Burns Projects that will never be finished

[trytochaseme]

I had a 11am - 3pm delivery window for the cabinets. It seems like they usually end up showing up towards the end of that window. So well I was grabbing myself some lunch down the road at 11:10 I was surprised to get a call. The truck driver was there, thankfully I was close. He did not want to pull down my driveway though, I personally thought there was plenty of room for a semi but he disagreed. The dirt driveway mean his pallet jack wasn't going to go very far. That meant he dropped the pallet off at the end of my driveway. So I took apart the pallet and loaded the boxes into the back of my truck, then drove it right into the garage. It really wasn't to bad.

I should have went back to work but since I hadn't been gone long I couldn't resist doing a little unboxing....





Obvously they are quite rough at the moment. Need to level them, screw them into the wall, mount upper cabinets and slat wall.
I am extremely excited though. I know this is a very simple and low end setup but its still pretty much a dream come true. When I was 10 years old I use to get so excited for the griots garage catalog to come in the mail. I would spend hours looking through it and imagining having my own garage, filling it up with all the sweet stuff in the catalog. Its taken almost 20 years but here we are, I find myself just standing in this garage and looking at it in awe.

My intial impressions of the cabinets are good. They seem quite nice for the price. That said they are definitely not the quality of higher end stuff but as long as thats not what your expecting then these should keep you happy. I don't have any complaints so far but I have yet to really use them. Time will tell but I think I will be happy.

 

[trytochaseme]

After work I got the cabinets a little more put together. Still not all level or bolted to the wall yet.



I have 2 small 5 drawer husky cabinets I would like to work into them somehow. I might play around with the arrangement a bit before finalizing it. I do plan on order 2 more upper cabinets to fill in the center section. Have a few other pieces I am eyeing as well.

 

[trytochaseme]

I got my 2 husky boxes moved over. Here is how they are going to sit, I moved the tall cabinet to the end. They will have a counter top on them so it wraps all the way around. I do have a corner upper cabinet coming and then I can get them all mounted to the wall finally.



Had some black pipe laying around, Decided to use it to hang some tires. Worked out well, but I have a handful of wheelsets to hang store somewhere too. I am going to go pick up some more so I can have another one above and another below. Should give me plenty of room to hang some stuff. Also got some helmets mounted. Have 4 more of the mounts coming so I can get the moto helmets and wifes helmets up too. Mounted the cruiser bikes up on the ceiling to get them out of the way. They don't get ridden much and now that we are heading into winter they for sure won'e be ridden for 6 months atleast.







You may have noticed the floor looking a little different in these pics. I came across some floor tiles on facebook marketplace for $200. I got over there and picked them up as fast as I could. It is almost exactly enough to do the entire garage. They are just some cheap ones from amazon but still adds up to $1000 in tiles If I had bought them all new. I am very stoked on them.



Getting some electrical done is pretty high on my list. Really want to get the lights wired in this week if I can. Also going to put the compressor up in the attic along with the reel. Ill pop a hole over the island that the hose will come out of. Should look good and make it so it will reach the entire shop.

 

[trytochaseme]

The house is coming along. We have passed the max point of teardown and now stuff is starting to go back in.

Here is the bathroom currently. All the plumbing has been moved for new shower location and double vanity. Also had to relocate a few different vent lines. Well we were at it we added some can lights into the ceiling and a new fan.

The door opening is so wide right now as we are just about to put the pocket door frames in.



Floor will be pacthed up and drywall going in later this week so that the tile guy can come in.

We got the flooring last week, and so I started on that this weekend.



I have only done flooring once before, it was our old house and laminate. This is LVP and man it is so much easier to work with.





I also picked up the bathroom vanity. I found a small local store about an hour away that had these. They do not make them but they are real word, all soft close drawers and hinges. Not anything that fancy but still nicer quality then at the big box store but was only $950 with the granite top.




Should be able to make some good progress over next week or so. I should have flooring done this week and be onto trim work. We have all new doors to install once the floor is in. My buddy doing tile can start as soon as we have it ready for him. Goal is to be wrapped up in a few weeks so we can move in.

 

[Robey5]

DOOD! …. (wow, nice work!) —- thank you for dropping by my little thread; I just got a good tour of your gear, work and house: impressive!!

 

[trytochaseme]

I haven't really done much with cars over the last couple years. I just got so fed up with working in my driveway/yard that it burnt me out and I sold off or threw away most of my stuff.

Well now I have a garage, I made some room so I could pull the GTI into the garage to put on winter tires.



Thats when it hit me. I have a truck and a garage. I can park this for the winter so its not on the salt roads. Then I can fix some of the things that I've been wanting to do after neglecting it for 2 years.

But y'all know how things kind of snow ball.....



Well we are in a little deep now. The coilovers need to be rebuilt very bad. So I am stripping them down and going to cerakote the bodys that are in rough shape after 100k miles. Well Im at it I figured I should just cerakote most of the suspension parts and then send all the bolts to get zinc plated.

Since I have the truck which is more my daily now it means I feel better about doing track days with this again and upgrading more parts I was holding off on.

Rear end is dropped now

I have a new rear subframe that is from a alltrack I will be swapping in along with a new gas tank from an alltrack. My goal has always been to one day AWD swap this and since I am pulling all these components anyways I might as well swap those right now. Once I collect the rest of the AWD parts I can do the full swap but wont have to pull rear end again or the tank.

The front end is also out.


You can see the oem steel subframe leaning against the wall. That is getting replaced with an aluminum unit from an Audi A3. Little bit of weight savings there and no rust.

I also had these heimed control arms from a previous vehicle. I needed to modify them slightly to work on the MK7.



They are stripped down now and getting blasted then cerakoted.

I am going to finally get matching seats. I've been running the one for a few years now. Im trying to source new seat covers and harness inserts from corbeau as these are in a little rough shape.



I have this motorsport shifter on the way I picked up from a black friday sale



Brakes front and rear both need to be done, going to finally paint the rear calipers yellow to match the front. Have a handful of other small things I am going to do well its torn apart. Just going to slowly pluck away at it and try to wrap it up before the spring so that way I don't have a car that sits on jack stands for years again.

 

[tweidman]

Nice find on the flooring for your shop.

 

[trytochaseme]

Go figure once I take apart my car I decide I want to do a bunch of work to the truck. Although I have been driving it a lot this year I haven't really touched it much mechanically. There were a few larger items I have been wanting to do and a lot of small ones. Now that I am fully daily driving it the motivation has hit me to start knocking those items off the list.

First was to finally paint that rusting front bumper. Terrible pic but you get the gist



Because the turn signals were in the oem front bumper I did not have any turn signals with this tube bumper. The bulbs have just been dangling down, I finally wired them into the corner lights.

Next Id like to sort out the front end damage from the previous owner. You can see the hood is messed up along with the fender. In reality the grill is broken all over, the rad support is bent up.


First I found a new hood for $50 locally. It isnt in great shape but it works for now to have a hood that will actually fully latch. I am trying to find a rust free one in the same color, if I can't then I will just order a brand new one and paint it I guess.

Next I picked up a new grill.



I love this grill, still has a lot of the oem character with a little newer vibe mixed in. I also picked up some new clear corner lights, I need to pull them back off and paint the surround trim matte black so they match the grill better.


I pulled the entire interior this week to do a deep clean. Well it was out I dyed the carpet black. It had so many stains and just looked terrible. My plan is to convert the entire interior black and swap out the bench seat for 2 aftermarket but period correct looking bucket seats. Right now my eyes are on the Sparco GT with houndstooth inserts.



I also picked up a new shifter surround that has cupholders. Sprayed it black and tossed it in. Waiting for new black shift boot and shift knobs to come in now.


I have fixed a lot of small mechanical things so far as well. Just trying to get this truck in good shape so it last me for many years to come. Don't plan on doing anything crazy with it like a long travel kit and what not. For the most part just want it to be a nice clean truck. I found a rust free bed locally I am going to be picking up in the next few weeks.

 

[trytochaseme]

My truck is a 97, Part way thru 97 toyota made some changes thru out it. Mine must have been made early in the year before those changes. One of them was the dashboard. The radio/climate bezel area had a very minor change but enough that the entire dashboard is different. That also means that the one I have was only made from 95.5-97 so harder to find parts. That center section on my truck was broken and barely stayed in. To find one in nice shape would cost $500, so instead I found a complete dash from a 99' truck for $100. It was grey so I dyed it black and then swapped it in.



You may notice that the right vent is missing, I had dissasembled it to dye it, I was thinking I could install it after the dash was back in.... WRONG! I am going to have to completely pull the dash again to get it back in.

Other then that it is pretty much in and fits great. I need to adjust the glove box a little bit to fit better, the airbag cover also sits up a little but higher on the right side and that kinda bothers me. My truck doesn't even have an airbag there. If I can find this newer year dash with no airbag panel then I may swap to that.



I love these new knobs, also happy with this cheap amazon radio. Wireless carplay works perfectly. I do need to wire in all the cigarette lighters as currently 0 of the 3 work.

I just ordered this Nardi Gara 4 steering wheel, its coming from Japan but hopefully won't take too long to show up.




Planning on picking up these seats next.



Once I get the seats I will redo the door cards black with matching houndstooth fabric.

I am really happy with how its coming together, fixed some mechanical issues to so its slowly driving better as well. Put in a new clutch master cylinder last weekend, new engine and trans mounts are going in this week. Planning out a full suspension refresh as the next big project then brakes after that.

 

[trytochaseme]

I struck some gold this weekend. I was planning on getting those sparco seats but what I really wanted was some older recaros. My issue being they usually are too much money for me. Since I am addicted to facebook marketplace I am always looking for a set to pop up in my price range. Well that day was this past weekend and it was even better priced then I could have dreamed. Infact the price was so cheap I was sure that it was going to be a scam or something. but a 2 hour round trip later.......



$150 and these bad boys were mine. MK2 VW recaros in extremely good shape. I am beyond stoked on these. These are the exact seats that I was dreaming of for the tacoma. The fabric isnt my first choice but they still are perfect. Now I need to find some matching material if possible to do the door cards in.




A few hours after picking those up a buddy messaged me and asked if I wanted to buy his specialized P-Slope for $500. I really don't need another bike, buttttttt I have always really wanted a P-Slope. I am trying to not spend too much money on "fun" stuff right now because of the house and I had just bought these seats and ordered brackets for them. I still couldn't say no. I will just sell my transition smugger to make room for this guy.




I have some work and house updates ill make in the next post.

 

[trytochaseme]

I have always wanted to get the 3d printers at work more automated. I started on this a year ago but didn't make much progress. Last week I had an idea and got it working pretty well as a first step.

Basically before I would print a bed full of parts. It would run for about 12 hours and then be done. When we had a rush we would have it reset in the morning and at the end of the day so it was running almost 24/7. It worked but was a hassle and if you didn't time it right you might miss out on reloading it before leaving so would only run half the day.

The new setup only prints 1 part at a time, but when its done it waits for the bed to cool down. Then the head comes forward and pushes the part off the bed and into a bin.

All it takes is some basic Gcode edits. With the bambu printers they have some calibration lines they print at the beginning of each part. For this use case you have to edit the Gcode to remove that. Well your at it you can remove some other un needed stuff at the beginning that saves you 5 minutes per part.

If you want it to print multiple parts you then just copy and paste the entire code over and over again to run the desired amount of parts.

Here is the current setup with the doors removed and the bins I made to catch parts.



This works great. The machines now run 24/7 without needing someone to reload them. But there are a few things we can do to make this even better.

The Bambu printers have a progress meter and a countdown timer till its done. Along with a layer tracker so you know which layer its currently printing. When copying and pasting the program over and over it is only going to have the progress and timer for that single part and not the entire run. In reality this is fine and really doesn't matter but I wanted it to be a more polished solution. I also wanted to know how many parts it had ran so far. My idea was if I could figure out the gcode I could trick the layer tracker into being a parts tracker and I could get the progress and timer adjusted as well.


After some tweaking I was able to make it work.



Here in this pic it is setup to run 100 of the same part. The layer track says 3/100 because it is currently on part 3 out of 100 total parts. It is at 2% because it has only made 2 of the 100 parts and it has 1 day 16 hours and 50 minutes until it finishes all 100 parts.

It took editing over 1000 lines of code to make this work. Was it worth it? probably not but I think its cool lol.

Basically it normally has a line at every layer that updates the display to tell it its at a new layer

; update layer progress
M73 L2
M991 S0 P1 ;notify layer change

L=layer number. So I had to go in and remove every single one that was in there by default. Then at the begging of every new part I would add in those lines and change L to the number of part that it is on.

For the timer and progress bar it has this line

M73 P0 R2500

P=current progress percentage and R=remaining time. Again that required going in and remove all the ones it puts in there by default. Then I again put in that line at the beginning of every part with the corresponding values. I did not add a line for every minute but instead it just updates at every part so ever 25 minutes. Good enough for what I was looking for. In the line above it is at the very beginning so progress is 0% and 2,500 minutes remaining.


The issue I have now that I want to solve next is making the bed cool down faster and to cooler temps. The colder the bed is the easier the parts come off. I print these parts in PLA-CF on a PEI bed. This combo has very good adhesion. I print at a bed temp of 55c. If the bed is under 20C the parts come off quite well. The issue though is I have a hard time getting the bed down to that temp. With the fan going full speed to help it cool down, after 15 minutes its still only at 27c. It does come off easier at 27c then at 55c but it still takes some force. I don't like that it puts that much force on the head to push it off. I also don't like that it takes 15 minutes when it takes 30 minutes to run the part. Its a lot of wasted time.

My idea right now is to use either a prox sensor or just a simple spring loaded on/off valve that is triggered when the part is done. I can move the bed down towards the bottom which will trigger a valve to open and blow air on the bed and help it cool down faster. IDK that is currently the idea. I'll keep thinking about it or if anyone else has any thoughts. Trying to keep it simple and if I can make it all mechanical it would be even easier.

 

[garfieldzzz]

Maybe add a piezoelectric cooling element to the bottom of the bed but idk about the actual cooling power of that.

Edit: maybe more known as Peltir cooler.

 

[zanyad]

piezoelectric cooling elemen

TIL these exist!

 

[trytochaseme]

Maybe add a piezoelectric cooling element to the bottom of the bed but idk about the actual cooling power of that.

Interesting I never knew of these, ill look into them. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[trytochaseme]

The Nardi Gara 4 wheel came in from Japan yesterday. Got it installed



Im so stoked on it. Had to print a small spacer for it to fit right. Need to make a second version that will make the steering angle sensor work. Right now it doesn't so blinkers don't turn off on their own. Not a big deal but also something thats easy to fix.

I also made a funnel attachment for the Bambu parts catchers. I started turning up how fast its pushing some parts off and then they started missing the bin sometime so this solves that.




Now I am making some ********** adapters, Id like them all to auto funnel into one bin down below

 

[trytochaseme]

Seat brackets came in. Sadly the bolt pattern on the seats is a few inches wider then on the brackets. I got them rough mounted with only 2 bolts. So a little sketchy, but I am at the shop right now working on adapters so all 4 bolts are in.





Door card looks very out of place now, that will be the next thing on the list. Not sure what fabric I will do for the center yet. Would like to machine billet window cranks and door pull for it at some point.


Also picked up the P slope from my buddy. Going to strip it down and cerakote it a dark purple. Looking at a set of ohlins forks for it and then paint the lowers ohlins yellow.

 

[Sumboodie]

That chair looks massively uncomfortable. How do you even sit on that!

 

[trytochaseme]

That chair looks massively uncomfortable. How do you even sit on that!

What chair do you mean?

 

[kppolich]

Prob talking about the angle of the saddle on the bike^^

 

[trytochaseme]

Oh gotcha that makes sense.

You pretty much never sit on this seat for this bike. It’s a dirt jumper so basically just ride it on jumps and parks. You only sit on the seat when you waiting to drop in or just chilling around

 

[Sumboodie]

That chair looks massively uncomfortable. How do you even sit on that!

What chair do you mean?

The chair on the bike.

 

[garfieldzzz]

Nose is up for better control and if you want to clamp it between the legs for tricks

 

[Sumboodie]

Nose is up for better control and if you want to clamp it between the legs for tricks

Last trick did on a pedal bike was probably in the 90s as a kid

 

[trytochaseme]

P slope is back from cerakote and reassembled. Paint looks amazing in person, it color shifts in the sun so pics don't do it justice.





Going to be swapping out the fork for a newer Marzocchi bomber and getting a fresh set of wheels from my buddies at Industry9.


Decided I don't need both a road bike and gravel bike. Issue is the road frame doesn't have the tire clearance I want and the steel gravel frame is super rad but its a boat anchor. So both are being sold.


Found a killer deal on this Crux frame. Almost fully assembled, its over 5lbs lighter then my steel frame.

17.5lbs as is in pic with a tube in the front.

 

[tweidman]

Nice ride.

 

[trytochaseme]

P slope all put together for a trip down to Rays indoor MTB park.




Was a riot, Havent had a 26" bike in probably 6 years. Took some getting used too.



Didnt get any good pics well we were there.

Forks blew up pretty fast. They will not budge a millimeter even with all my weight on them now. Not a big deal, they are a QR front axle, very heavy, and old so they weren't going to stay on anyways. I have a set of new Hydra 2 wheels from my buddies at Industry9 on the way. Going to pick up a new bomber DJ fork as well.


Also planning on swapping out to all black tires and changing out a bunch of components with polished/silver ones. I swapped on a silver I9 stem, going to get a matching bar from title. At somepoint down the road a set of eewings will find their way on too.

I got the Crux out for a maiden voyage, not a long one but so far really happy with it. Excited to get more time on it now that the weather is warming up and the sun is finally making an appearance.


I've got a few new protoypes Ive veen working on at work. I need to take some pics of them but here is one I have.

Its a Rem 700 based bolt action. This pic is a short action but there will be a long action one as well.



Still very very early on in the development stage.

Playing around with another version that will take a mossberg 500 stock

 

[Horror Business]

Glad to see Ray’s is still in business.

 

[trytochaseme]

Glad to see Ray’s is still in business.

same! such a cool place, i wish it was a little closer to me haha but seems like its in a pretty good central location for east coast/midwest riders to get a place to shred in the winter

 

[trytochaseme]

Work has been pretty frustrating. Awhile ago they hired a couple older guys , 1 of them worked at another company owned by same owners so they have known him 10 years. Since they hired these 2 older guys I have been getting the cold shoulder. The owners just complain about how long I take to get anything done, don't include me on any meetings or discussions, and wont listen to any of my suggestions let alone ever ask my opinion on anything.

I have no issues with either of those guys, very smart and very skilled with decades of experience. They are both old school, pretty much don't use computers at all. So between the 3 of us we all have our own strengths and could be a great team if there was more communication.

I say all this as pretty much anything I bring up as an idea gets rejected until it someone else repeats it as their own idea.
I came up with an idea for a compact AR10 a few years ago, I never really got the owner to get onboard for it but I really feel like it could be an awesome firearm. Its basically an AR10 that is the same length as an AR15. After I came up with the rough idea I found out about the POF Revolution, same as the ruger SFAR.

I realized my idea was very similar to theirs with one key difference. They basically made an AR15 bigger where as I am making an AR10 smaller. They used all AR15 upper parts like the BCG and made modifications to handle the larger diameters and higher pressures. They no doubt did lots of engineering to make it work with extra ports for pressure blow off and what not. But my idea used all AR10 upper parts that have already been designed, tested, and proven to work with those rounds. I was just shortening the overall length.

Since the owners like to complain how I take so long to get stuff done but praise the other guys with how fast they can do stuff. Even though the projects I work on are vastly different. I decided I could make a fully functioning version of my Mini AR10 to show them to get them on board and that I could do it within a few days.

Here is a pic of a non functioning mockup



In under 3 days, well working on and keeping other machines going I had a fully functioning version.

I made fixturing and programmed the upper and lowers. I also had to make a forearm, modifying a bolt carrier and charging handle.

In 5 days I had it all tweaked in to where I could run them for production, I had also made a custom pistol barrel that was running good.

I presented them in under 1 week a fully functioning model that besides needing testing was basically ready to start producing.
I showed it to everyone thru out the shop, sent pics to my buddies, even talked to some sales guys at our distributors. Everyone loved it.

The owners said im wasting time on this **** that no one will buy.

Staying positive I now own a 1 of firearm so thats cool.

Here is the latest mockup of the bolt action




Moving onto home stuff, we are almost finally done with the upstairs at the house. Should be moving in finally this month which means I can get more time working on the garage. I've been doing some small stuff here and there.





Finally got the corner cabinet installed and everything screwed to the wall. Also got the slat wall installed, pretty bummed the slatwall mounts I ordered off amazon don't really fit, any weight and they wall out. Guess I will be 3d printing most of the mounts for it anyways.

I am going to finally start getting electrical ran so I have some outlets over here. Can also get all the lights in and mounted nicely.
Sometime soon I would like to get the counter top wrapped around the corner, thinking about covering that back window and continuing the upper cabinets too.

 

[Mr.zippy]

I really like the two prototype rifles! I think the concept shows thinking out of the box. Hope they come around.

 

[trytochaseme]

I really like the two prototype rifles! I think the concept shows thinking out of the box. Hope they come around.

thanks man appreciate it!

The bolt action stuff should be pretty cool. Ill keep updates on here as I make progress on it. I am currently working on fixturing for the chassis.




Plucking away in the garage little by little. So happy to finally start getting some electrical done. First 2 lights mounted in the correct place and actually wired in.



Need to do the other 4 lights but atleast making progress. Will be so nice to not have extension cords hanging everywhere lol.

I might need to change these lights out at somepoint, they are High bay lights and in the pics you can see the cut offs on them pretty bad. In person its not like that but they do feel like they arent fanning out enough. Maybe use these in the barn instead and get something different for here.


I also got the hose reel installed and the compressor moved up into the attic. Working on thinning out all the bikes and parts I have laying around. Have 4 frames up for sale, 1 complete bike going up for sale shortly and giving away 1 bike. Plenty of parts going up for sale too.
As for toy projects I really need to get the top end replaced on the 150sx and see if it will finally run, also need to get parts ordered for the GTI so can get that thing back on the road and get half the garage back.

 

[trytochaseme]

got the printers running non stop right now making tool holders for the slat wall.



Plan on covering over the back window and wrapping the slat wall all the way around. Should be able to get a lot of tools up there and easy to get too. Can use all the drawers for better part organization and all the lesser used tools.



Hoping to get the cabinets, countertop, and slatwall to wrap around the corner ordered soon. Also high on the list is building a frame for the island that I can bolt the metal top too. Its just sitting on top of the kennedys right now and is fine but it moves pretty easy, cant put much force on the vise without everything shifting. Its also hanging off the front too far so you cant see the entire top drawers very easy. Id love to make a frame out of steel tubing but will just do 2x4s for now for times sake.

 

[trytochaseme]

Things on the house haven't gone too well. Hired a buddy for the tile and without going into it, it pushed the timeline back a couple months and we ended up having to tearout some tile and redo most of it ourselves.

The good news is that is past us now and the tile is done. Getting vanity, toilet, etc all in now and ordering the shower glass. Should be moving in finally in the next week or so.

This is the only pic I have. I'll take some better ones this weekend when its more together.

 

[trytochaseme]

Here is a before pic of the bathroom




Here is pic of it now standing in the same spot



Taking out the closet on the right really opened it up. The pockets doors also made a big difference as the old ones both opened up into the bathroom. Ordering shower glass this week, just need to trim it out and some other finishing touches. Everything is plumbed in and working well.

Bedroom is getting painted ands just about wrapped up. My dad is building built ins for the closet and will be done with those this week. Looks like we should be moving in this week finally.



On the garage side of things still printing organizers. This is latest one and my favorite one so far. Holds both my long and short allen sockets



As far as work goes we purchased 3 machines from auction last week.
Okuma MB5000H
Okuma LU3000EX
Doosan Puma TL2500L

So now I am figuring out how and where we are going to put them. Was up top to take pics of layout to send to our riggers.

 

[zanyad]

That bath looks sharp. I'm filing the pocket door idea away for my own house, thanks!

 

[Chrisb62]

‘I see you are loved by everyone

 

[trytochaseme]

‘I see you are loved by everyone

hahaha he was very eager to be in the pic. He had me check it after to make sure you could see him

 

[trytochaseme]

That bath looks sharp. I'm filing the pocket door idea away for my own house, thanks!

Thanks! They are super nice when trying to save some space.

 

[trytochaseme]

Pretty excited to say we have finally moved in!

Still plenty of stuff to do but when does owning a house not come with a list of things to do.

Got the bathroom almost all trimmed out



Well doing the trim, I wasn't sure what to do for this toilet valve. I decided to use a hole saw for where the trim ring is, but then it was sitting back from the trim and looked weird so I 3d printed a little spacer for it. Im pretty happy with how it came out, I really just don't like the chrome at all. Probably swap it out for all matte black here at somepoint.



I went on a little bit of a 3d printing spree for the bathroom. The pocket doors came with guides to keep the door from bouncing around, the issue is they didn't fit. Even if they did fit though, they screwed into the front and would have looked terrible. So I printed this little guide that slides in under the trim, I made it a tight fit so its in there good and wont come out. Worked perfect and is completely hidden. I need to take some measurements and make one for the next door.



Next on the list was getting the handles and latches installed for the pocket doors. I 3d printed a jig since I had 2 doors to do.
This jig had a screw to hold it into place, one side had guides for the drill. The front edge and backside were the size the opening needed to be so I could just trace it. Worked out well and both doors are done now.





Here is bedroom now that we are moved in, have some shelves and artwork to hang up still.



Cats are happy to have a lot more space to run around




I can't resist whoring out the garage






I started cutting some moto trail around the house a few weeks ago, so far its really fun. The property is super thick brush so it takes some time but I have just been plucking away when its nice out. Cut a new entrance this weekend for it. It was a very thick spot here and I had 3 truckloads of branches just from this spot. Need to get some signage up and have some buddies over to run it in once i get a full loop around the house done.

 

[trytochaseme]

The Specialized Epic comes with a proprietary rear shock with its "Brain" system. It has an intertia valve on the rear axle that is supposed to open the shock when it hits bumps and otherwise the shock is locked out. It has some adjustability but overall it didn't feel great. The inertia valve opening and closing made a little clunk that you could feel and it made it feel like something in the back end was loose. I could not find a balance in the settings I liked, it would either lock out good for pedaling but the "open" mode was very stiff or vice versa.



The mounting points are built into the shock, I was going to machine a yoke but due to time I ended just buying one for now. Ill machine my own later. I picked up this Ohlins TXC1air shock on closeout for a steal. It is Ohlins dedicated XC shock and is setup for remote lockout.

Whereas the Brain shock is supposed to switch between open and locked out automatically the Ohlins requires you to do it yourself. So that is a tradeoff but I think the performance will end up being much better. It also dropped about a half pound over the Brain shock.



I also wanted to go up from a 32T front chainring so I machined my own 38T. Working on a few more for my other bikes now as well. A few buddies wanted some so make a couple in various sizes. They aren't anything special I just didn't want to spend $150 for one that I can make myself in an hour with $20 in material.

Super stoked on this bike so far, have not got to put a lot of miles on it since I put it together in the fall but excited to really get some time on it this year.

Sitting at 24lbs right now.