Hawks 2.5 car catchall where stuff gets done..ish

[Hawk136439]

Winter must be brutal in MI if school is cancelled. I lived in Toledo, OH for 2 1/2 years (30 years ago) and MI never cancelled school then and we had 2 bad winters. We've had a peach of winter this year in Indianapolis.....no more than 3" of snow total, my driveway was always clear by afternoon.

Yeah it seems like we've had some much more mild winters around here the last year or two it has barely hit negative temperatures and I remember 3 or 4 years ago driving to work and my truck saying it was -15*F.

Just went through whole thread tonight as I hadn't ran across it . .
. . . Wow, great transformation on your shop !!

Love the massive bench as it has "anchored" that side of garage. All that storage has cleaned it up so well . . . nicely done.

Not to nitpick but I liked the unfinished benchtop. It really lightened up the area, that now seems too dark with the stain. As kid my dad's bench probably started out as plain wood, but all the grease, diesel, gasoline, etc that soaked in the ending color was nearly like yours. There were drill holes, cuts, gouges, etc. all over the thing but it got the job done. Guess yours will hide all those things so yours will look better stained !!

Don't get in hurry to close up the ceiling. You NEED to finish all your eventual desires for lighting, electrical, etc. Using the garage for a while will help you finalize that, and give you chance to watch for CL bargains that you might use for ceiling (ie tin, free insulation, etc).

Impressed that you've got nice house and garage at your age. You scored also with the NG hanging heater already in the garage. Keep the pics and improvements coming. One thing GJer's love are pics and garages.

Thanks!!! I have found that the large work bench tended to become a catchall for random things and soon left me with a very small amount of work surface. So converting some of it to dedicated storage seemed like a worthwhile decision.

As for the stain, I must admit I did like the look of the burned and weathered bench top and the stain was actually purchased for the legs of the tv bar and then never put to use... It was a fun and simple change for sure but I agree it does tend to darken up the whole corner and I have some extra paint in the house that I;m seriously thinking about using out there now that it's warmed up a bit.

I agree on the ceiling as well, there is quite a bit of prep work that needs to be done before I can close that in and not kick myself later down the road. the previous owner put outlets every 4 feet in the wall but left almost nothing in the way of power for lighting in the ceiling

Thanks for stopping in and checking out my thread!!!

 

[Hawk136439]

Update: 5/15/2017
Well it's been a while since I have updated this thread and it is not that I have forgotten you wonderful folks I promise! Sadly work in the shop has been practically non existent and work ON the shop HAS been non existent. The shop is a disaster with a few different projects left in limbo waiting for parts or time to continue but yesterday did involve some QST spent welding up a drop in basket for the roof rack of the Xterra!!! I must admit I feel my welding is starting to get a little better but I also ran out of flux wire so that put a bit of a stop to the project Well on to the pictures:

The flat stock lattice in the middle is where I ran out of wire but the outer frame is all welded together.

And now for some welding improvements

This is a before from my gate wheel project:

By the end of that project I was starting to make some headway and here is a weld from the basket:

Admittedly the basket was a lot easier to access, was welding 2 metals of equal thickness and they don't all look like this but I'll take any improvement I can get!! I'll be picking up some more flux wire tonight that isn't the HF stuff shipped with the welder and see if I can get this project all welded up tonight.

As always thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave comments concerns and questions!
-Shane

 

[racestatus]

loving how big that work bench is

 

[Hawk136439]

loving how big that work bench is

Funny you should mention that, I still run out of room to work on a regular basis....

 

[Hawk136439]

Update 05/22/2017:

So the garage has been a disaster for weeks now, so much so that it was difficult to get both Xterras in and it was driving me a little nutty Now I enjoy my shop set up but one thing (who am I kidding lots of things can improve) has been annoying me. With my previouse setup I found myself walking under the heater to go from tool box to tool box and was getting really sick of hitting my head on it. Also, since my benches can only be accessed from one side I found myself moving work pieces all the time to get a good working angle. So the solution to both these problems was another work surface extending out from under the heater!

Last time I updated the setup looked a little like this:

Well after some new tool purchases:

And some proper supervision:

I was able to throw together an extra 6' long by 2' wide working surface that now keeps me from walking under the heater, allows me to work on 3 sides of a project, and gave me a place to store hardware bins and my stools!

I decided not to throw stain down because there were other projects that needed to be finished up (the wife likes to start house projects while I'm working on other things so I can finish them up when I come back in...) and I want to make sure it isn't sticking out too far to get a vehicle in, but once I'm sure it's staying I'll stain it to match.

As always thanks for reading and please leave questions, comments, thoughts for improvements.

-Shane

 

[bj383ss]

I have read through your thread before and never posted. Just reread the whole thing and really like where you are headed. The benches are great and I really like them with the stain. I have a twitchy nerve anytime I see somebody paint wood instead of stain, or a clear finish. Just my personal taste.

I second what others have suggested on a storage building. When you get the funds for it. You will be able to move many things in there and less used items to give you more room and working space.

How does the new Skilsaw perform? I still have the old standby corded one but really interested in getting a cordless one.

Bret

 

[Hawk136439]

I have read through your thread before and never posted. Just reread the whole thing and really like where you are headed. The benches are great and I really like them with the stain. I have a twitchy nerve anytime I see somebody paint wood instead of stain, or a clear finish. Just my personal taste.

I second what others have suggested on a storage building. When you get the funds for it. You will be able to move many things in there and less used items to give you more room and working space.

How does the new Skilsaw perform? I still have the old standby corded one but really interested in getting a cordless one.

Bret

Thank you for taking the time to read the whole thread twice! and that shed is going to make it feel like an empty building when the time comes

As for the cordless saw:

Hands down one of the best investments I think I've ever made!!! I can't begin to describe the absolute bliss that is not having to drag out extension cords and worry about cutting them or having a plug hang up on the work piece. Most of my wood working projects involve rough framing or ripping full sheets of plywood.

The weight on the Kobalt is pretty good even with the largest run time battery I have. I'ts heavy enough to feel solidly built but not too heavy to use, if that makes sense. I would guess that with the battery it is about the same weight as my hand-me-down Delta that might be older than me.

As with all new technology this saw has an LED light that I didn't really find I needed but I try to not work in the dark either. Also this saw has an ambidextrous safety that took some getting used too (see old saw comment above) but wasn't a hindrance for me at least and my dad didn't seem to find it problematic either.

The only other thing I noticed about the cordless is that it seems to take a little longer to spin up than my old saw did. This could just be isolated to Kobalt and their use of brushless motors (my Kobalt drill seams to do it as well) or a soft-start feature in place as another type of safety? This is the first cordless circular saw I've used so I cannot speak to any of the other brands that also make them.

All in all I'm extremly happy with it and recomend that any cordless tool set should have the matching circular saw and sawzall.

Hope that was some helpful information and thanks again for checking out my thread!

-Shane

 

[Hawk136439]

Well my latest update is more for the Nissan than the garage but it was a project completed IN the garage using my new work surface for a good portion of it. I have been working on a drop in roof basket for the Xterra for the last week or 2 and finally finished all the welds last night. My garage also got to play spray booth for the project too!

This is a test fit from the other night to help explain what I was building:

Here it is all welds done and hit with a flap wheel:

Then I realized I could hang this thing and make the painting go a little faster:

It was about 9-9:30 last night when I finished priming it so hopefully I can get some black on it tonight and mount it up tomorrow! Then it will be time to clean the shop up again...

As always thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave comments and questions!

-Shane

 

[Hawk136439]

Mini update 05/25/2017:
I managed to get the basket finished last night and then started working on another project I've been thinking about for a while:

The next project is taking a non-functioning nerf gun and seeing if I cant paint it up all steampunk and turn it into a wall hanger. It's something I have never done but always wanted to try so if anyone has suggestions or helpful tips I'm all ears!
This is where I got too with painting last night since my selection of paint colors ir limited:

Once again taking advantage of my garage "island" man I really like the access this little spots provides! Not worrying about the stain doesnt hurt either

 

[M-technik-3]

Nice job on the basket, better be careful hipsters see that they are going to want you to make more.

 

[bj383ss]

Great job on the basket.

Bret

 

[Hawk136439]

Nice job on the basket, better be careful hipsters see that they are going to want you to make more.

Haha thanks! I dont know if they can afford my hourly wage

Great job on the basket.

Bret

Thank you!

 

[Hawk136439]

Well it would appear that photobucket has decided to abruptly stop ALL third party sharing unless you sign up to to pay them $400 a year! That is not going to happen in a million years so I will try and go through and repair all the lost photo links but it will take some time so please bare with me.

 

[Hawk136439]

Alright I think I have all the photobucket links replaced and working so please let me know if any still aren't cooperating.

It has been a while since my last update and that's because I've been running around trying to enjoy the summer so the garage is a disaster once again. But I was able to pick up a few toys since my last update one being this:

I fully well blame this forum for what I'm sure is going to become a very expensive Milwaukee addiction. I also picked up the 12v led lantern for use while camping.

Moving on, this weekend I did take care of a little project. As you may have seen in my previous posts, my Ranger has a cap over the bed and I also have a dirtbike. Normally this isnt an issue as I just take the trailer if I want to get the dirtbike somewhere for a ride. However, recently we bought a new to us 1991 Honda FourTrax for the Wife to use when we go out riding with friends.

She is pretty happy with it and I have had some fun with it but the thing pretty much tacks up the whole trailer by itself thus leaving no room my bike. So our quick and "Easy" solution was to remove the cap and put the bike in the bed. TaDa!!!

Yay now we can take both toys and go riding together!! but that also meant that my garage looked like this for most of the summer:

Add to that the fact that all the small engine toys are parked in the other side of the garage and now I have to do oil changes and vehicle maintenance in the driveway.... NO that is NOT happening! I love having the cap on the truck and I also hate it. It's great for secure, weather tight storage but also ***** for taller items like dirtbikes, snow blowers etc. Also the darn thing is clumsy to deal with but the nice thing about have a small truck is the cap is relatively light. I'm guessing less than 200 lbs since my wife and I were able to remove it just the 2 of us. So after the last few weeks begging my wife to help me put the cap back on to no avail the wheels started turning in my head and a contraption was born!! I needed a better storage location for the cap and a way to get it between stored and installed by myself so this past Friday I hit Menards with a plan and a list. and by the end of the weekend the plan had been modified and the list had been too but this beautiful Rube Goldberg machine was alive and working!

The table and boxes were used as supports while I was shortening the corner lines since the cap started out this far from the ground:

It took a lot of re-configuring, awkward positioning and tons of stressing (the cap was close to $2000 when I bought it new) but nothing beats the feeling of success seeing that big clumsy piece of fiberglass raised to the ceiling and knowing that you did that all by yourself! Or that could just been exhaustion setting in since the day before was spent felling, cutting and stacking trees with my dad... but hey the truck did some work there:

And I'm now pretty set on firewood:

There's another load where that came from but that can wait until next weekend. Well thanks for reading and please leave some questions or comments!

Thanks,
-Shane

 

[Hawk136439]

Did some work in the garage last night on the Ranger and decided to give my homebrew topper hoist a try and it worked!! I was able to get the cap on the truck by myself!!!!

 

[Hawk136439]

I just wanted to jump back in here and show off a few more pictures of the hoist that I forgot to include the other day. One thought when building the hoist was that I still want to get both Xterras in the garage in case of in-climate weather (any time a thunder storm is headed our way the news people start screaming HAIL and I get nervous). So while I was waiting for the oil to drain out of the wild blue yonder I decided to snap a few pictures to show that I should be able to nose the nissan under the cap if it is in storage and some weather rolls in:

And finally when the day was over I backed the Ranger under the cap and lowered it to about and inch and a half off the bedrails just in case anything decided to let go but not before snapping a picture of fully stored height:

Well that's all I have for now, Thanks for stopping by!

-Shane

 

[madison069]

Good idea on the cap! I did the same thing with a Bronco cap I had. I was wanting to eventually put a electric winch to assist with lowering and raising the cap but eventually moved and sold the bronco.

 

[Hawk136439]

Well still no work on the garage as of late but I did finally take a good step forward on the house and wanted share.

Last night we finally started framing up the walls for an actual mud room and master bedroom walk-in closet last night. When we bought the house, there was a room on the front that to my best guesses was a porch that got closed in. It was a big wasted space because it was too narrow to use for much. Also one of the bedrooms had a sliding glass door to it so that bedroom was only slightly less useless. So the solution? combine the bedroom and front room to create an actual entry mud room and a master bedroom at the same time!

Before:

Now:

Before:

Now:

 

[Hawk136439]

Helps if I link to pictures that are actually in a shared folder...

 

[Hawk136439]

One step forward, two steps back and then 3 or 4 forward again as usual. I've had this wall built and up for some time now and was waiting to run electrical before drywalling.

The plan was to move the outlet IN the wall to on the wall but the previous builder only left about an inch and a half of wire in the box. So i had to take down my wall and all 9032lbs of screws holding it together in order to chase the wires resulting in this.

It was actually a good thing this had to happen because I ended up finding another junction box buried in the ceiling by the previous builder (total cont is up to 4 at this point) and was able to drill the ceiling joists for a closet light wile everything was opened. so after making the buried junction box accessable and running a new wire to power my closet wall and the closet light my dad and I were able to start drywalling.

The master bedroom is finally starting to look like something so hopefully this can keep progressing and be done by March. still need to drywall the inside of the closet wall, clean up and drywall around the opening from old house to porch, Demo the old closet and patch the drywall from that, paint, trim, carpet and build out the walk in closet shelving and organization.

 

[turbowoodworker]

Great thread, thanks for posting.

 

[Whitey1]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[sean Buick 76]

Keep up the nice work on the garage and the house! Nice little life you guys are carving out for yourselves, the hard work is going to pay off!

 

[1/2 Cup]

Hawk136439, I have to add my two cents worth after reading your thread..

Just to echo other members sentiment, awesome work all round. You have done well.

Regards

 

[Hawk136439]

Thank you everyone for stopping by and commenting it really means a lot!!!! I do apologize for the recent updates not being garage related. Unfortunately the garage has been a mess and a dumping ground for storage recently and I don't see that changing anytime soon. House projects will be the priority for the foreseeable future because of some amazing news...


WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:


I don't possess the language skills to express just how stupidly exited I am while still a little terrified but I can say that I plan on raising this kid on both home and garage projects so hopefully the master bedroom will get completed in the near future and shortly after that will be the nursery (that's mostly furniture and a little decorating) and then I believe I might be able to start cleaning up the disaster I used to be able to call a garage.

 

[bj383ss]

Congratulations! One of the best things that could happen for you and the wife.

Bret

 

[Hawk136439]

Thanks again for the kind words on our upcoming family addition everyone. I will add it to the list of things to update on this thread as I post.

So I wasnt planning on making and real changes to the garage until my dad decided to surprise me with a new top box to go with the lower box I bought about a year ago.

So now it's time to figure out yet another bench and box configuration!

Any suggestions are welcome

 

[1/2 Cup]

Hawk136439, congratulations and enjoy every moment of it..

 

[Hawk136439]

Thanks 1/2 Cup ! I also fixed the picture of the new tool box.

 

[Hawk136439]

Well I took an hour last night and got the tool box in i'ts new home. I had to take down the shelves above the bench for clearance above the new box so everything is still a mess right now but it's a start.

After looking at the photo I realize I could have left the bench alone and just set the new box on it but oh well.

 

[Mpower5266]

The next day my wife had a baby shower to go to which left my friend (jeep guy from page 1) and I unsupervised to finish up a project that I had originally seen on here, I know big surprise. I believe it was Mpower5266 that converted an old tv into a liquor cabinet? (Please someone correct me if I'm mistaken I would really like to give credit where credit is due). Anyways this was the finished product:

I didn't do as nice of a job as Mpower5266 did but I'm still happy with the result and only have about $40 invested in it so I cant complain.

Now what would be a post in GJ without at least a little something done to the garage? While I was planning the tv project I picked up a can of stain but ended up not using it. So on Sunday while cleaning everything up from the tv project I decided to throw a little stain on the work bench and this was the result:

I really think I like it so I will hopefully be staining the rest of the bench this weekend and checking back in with the results.

Thanks for stopping in and please leave some thoughts, feedback and suggestions.

-Shane

Looks great man.

 

[Hawk136439]

Mpower thanks! I've been lurking on your thread and loving all the remodel updates!

Alright time to try and get this thing upto date. With the little one on the way it's been major get my **** in gear time on the house projects

So when I last left off the master bedroom have been torn apart, re wired and sort of put back together. What followed that was the unholy hell that is drywalling, mudding and sanding... I dont have many pictures of this part because to be honest I'd much rather forget it ever had to happen!! I can say I've learned my lesson and will from now on farm out any drywalling I can in the future.

Did I mention sanding had to happen?

Oh well when that was done it was on to painting which resulted in the following:

And now with matching ceiling fans!

While I was waiting for the paint to dry I worked on a couple other projects. I tried my hand at an "industrial style" lamp build:

This made a good difference in the basement where the tv end tends to be kinda dark and dingy feeling at night:

I also got some proper lighting over the pool table while I was at it! I'm still working on fixing the ceiling tiles down there...

Once the paint was dry I was itching to get our new walk-in closet layed out so up went the shelving!

And then since I had some extra parts I decided to make another lamp:

Shortly after that we ordered carpet for the master bedroom and the living room. Also, we still need to get crown molding and baseboard for the master bedroom as well as trim for around the windows.


On Easter weekend we went up to my parents place and told everyone the gender of our little one in the oven...

It's a boy!!!!!!

Now on to last night, since the carpet is ordered and we should be scheduling install soon I decided to see what was going on under the living room carpet. To be honest if I had torn it up before ordering I might have just skipped the carpet in the living room all together...

I should have guessed that the living room had hardwood floors but I also guess right in assuming if they were there they would be in rough shape from the previous residents of this house. If I had more time and weather I could actually open the windows in I might try resurfacing these and they don't look completely ruined. That being said I have already ordered carpet for that room and feel it will be more comfortable when laying on the floor with our son and when he eventually starts crawling around. Maybe in the future when the carpet is used up I'll tear it out and try refinishing the wood floors then.

Alright thats all iv'e got for updates at the moment but I'll be sure to come back when I have more. Thanks to everyone for reading and please feel free to offer up comments and suggestions!

 

[Hawk136439]

Just a quick update today, We got carpet installed Friday and we couldn't be happier about it! I don't have any good pictures since everything is still a mess but the living room turned out pretty nice.

Now that carpet is in we've been able to start getting the baby's room ready. This is a photo from before:

And now with the new color and some decorations:

I also got the ranger out of the garage so hopefully I can start posting some actual shop related content again! Spoiler it will mostly be cleaning up the disaster left over from this winter...

Thanks for stopping by!

 

[Hawk136439]

Time for another House related update... But the Garage DID get some use so we're almost back to relevant topics again!! Also after the house update I got another quick project started IN THE GARAGE!!!!!

So the house update and I promise this is the last planned one for a while! Last weekend a couple of buddies came down and help me get some new laminate counters and a new sink installed in the kitchen. The old counters weren't bad physically but they were installed before we bought the house and did not account for the dishwasher we installed shortly after buying the place so that left our old counters about 30 inches too short. As can be seen by this very very messy photo from over a year ago...

So after a night of catching up and heavy drinking my hungover friends and I were able to accomplish this:

Much better!

The old counter was taken outside and destroyed and I'm thinking about giving away the sink on line if someone can use it.

While we were going in and out of the garage getting the new counter tops cut I noticed a fun little shop pet:

I might have to do something about that guy this summer...

Well that was the last of the house projects I'm planning to tackle until after the baby is born so I took a few minutes this week and tried to clean up an old axe I grabbed from my parents place. I actually found this axe stuck in a stump in a forest preserve maybe 15-20 years ago and took it home. It has looked like this since before I found it:

So I decided to take a torch to the handle and a wire wheel to the head and now she looks like this:

I'm thinking about wood burning a design into the handle similar to this but I'm not sure yet:

Well hopefully I'll be back soon with shop cleaning updates but until then thanks for stopping by!

 

[Hawk136439]

Just a short update the axe is done except for about half a dozen coats of clear coat... and just for a rehash

before:

During:

And the final product:

 

[Hawk136439]

Got to play out in the garage a little this weekend so time for an update. The garage became a dumping ground over the winter with all the house projects going on so this was pretty much the state of things for the last few months...

Unfortunately, I have just been working around it to get jobs done including my first project this weekend of fixing 12 years of lazy/bad wiring practices on the Ranger headlights... For the last year or so I have had a fast blink on the passenger side directional and more recently had no lights working on that front corner at all, Blinker, Marker, and Headlight were all non-op. So let me share what we were working with...

This atrocity is the result of 12 years of either not have time or tools to fix a job right coupled with the use of LED bulbs and autozone resistors.... In other words my problems were completely self inflicted and this poor truck didn't deserve it!

Also please keep in mind the garage was such a mess I decided to fix the truck in front of it using an extension cord for the soldering iron and an easy up for some shade.

The first step was repairing any broken wires.

Not a lot left to work with in most places so I tied in some new wire.

I resorted to tying the wires together before soldering just so they wouldn't fall apart as soon as the iron touched them. The results aren't pretty bet the will last longer than splice connectors of repairs past...

All splices, **** connectors and LED resistors were removed and connections repaired with solder. Unfortunately I am out of heat shrink so the new connections are just liberally covered with electrical tape but I still feel better about that than I did about this pile of junk I removed on Saturday...

So with all the new wiring and a new set of housings this poor old girl is starting to look and work a little better now.

After taking care of the ranger, Sunday was spent picking up enough to get a vehicle in since my wife's Xterra and my Xterra were both overdue for oil changes and tire rotations. Hers is done and mine is parked in there now waiting to get taken care of this week. After that's done I promise there will be more cleaning done!

Thanks for stopping by!

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Nice work.

Next time, splice like this, much cleaner:

 

[Hawk136439]

Nice work.

Next time, splice like this, much cleaner:

I was actually thinking about a picture of a NASA splice when I started soldering and tried to mimic it. However som of the wires in question barely had an inch of wire to work with at all.

Thank you so much for that link though it explains the splicing procedure and specification much better than anything I've seen in the past! I'll be pulling that video up on future soldering projects for sure!!

 

[sean Buick 76]

Looking good did the baby arrive?

 

[Hawk136439]

Looking good did the baby arrive?

Thanks! No he's not here yet but the due date is end of July so we are in the final stretch!