Look Where I Spend my Afternoons

When my wife and I pray, we always ask that God turn our homes into places of abundance, peace, and order. He is certainly doing that here at our house in Florida.

My workshop is a wonder to behold. Four months ago, you couldn’t walk across it without turning sideways, making a lot of turns, and stepping over things. I didn’t know where many things were. There were oak leaves all over the floor, along with metal filings.

I kept my tractors and my utility cart outdoors because I didn’t think I had room for them. I got an estimate for a second shop because of this.

Now you can walk through the shop. The filings are gone. The leaves and other debris are gone except for certain areas that are not easy to access. My belt grinders are on a gorgeous 46″ tool chest with a beautiful attachment that holds tooling arms and a VFD enclosure. My mini lathe is on another tool chest, and all of my mini lathe paraphernalia are in it.

The tractors and cart are in the shop, and there is still room to work.

On top of all these things, I replaced the carb in my big chainsaw and got a new part to fix the oil pump. The small saw is running correctly, I cleaned out the carb on the utility cart, I installed a new choke cable on the cart, and I pressure-washed the cart so I could work on it without getting filthy.

I have all the steel I need ($198) to turn my old chain-on brush forks into a quick attachment. My tractor is almost completely reassembled, and I fixed the pedal so it reverses at full speed instead of crawling.

I took some of the drawers out of my old Craftsman tool chest and fixed them so they stay closed again. That box is very high quality, and it’s stainless, so I’m glad it works again. I have been cleaning the drawers out and organizing them.

My workbench was buried in random junk. It’s all gone now. There are a few things I leave on it, but I can use it again. I took mineral spirits and turpentine and cleaned it so using it doesn’t make me filthy any more.

The old foam cart I that used to hold my belt grinders is now cleaned up and sitting next to the mill where I can keep my rotary table on it and use it to hold things while I machine.

I put a long drain hose on the big compressor, and I put a weight on the end of it. Now I don’t have to crawl to open the valve, and the hose can’t whip around and hit things.

My arbor press, hydraulic press, planishing hammer, dry saw, and metal band saw are all in one corner now, and that corner has its own air drop with three quick connectors so the hammer and hydraulic press can both be connected at once.

It’s beautiful. And the weather has changed, so now I can use the shop. It still hits 90 in the daytime, but it takes a lot longer to get there, it’s dryer than it was a week or so ago, and it cools off in the afternoon.

I find myself sitting in the shop at times when I would have been in the house in the past. My dream is to live in my shop and sleep in my house, and it seems to be coming true.

Here are photos from a week or two back. The shop looks even better now.

With all this new space, I’m tempted to get a bigger welding table. I’m crazy about my three-foot-long Northern Tool table, which was a tremendous bargain, but I’m about to start work on a 5-foot-long project which will probably weigh 250 pounds when the main weldment is done. I don’t think I can rationalize a table that long, but three feet by four feet would actually make sense.

I may put a new engine in the utility cart. The original engine is a 350cc Subaru Robin, and while it’s a very good engine, Subaru has abandoned it. New parts are hard to come by. A dubious Chinese rebuild kit costs about $400, and a rebuilt engine is over $600, not including the cost of sending my old engine to the rebuilders in trade. My engine smokes, and I’m not looking forward to the day when it poops out for good and I can’t find parts.

I found new surplus Subaru engines in a different configuration for $355, shipping included. Yes, they will be orphans too, but presumably, because they are newer, Subaru will provide parts for them a little longer. I can get an engine and a rebuild kit right now and save the kit until I need it. If Subaru runs off on the new engine, I will still be able to keep it going.

Honda makes nice engines, too, but I believe they need a lot of parts to make them work in carts.

I can get Harbor Freight Predator engines, but I think they would require a lot of fabrication or the purchase of an expensive installation kit. After all was said and done, I’d have a questionable Chinese engine instead of something made by a top Japanese manufacturer.

Some people put big Predators in carts and make them do wheelies. I think I can live without that kind of performance.

My goal is just to avoid buying a new cart. They are incredibly expensive for what you get, which is nearly nothing. A crummy little engine, a simple steel box, and a couple of axles. My cart is extremely useful, so I need to have it running, and I don’t want to drop over $10,000 on a new one.

It’s amazing how much carts cost when you compare them to tractors. A tractor will last 40 years and do all sorts of amazing things, it will have a wonderful diesel and hydraulics, it will have a PTO, and it will be extremely sturdy, and tractors aren’t that expensive. A cart, which is a flimsy piece of junk by comparison, will struggle to haul 700 pounds. And it will cost nearly half as much as the tractor.

Rhodah and I pray for things that are obviously important. We intercede for people who have problems. We always ask God to help them get right with him, because handouts without personal improvement are a waste of time. We ask God to help us to be improved. I think we know what’s important, and a big shop full of tools is not high on the list, but it’s still very pleasing to have him come through with regard to things that aren’t necessities.