Highdesert Splintermaker
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Posts posted by Highdesert Splintermaker
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Couldn't agree more about Proto tools. They beat every competitive tool line item for item across the board. If you need it and Proto makes it - buy it.
Nope! The heirs to the guy who dies with the most tools wins!
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I do emphasize. Getting a gift that doesn't work right can be a downer. I'm betting, however, I think "Mom" would want you to be happy with the tools. My suggestion, therefore (especially since these are Craftsman hand tools which are guaranteed for life), is to take them back to Sears and let them make it right.
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Never have won one of TIA's tool giveaways but that's okay and not the reason I enjoy this forum. Everyone here seems to really appreciate the viewpoint, experience, limitations, and aspirations of others. It's a real world for each of us. That's just plain COOL!
But, on the other hand, there are a few tools I wouldn't mind confronting the problem of having to make space in my shop to accommodate. My ideal tool bag would include any of the following;
1.) an IOU for the next generation Steel City 8" helical bench top jointer. [it won't be released 'till this Fall's Tool Show.]
2.) The Steel City model 40200h 13" helical planer.
3.) Any top quality (Johnson, etc.) self-leveling cross-line laser level kit.
4.) a Franklin ProSensor 710 Stud finder
5.) almost any brand 18 - 20 volt impact driver with the higher capacity battery and compatible driver tools
6.) a Dust Deputy vortex separator to piggy back with my Shop Vac
7.) an iVAC automated Shop Vac switch
8.) a good quality burnishing tool for rolling the hook on scraper blade edges.
9.) a Wood River #5 bench hand plane
10.) set of Stanley Sweetheart socket wood chisels
11.) a Leigh Super 12" dovetail jig and accessory kit
12.) a Milwaukee 2¼ Max HP EVS multi-base router kit
13.) a pair of drawboring pins would come in handy
14.) a doweling plate would be cool too
and the list could go on and on - and so could we all! Isn't that just the nature of being addicted to doing things with our hands?
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You know you're getting old when;
- the guys in the hardware departments have no idea what you're talking about.
- you go to look for something by the foot and can only find it in prepackaged 50 foot rolls.
- you need 6 of a particular screw. They only come in packages of 5. Two of those packages costs more than you paid for a box of 100 the last time you bought something comparable.
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Mr. C:
Sounds like you'd have a lot of fun doing quite a few different things.
I like the idea of a muscle car but I think I'd try to find a cherry '57 Chevy - my first car (shoulda' kept it). I had a 150 2-door, 283 with a power pack, and an HD seal kit in the slush box. Ran like a striped a$$ ape! The good old days. Being something of a perfectionist, however, I'd probably let the damn thing drive me (no pun intended) crazy looking for original stock parts, etc.
I think I'd better stick to makin' splinters.
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I just decided. Yup! I need power tools.
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I vote for the nylock nuts too. By the way the signage looks great but those steps look absolutely fatal!
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I'd probably do much the same thing. New digs with a 1,600 sq. ft. home, a three car garage, and a whole 'nother 2,400sq. ft. building for a wood shop. I'd live in the shop and visit the house for meals, showers, naps, and those occasional household honey-do repairs and improvements.
That shop would be the front page article on some issue of America's Best Workshops magazine. Plenty of heat, AC, and 110/220 current everywhere. Lots of windows facing North. Large doors for full sheet access to the lumber storage room. An in-floor full shop dust control system and compressed air hose reels everywhere. The air compressor and main vacuum units would be in a sound baffled separate equipment room. Rock solid and ready to rock, etc, etc, etc. Oh, and a separate clean room for painting.
One thing I would do differently, however, is try to work with some tool manufacturer(s) to develop tools designed for woodworking. See my comments on drill presses and jointers in the topic; Are tool Companies Stupid On Purpose?, for my top two pet peeves with some not-really-made-for-woodworking power tools. Then there are band saws which could definitely use adjustable height work tables. And, come to think of it, no planer worth it's salt should snipe the tail end of your work piece. I could go on but you get the idea. I really don't think tool companies are stupid on purpose. It's worse than that. They are stupid by accident caused by greed. They are simply holding their bottom line nickel so close to their eyes they can't see a sales dollar five feet away.
I also think there are better ways to enhance the efficiency of a workshop than to build another 4,000 jigs, fixtures, sawhorses, tables, mobile bases, shelves, racks, stands, and other plywood contraptions you and I both see at least one or more of in every issue of ShopNotes magazine. Those things don't really create any space they just create more clutter and sell more hardware. Most of those space saving organizers take up three to five times as much space as the cigar boxes you were perfectly happy with before. And, in the overall scheme of things, they delay you from making the things you really wanted to make in the first place.
There is a saying, named after some old and long forgotten philosopher I suppose, that goes something like; The more you know about your trade, the less tools you should need to do it well!
At this point, I'm still buying ShopNotes magazine, and believe I should be thankful I can't remember that philosopher's name.
Your comments are invited.
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Deleted - see next post
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Okay, its early March. The kids are still in school and you don't have to till the garden, pull weeds, or mow lawn yet. You've just learned some rich relative you never knew you had died and left you multiple millions. After paying the taxes, your mortgage, your credit cards, you car loans, setting up college funds for the kids and signing up for Obamacare, you remember your first love - your workshop, your tools, and all the stuff you enjoy doing using them. Kinda' like "If I won the lottery!" Okay! What's your plan?
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Keep guessing. I'll let you know when you get it right.
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Hey nice giveaway, nice way to do it, and congrats to the winner!
Now, does anyone out there have an 8" helical jointer or a 13 helical planer they'd like to give away?
I do know the answer to, Who is buried in Grant's tomb? Anybody want to take a guess?
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I was in my local HD yesterday but saw no vendors, no drawing. Guess I must not have gone down the right aisles.
Lots of Home & Garden Shows out west. Seems like they are always having one either here in Reno, Sacramento, Stockton, or somewhere in the Bay area.
A friend, in Sacramento, has an overhead storage rack/shelf business. His company sells and installs them in home garages. Most of his business comes from show leads so he's usually tied up on weekends doing shows. Doing rather well too I might add.
Maybe I should ask him if any of those shows combine with major tool shows. Mostly, from what he tells me, they are primarily landscape and remodel contractors.
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I must confess to never having owned a Dewalt product. I've used a couple (a 12" chop saw and an 18v cordless drill) and had no problem with them but never found them worth the price difference.
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Sometimes it strikes me that I might have continued working a few years longer.
Then I hear a story like this and I'm reminded of how glad I am I didn't.
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Perhaps the sink in the closet, especially if it was stainless, was a remnant of a conventional home photo darkroom.
Hey! Lima, Ohio is my birthplace. I think I like your pup already!
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Lets just say it was a Super Boring Bowl! Even the commercials, Anheuser-Busch excepted, fell short of the mark. Like a couple of you, my preference is definitely college football - a transplanted Buckeye but a Buckeye forever,
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Conductor:
Just out of curiosity I checked Amazon to see what I might find. Along with the heap of manual pop rivet tools they show several pneumatic guns ranging in price from $43 to $60. The brand names of the ones that caught my eye are Rock Ridge, Astro Pneumatic, & Allstar. I've never heard of any of them. They vary in what rivet sizes they handle, some don't state their operating PSI. and I didn't see reviews on any of them. Proceed with caution.
Another alternative comes from HF. It's their model 66422 - a monster of a hand tool. It handles up to ¼ inch rivets and even catches the wire tails in a plastic bottle. You might want to read the reviews. It comes with five tips and the best thing is it's a hand tool and guaranteed forever. With a 25% coupon you can get one for around $15 plus tax.
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Okay... Tell me about that Milwaukee M12 Pop river gun.
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After patiently waiting, and occasionally pulling up Steel City's web site, I've yet to find a new benchtop 8" helical jointer added to their tool lineup. So, I dropped their cust. svc. rep. (the guy I exchanged a couple emails with last summer) and asked whether or not the idea had withered and died or might possibly still bear fruit.
Today I got his reply in which he said they had decided to hold off any new tool introductions until this years woodworking show in Atlanta [20-23 August]. Then he said, "I have not seen the machine but I can tell you it is not like the 8" version from the Vegas venue."
From that I can make all kinds of assumptions but, it does sound like there is definitely a new toy in their jointer lineup.
Anticipation...
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I’m continually and eagerly looking forward to each and every tool ad I can get my hands on - mostly to see if someone, anyone, has come out with a really great new and exciting tool. Maybe some fledgling start-up company with a clever idea has just found the money to do some serious advertising. Maybe there is a 50% sale on that 13½” helical planer I don’t want to pay $550 for. Okay, that last ‘maybe’ might be a bit surreal, but anyway, I keep looking. Through manufacturers’ brochures, magazine ads, and the Sunday News ads, and online - I keep looking.
But, what do I find? Cordless drill kits, cordless drill kits with extra batteries, cordless drill kits with extra batteries and a flashlight, cordless drill kits with extra batteries and a cordless impact driver, cordless drill kits with extra batteries and a cordless circular saw, and on, and on, ad infinitum (no pun intended). I think you get the idea but the amount of newsprint dedicated weekly to cordless drill ads (which by the way seems to be far more voluminous than all the ads for all other tools combined) boggles my mind.
How many cordless drills, regardless of what comes bundled with it, can you possible want, find room to store and, even if you could remember where you put them all - can a person possibly justify? Perhaps I’m limiting myself by thinking I couldn’t possible need to use more than two at the same time and really only one at any particular point in time. So, do I have to give away the one I bought last week to make room for a new one this week? Can I possibly find one that uses the same battery, or charger as one I already have? And if I do and I buy it, will I then be able to stop reading cordless drill ads? All the while, I know these cordless drill ads will persist, yet I still keep eagerly looking forward to getting my hands on the next tool ad hoping to find that great new and exciting tool idea or 50% off on that helical planer. Addicted. -
Just the thought of using lancelot cutters or, for that matter, any one handed tool to make dado cuts makes me want to ask the question, are you suicidal?
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In my shop-in-progress (mostly still in the design phase) I do have space constraints ~ roughly one third of a three car garage. I do have expansion capabilities by parking one or both cars outside but, eventually, all that stuff has to go back in one third of the garage. That's when the third factor, where the hell do I keep some new tool when I'm not using it?, kicks in. Its as though there is this committee in my mind trying to balance many factors for every purchase decision. It's like; is it needed for this project?, vs. how often would I use the tool vs. potential return on investment of the tool's cost, then there is the long term storage space issue, vs. how else might I do this job? By that time I'm headed for Office Depot to buy more erasers for project design changes.
I do envy those of you who have a Madison Square Garden size shop. But, as an older codger, I must admit that my projects list simply doesn't justify a full blown cottage industry setup.
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Yep! And, next thing you know those damned violation cameras will be all along the freeways citing speeders.
And, if you think no one knows if or when you're speeding if the cops aren't watching, your OnStar knows. Even if you aren't subscribing to their services, if there is one of those things in your vehicle, everything your vehicle does and every place it goes gets logged.
So much for happy motoring!
Tool bag
in Ultimate Tool Bag Giveaway
Posted
I worked with a buddy-handyman-friend on a few jobs several years ago. He preferred a 5 gallon bucket with one of those million pocket bucket jackets for his commonly used assortment of tools. Carrying the bucket around, especially up and down stairs or from one building to another got old fast. We conspired to make things a bit easier. The solution was to attach the bucket to a metal frame. The frame essentially added a ½" axle (just right for a pair of 8" lawn mower wheels) and a vertical square tubular t-handle to pull it with. The tubular handle, designed to take apart (using a tethered clevis pin) just above the top of the bucket, was great for when he wanted to put his bucket of tools upright in the trunk of his car. He had a dozen or so made and gave most of them away. I have one of them but didn't appreciate his inventiveness fully until I got a bit older, the bucket got a bit heavier, and I got tired of running from a project back to the garage every time I needed another tool.
I'd like to attach a picture but can't get the image thingie to cooperate.