fm2176
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Posts posted by fm2176
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On 3/25/2022 at 2:24 PM, Altan said:
The idea here is to use the space in a small kitchen properly. That is why I am thinking of having the TV on an appliance otherwise you need to reduce from the units to be able to put TV instead.
That's a great concept, admittedly I spend too much time in the kitchen, and though I placate myself with a smartphone these days, a kitchen TV would have been nice five+ years ago. Back in the day they sold undercabinet TVs that were used in kitchens, and now I suppose a TV on an articulating mount might work well for a small kitchen. I still have my grandmother's 12" B&W TV she kept on the kitchen table to watch The Price is Right during lunch. One day soon, I'll be hooking my Atari 2600 up to it for some retro gaming. I might even punish the kids by taking away the internet and making them play E.T.
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Wish I had known about this adapter a few months ago. I know my SDS-Plus hammers lack the power of your Bosch, but anything is better than driving the rods in by hand. I didn't know what we were doing when I packed my tools to go work on the flipper house, so I only brought framing hammers. We ended up buying a DeWalt 2.5lb hammer at the behest of my brother, which broke before the rod was halfway driven. I wished at the time I had one of my 4lb hammers or even a picket pounder. Now I may have to invest in this adapter for future projects.
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Diablo sells their circular saw blades in plastic holders. These aren't the most sturdy, nor are they enclosed, but they provide protection from the blade itself. I usually buy them when Home Depot clearances out the 2 blade value packs. You would think there'd be a readily available storage/transport solution, though. I got a bunch of DeWalt blades on clearance a while back that came in a cardboard display box, and my Bosch and other blades tend to be sold bare or with (at most) a plastic edge guard.
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I started the thread thinking about cars we've owned or driven, but I welcome discussion on this topic as well. Malaise Era vehicles kept some of the design cues of their predecessors while suffering from a lack of performance. In the '80s some cars were easily distinguishable from each other, though there were a lot of badge swaps. Now it seems that crossover SUVs are all the rage, with the major exterior differences being the front clip and rear end.
I've never owned a classic muscle car, but as a mechanic I knew some people who restored and/or raced them. At the Caddy dealership we had an open bay shop with doors at each end. An extremely loud car came in one day, and come to find out it was the transmission tech's '67 Camaro SS drag car. Needless to say, a lot of us gathered around it to get a closer look. One of my dad's friends had a trophy winning '73 Corvette Stingray that he crashed and burned in back in the '90s. I wouldn't mind buying something older one day. When my dad moved in the mid-2000s he had to get rid of most of his cars. He offered me the '78 Cordoba with t-tops but I didn't have a place to put it and couldn't get there before he had to get rid of it.
I did have two other '78s, though. The first was a '78 K5 Blazer with a 350 and 4-bbl carburetor. I was young and dumb and thought it looked good with its 9" lift and 36" Super Swampers. The price was decent enough but after I drove it for a while and researched lifted trucks, I realized that it was not quite a steal. The floor boards seemed solid, but when I did a deep clean one time and lifted the carpet I saw that they had been replaced with road signs, while the lift consisted of a 3" body lift and 6" suspension lift. The suspension lift had been done with two 3" blocks on each side, though, and the two-piece driveshaft was never extended, which I found out when it flew apart one night. The other '78 was an F-250 pickup. It had a heavy duty ladder rack and a steel lip bolted where the tailgate was supposed to be. Supposedly it had lived one of its lives as a roofing truck. The truck was given to me and after I replaced the master cylinder and brake booster it was a decent runner until it hit a bump. I needed to replace the gas tank as it had rust or dirt in it that would clog the fuel filter and stall the engine. Easy fix, pull the filter and blow it clean, but still annoying.
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2 hours ago, Eric - TIA said:
I had a 2003 Sierra 1500 SLT and sold it with 100K. Loved that truck. I had to sell it because I have two kids and the extended cab wasn't big enough in the back for them.
That was the story of my life fifteen years ago. Had two kids when I enlisted, so I bought a '99 Sentra. In 2007 the third was born, so when I walked into the Ford dealership later that year I had three criteria: used, crew cab, and preferably 4WD. The only used truck on the lot was a shiny green Sierra SLT Z71, a much nicer truck than I thought I'd ever own. Shortly after the purchase, we found out my wife was pregnant again, so maybe I should have gotten a minivan instead.
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Another day of carry...still have to order one or two spare LCP Max mags, so it's going to be that and the tried and true P32 with a spare mag. The Para-Ordnance with three mags is the car gun of choice for the day.
I need to get some good holsters. Still thinking of a shoulder rig for the Model 29 and need to find my old M1911 and Beretta IWB holsters.
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41 minutes ago, Fletch88 said:
I just saw an episode of This Old House where they demonstrated a large right angle drill bit even turning a 2” wood bit with a Milwaukee 6.0 pack. He then swapped to a larger mAh pack and it powered right through oak slab. This goes against what I predicted. I thought more mAh only gave you longer run time, not more power/torque at the tool?
Six years ago was just the beginning, with larger battery packs starting to become more prevalent. More recent battery and tool developments have created a subset of sorts within most brands, furthering the complexity of this question. Look at Ridgid Octane, Milwaukee HO batteries, DeWalt FlexVolt Advantage, or even Ryobi HP. I can run my Octane hammer drill on a 2Ah battery, but using the 9Ah Octane battery shows a very clear difference in power.
It's amazing to think of how quickly the technology has evolved; the Gen 1 20v Max and M18 platforms are worlds away from what we have some twelve years later.
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I've had a number of vehicles over the years, at one point owning as many as four at a time. The only "new" vehicle was a 2004 Mustang GT dealer sample, while most have been older models. Here I'll share a few memories of some I miss.
1983 Chevette Scooter: my first car, bought for $350 from my Driver's Ed teacher when I was 16. I had some friends that were graffiti artists so I let them add artwork to the car. Needless to say, it stood out. Overall, pretty solid car, but it say for a while in need of a master cylinder and I finally sold it for $25.
1973 BMW 3.0: a nice and fairly uncommon car (the smaller 2002 was far more common in my area). Unfortunately, I through a rod through the engine block trying to race it. It sat on the roadside for a few days while I dealt with unrelated issues before being broken into and impounded shortly afterward.
1989 Mercedes 560SEC: a true sleeper of a car and like the BMW a fairly uncommon model in my area. This car was fast for its time and might have been driven at speeds in excess of 140 mph a few times. The local Mercedes dealership hooked me up with a wholesale account as I had been dispatched to their parts department as a forklift mechanic, so I put a little bit of money into the car each paycheck. I left it with the wife and father-in-law after joining the Army, warning that it needed a quart of transmission fluid every couple of months. Getting back from Iraq in 2004, they told me the transmission was slipping...yep, no fluid had been added for well over a year and it was five or six quarts low. The car was never the same afterward, and got some water damage after sitting for a few months with the sunroof partially open, leading to a horrendous phantom drain killing new batteries within a day or so. We ended up selling it for about $450 and I'm pretty certain it was scrapped.
1960 Willy's DJ3A: the 2wd Dispatch Jeep, the best known DJs are the DJ5 Postal Jeeps. Mine was a hardtop, but the top was long gone. This meant a fixed windshield and no floor tubs--the floor panels were flat and anything placed down there was easy to fling out. Also, no seatbelts, making this thing scary when taking a sharp curve. Four wheel drum brakes, with a left front bias making it possible to do a 180 at 20 mph or so if you stomped on the brake pedal. The 3-speed column shifter was a bit iffy as the linkage needed repair, but she'd go. I sold the Jeep before moving to Georgia in 2012.
Those are a few of the cars I've owned, I've had a number more and driven quite a few more, sometimes acting the fool in my younger years but fortunately never getting in trouble. Anyone else want to share some stories or comment on those above?
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I was hoping that my 2006 Sierra 1500 SLT would hold on, but the head gasket blew last week and I have to order the parts. It's been a good truck so far, with over 316k miles. I got it on a whim in 2007 with about 38k on the odometer.
Hopefully after the head gasket repair and a knock sensor, it will make the drive to Louisiana. I plan to buy a newer daily driver but keep the GMC for work and (maybe) play.
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Nice looking Glock. I've yet to get into customized firearms, but very well may one of these days. I guess I'm more of the quantity over specialization sort...can't really say quantity over quality because most modern firearms are of inherently good quality. I put some Farrar rubber grips on my Beretta in the '90s, and the Ruger Vaquero I inherited from my father-in-law (meaning the LCP is not the first Ruger I've owned, after all) has some faux pearl grips on it (fortunately the original wood grips are in the box), but otherwise my handguns are stock.
I wouldn't want to live in a Blue state. Anti-gun politicians, celebrities, and gun control advocates feel good doing something to attempt to curb gun violence, despite it being next to impossible to truly take guns off the streets in the US. Most of the most crime-ridden areas are those with the strictest gun laws, proving that criminals are just that--criminals. A drug dealer or burglar isn't going to be worried about whether they can legally own a gun. Heck, it's usually an additional or upgraded charge if you use a firearm in commission of a felony, but that seems to be hardly a deterrent for a lot of people.
I have a fair number of magazines that would be illegal if I lived in a state like New York or California. Hell, I'd probably go away for the rest of my life for the scores of 30-round AR15 mags, dozens of 15-round Beretta M92 magazines, and other "high capacity" mags I have spread out between here, Georgia, and Louisiana. Magazine capacity laws, "assault weapon" bans, and other "feel good" legislation is ineffective, in my opinion, and serves only to garner votes. It would be much more effective to prosecute those who commit the crimes and to utilize existing laws to ensure they are unable to reoffend. Since at least 2020, however, it seems that a lot of prosecutors and judges have become enablers, employing a catch and release philosophy that allows even violent offenders to walk free.
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Great work! I can't wait to set up my shop starting in a few months. I've only built rough patio furniture and workbenches so far, but want to get into building my own furniture.
I may have to break down and buy a table saw, as I only have the FlexVolt, but at least my FlexVolt miter saw is hybrid. I also have two DeWalt 20v Max 7-1/4" miter saws I plan to put finish tooth blades on. Otherwise, for now, I have a NIB Ryobi band saw, NIB Parkside (Lidl) combination grinder/belt sander, NIB Parkside bench top drill press, and a number of cordless routers and sanders (I think I have both DeWalt and Ridgid 1/4 sheet and ROS as well as the Ridgid belt sander).
For the next few months I'm stuck packing for a 1000+ mile move, then I get the joy of collecting full pay and benefits for a few months as I unpack, set things up and build stuff, and look for a new job.
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That is a bit ridiculous in length, but I suppose it could be used in highway projects or thick concrete buildings to run electrical or plumbing? I don't know, I have some long Parkside (Lidl brand) SDS-Plus bits I have yet to use. Those might be 24-30" and look weird in my M18 Fuel d-handle rotary hammer.
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Porter Cable's descent to tool purgatory is unfortunate, but should have been expected in hindsight. I mention them often, as they were the first Li-Ion tools I owned, but the PC 18v system was a great introduction to modern tools. The fact that I bought into it in 2012 and gradually amassed most of the 18v tools and even the 12v drill and driver is what turned me off from the brand, though. Most cordless brands were switching platforms in the early 2010s, as the Ni-Cad/Li-Ion compatible interim systems (DeWalt or PC 18v, Kobalt 18v/20v) were largely replaced by Li-Ion only systems (I think that Ryobi and perhaps Ridgid are the only two that retain backwards compatibility, though both brands have long discontinued producing Ni-Cad batteries). At the time I didn't understand why my 18v tools weren't just upgraded with brushless motors and newer batteries, so I vowed to never buy into PC 20v Max.
A lot of the corded woodworking tools PC was known for were rebranded to satisfy DeWalt fans, and when SBD acquired Craftsman the writing was more or less in the wall for the PC 20v Max system. From the awkward Lego-esque design cues to the dull grey color, they just don't stand out like DeWalt Yellow or Craftsman Red. Couple that with the lack of promotion and new tools and it's easy to see how they fell to the bottom of the SBD cordless brand heap. I think even Black + Decker 20v tools are more popular now.
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I haven't seen the video, but can easily imagine how it was. I've seen enough power tool marketing videos to know that the competition is usually stacked in favor of the brand being promoted.
Flex has an uphill battle, as DeWalt and Milwaukee seem to be by far the most popular professional brands.
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13 hours ago, fyrfytr998 said:
Please excuse if I necro some old threads, lol. I literally have no other forum to talk about tools on.I know what you're saying, and I for one welcome the revival of old threads. There's a wealth of information on here, some great--and not so great--opinions, and a time capsule of tool news and innovations for the past decade-plus.
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Welcome to the forums! I'm sure you'll find a wealth of information and opinions here!
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9 hours ago, fyrfytr998 said:
Does Ryobi’s glue gun not count?
The OP is in the UK, and I think that Ryobi is a US Home Depot exclusive, but otherwise I agree that the Ryobi glue gun is great. I use mine frequently (often for pranks like gluing gifts and food containers). My current one doesn't feed as well as the first one (gifted to my son), but still works well once you figure out its nuances. I also have the mini glue gun, which is nice but obviously caters to small projects.
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8 hours ago, Anthony75 said:
Yes . What a difference on the batteries , nice and secure , no flickering light .
That's great! I have a DCL040 that I think I missed the warranty period on. It was cutting of intermittently as I rotated the head of the light but now doesn't work at all.
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7 hours ago, fyrfytr998 said:
Flex is still too new for me.
Speaking of Lowes, they really worked themselves into an identity pickle that dilutes their offerings. On the one hand they could be a total Chervon house, but SBD has leveraged them into committing significant shelf space to Craftsman. At the very least they should consolidate and drop Bosch and Metabo HPT. Maybe even drop Skil since it overlaps with Kobalt.
I'm sure there's quite a bit of behind the scenes talk and maneuvering between major retailers and the manufacturers. While I agree that Lowe's has too many cordless platforms and might benefit from dropping MetaboHPT and Bosch cordless tools, I think those two brands would fight tooth and nail to keep their shelf space. Also, the brands themselves represent much more than just cordless tools. For example, ditching Bosch 12v and 18v tools could easily result in Lowe's losing the corded tools (including their rotary hammers), a lot of the laser measurers and levels, and a bunch of accessories like bits and blades.
In my opinion, this might be one of the downsides to the dominance of the Big Box in America. The local hardware store is mostly gone, with those remaining almost exclusively affiliated with Ace, True Value, Do-It-Best, or another national or regional chain. Most mid-to-large cities have at least one of the Big Three (Lowe's and Home Depot are dominant on the East Coast, never even seen a Menard's out here) or perhaps a regional Big Box (Stine Lumber in Louisiana, for example). Sure, there are still lumber yards, OPE dealers, and tool and trade supply stores, but those are usually at the back of the mind of most non-professionals. Essentially, we have a bunch of tool brands owned by a handful of corporations, which all want to sell as many tools as possible. This means that stores like Lowe's are enticed to sell as many brands as possible, usually for less than what the tool supply house can sell the same tool for. In the Richmond, VA area we have Chesterfield Trading Company, which caters to area contractors, plants, and manufacturers. Their store is well laid out and they offer a lot of stuff Lowe's doesn't, but besides the occasional "bring in your old tool" discount promo, the only reason for me to buy DeWalt or Milwaukee cordless tools there would be if it's something the Orange and Blue stores a few miles away don't stock. I try to support local businesses when I can, but if I can spend $200 and get a free battery at one store and pay $219 without a free battery at another, it's a no-brainer.
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1 hour ago, Anthony75 said:
Just an update . I happen to call Amazon for a question and while talking I asked about my problem with thus hammer drill. The rep said I still was in the return window. I packed up and sent it back and today the new one arrived and no issues .
Good to hear!
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My experience is with US packaging, but I'd venture to say it was a return or repackage. My FlexVolt miter saw came with very sturdy Styrofoam inserts protecting it. I'd recommend contacting the supplier and/or DeWalt and taking pictures if needed. While it could very well be undamaged, for that price you don't want to risk something being bent or broken.
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10 hours ago, Anthony75 said:
Hi , I just renewed my woodsmith subscription. I subscribed to it in 1981 and really enjoyed learning from it.
That's great! I know there are a few long running magazines out there that are still worth buying. I'll have to check Woodsmith out.
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A lot of stores still have magazine racks, though I rarely see anyone perusing them. Let's face it, the smart phone and internet have largely supplanted books, magazines, and even TV as many people's hobby (or distraction) of choice. From the 1990s until probably five or so years ago I regularly bought magazines, with the requisite stack in the bathroom and a few usually near the bed and chair. I had a subscription to the print edition of Game Informer until a couple of years ago, despite rarely playing video games, and also subscribed to The Family Handyman for a year or two. As a life member, I was getting VFW Magazine (and need to change the address as that house has since been sold), and also got American Rifleman during the couple of annual memberships I had with the NRA. Admittedly, I was "that guy" that kept all of my magazines, so I have literal time capsules of mid-1990s video game news and twenty-plus year old gun magazines showing off the latest and greatest tactical guns allowed under the now expired Assault Weapons Ban of 1994. There's also the collection of '80s-'90s Playboys, probably mildewed over in my garage down south. Over the years I have cut down on my archives quite a bit, and I'll probably have another big bonfire in the coming months.
Now, the only magazine I make a habit of buying is The Backwoodsman. Sadly, it is one of the few magazines that isn't a glorified ad nowadays. Years ago, I was an avid reader of American Survival Guide (ASG). I still have some issues from the 1990s and though some date themselves the articles were pretty good, with ads that supplemented the content. In 2013, I found ASG at the Bagram Exchange. Different look, and come to find out entirely different magazine, with articles recommending high priced survival gear that many true survivalists can't afford, or at least wouldn't spend money on. In 2003, while in Iraq, I looked forward to getting Shotgun News and Small Arms Review, both of which were informative and greatly increased my knowledge of firearms (including identifying the first vz. 58 we captured, which everyone else thought was a weird AK). Now, it's been years since I last even bothered looking for those publications. The Backwoodsman is a great mix of practical survival and bushcraft articles, frontier tales, firearms reviews and recommendations, and DIY stuff. Past articles include everything from building a cabin from pallets to making a dugout canoe. Sadly, the founder recently died, but his son is carrying the tradition forward, and most ads are family owned enterprises like book and knife stores.
I personally consider the Family Handyman to still be worth a read on occasion, as last I checked the price isn't as high as a lot of other magazines, and there are some good articles and how-to guides. Most others, though, regardless of subject matter, seem to be little more than shills for whoever places ads or sponsors them. Maybe that 2013 copy of ASG ruined me on modern magazines, as reading about how I "need" this $200 item to survive three days in the wilderness just seems ridiculous (not to mention how poorly a lot of modern commercial items hold up these days). With that stated though, does anyone else enjoy the occasional magazine, and if so, which ones do you recommend?
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1 hour ago, regopit said:
As of right now I own 2 Flex tools. The FLEX VCE 33 LAC 9 Gallon HEPA Vacuum and the FLEX GE 5 Giraffe Wall and Ceiling Sander. They are very well made and work well. I have had these tool going on 5 years now and have had no complaints.
I have exactly zero. Not saying I won't invest in the platform...ToolGuyd shared their new modular toolbox system yesterday, and some of the commenters seem to think that Flex offers some of the best tools on the market right now. Flex seems like a great brand, but I need to do a holistic assessment of my future needs and streamline platforms at some point. Besides Flex, Craftsman, Skil, Makita, and Porter Cable, I have every major "pro" or "semi-pro" cordless platform available in the US.
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What's Your Favorite Cordless Brand (as of 2022)?
in Power Tools
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Cordless brands have had ups and downs over the years, with some such as Flex being new to the US market while others like Porter Cable seem to be on life support. What is your favorite brand right now?