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(y) New batteries went in my safes as one of the first tasks when I moved into this house about two years ago.

Maybe try a new battery anyway?

Me too. Rinseless or even waterless washes. In fact, a detailing spray like Griot's Speed Shine does 90+% of the work keeping my vehicles clean year round.

I've had one of those Costco stainless steel boxes for 15-20 years now. Until the last year and a half it was in my unheated, marginally-sealed garage in humid Saint Louis. No corrosion at all. They’re an OK box for the money. I’m not sure I’d buy it again, and TBH I’ve often thought about...

I generally like Adam Savage’s work a lot. This one is a bit disappointing, unfortunately. Savage is almost more in the role of a shill for these guys than a critical observer. High-res CT stuff is interesting, as always. But it’s presented as the only way to look inside a battery. For inline...

The millwrights in a couple of paper mills I’ve worked in used boxes like that. I have the best memories of them from a mill in southwestern Ohio during the summer of 1978.

Thx, @Beerhippie. Noted. It turns out I still have a vintage Wen soldering gun. An oldie. And I have these howitzer-class soldering irons, too. Maybe one of these needs to get dusted off after probably 50-60 years of idleness.

As so often, this forum has a thread on something I need JUST as I need it. Amazing. Thanks for the inputs, guys. I need to de-solder the ground wire on my Triumph TR3's Lucas distributor, and need more heat than any of my electric soldering pencils can apply. Butane is the next step.

Knife sharpener. I asked the same question here years ago after finding one in my late brother's stuff!

Eleven of 'em on the pegboard at the store in Santa Fe yesterday. Looks like the supply chain is catching up with their (deserved) popularity.

This, possibly in combination with an impact driver, has worked for me several times. I learned it from my father probably close to sixty years ago. It ain’t a new approach…

FWIW, Rose Plastics typically makes those tubes in various plastics. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is often chosen because of its transparency. But plasticized PVC will attack some other plastics and is not really “archival”. Polypropylene (PP) isn‘t as transparent, but it’s durable and...

I had two Mitsubishi Hyper Heat ducted mini-split heat pump units mounted in October on the flat roof of my house outside Santa Fe. They replaced two propane/electric package units, using the original ceiling penetrations and ducts. The units are quiet and maintain set points very well...

Be really careful with that corrosion, @ratcheted. Looking at your images on my iPhone, there could be a high risk of creating holes in the metal by taking off that rust, almost any means! Check carefully for at least a few fractions of a mm of solid metal before scraping or otherwise going at it.

My house vacuum these days is an older Rainbow water-filtered canister. Not an upright, not inexpensive, and honestly, not that convenient, but dayum. there's nothing like a Rainbow vacuum. It cleans better than anything I've ever used and the water-tank filtering traps everything with no...

I have two Milwaukee 0880-20 M18 vacs — the compact one that stores the cord under the lid. One lives in the house almost full time. It has much of the suction, but none of the running time of course, of my corded vacs. They’re terrifically useful for light cleanup inside the house. Mine...

Same here! My latest combo is white cabinets with grey drawers. But Rousseau’s light grey/off white is pretty nice too… Color choices would be the reason I would go directly to Rousseau vs Tekton. As my dad used to say when I spent what some might think is too much on my toys: 1. “If...

Very -- very! -- nice. I've been on the Rousseau site a number of times, working with their configuration/color tool and dreaming about upgrades to my shop. What do you think of the drawer latches, @ItsNemo? Do they work as well in real life as they appear to?

I had one of the (now long outdated) kind that clamp the top terminals with a strap. I don’t use that one any more, and might have pitched it, because I’m pretty sure it broke the seal between case and post in my vintage Triumph TR, leading the battery to puke acid. Battery cases arent as...

I think some of the older labs at the research institute where I started my career in 1979 might have had real slate countertops. But those dated from the 1940s or earlier. The labs I’ve worked in that were built or remodeled from at least the 1970s onward had super-heavy, chemical-resistant...