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Ambition outweighing Talent - My One and a Half car Workout Workshop

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jollygreengiant

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El Matador said "In which many swear words are uttered and the phrase “**** it, it’s a garage” becomes a mantra. "

I built a 10x12 storage shed behind our old house about 30 years ago. Frustrated with warped lumber and my limited woodworking skills I had a hard time getting things to line up (accompanied by the aforementioned swear words and the occasional tool flying lesson). I called a contractor buddy of mine and he advised "Remember, we are not building a piano. It does not have to be in tune when we are done!"

"We are not building a piano" has become my woodworking mantra!

I had a very similar experience. Though in my case the saying that I learned was "It's good enough for government work" :lol_hitti
 

mfg0772

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Northeast CT
Good work. My dad likes to say that that fact that your even trying is more than most people can say. And also that you've got to make mistakes to learn.

Looking forward to seeing you bike cabinet as bike storage is something I'm trying to overcome. They just take up so much room.
 
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El Matador

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Good work. My dad likes to say that that fact that your even trying is more than most people can say. And also that you've got to make mistakes to learn.

Looking forward to seeing you bike cabinet as bike storage is something I'm trying to overcome. They just take up so much room.

It actually came out super great; rock solid. I'd snap a pic right now but the bikes arent on it since the wife is painting a mural. This is the closest I have from when we did the test fit

rDAFPww.jpg
 

mfg0772

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I also forgot to ask - what lights are those? They seem really bright and upgrading my garage lighting is an upcoming project.
 

odj

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Oct 23, 2009
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Maryland
Great work so far. I dig that nook.

I hate doing drywall. Loathe it. I'm almost 100% moved in to my shop and it's still not done and painted. *sigh*

Also, is that a red E9 in the background in the early shots?
 
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El Matador

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Great work so far. I dig that nook.

I hate doing drywall. Loathe it. I'm almost 100% moved in to my shop and it's still not done and painted. *sigh*

Also, is that a red E9 in the background in the early shots?

feel your pain man. Not an E9, if I had one of those it I would probably figure out a way to park it inside. Its a Roundie E10 that i've been putting some love into. So far its got high comp pistons, dual webers, ireland engineering suspension, and wilwoods all around.
 

M Pete

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I noticed the E10 in the back ground as well, feel free to post pics of that as well. :thumbup: Nice stripes on the wall too, who doesn't like a little Martini Racing flair?
 
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El Matador

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Houston, Tx
Alright, Back to your regularly scheduled garage updates. Lots and lots of high build primer and paint went on. I was hoping the primer would do a little more to fill in some of the worst spots, but it was basically next to useless. Well, it wasn’t too too bad, only a couple of spots are pretty noticeably janky, and those are going to get covered up.
I didn’t take any pictures of white paint going onto the walls because, well, it was as exciting as watching paint dry. The cool part came right after. My amazing wife figured out a way to add Martini Racing stripes to the walls, and after a pretty expensive trip to Sherwin Williams, we were in business. Originally I was thinking of doing a soft two tone, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to put on my all time favorite livery in my garage.

We started off by using the laser level to mark where we needed to put down the many, many, many runs of tape we needed

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The wife unit was very quickly warned off of having her eyes close to the laser while this pic was being snapped.

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The trick is to lay down the red and light blue first, then come in and add the dark blue later.

After letting it dry overnight, we taped off the parts that would stay light blue, and filled in everything else with the dark

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This wall is totally straight, yup 100%. It’s the.. uh.. camera that is wavy.

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And after adding the dark blue and the slightly scary, very satisfying of pulling off tape that you’re praying held an edge overnight, this is what you come out with

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The stripes came out amazing. Almost no bleeding to speak of and crisp as all hell. The wife really came through with the tape job. It was incredibly exciting cause it meant that we could finally start putting stuff up on the walls.

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nadogail

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Coronado, CA
When you decide wether you are building a shelter or a showplace, that's when you get your priorities in order.
 
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El Matador

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This was the first time I could feel tangible progress being done. We didn’t get a whole lot done, but we were able to get the weightlifting stuff up on the walls and mounted. I was relieved to get the rack back inside and out of the elements.

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I got this weight tree from amazon, and while not the best quality, it gets the job done. Not sure if I’d get it again but I am glad all my weights are up on the wall. I wasn’t quite sure of the final placement of it on the X axis, so I just blocked everywhere it could be with extra 2x10s I had from when I built my deck last summer (and got to have the extreme satisfaction of telling my wife that “See! I told you I’d use them someday!”).

Ended up not actually needing the blocking since the placement ended up lining up nicely with the studs. (Wife did not get to learn this little fact lol!)

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We went ahead and also installed the folding rack which went on super easy… right up until I figured out that somehow it was a bit crooked. Sigh. The level must have lied to us somehow. I still have to redo this little catastrophe, but I needed to push on and it’s been shelved for a latter day.

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bdbecker

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That bar turned out great! I've got an odd closet in our downstairs den area - I'm going to show Wife your pics to see if she wants to do a similar conversion.
 
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El Matador

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Houston, Tx
That bar turned out great! I've got an odd closet in our downstairs den area - I'm going to show Wife your pics to see if she wants to do a similar conversion.

Do it! It's very useful and people's reaction to a "hidden bar" is always cool. Not that I've had many people over during the quarantine, but the few have loved it.


Nice job on the stripes. And no shame in drinking some vermouth on ice, especially when wrenching on Italian machines


Ducati - Making mechanics out of riders since 1926!
 
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El Matador

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Reader beware, this post is being written after many, many Modelo Especials.

Alright, sorry for the delay in posting, it’s not been for lack of progress though.

This is where my friend Pete comes in. Pete is an awesome dude. He’s a former Pro BMX rider, rock band manager, fabricator, and current all around good dude. He also happens to be a master cabinet maker when he’s not riding bicycles off of places where no sane person would even walk.


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Pete is also currently underemployed due to the coronavirus quarantine, so we decided to ride it out together by keeping ourselves busy. Without Pete, I doubt any of this would’ve gotten done. Anyways, under his guidance, we made a cut ticket to determine what materials we needed, and he sweet talked all the ladies in the wholesale places for cut rate prices on everything. The man could charm the chastity off of a mother superior I tell you. We ended up going with ¾ MDF for the materials due to a combination of cost and ruggedness. Apparently MDF can be very tough when finished correctly.

Right around this time I actually had to travel to a wellsite in South Texas for about two weeks to earn my pay, and Pete decided to have fun building stuff instead of staying inside his house and drinking beer all day. I wasn’t gonna complain.

I broke down the Lista workbench I got from my neighbor for free (Score!) a couple of years ago to refinish it on the road while I wasn’t working.

Somehow I don’t have a picture of it, but it looks just like this except 96” instead of 48”

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My neighbor’s company outsourced all their manufacturing to Italy so they were just getting rid of the things. We bartered the use of my truck for a workbench for me and one for him.

I want everything to match my big craftsman toolbox for continuity.

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I’m a big fan of the look and after what I paid for that thing, I sure as hell aint refinishing it.

Anyways, The workbench came apart easily and I just used heavy duty black gloss from Rustoleum. It’s a little tricky to shoot, but I got overall pretty good results without too much orange peel

I came home to a ton of cabinets built and stuff mostly ready to go to paint prep.

This is the cabinet that will go above the workbench

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Here is the cabinet that will hold my power tools and tie the bike cabinet to the tool chest

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This cabinet will go against the far wall and hold my paint stuff / camping gear

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And the bike cabinet which Pete literally threw together perfectly in like 20 mins

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Finally, the cabinet that will go above my Air Compressor and hold some tools / reel

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Pete was busy while I was gone, and now everything beautiful that he had done depends on my paint job. No pressure. I was actually feeling pretty good about it, I’ve painted cars and motorcycles before, and apparently MDF paints just like it. No big deal, right?
 
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El Matador

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Houston, Tx
So from this point on, we can call this a symphony of failures. I have never encountered a more difficult surface to properly paint than MDF. Learn from my failures guys

First we tried to shoot the primer with my paint setup.

That was a spectacular failure. So much pilling that it was a trashed effort.

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Then we also realized that the MDF was sucking up any paint into the edges and it was almost impossible to get a smooth result. No matter how many times I went over it with primer.

We came up with adding some wood glue to the edges in order to seal them before we shot them with paint again. The lovely wife was incredibly helpful in this process again.

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So after that was done, we primered again, sanded, and tried to shoot the paint (Gloss Black Heavy duty rustoleum). That was a mistake. I got a good bead on the test piece, but once all the marbles were in play it came out a thick, THICK, mess. Horrible stuff. Went on like tar.

Oh and it took the better part of 48 hrs to dry.

Here it is on day 2, in the middle of my living room, much to my wife’s distaste.

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After many more test pieces, and trying all kinds of thinners, additives, and application methods, I came to the conclusion that I must have gotten a bad batch of paint. That paint will give me nightmares for years to come.

On the plus side, we did get the workbench all painted up, relaminated and reassembled at this time.

I **** at taking progress pics, but I promise I have more of the lamination process for later.

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You can see a pretty pronounced bow on the top part of the workbench, we managed to get that out by using a dead man in the back.

While we were laminating and putting together the workbench, my wife and her amazing French friend Julie decided they wanted to make a mural in the back of the bike cabinet.

We started off by sanding everything flat with what Pete calls my fisher price belt sander (In my defense, I bought that thing when I was a broke college student, and it hasn’t died yet)

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and then using a full sheet of cabinet backing to provide them with a nice flat paintable surface.

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Then white primer and paint to match the walls

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Followed by what can only be called “Funkiness”

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And all done!

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It took the Wife about three days to finish the whole thing and it looks pretty awesome
 

mfg0772

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Northeast CT
That mural is awesome!

I've been using MDF for all the trim I am doing in my house. It's craftsman style so everything is square and built up pieces so I figured I can but sheets of MDF much cheaper then real wood. The edges pose a huge problem. What I have started doing lately is putting a coat of joint compound on all the cut edges. A quick sand and primer and it is ready for paint and the finish comes out just as good as the field.
 

bdbecker

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Did you use an oil or water based primer on the MDF? Water based will give you nothing but problems.
 
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El Matador

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Houston, Tx
That mural is awesome!

I've been using MDF for all the trim I am doing in my house. It's craftsman style so everything is square and built up pieces so I figured I can but sheets of MDF much cheaper then real wood. The edges pose a huge problem. What I have started doing lately is putting a coat of joint compound on all the cut edges. A quick sand and primer and it is ready for paint and the finish comes out just as good as the field.


That works too, I just found it harder to have consistency with that method. We ended up finding a product called Sander Seal that is perfect, just a tiny but time consuming.

What you do is apply it, wait an hour, sand, reapply, wait an hour, lightly sand flat. It comes out pretty nice, just kind of a huge PITA


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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El Matador

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Houston, Tx
Regarding your buddy Pete. Ask him if he knows who Warren Reid is.

Oh, and subscribed.

Apparently he knows him personally. Pete says he was never into MX as much as BMX but he met him passingly once or twice

Also, he was the previous generation, Pete was more in the scene in the late 80s and 90's.

Is Warren someone you know?
 

Porschelicious

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The Martini colors are probably the most iconic in motorsport - Gulf a close second but the mix of dark & light blue with red is just classy.

Kudos to your wife for her skills.
 
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El Matador

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Regarding your buddy Pete. Ask him if he knows who Warren Reid is.

Oh, and subscribed.

The Martini colors are probably the most iconic in motorsport - Gulf a close second but the mix of dark & light blue with red is just classy.

Kudos to your wife for her skills.


Thanks!!! she has many talents; chief among them the ability to put up with me
 
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El Matador

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Houston, Tx
So we went back to the drawing board with the paint, and after some more research, we came across a product called Sanding Sealer. It was exactly what we needed, though application is a bit of a PITA.

You apply, wait an hour, then sand most of it off, apply again, wait another hour, then sand flat. Then you apply primer, wait another two hours, then you can paint. Makes painting parts about as pleasant as shooting yourself in the foot.

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While waiting for all those coats to dry, it was time to do what I was probably the most excited about. Air conditioning. In Houston, it’s an absolute necessity if you want to survive, never mind have a pleasant space.

First thing was running more power to the garage. I had prewired two sets of outlets before putting in the drywall, one dedicated 25amp 120v for the air compressor and major power tools, and one 30 amp 240v, for future 240 needs.

Now it was time to hook it up to the panel, which meant digging in summer, YAAAAY!

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We dug 24 inches down even though code only called for 6 (!). I just didn’t see the reason not to and avoid potential future disasters.

After digging we laid out the conduit and fished the wires through

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Then we lightly covered with earth and put some paving bricks on top in case anyone digging in the future isn’t careful with their shovel

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Finally we hooked it up to the Breaker box and added the appropriate circuits

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Then on to the fun stuff, AC! I bought a 1 ton / 19000 btu Minisplit Pioneer unit for about 600 USD. It’s about 1.4 the size I need to cool the space but I’m a fan of overengineering.

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Actually installing the AC was a breeze. You basically locate the Inside unit and figure out where the hole in the wall will be. Its pretty small, only 3” will take care of all your lines and power. You then locate the exterior unit and run all the wiring/piping.

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The unit comes precharged so all you have to do is pull a vacuum in the lines and make sure it’s holding fine. A cheap Amazon vacuum pump and gauges came out to about 60$. You pull a vacuum until you’re at ~30Hg, then you turn the pump off and leave it overnight to make sure you don’t have any leaks. If you’re still good in the morning, then you open the internal valves in the outside unit to release the coolant. A few more leak checks and you’re good to go!

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When I turned on the AC and felt that sweet, sweet cold air coming out I may or may not have shouted “I have defeated Nature, Fear me!” while pumping my arms in the air. My wife, on the other hand, just said that I should stop tempting fate and enjoy the rapidly cooling garage. She might have a point.

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El Matador

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Houston, Tx
I felt super energized after this victory over Texas Summer and progress went quick after that. Once the AC went in, we went on an all ahead push to get the cabinets ready. We decided to swap to a Matte Black, higher quality paint that we could mostly roll on.

The compressor cabinet was the first to get paint and I was happy, but not ecstatic with the result. Once it dried we put it up on the wall and out of harm’s way.

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I located the studs and used the laser level to mark the center position. Once that was done, it was super simple to locate the screw positions on the cabinet, countersink, and drive them in.

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While waiting for the paint to dry on the rest of the cabinets, we went ahead and made the clamp rack with room for expansion.

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Pete came up with an awesome idea to use it for all the “long stuff” which led to having a dedicated place for my Level and my T-squares.

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We basically just cut Rough cut everything with the circular saw and jigsaw then made them perfect with the router.

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I’m a little OCD and a big fan of the idea that “everything has a place” so this warmed my heart.

We put up the overhead cabinet and the clamp rack once everything was dry. I really started to like the contrast from the MDF and Sanding Sealer to the black, so I decided to start leaving some stuff bare next to the black.

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Since we designed the overhead cabinets to be located exactly above the workbench, we had to cut into the rightmost one to allow for the end of the garage door track to intrude. We made a box to hide it once the cabinet was open and gave it a quick and very dirty coat of black.

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We made end panels for the cabinets to give everything a nice, finished look.

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I also reurposed the pegboards that came out of the tops of the old, very cheap (40$) husky toolboxes that I bought last year in an attempt to get a tiny bit more organized.

These pegboards will mostly be used for little tools that have no current fixed place and my wife’s gardening implements.

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mfg0772

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Northeast CT
So we went back to the drawing board with the paint, and after some more research, we came across a product called Sanding Sealer. It was exactly what we needed, though application is a bit of a PITA.

You apply, wait an hour, then sand most of it off, apply again, wait another hour, then sand flat. Then you apply primer, wait another two hours, then you can paint. Makes painting parts about as pleasant as shooting yourself in the foot.


mkwQrxn.jpg

Are you covering all the surfaces with Sanding Sealer or just the cut edges?



What's up with the temperature display :lol_hitti Or is is just the picture?
 
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El Matador

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Houston, Tx
Are you covering all the surfaces with Sanding Sealer or just the cut edges?




What's up with the temperature display :lol_hitti Or is is just the picture?


All surfaces. It makes it easy to even everything out.

And yeah, it’s just the picture, I just noticed it looks weird [emoji23]


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TX4runner

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Mar 9, 2014
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308
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Houston, TX
Nice progress, envious of the A/C as a fellow Houstonian. I also spy a 2002 in many of those pics! Guessing the garage A/C works better than the '02 A/C.
 

Jeff95TA

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Aug 11, 2008
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886
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Pittsburgh, PA
I just started reading this, and first off, nice build and great documentation.

I'm also a Mech E with minimal CAD experience. There's a reason I have our CAD guy do the geometry for my finite element models! I've managed to learn the basics of AutoDesk Inventor enough that I can do home projects. Keep it up!
 
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