Hello from Michigan!

[Michigan Brian]

Hi guys. I have a cabin in Manton which is in Northern Michigan. Its on 5 acres and I just had a pole barn built this past summer, its 40X36 12' high

Its kind of an odd size but I built it this way to accommodate my toys, which include 2 boats, 3 snowmobiles, a truck and a sled trailer. It has a 16' slider and a 9' overhead door and 1 man door

Here is a pic.

thanks for having me!!

 

[drivesitfar]

Brian: i live in the city so 5 acres and your odd size over 1300 square foot new garage shop sounds nice. if you need vises or grinders or other tools and have questions you can check out all the threads with a ton of information in them or PM (private message is GJ's internal email type service between our members) me if you looked and can't find an answer.

i had a few of the old GJ members help me some when i first joined and it helped and I've always been grateful so always willing to help a new member if they need some to get them started on the right track.

since you've been probably reading a lot of the threads feel free to keep doing so or you can post questions (with lots of pictures), post answers to the questions you know the answers to or start a few threads. out of all my posts i might have only started 10 or so threads and usually just ask and answer a lot of questions and learn a lot by doing both.

we are always glad to have a member that thanks us for letting him join that also has a garage bigger than most of us.

welcome

 

[1/2 Cup]

Hello and welcome from downunder, enjoy..

Nice size garage and looks fantastic as well...

 

[Michigan Brian]

hey thanks for the warm welcome!

my garage is pretty much a clean palate at this point.

Here are a few more pics as I was moving some of my stuff in

 

[drivesitfar]

Brian: awesome garage. I'm going to give you a nice welcome along with a gentle warning now. if you become a GJ member and stick around your tool inventory will grow substantially and your wallet will be a little emptier. best part about it you not only might have the right tool for the job, but if you don't already know how to use it you can learn here.

more pictures when you get time and enjoy reading the posts and posting your own questions or answers to questions you find you know the answer to.

cheers

 

[Michigan Brian]

Brian: awesome garage. I'm going to give you a nice welcome along with a gentle warning now. if you become a GJ member and stick around your tool inventory will grow substantially and your wallet will be a little emptier. best part about it you not only might have the right tool for the job, but if you don't already know how to use it you can learn here.

more pictures when you get time and enjoy reading the posts and posting your own questions or answers to questions you find you know the answer to.

cheers

ha ha thanks

actually tools really aren't an issue for me as I was a auto mechanic for 25 years and owned my own shop at one point. But I can always use more like everyone else!!!

My one regret was selling my electric hoist, it would come in handy now!

But that brings up one limitation I have, there is no power to the pole barn. Its in a pretty remote area of my property because my land is pretty hilly and there is a creek running through it. So I was challenged to find a good building site.

I did just pick up a 1800w/1400w generator from Tractor Supply. It is light enough that I can just put it outside and run power to the barn when I need it.

Since this is a vacation home I don't really need to run power there at this time, if I retire there then of course I would.

Also being a second home, most of my tools are at home in the garage, I have been picking though stuff and taking it up as I have multiples of lots of my hand tools after being a wrench all those years

here are some pics of some the excavation work they had to do to make the site level

 

[rohartman]

Weclome from Ohio! Beautiful country up there, my Sister & BIL has a place on Mullet lake. Been up there many many times.

 

[Michigan Brian]

Mullet lake is very nice. We considered getting a cabin in the Indian River area but it was just too far a drive for us to be able to go up there every few weekends

We got a place just north of Cadillac which was about 1.5 hrs closer

 

[drivesitfar]

Brian: thanks for letting us know more about you. you'll be a great addition and happy to hear my warning didn't scare you away.

i'm generally hanging in the tool section of GJ because i like old vises and grinders and tools in general so take a gander over there and see if you can teach us something.

 

[Michigan Brian]

thanks Drive!!

your hobby sounds very interesting!

 

[drivesitfar]

Brian: here's a picture of business and pleasure on both shelves in the picture. the smallest vise on that shelf is a Rock Island 577 that weighs a little more than 150 pounds. hoping to mount them in my garage, shop and storage after i spiff them up a bit.

you might think that a vise is a mundane tool, but it has opened up my world to buying big steel, big tools, big machines and I'm getting ready to learn how to weld and maybe buy a real fork lift. here's my pallet jack fork lift getting ready to move my 1300 pound cast iron surface plate.

my hobby is definitely growing