Between 485 & 705 SQ/FT Bob Heine's Auto Emporium

[HOTFR8]

Now that I like. I have some that say 'Drive now, Talk later.'

 

[driftpin]

Is that a Star-Tac?

 

[njhoudini]

Bob, did you ever manage to fish your wire in the car? I was thinking about it and was wondering if a guitar string (low E) or a bass string (you can pick) could be pliable enough to get through but rigid enough to not give in too easily. Some guitar strings come with a grommet at the end so that one might be better than one without.

 

[xtremek]

I get busy for a week or two and it seems that you do more in one week than I do in a year. Holy Cow!!!!!

 

[Bob Heine]

Where's your sense of sport, man?

Andy, I left my sense of sport in my high school locker. Probably smells pretty bad in there by now. I was on the soccer, wrestling and track teams so no one but my teammates ever saw me play (Liane saw me wrestle once and couldn't do it a second time). To this day I don't watch popular sports.

Bob: that was/is some tree you decided to have removed and wondering if the company is shaking their heads and wondering why they took on this job.

I also live with someone who doesn't like to get pranked or punked and she has a side of her that I try to leave alone.

best of luck with the new pile of debris and your yard always looks like a park.

Drives, turns out the wife owns the company and her husband is the arborist. He acts like the owner and quotes prices for side jobs behind her back. She and her crew came to cut down the second part of the tree so I assumed they were going to grind the stump into wood chips as her husband had described. I already paid him a 50% deposit so he could rent the machine and I expected to pay her the other half when the tree and stumps were gone. She knew nothing about the stump grinding and the 50% deposit so I gave her the rest of the money after they cut the tree sown and removed all the debris. They originally estimated $4,200 but ended up charging $8,000 -- a few dollars shy of the other bidder. This is par for the course when dealing with Florida service companies.

I treat people the way I would like to be treated and sometimes that backfires. I'm too old to change and I prefer to sleep soundly. If the guy shows up with a stump grinder, great. If not, we'll have an interesting garden feature and fenceline in the yard. I was thinking of getting estimates for the fencing and then remembered that it's work I can do myself.

Liane has no problem with someone pranking or punking her. The pranky punkster is the one who has the problem. A moment of laughter isn't worth a shortened life.

More like a death wish.

Dan, I take it you've been there and done that!

Ok your brother is Andy and you’re married to Farmer Liane. Any chance they were neighbors? I’m thinking nothing but half hitched overalls walking around the house could be beneficial. I don’t mean you in overall either. Lol.


Sent from my iPhone using The Garage Journal mobile app

Stewart, you may be on to something but obviously they hid it well. Your thought is interesting but again, payback is a well, you know. I prefer wearing pants and I am positive her half hitched overalls would mean all my pants being turned into chaps. You only show up at Home Depot once dressed like that.

Bob, I hear you on the Lowes/Home Depot trips with the spouse, its never to one of them when she accompanies me, there is always extra stops. I am lucky that they are across the street from each other and are less than 8 miles round trip from my home.

I was interested in seeing your sink drain pipe, only because there have been a couple of threads on how to properly pipe sink drains recently.

What size drawer(weight) slides did you use on your cabinet?

The tree is the gift that keeps giving.

John

John, you must have seen my GPS activity. We rarely go to Lowe's because it's a few miles to the west, where multiple Walmarts have sprouted. There's also a Kohl's, a Western Beef, a couple of thrift stores and a store that sells Costco items at a discount. My sneaky solution is to wait until she goes out for a nail job to do my HD/L shopping. You'd be surprised how much lumber and other stuff you can carry in a Corvette convertible.

I remember that thread or one like it and discovered that the sink drain in the kitchen was plumbed wrong. It hat a trap connected to the garbage disposal in addition to the trap on the sink drain. No wonder it backed up.


I used Knape & Vogt 28-inch full extension slides rated at 100 pounds (I assume that's for the pair). https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009VLFE0/?tag=atomicindus08-20

I feel like the tree is the gift that keeps sucking me dry.

Now that I like. I have some that say 'Drive now, Talk later.'

Simon, it makes me feel better to have it on the back of the car but I know the target audience never sees it.

Is that a Star-Tac?

Philip, it sure looks like one to me. Like many technology things, I was late to adopt a cell phone. They tried to give me one just before I retired from IBM in 1993 but there weren't many hands-free setups available and I wasn't letting go of the steering wheel to learn I was late to a meeting. Never forget the day one really really important woman called a really really important man to invite him to a meeting. He was in the room when his phone rang. The woman was yelling into the Motorla DynaTAC like he was on another planet.

I got the Motorola Tic-Tac phone when I worked for America Online but never told anyone what my number was. I used it to AAA and to call home when my flight landed to let Liane know I was on my way home (so Paco the pool boy could get dressed and leave). Every call started with "Are you in the car?" followed by "Yes dear, I'm calling from the car." As if the background noise of a ******* Corvette on I-95 wasn't enough of a hint.

Bob, did you ever manage to fish your wire in the car? I was thinking about it and was wondering if a guitar string (low E) or a bass string (you can pick) could be pliable enough to get through but rigid enough to not give in too easily. Some guitar strings come with a grommet at the end so that one might be better than one without.

Eugene, I did get the wire fished through using the vinyl tubing. I connected the standard antenna lead to the Chrysler adapter dongle and it worked perfectly. When I pulled the dongle off to put the radio back in the dash, the coax lead came out. I put it back together and finished the install. Now there is more static and poorer reception on the radio than when it had no antenna. Looks like there is going to be some more dash work in my future.

I get busy for a week or two and it seems that you do more in one week than I do in a year. Holy Cow!!!!!

Kirk, I have the object permanence of a goldfish so it looks like I'm doing a lot of stuff. It's all 3-second bursts of actvity.

 

[driftpin]

"Paco the pool boy..." Ha, you are a card! Better to be known as a card than as a cur.

 

[cbacres]

Bob, if the stump is staying, it's make a great anvil stand, could even set up a fire pit next to it for heating your steel.

 

[shortykorte]

Heck, you could have hired Craig and I to remove the tree. $3000 plus our choice of tools. Lol.


Sent from my iPhone using The Garage Journal mobile app

 

[HOTFR8]

Simon, it makes me feel better to have it on the back of the car but I know the target audience never sees it.

Oh so true.

 

[jimreed2160]

Bob, no need to lose sleep over the stump. In your south FL climate, fungus and critters will take care of it quickly. Drilling a few holes in it will accelerate the process. Or you can have a wiener roast. I did that to a 3' diameter stump when my granddaughter was 10. Dumped a big bag of charcoal on it so we could cook hot dogs and marshmallows. Now she is 15 and the stump has vanished.

 

[Bob Heine]

"Paco the pool boy..." Ha, you are a card! Better to be known as a card than as a cur.

Bob, if the stump is staying, it's make a great anvil stand, could even set up a fire pit next to it for heating your steel.

Craig, you are on to something although it's going to take some fancy shimming to get the anvil level or at least level enough so it doesn't tip over on its first use.

Heck, you could have hired Craig and I to remove the tree. $3000 plus our choice of tools. Lol.


Sent from my iPhone using The Garage Journal mobile app

Oh so true.

Stewart, does the $3000 include blood transfusions? My tools are on the cheap side and I've never even touched a Lista cabinet.

Bob, no need to lose sleep over the stump. In your south FL climate, fungus and critters will take care of it quickly. Drilling a few holes in it will accelerate the process. Or you can have a wiener roast. I did that to a 3' diameter stump when my granddaughter was 10. Dumped a big bag of charcoal on it so we could cook hot dogs and marshmallows. Now she is 15 and the stump has vanished.

Jim, you're right about our natural stump removal process. Five years sounds about right.

 

[Bob Heine]

I've been using my two wagons to clean up what's left of the tree and make the area ready for some new landscaping. I moved a load out to the swale and upon dumping it, the rear axle collapsed. The U-channel and bolts rusted to the point they fell apart. I thought it might be time to get rid of the cart because I've gotten my money's worth out of it. Upon closer inspection, all it needed was some new bolts, nuts and a couple of fender washers.

It worked so well I loaded the wagon with a bunch of concrete chunks.

When I tried to turn the wagon to get it out of the rain, the steering mechanism broke apart. Well, this is definitely the end for this old wagon.

I remembered some scrap steel strap saved from an old coffee table and thought I might be able to bend some pieces into a patch for the steering system.

I figured there wouldn't be much metal left if I tried to weld the rusty bits together so I got out my best stainless steel pop rivets.

It went back together better than I expected. I even managed to save the rusty nuts and bolts (Kroil does a great job loosening rusted hardware). Hopefully a dozen pop rivets will hold it together a little longer.

Now I am thinking I can patch the pull handle with a little bent conduit. The handle rusted apart a year ago but no sense rushing into things. Of course my welding bay has a Corvette parked in it so I'll have to wait for a rain-free day. I mean, I could put the top up and pull it out into the driveway but that seems like a wasted minute or two.

 

[1/2 Cup]

Bob thats a great repair on the wagon, no sense in tossing it out just yet.

 

[HOTFR8]

Why not clean up the metal and give it a coat of paint as it may last even lomger.

Bob thats a great repair on the wagon, no sense in tossing it out just yet.

I agree.

 

[cbacres]

Why not clean up the metal and give it a coat of paint as it may last even longer.

Two reasons-

1 patina won't match if new steel painted.
2 Bob needs something to do n three or so years.






Four

 

[xtremek]

Nice save on the wagon. Don't forget to remove the zinc coating on the conduit if you weld it. You don't want to breath the poison gas.

 

[RickP]

Nice repair on the wagon. Looks familiar - I was doing a steering repair on our garden wagon last week too (for the second time in five years). They just don't make those $99 carts like they used to...

(Or did they used to make them better and charged double the price? I'm not sure which is better.)

 

[jimreed2160]

Nice repair on the wagon, Bob. But I am a little surprised at the lack of redneck aluminum (duck tape). Rivets are OK, I guess you need to use what you have handy. Good luck on the handle--I would make something comfortable out of wood.

 

[bolensboneyard]

Score another for the handyman. Now Bob, you shouldn't cheat the greenies out all that recycled plastic and metal which costs more in energy to melt and do over than it would have to make it last longer to begin with. Who knows, if a new one were made of recycled milk jugs latent with growth hormones, perhaps you could have bought one which would grow in size on demand. Maybe repairing it was a mistake??

 

[shortykorte]

On that green note, I’m thinking your brother could make you a nice cast aluminum part out of recycled material then you could recycle the steel. Might as well get some nice cast aluminum rims too.


Sent from my iPhone using The Garage Journal mobile app

 

[casmurbax]

Bob, thanks for the link om the drawer slides.

Nice job on your cart.

 

[Bob Heine]

Bob thats a great repair on the wagon, no sense in tossing it out just yet.

Steve, I like to repair things with supplies that are on hand. It's nice to get a little more use of a piece of yard equipment, especially when will be useful on a big project. They will be delivering lumber for fencing, siding for the shed and a bunch of dirt and gravel for Liane's projects. I think the cart will be helpful hauling sod and palm trees from the driveway to the back yard in the near future as well.

Why not clean up the metal and give it a coat of paint as it may last even lomger.



I agree.

Simon, I think the rust has gone past the point of a coat of paint extending its life. The other wagon might be a different story.

Two reasons-

1 patina won't match if new steel painted.
2 Bob needs something to do n three or so years.






Four

Craig, I'm going to call it my Rat Wagon. I'm going to be real surprised if this fix extends the wagon's life another three years. I did find a kit for a new chassis and wheels but it seems a little spendy, considering the price of a new Gorilla Wagon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000AX6N8/?tag=atomicindus08-20

Nice save on the wagon. Don't forget to remove the zinc coating on the conduit if you weld it. You don't want to breath the poison gas.

Kirk, thanks for the kind words and reminder. After staring at the handle and my bent piece of conduit I did a little searching. They sell fairly sturdy handles for about $6 so I ordered one.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004817EQU/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_image_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Nice repair on the wagon. Looks familiar - I was doing a steering repair on our garden wagon last week too (for the second time in five years). They just don't make those $99 carts like they used to...

(Or did they used to make them better and charged double the price? I'm not sure which is better.)

Rick, glad to hear I'm not alone. I bought that wagon from Costco quite a few years ago and I think it was in that $99 ballpark. Amazon will ship a new wagon to my house for about $140.

Nice repair on the wagon, Bob. But I am a little surprised at the lack of redneck aluminum (duck tape). Rivets are OK, I guess you need to use what you have handy. Good luck on the handle--I would make something comfortable out of wood.

Jim, I figured the way I use duck tape it would be both more expensive and less effective at the same time (the tape would have prevented the steering from turning). I even thought about aluminum pop rivets but I know how easy those give up the ghost (see PT Cruiser bumper repair earlier in this saga). Your comment about wood got me thinking and led to the purchase of that handle. It has an obviously bigger socket than the 3/4" handle but I have a small supply of dowels in the shed. Figured one of them would fit. Once I had the new handle to work on, my fourth dowel fit nicely. With a worm clamp to keep it from splitting, I drilled out the oak dowel (discovered by the smell of drilling that it was oak). Started with a 1/4" bit and moved up to a 1/2" and then used a step drill to discover it needed a 7/8" hole. Just so happened to have a couple of 7/8" (22MM) hole saws and after making it half way, cut the 2" long wood bushing loose and finished from the other end (my hole saw only cuts about 1.25" deep).

Those blue-handled "pliers" arrived with the new wagon handle. It's a spring stretcher for the door seal ring on our front load washer. There was some water on the floor in front of the washer so I pulled the drum sealing ring to find the source. Simple repair (just needed cleaning under the seal) until I tried to put the ring back on. It is a wire that goes around the opening with a 2.5" spring at the bottom. The YouTube videos showing how to get it back on included demonstrations with just Vise Grips as well as special pliers. After 90 minutes crouched in front of the washer with Vise Grips, the $40 special pliers didn't look all that expensive. Next day delivery sealed the deal. Those pliers are saving me $1,500 for a new washer -- we're apparently a very dirty couple who can't go three days without a functioning laundry.

Score another for the handyman. Now Bob, you shouldn't cheat the greenies out all that recycled plastic and metal which costs more in energy to melt and do over than it would have to make it last longer to begin with. Who knows, if a new one were made of recycled milk jugs latent with growth hormones, perhaps you could have bought one which would grow in size on demand. Maybe repairing it was a mistake??

Bobby, I recycle but mostly because I don't like dragging garbage cans to the curb more than once a week (or two). I like the idea of the hormonal milk jugs. Someone sold me a wallet that was supposed to be made of elephant foreskin -- you do the Alladin's Lamp thing and it turns into a carry-on bag. It was a hoax and I ended up with a wallet that shrivels up in the cold.

On that green note, I’m thinking your brother could make you a nice cast aluminum part out of recycled material then you could recycle the steel. Might as well get some nice cast aluminum rims too.


Sent from my iPhone using The Garage Journal mobile app

Stewart, my brother is very generous with his time and I know he would have happily cast me a new handle but then I would just be walking around with a beautiful cast handle with nothing attached in a year or two. I get enough strange looks as it is.

Bob, thanks for the link om the drawer slides.

Nice job on your cart.

John, you are very welcome and thanks for the compliment.

 

[driftpin]

Steve, I like to repair things with supplies that are on hand.

Me, too! (below)

Bobby...I ended up with a wallet that shrivels up in the cold.

George Costanza has documented for us the Shrinkage Factor.

Stewart...I would just be walking around with a beautiful cast handle with nothing attached in a year or two. I get enough strange looks as it is.

Like those people at the carnival walking their invisible dogs, 'straining' at the leash?

Here's a recent project I scavenged from the scrap pile. I was driving down Coral Way/SW 23 St. in Miami (FL). I passed an old Chevy pickup with the hood up, on the side of the road. It had an open utility trailer behind it, and both the pickup bed and the utility trailer were filled with hard junk. It appeared he was on his way to the scrapyard, and had a bit of car trouble. It was already in the 90's here.

As I passed the truck/trailer, something in the trailer caught my eye. It was a steel cabinet/vertical chest of drawers. It wasn't big, but it looked like something you might see in your local mom & pop hardware store, filled with little bins of various fasteners. Hmmm... I kept going.

Soon I passed a convenience store. I pulled-in, and bought a bottle of water from the refrigerated section, and returned to the pickup & trailer. I got out, and gave the bottle of cold water to the single guy who was at the truck. "Got a problem with the truck? " I asked. He was actually doing the landscaping maintenance at the commercial building he was parked in-front-of. I asked him if I could look-at the grey steel chest of drawers in the trailer. He said OK.

The chest of drawers was a light-duty steel cabinet, the drawers weren't on slide-out brackets, no ball-bearings, not heavy-duty. However, each drawer had three long bins, with snap-in plastic dividers, and the dividers were still in plastic packs. There were some items in the drawers, a selection of a few dozen wire crimp terminals, three rolls of teflon tape, some 1/8" L-angle brackets, a bunch of small nuts, bolts, and washers, etc.

"How-much for the steel drawers?" I asked. He told me to take them, no-charge. Then he told me that he had another steel cabinet in the pickup bed. I followed him there, he cast-off a truck tire, and there was an old heavy-gauge steel 1-door cabinet, about 2' X 2' X 3'+. It was on heavy-duty 5" solid rubber caster wheels, two were locking. The back was missing, but the cabinet wasn't crushed, it was all-of-a-piece. The top had been replaced with a 3/4" piece of plywood, through-bolted to the steel frame with SS 1/4" flat-head screws, so the top surface was smooth, flat, and flush. The missing back piece was fastened in-place with two different sizes of nut-serts, 10-32 and 1/4-20 screw sizes. It looked like a piece which had been in a commercial garage, where it might have held something like an AC evacuation pump for car service work.

The curved-front door was fastened by a spring latch, and was pivoting on two long piano hinges. It also had a hole for a locking latch. The cylinder was missing. The single shelf had a deep sheetmetal piece below the shelf, cutting-down on access to the interior through the single door. The sheetmetal was much-heavier than what you get in the orange or blue stores, for their cabinets. It was 16 gauge.

"How-much for this?" I asked again. Once-again, he told me I could have it, no-charge. He even helped me to load them into my pickup.

When I got home, I cut off the sheetmetal below the single shelf, greatly-increasing access into the cabinet. I removed the 5" locking casters to save for another project, and replaced them with four casters from a Harbor Freight furniture dolly. I also added a back of the cabinet piece with a masonite scrap I had and also covered the top of the cabinet plywood with another piece of scrap masonite. I let the back masonite piece extend above the cabinet top, so that if you had something at the cabinet top back, it wouldn't fall-off the top cabinet piece.

I also added a 3/4" half-shelf inside the cabinet for more storage.

The cart is now a roll-around cabinet which could be of-use to someone. I'm going to put it on craigslist and sell it. The HFT furniture dolly I bought for the wheels to put onto the cabinet, that was the most-expensive thing I did to it, I bought a few nuts and bolts too, for the build. But mostly I used up some scrap masonite, plywood, and fasteners.

See the pics.

May 9 update: I hand/brush painted the grey cabinet after using a wire brush cup on a side grinder/cutoff tool. It looks better, the drawers, especially, as the pulls were bent & rusty, not-now! I used a pair of Vise Grips and a 1/4" drive, 7/16 deep socket as a mandrel to tweak into-shape the drawer pulls.The new paint should help the chest of drawers last longer. I used oil-based paint from Ace Hardware. I have a can of red, and a can of grey. Stuff built, patched, or repaired usually gets one or the other.

 

[HOTFR8]

Simon, I think the rust has gone past the point of a coat of paint extending its life. The other wagon might be a different story.

Looks to me like a whole new topic.

 

[jimreed2160]

Bob--glad you got a handle on that project.

Drift--great projects.

 

[Bob Heine]

Steve, I like to repair things with supplies that are on hand.

Me, too! (below)

Bobby...I ended up with a wallet that shrivels up in the cold.

George Costanza has documented for us the Shrinkage Factor.

Stewart...I would just be walking around with a beautiful cast handle with nothing attached in a year or two. I get enough strange looks as it is.

Like those people at the carnival walking their invisible dogs, 'straining' at the leash?

Here's a recent project I scavenged from the scrap pile. I was driving down Coral Way/SW 23 St. in Miami (FL). I passed an old Chevy pickup with the hood up, on the side of the road. It had an open utility trailer behind it, and both the pickup bed and the utility trailer were filled with hard junk. It appeared he was on his way to the scrapyard, and had a bit of car trouble. It was already in the 90's here.

As I passed the truck/trailer, something in the trailer caught my eye. It was a steel cabinet/vertical chest of drawers. It wasn't big, but it looked like something you might see in your local mom & pop hardware store, filled with little bins of various fasteners. Hmmm... I kept going.

Soon I passed a convenience store. I pulled-in, and bought a bottle of water from the refrigerated section, and returned to the pickup & trailer. I got out, and gave the bottle of cold water to the single guy who was at the truck. "Got a problem with the truck? " I asked. He was actually doing the landscaping maintenance at the commercial building he was parked in-front-of. I asked him if I could look-at the grey steel chest of drawers in the trailer. He said OK.

The chest of drawers was a light-duty steel cabinet, the drawers weren't on slide-out brackets, no ball-bearings, not heavy-duty. However, each drawer had three long bins, with snap-in plastic dividers, and the dividers were still in plastic packs. There were some items in the drawers, a selection of a few dozen wire crimp terminals, three rolls of teflon tape, some 1/8" L-angle brackets, a bunch of small nuts, bolts, and washers, etc.

"How-much for the steel drawers?" I asked. He told me to take them, no-charge. Then he told me that he had another steel cabinet in the pickup bed. I followed him there, he cast-off a truck tire, and there was an old heavy-gauge steel 1-door cabinet, about 2' X 2' X 3'+. It was on heavy-duty 5" solid rubber caster wheels, two were locking. The back was missing, but the cabinet wasn't crushed, it was all-of-a-piece. The top had been replaced with a 3/4" piece of plywood, through-bolted to the steel frame with SS 1/4" flat-head screws, so the top surface was smooth, flat, and flush. The missing back piece was fastened in-place with two different sizes of nut-serts, 10-32 and 1/4-20 screw sizes. It looked like a piece which had been in a commercial garage, where it might have held something like an AC evacuation pump for car service work.

The curved-front door was fastened by a spring latch, and was pivoting on two long piano hinges. It also had a hole for a locking latch. The cylinder was missing. The single shelf had a deep sheetmetal piece below the shelf, cutting-down on access to the interior through the single door. The sheetmetal was much-heavier than what you get in the orange or blue stores, for their cabinets. It was 16 gauge.

"How-much for this?" I asked again. Once-again, he told me I could have it, no-charge. He even helped me to load them into my pickup.

When I got home, I cut off the sheetmetal below the single shelf, greatly-increasing access into the cabinet. I removed the 5" locking casters to save for another project, and replaced them with four casters from a Harbor Freight furniture dolly. I also added a back of the cabinet piece with a masonite scrap I had and also covered the top of the cabinet plywood with another piece of scrap masonite. I let the back masonite piece extend above the cabinet top, so that if you had something at the cabinet top back, it wouldn't fall-off the top cabinet piece.

I also added a 3/4" half-shelf inside the cabinet for more storage.

The cart is now a roll-around cabinet which could be of-use to someone. I'm going to put it on craigslist and sell it. The HFT furniture dolly I bought for the wheels to put onto the cabinet, that was the most-expensive thing I did to it, I bought a few nuts and bolts too, for the build. But mostly I used up some scrap masonite, plywood, and fasteners.

See the pics.

May 9 update: I hand/brush painted the grey cabinet after using a wire brush cup on a side grinder/cutoff tool. It looks better, the drawers, especially, as the pulls were bent & rusty, not-now! I used a pair of Vise Grips and a 1/4" drive, 7/16 deep socket as a mandrel to tweak into-shape the drawer pulls.The new paint should help the chest of drawers last longer. I used oil-based paint from Ace Hardware. I have a can of red, and a can of grey. Stuff built, patched, or repaired usually gets one or the other.

Philip, I doubt I would come across freebies like that. I believe it requires leaving the house. Maybe something will fall of a truck while I'm working in the yard (or out of a car doing barrel rolls).

Good luck with the CL sale!

Looks to me like a whole new topic.

Simon, I think you're right -- hopefully someone will take it on.

Bob--glad you got a handle on that project.

Drift--great projects.

Jim, it is now one of my rare "finished" projects.

 

[sawduststeve]

Bob, is that a fork 'andle or four candle , google it, it has become a 'thing'
here with T shirts and everything
Great repair on the garden cart.

Steve

 

[Bob Heine]

The other day Liane suggested I replace the old Texture 1-11 siding on the shed with new T1-11 instead of Hardie panels. She reminded me the old siding lasted 22 years so I'll either be 97 and no longer care or dead and no longer care. I wanted to counter her argument that the T1-11 wasn't much lighter weight than the Hardie stuff. Turns out the T1-11 is about 12 pounds per sheet lighter (58 lbs vs 73.6 lbs). When I looked up the price, the T1-11 is about $5 a sheet cheaper but was on sale for 20% off and I need 17 sheets for the shed so the T1-11 is more than $200 cheaper.

Decided to have Lowe's deliver the plywood. Because the delivery fee is $79 regardless of the size of the order, I ordered more stuff for the garden and fence projects. Truck arrived at 7:15 for peak morning traffic. It was also a perfect time for a little rain shower.

It was relatively cool so I moved all the stuff from the first pallet to the side yard. It included 2 large bags of potting soil placed next to her potting bench and 5 bags of pea gravel hidden but handy next to the garbage cans and big plastic pots. I use the pea gravel as ground cover (mulch?) around the perimeter of the house because it doesn't attract termites.

Liane prefers pine bark mulch for the gardens that aren't right up next tho the house so 10 bags got stacked at the back door of the garage.

Next it was time to move the stuff from the second pallet. A dozen 8-foot 2"x4"s, five 8-foot 4"x4"s and a hundred 6-foot 1"x6" dog-eared fence boards. Stacked them up in the vicinity of the stump so I can build new fence sections once the stumps are ground down. I stacked some of the old fence boards under the new ones for repairs to the short fence.

I began to worry about the height of the lumber stack so the last batch of fence boards got stacked on a couple of plastic Adirondack chairs.

Liane came out about this time and she helped me stack the first three T1-11 panels on my new saw horses.

I could tell Liane was hurting herself picking up one end of the plywood so I quit at this point. There are 14 panels waiting to be moved but tomorrow is another day. As you can see in this photo, it is around noon and the plywood stack is in full sun. As I was covering the plywood, a neighbor came over and offered to help. After thanking him for the offer, I declined because it was getting hot in the sun and the garage blocks the ocean breeze.

 

[Bob Heine]

Bob, is that a fork 'andle or four candle , google it, it has become a 'thing'
here with T shirts and everything
Great repair on the garden cart.

Steve

Steve, thanks so much for that but in your condition you shouldn't be watching Two Ronnies episodes. I hurt my sides watching that one and I don't even speak the language.

 

[Bob Heine]

Lowe's delivered the lumber with some sturdy sticks that had dadoes in them. Perfect for spreading the load on the ship lap edges of the T1-11 when using my newish panel dolly.

The dolly isn't all that heavy but I feel foolish picking up a wheeled item and carrying it. Cut a notch in one end of the stick and added a screw so I could push the empty dolly from the shed back to the driveway.

When I tried to stack a panel by myself, the three panels moved, along with one of the plastic holders for 2"x4" headers on the plastic saw horses.

I tried to re-insert the plastic piece but found it impossible to get the piece back in place with the weight of the plywood. I decided to concentrate on improving the stacking process. Built a small frame with a handle on one side. With the frame I was able to lift and tilt the plywood onto the stack in one smooth movement. The process means I only have to lift the 58-pound panels a little bit and tilt some of the weight to the top.

From the back you can see that the frame is above the stack and doesn't require a straight lift.

Three sides and the handle on the frame are pieces of the 2"x4"s I ripped for the box beam. The 1"x3" was a scrap in my pile.

I was starting to worry about the strength of the plastic saw horses so I checked their specs. The pair is rated for 1,200 pounds and my stack of seventeen 58-pound panels isn't far off that limit at 986 pounds. With a couple of the panels being wet, probably closer to 1,000 pounds. I plan to make some secondary supports but quit for the day (sun had just reached the last panel in the pile).

After going in the house, I started to worry more and more. Got into some dry clothes and went back out. Turns out my fears were justified. One of the plastic adapters at the other end of the stack had broken and blown out the end of the saw horse. That's when I noticed the folding stretcher panel in the middle of of the saw horse was not folded all the way down.

Tomorrow will definitely be spent doing Mother's day stuff but if the stack is still standing on Monday I'll be building some wooden saw horses. Somebody in my life told me I was foolish to buy plastic ones when wooden ones are so easy to make

 

[Toolfool]

You're hired, Mr. Heine ! You can work on my crew any time.

 

[jimreed2160]

Glad to see you are in hustle mode. "Surface of sun" temps are just around the corner and hurricane season is only 19 days away.

 

[RickP]

Tomorrow will definitely be spent doing Mother's day stuff but if the stack is still standing on Monday I'll be building some wooden saw horses. Somebody in my life told me I was foolish to buy plastic ones when wooden ones are so easy to make

I'm impressed - you definitely know how to tackle some tough projects! I like how you figure out ways to move and store stuff, especially how it gets stored near where it's going to be used so you don't have to move it twice.

I'm interested in your shed repair and wood moving ideas, because I'm currently building a shed 100 feet from my garage in the woods. Our termites aren't nearly as bad as yours, but they will even eat treated wood if it's wet enough.

 

[drivesitfar]

Bob: did you cut down that huge tree and gain a view of the water cause from my chair it looks like you have some water just past the fence?

great job moving all the lumber and supplies. yep you were testing the limits of a couple of plastic sawhorses. If you had the room instead of just building a couple wood sawhorses you might build a workbench to sit there that you can stack stuff on and then when you are not using it as a sawhorse you have an outdoor workbench and maybe a planting bench for Liane?

you do as you wish and I hope you can build that new shed without too many difficult situations, but as i've said before you can do more with only one arm than a lot of us can do with 2.

cheers

Also wish Liane HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY from me (us).

 

[driftpin]

You are working harder in this weather than I am.

I just got out of the pool with the young grandkids, last week's weather filled the pool, it's 90 degrees today in the water.

Our daughter in law fixed 'overnight french toast,' which uses among the usual french toast ingredients, heavy cream, and the bread was one with chocolate chips in it. Yes, it's left to soak overnight.

We also had a big plate of baked bacon, it comes-out different from the Lodge skillet on the range. Mimosas too, for Mother's Day.

I like the galvanized brackets where you just use 5 pieces of wood to make the sawhorses. I use exterior construction screws through the galvanized brackets, and I drill pilot holes to stop the chance of splitting from just bulling the screws into the undrilled 2x4's. I have a couple sets of those galvanized brackets which have outlasted the 2x4's in them, I bet the brackets are 15 years old.

 

[Bob Heine]

You're hired, Mr. Heine ! You can work on my crew any time.

John, I would be honored to work on your crew. I assume you are planning to file Chapter 11 and need to show why your debts should be forgiven (For God's sake, look at my crew!).

Glad to see you are in hustle mode. "Surface of sun" temps are just around the corner and hurricane season is only 19 days away.

Jim, it is 89*F in the shade and mostly sunny today so hustle mode turned into hunker mode.

Decided to spend some quality time with Mother Liane and the air conditioning.

I'm impressed - you definitely know how to tackle some tough projects! I like how you figure out ways to move and store stuff, especially how it gets stored near where it's going to be used so you don't have to move it twice.

I'm interested in your shed repair and wood moving ideas, because I'm currently building a shed 100 feet from my garage in the woods. Our termites aren't nearly as bad as yours, but they will even eat treated wood if it's wet enough.

Rick, you are too kind. Most people question my judgement taking on these projects. I am always looking for the easiest way to tackle them, including using the wheel and lever whenever possible. I have never had the physique to muscle my way through.

The shed in my yard is just about 100 feet from the back of my garage so I'll be interested to see how you stage your build. Our termites leave treated wood alone for a few years but any wood that's wet in or on the ground is on their menu sooner than later.

Bob: did you cut down that huge tree and gain a view of the water cause from my chair it looks like you have some water just past the fence?

great job moving all the lumber and supplies. yep you were testing the limits of a couple of plastic sawhorses. If you had the room instead of just building a couple wood sawhorses you might build a workbench to sit there that you can stack stuff on and then when you are not using it as a sawhorse you have an outdoor workbench and maybe a planting bench for Liane?

you do as you wish and I hope you can build that new shed without too many difficult situations, but as i've said before you can do more with only one arm than a lot of us can do with 2.

cheers

Also wish Liane HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY from me (us).

Thank you Drives. We are on high ground but the only water we can see is in the neighbors' swimming pools. The ocean is 1.4 miles from the house on the back of a crow or 2.1 miles in the car using public streets.

I try not to worry about the size or difficulty of a project. I just take a step at a time and eventually I'm done or distracted by another project.

You are right about the saw horses and I did think about building the new workbench but like you I have limited space to work with. When our neighbors moved to Delaware they gifted their workbench and I turned it into a potting bench for Liane. Sadly it's 100 feet from the shed and I would pay a heavy price for appropriating it.

Please wish your wife and the other mothers in your family a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY as well.

You are working harder in this weather than I am.

I just got out of the pool with the young grandkids, last week's weather filled the pool, it's 90 degrees today.

I like the galvanized brackets where you just use 5 pieces of wood to make the sawhorses. I use exterior construction screws through the galvanized brackets, and I drill pilot holes to stop the chance of splitting from just bulling the screws into the undrilled 2x4's. I have a couple sets of those galvanized brackets which have outlasted the 2x4's in them, I bet the brackets are 15 years old.

Philip, you are the smarter person for sure.

Our pool is getting there . It is 85.6 today. I don't think living 25 or so miles north of you has any effect but if your pool isn't screened in it will heat up more than ours.

I have had sawhorses made with 2x4s and metal brackets for around 40 years. They have gotten shorter over time because I cut off any rotted wood from sitting out in the rain. I even had to replace a leg last year. One pair of brackets is quite hefty and the other is just thin sheet metal. I have never had a second thought about their strength and they are holding up the fencing as I write this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ALL: I was expecting reasonable results with the new plastic saw horses because a 25-year-old pair has held up great. I replaced the four rusted steel roll pins on one of these sawhorses with 1/4-20 stainless screws last week. Not sure where I bought them but they are StoreHorse brand. The newer ones don't look as sturdy.

When I went out this morning to check on my new sawhorses, they had failed completely. The stack of plywood is held up on one end by my old air compressor tank setup (remote tank for the garage compressor).

Not only had the plastic brackets holding 2x4s failed, the joint at the top of the sawhorse had also failed.

The other sawhorse also collapsed and its plastic 2x4 holder disintegrated. The plywood isn't sitting directly on the ground so I can build a pair of 2x4 sawhorses from scraps on Monday or later in the week.

 

[sawduststeve]

Bob,that's a terribly poor show from the saw horses, wait , what ,
you've started without me. Glad you didn't get injured and take care in the heat. We had a scorching 66 today, I think I might have a touch of heat stroke.

Keep up the great work.
Steve

 

[driftpin]

Bob, sorry-about the sawhorses failing. I don't trust plastic much, especially where I would be underneath it, like those drive-on ramps for car work, which you see sold by every auto parts store now. I have some riveted steel probably 6-ton or greater jackstands, I got from my brother when he moved west to San Francisco, about 30 years-ago. They were from an old Miami FL service station, I wouldn't be surprised if they were now 60+ years-old. All I see is surface rust. Trusting 60 year-old plastic drive-on service ramps (if such a thing existed then)? Uh, no! Hell-no.

The company made industrial jacks and railroad maintenance equipment, along with a lot of other stuff, "built to-last." The company was begun in 1873. Joyce-Cridland Co., of Dayton OH.
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/SILNMAHTL_24535

Some day when I've 'run-out of projects,' I'll media blast them, maybe use some POR-15, and then paint them with some oil-base paint.

 

[driftpin]

Here's something I wonder if you've already seen this, if-so, 'fuhgeddabowdit!'

https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2019/04/18/pt-cruiser-best-worst-car-ever

The PT Cruiser, which rode the nostalgia wave that brought in the Volkswagen New Beetle and Mini Cooper, seemed to cultivate that reputation from the start. While the latter two were modern renditions of older, well-known cars, the PT was a new entry cloaked in 1930s and ’40s design cues.

Initially intended for young first-time buyers, the low-priced PT instead caught the eyes of an older crowd. It also sparked a customization trend that took advantage of the hot rod-flavored shape penned by Bryan Nesbitt.

Chrysler famously dubbed the PT Cruiser a “segment buster,” because it defied easy categorization. PT stood for “personal transportation,” and the car was planned to wear Plymouth badges, as concept cars had teased, until Chrysler ended that brand in 1999.

More in the article.

 

[Bob Heine]

Bob,that's a terribly poor show from the saw horses, wait , what ,
you've started without me. Glad you didn't get injured and take care in the heat. We had a scorching 66 today, I think I might have a touch of heat stroke.

Keep up the great work.
Steve

Steve, the claim that those saw horses could hold 1,200 pounds might have been an exaggeration. I doubt they could have held 600 pounds between them. There was no way I would put a board on top and then stand on the board. I didn't ever consider getting near them, expecting the pile to fall sideways and take me to the ground with it.

No worries, I'm not starting construction without you -- I'm just staging material to speed the process when you get here.

And thank you for the encouragement!

Bob, sorry-about the sawhorses failing. I don't trust plastic much, especially where I would be underneath it, like those drive-on ramps for car work, which you see sold by every auto parts store now. I have some riveted steel probably 6-ton or greater jackstands, I got from my brother when he moved west to San Francisco, about 30 years-ago. They were from an old Miami FL service station, I wouldn't be surprised if they were now 60+ years-old. All I see is surface rust. Trusting 60 year-old plastic drive-on service ramps (if such a thing existed then)? Uh, no! Hell-no.

The company made industrial jacks and railroad maintenance equipment, along with a lot of other stuff, "built to-last." The company was begun in 1873. Joyce-Cridland Co., of Dayton OH.
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/SILNMAHTL_24535

Some day when I've 'run-out of projects,' I'll media blast them, maybe use some POR-15, and then paint them with some oil-base paint.

Philip, I don't trust plastic for support either but those really old StoreHorse plastic sawhorses have held up well. I don't recall their rating but I'm sure they didn't claim anything in excess of a half ton capacity for the pair.

In my youth I only had enough money to buy bottom-line tools to go with the bottom-line parts I bought. Nobody made plastic drive-on ramps but they did make split-pipe jackstands. Those are the ones I bought first. Working under the car I would hear creaking and was pretty sure it was the jackstands. I let those four flimsy jackstands go to a stranger for free with a warning -- a stack of wood next to the stands was my advice.

Over the years I have purchased eight I-beam jackstands similar to yours. My collection is mostly 3-ton units and my heaviest vehicle is just over two tons. I prefer to coat steel with epoxy primer rather than POR-15. Most paint won't stick to POR-15 and because it adhehres best to rust, it is likely to peel off clean steel. A pinhole can let moisture get behind the POR-15 and rust forming under it doesn't show until the steel crumbles (the POR-15 still looks great).

Here's something I wonder if you've already seen this, if-so, 'fuhgeddabowdit!'

https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2019/04/18/pt-cruiser-best-worst-car-ever

The PT Cruiser, which rode the nostalgia wave that brought in the Volkswagen New Beetle and Mini Cooper, seemed to cultivate that reputation from the start. While the latter two were modern renditions of older, well-known cars, the PT was a new entry cloaked in 1930s and ’40s design cues.

Initially intended for young first-time buyers, the low-priced PT instead caught the eyes of an older crowd. It also sparked a customization trend that took advantage of the hot rod-flavored shape penned by Bryan Nesbitt.

Chrysler famously dubbed the PT Cruiser a “segment buster,” because it defied easy categorization. PT stood for “personal transportation,” and the car was planned to wear Plymouth badges, as concept cars had teased, until Chrysler ended that brand in 1999.

More in the article.

Philip, I've read quite a few articles on the horror of the PT Cruiser and they are all true. It's a horrible car only an idiot should own. They get terrible gas mileage, the turning radius of a 4x4 truck and have no redeeming qualities that I know of.

That said, I love ours. Most PT Cruisers are under-powered but the GT model, with its turbocharged engine is a lot better. The 2006 GT model goes zero to sixty in 6.7 seconds. If that sounds poor, my 1968 Pontiac GTO rated zero to sixty time was 6.4 seconds. Because my Cruiser is only a turbo-engined Touring model, it wasn't as fast as a GT when I got it. I made several modifications, including a cold air intake, free-flowing exhaust, composite intake manifold and a Stage I computer upgrade. When I re-programmed the computer for 93-octane with a Diablo tuner it ripped the stock engine mounts apart and sheared off the upper motor mount bolt. With ARP bolts and upgraded mounts the car spins the front tires when I floor it at 30 mph.

I was attracted to the PT Cruiser because it reminded me (a little) of the 1947 Ford Tudor we owned back in the early '60s.