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Ok, someone please check me on this... We are taking out our gas stove and replacing it with an induction one, and also hooking up a natural gas grill at the same time. I looked at getting a pro out to do it but they tried the equivalent of the blinker fluid and cabin filter upsell on my wife...

We're getting ready to close on a house next week and I'm already looking ahead to all the customization we plan to do. The house is ~25 years old, very well-maintained but many of the fixtures are a little dated. We plan to replace the lights and fans with stuff more our taste. We like the...

Update: it was the capacitor. Heat works now. Thanks for Ace Hardware who had one in stock, worth the 2x cost for that. ------------------------------------ Of course this has to happen on the coldest week of the year, right after the big ice/snow storm... Woke up this morning, house is a...

Looking to put together a setup for transporting gasoline for my airplane (once I'm done building it). I've been looking on Northern Tool at the pumps and tanks they ahve available but it's a pretty wide variety and was wondering if anyone had experience with this sort of thing. I need about...

I've resigned myself to painting my airplane at home since nobody seems interested in my business. Therefore I need to figure out a place to do it (open air is probably out due to bugs and stuff from trees, if nothing else). Anyone have suggestions on making up a temporary paint booth? One...

Since painters and paint shops don't want to answer the phone these days, I've pretty much resigned myself to painting my airplane at home. What I'm trying to figure out now is what paint to use. Most common for this application is single- or two-stage automotive urethane. Common wisdom says...

I have a bracket with a row of holes that I need to slot (between each pair of holes). Material is 1/4 carbon steel, holes are 5/16 diameter at 5/8 spacing. I need to slot three pairs, plus oblong a fourth hole a bit. What's the least painful way of doing this? I don't have access to a mill...

Looking ahead to when my airplane will finally be at the airport, I'm trying to figure out how to put together a set of tools to keep with it at the hangar (and a smaller travel set for basic field repairs). Some of it is obvious, like screwdrivers, but I'm thinking more about things like...

So I had to make some CRES bushings to fit the alternator to my airplane. The bushings themselves turned out great and pressed in just fine. I'm actually quite proud of how they turned out given I made them on a HF mini lathe from Craigslist... The problem is that I forgot to write down the...

My shop is a mess. I have tools on pegboard, some in bins on my workbench top, some in boxes on various shelves, and the rest scattered about where I was using them. I spend a significant portion of my shop time looking for the tool I just put down. Wife says “shouldn’t you get a tool box for...

I’m looking at pouring a pad in front of my shop to serve as additional working space and potential parking for a vehicle. I might also invest in something like Bendpak lifts for use out there as need arises. Approximate size 14x28 or so. What kind of thickness /specswould I be looking at for...

We have several GE “smart” switches in our house, tied into a Smarthings hub. Generally they work very well, but the switch for our kitchen light (a 4x4ft T8 fixture) is acting flaky again. The previous one would sometimes refuse to turn off (the solenoid would click but no change) and...

Posted a while back about a Husky 60gal compressor with a blown head gasket. I repaired it (made a new gasket) and reassembled. No leak there, but now the compressor is taking forever to fill (10+ min from 120 to 150 psi) and I see oil mist sometimes “chuffing” out the vent cap. I assume my...

Went out in my shop today to find my compressor (60 gal Husky single stage) running hot and the whole shop filled with a light haze of smoke. Shut the compressor off and ventilated. Looks like the oil fill cap (?) leaked and blew oil all down the side of the pump and onto the floor. I haven’t...

All the ones you're working around, anyway! I've been slowly adding "smart" switches around the house--they're pretty neat. But in the process of adding a pair for our kitchen I zapped myself pretty good. The location in question has three switches; two control lighting in the kitchen and one...

Wife and I are planning to add a pad in front of my shop, and an expanded patio, preferably at the same time to save on concrete pump costs. However, I have a few technical/design-type questions. First, the parking pad. You can see pictures of the shop in my build thread (see signature). Due...

Wife and I are looking at making some improvements to the back yard area, and from an electrical standpoint that includes some additional lighting and possibly a hot tub. The question is, where should I run the power from? The easiest solution would be to run it off the detached shop, which...

Anyone have some ideas on how to safely get work done in the shop while watching a toddler? My son is 15 months old and has been walking since 10 months, so he's pretty good at it and moves very fast. He gets into everything and is utterly fascinated by everything mechanical or electrical...

I realized that unless I actually picked something to make with my welder, I'd never sit down and really try to use it. So I decided to make a table like this at the request of my wife, to go behind our couch and give us a place to put computers, drinks, and phones out of reach of our toddler...

So I decided to roll the dice a bit and get a Mr. Cool DIY unit for the shop. For those that don't know, the lineset is a fixed 25' run, so I can't just cut them to length. Originally I was going to place the indoor unit on the opposite side of the wall from the outdoor unit, but this would...