Reviews & Features – Page 3 – The Garage Journal

Three weeks ago, I couldn’t have told you the difference between a CO2 laser and a fiber laser if my life depended on it. Lasers, in general, struck me as the kind of tool better suited to a converted craft room than a proper workshop. Cute machines that lightly scratch initials into coasters and cut questionable materials with precision. Then XTool sent me the P2S—a 55W CO2 laser with a 600x305mm bed. It showed up on my doorstep, and within an hour of the UPS truck disappearing down the street, I had it unboxed, set up, and humming. A few …

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A few months back, I did a head-to-head between the Bambu X1 Carbon and the Prusa MK4. When the dust settled, I admitted I liked the ease of use with the X1C, but philosophically? I’m more in line with Prusa—their stance on privacy, open-source ethos, and their overall take on the 3D printing world just feels more grounded. I’ve been in the 3D printing game since the dark ages. My first setup was a bargain-bin Ender, and back then, a 15-hour print was standard—and if it actually finished without imploding, that was a miracle. Printing wasn’t about creating things; it …

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I’ve been using an XL Moleskine as a shop notebook for damn near a decade—one a year, like clockwork. There’s a stack of them now, seven deep, lined up like the archives of a mad scientist. And yeah, there’s a kind of romance to it. Weathered faux-leather, dog-eared pages, the smell of ink and failure. I can flip back through them like old war logs—scars from projects long buried and half-won. But romanticism has a price… and it’s inflexibility. You want to glue a blueprint in there? Better grab the glue stick like a schoolboy. False starts? Irrelevant notes? Tough …

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Another one bites the dust. Finished off a shop notebook yesterday and found myself staring at the corpse like some kind of deranged archaeologist—seven dead volumes since 2015. A hell of a paper trail. But the real question is: Do you keep one? You should. A proper shop book is the nerve center, the battle plan, the sacred text that keeps the gears from flying off. Mine is a chaotic mess of to-do lists, scribbled cut diagrams, half-baked blueprints, and scattered inventories of missing consumables I should’ve restocked months ago. It takes discipline—just a little, nothing life-altering—but it pays off when …

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Coming from a vintage hot rod background, I’ve always clung to the belief that the cleaner you keep a car without messing with the paint, the better. Waxing? Rarely. Full detailing? Maybe once a year if it’s really crying for it. But by and large, I do my best to keep from rubbing on the finish too often. This approach doesn’t waver much with my late-model daily driver either. If it’s covered in filth or has taken a beating, it might see a full detail once in a blue moon. Otherwise, I just keep it clean with a quick wash …

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