only Minor Injuries

Once again I have distinguished myself as the King of All Tools.

No snickering.

I screwed down the new boards on my workbench, and then I started thinking about my problems with the wobbly reloading press. I decided to grind a little bit off the front of the bench and set the press a little farther back, so I could put long lag shields through two two-by-sixes and use longer bolts. It seems like it doesn’t flex nearly as much. Now I have to crank out a box of ammunition and see what happens. It would sure be nice if I could worry less about flexing and the problems it causes.

It’s great having a Wecheer tool permanently mounted on the bench, with an assortment of Dremel bits in a box screwed to the wall. When I got the idea of setting the press back, I tried to use a drill and a rotary rasp, but it was crude, so I popped a sanding drum on the Wecheer and got it done jiffy-quick.

All the more reason to buy a sliding miter saw. Same basic rationale.

It turns out my little Panasonic impact driver will turn a 3″ #14 screw into a two-by-six without a pilot hole, no problem.

Of course, I only know this because it was after the screw went in that I realized I had forgotten to drill the hole.

Convenience Worth its Weight in Gold

People are giving me all sorts of saw suggestions. I don’t know that I’m going to upgrade right away. But I might, simply because inflation and increased shipping costs are making waiting a questionable idea.

As one reader suggests, I am not planning to make fine furniture, mainly because I am totally incapable of doing so. But my experience with the crappy, non-fine projects I’ve attempted so far tells me that sub-millimeter accuracy is the least you should accept for any wood tool.

Someone else says he has had inaccurate cuts with Dewalt saws. A lot of people on the web make the same complaint. It looks like the best choices for average Joes are Makita and Bosch.

I have to think about it. My table saw can do a lot of the things a sliding miter saw can do, with effort. The great thing about a miter saw is that you can leave it set up all the time and walk over when you need it. Pop the blade through the wood, clear away the sawdust, and you’re done. It’s a wonderful convenience. There is nothing like a versatile tool you don’t have to take out and set up.

The garage is looking good. I actually managed to get the car in there, with room to spare. This is nice. No more getting into a 150-degree oven every time I want McMuffins.

I have a question for the Christians who read this blog. Is there a book you would recommend for a person who claims to have intellectual reservations about Christianity? I know Josh McDowell wrote one; I haven’t read it. I suppose I should point out that I would be looking for something consistent with the Protestant Holy-Spirit-centered viewpoint.

I tend to suspect that this type of book doesn’t work too well. Most non-religious people who are aware of Christianity and resist it do so deliberately, in order to excuse their lifestyles or to punish God for His perceived misdeeds and failings. Or to inflate their own pride. It’s 2008, and people still think making fun of Noah’s Ark somehow makes them look intelligent and sophisticated. I believe people are more likely to be moved by the testimony of others whom they respect, and by people who set good examples, and by prayer. But I thought I’d ask anyway.

In other news, it’s Meat Day. My weekly Winn-Dixie ad is here. And Boston butts are 99¢ a pound. If you’re looking for a cheap way to feed your family, Boston butts should not be overlooked. Soak in baking soda brine for a day. Season however you want. Bake at 300 until it falls apart. Simple.

Boneless rib eyes, $6.99/lb. Not bad. More expensive than Costco, but the meat seems to be a little better.

Chicken leg quarters, 69¢/lb.! Oh, yes. Barbecue time.

Baby backs are $3.99/lb., but I prefer spare ribs.

OH, YES! T-bone, Porterhouse or bone-in Ribeye steaks $5.99/lb.! Where are the car keys? If I can get a rib roast, it’s time to age some meat.

Mr. Tool Continues his Organization Spree

I am beginning to re-enter that zen-like state I used to achieve when my garage was perfect. Reloading destroyed the equilibrium, but I’m getting it back.

I keep thinking about sliding miter saws. I was trying to figure out what a miter saw should be able to do, to bridge the gap between a circular saw and a table saw. And my guess was that if it could cut a two-by-ten, which is the biggest piece of lumber you are likely to encounter before going to sheets, it would fill the bill. Does that make sense?

I made great progress in the garage. I cleaned and rearranged and planned, and I finished little projects that were cluttering the place up. And then I drove my car inside. Exciting. Some bedwetting eunuch egged my car last night, so I figured it was time to start parking indoors again.

I doubt it was personal. I don’t have any enemies in Miami. There is just something about a car with style that draws eggs. This is the second time since I bought it.

If it is personal, you have to wonder what it feels like to be that much of a wimp. Pretty awful, I would imagine. Cringing in the dark with your little carton of eggs, because that’s all you’re man enough to do. I hope it was some kid looking for thrills. A grown man doing something like that would be beneath pity. If it’s an adult, it’s someone who is terrified I would push his face in if I caught him. It’s flattering to think someone fears me that much.

I suddenly have a cute idea for the reloading press mount. It’s not the most ergonomically correct machine on earth. You have to stand in front of it to pull the lever comfortably; if you sit to the side, it’s a reach. What if I bolted it to a thick piece of metal–maybe 3/4″ aluminum–and turned it sideways? The aluminum piece bolts to the bench, and it extends off the front. The press bolts to the aluminum. That way, I could sit to the left of the press with the bench on my left, pulling the handle straight toward me.

Geez, then the finished bullets would have nowhere to go. The bin hangs from the left side of the press.

I’ll work something out. If the lever moved parallel to the front of the bench, the press might be more rigid, because the boards making up the bench run from left to right. I have doubts, though, because the press lifts off of the wood when I raise the handle. That suggests to me that the flexing of the wood is not the problem. I think the problem is that it’s damn near impossible to tighten this press down with two bolts way back at the rear.

One weird thing Hornady did when they designed the press was to lower the front lip of that little bin. The problem there is that if a bullet bounces, it flies out of the bin. They put little slots at the end of the bin, so you can slide a piece of cardboard in, and that’s how I keep my bullets from hitting the floor. If they’re going to make the bin that way, they should include a little piece of plastic to put in the slots.

I had to go to Home Depot yesterday, and while I was there, I tried to find tubing in a size that would slip over the outside of the tubing on the primer feed. Right now, I contain the used primers by clamping the end of the tube. But the tube is just small enough to get clogged up when the primers stack up a certain way. If it were slightly wider, that would never happen. Sadly, Home Depot didn’t have a single piece of tubing in an appropriate size.

Today I realized I had a giant pile of live ammunition in the garage. Not “pile,” really. But hundreds of rounds, in boxes. I moved that indoors. Not too useful without a pistol, but I have been known to leave guns out there on rare occasions. I suppose that if you really hated burglars, you might plug a gun’s barrel with epoxy, load it, and leave it on your kitchen table when you go to bed.

Another Sweaty Day

I don’t know how anyone could ever say my life isn’t exciting. Today I cut a plank into shelves, and I also used my dry cut saw to make a padded jack head fit my floor jack. The stem on the jack head was longer than the original, so I cut it down. I painted the bare, unplated end with truck bed paint, but I guess I can expect rust anyway.

I felt like I was overspending when I bought a 10″ miter saw a year or two ago, but increasingly, it seems like I didn’t spend enough. I just cut a one-by-eight-inch board, and I had to turn it over to complete the job. I have looked at 12″ sliding miter saws, which cut bigger stock, but they’re heavy and take up lots of room. I believe a 10″ sliding miter saw would have been perfect. Ridgid doesn’t make one, but Makita does. For the low, low price of $500.

Oh well.

I’m not sure what people generally use for pieces of wood that are not right for a circular saw or a table saw. I would think a 10″ sliding miter saw would cover 95% of the bases.

It amazes me how often I don’t have the right tool for a job, after all the acquisitions I’ve made. I guess this is why people hire other people to do their work for them.

I still can’t figure out what to get my old man for Father’s Day. It’s driving me nuts.

How Much do You Pay a Major Domo?

Still working on household BS today. Sometimes I understand why people used to live in tents.

I have been informed that the reason my pump repair did not work is that I used a fitting not suited to seal a system under pressure. There isn’t a whole lot of pressure in a pool pump return, but I guess it’s enough to make leakage a problem. I managed to find someone who will fix it for nothing, so I guess that nightmare is over. I can’t believe a simple repair to a piece of PVC pipe can be so difficult. Putting a new PVC project together is very easy. But try fixing an existing project. Completely different story.

I have this dream that one day I’ll own enough tools to make the vast majority of home repairs possible without bringing in outside help. Maybe that’s insane. But I didn’t expect to be stopped by ten inches of pipe.

I wonder how single women live. Most are hopeless with tools. I guess they end up paying a lot more than households with men.

When life resumes, so will blogging.

PVC is Beyond my Comprehension

I am still trying to conquer the garage and some household repairs. I bought myself a cheap toolbox for my reloading junk, which helped me clear off the crap from my .38 Super escapades. And I reinstalled my huge 5″ vise.

My latest problem? A leaking PVC pipe on the exit side of a pump. The 1 1/2″ pipe threads into the pump, and then it goes into an elbow. The leak was at the pump side. I cut the pipe with a hacksaw, unscrewed it from the pump, put it back in with a decent dose of Teflon, and then put a splice in the pipe to rejoin it. But the splice leaks. And it’s glued. Now what do I do?

I have no idea how people fix PVC pipe joints that are held together with cement. Aren’t they unbreakable?

I was going to make a new pipe, but apparently, you have to buy an insanely expensive tool in order to thread PVC. I figured it would be an $8 doodad from Home Depot.

Unrelated: I got crazy and ordered a drill press, but it turns out the web ad was wrong, so I can’t get the price I wanted. I have to pay 50 bucks for freight, plus 30 for a lift truck. Would you pay 30 bucks for a lift, for a product weighing 250 pounds? Seems to me you could lower one end to the ground, stand it up, and put it on a handtruck. If Steel City had a dealer around here, it would be worth it to pay cash and pick it up myself.

Whoops, they do have a dealer. Maybe I can work that out.

If you’ve had your eye on some heavy item that comes with free shipping, you better look again. Free shipping deals are drying up.

Bench Fixed

I can’t believe it. I fixed my workbench.

A while back, not having a drill press, I decided to try to drill downward through a horizontal two-by-six with a vertical two-by-six under it, and you can imagine how well that worked out. I messed up one of the two-by-sixes supporting the front of my bench. So today I replaced it.

Making the story sadder, I took apart some .38 Super bullets before I started, because I was trying to clear reloading junk off the bench. And it turned out bullets that are a week old are harder to pull than fresh bullets, because I had to beat the daylights out of my bench to get these out. And I noticed I was splintering the top surface. So I had to replace ANOTHER two-by-six. Memo to self: from now, put something on the bench top when using the bullet puller.

It gets worse. When I removed the first two-by-six from the top of the bench, I had to deal with glued dovetails. And the two-by-six behind it split while I was working on it. So I ended up having to replace three two-by-sixes, two of which required a lot of routing.

It took me at least an hour and a half to create two tongues and one groove. I still don’t have my nice new Christmas router set up, so I used my crappy Sears job. But it worked.

I still have to drill a couple of holes, saw off a long two-by-six, and reinstall my vise and reloading press. But that stuff is quick and easy.

I gave up and bought a standing drill press. I couldn’t take it any more. About twice a week I get hit in the face with a job that a drill press would do in about two minutes, yet which is nearly impossible with any other tool and my limited skills.

The garage is still a nightmare. I had to quit before I dropped in a pool of sweat and sawdust.

I love having stationary power tools and a bench and a handy-dandy Workmate. I had to cut two-by-sixes to length, and with my ever-ready miter saw, it was a cinch. The little square Og recommended also helps. And what a joy the impact driver is. I had to remove 3″ number 14 screws from wood that was wet when I put them in. And they backed right out without stripping. The screws I put in to take their places went right in. Drills are crap; impact drivers rule.

Too bad tomorrow is Sunday. Otherwise I’d fire up the table saw and make a platform for the HAMMR.

Bolted to Workbench!

Even though I went to Home Depot, where everything is hidden or out of stock, I found some lag shields and a two-by-six, and I came home and got to work sticking them in my workbench. At the store, I looked at the package, and it called for 5/8″ holes. I figured I had to have a 5/8″ spade bit at home, so I didn’t buy one.

Guess what? It turns out a foot-long 5/8″ masonry bit makes a fine spade bit in a pinch. I already had half-inch holes opened up, and the masonry bit did a swell job of enlarging them.

The lag shields worked like a charm. Thanks, Ed. The press is firmly attached to the table. I’m a little concerned about how they’ll hold up when I move the press on and off the bench, but I got some spares, so I don’t care.

Incidentally, let’s have a round of applause for Ridgid power tools. They have a lifetime warranty on a bunch of their stuff. Unfortunately, if you throw out the box before applying, you lose the UPC code you’re supposed to send in, in order to qualify. I lost one or both of the UPC labels for my tools (miter saw and table saw), and I contacted Ridgid to see if I could work something out. Today they emailed me and said they had upgraded me to lifetime warranty status on both tools.