Hello from SE Michigan

[Brick_Smart]

Howdy all! Working on various (too many) projects around the house and garage and google kept leading me to the one and only Garage Journal. Figured I would finally join so I can start contributing my projects to the many others on the forumn.

I'm an engineer and live in the Detroit suburbs, can you guess what industry? In the past I've designed and built race cars from the ground up, rewired my 1930's home, built my own acoustic guitar, designed and built home theater speakers, and many small welding projects. I plan on sharing some of these in the coming months.

My most recent tool purchases have been vintage drill presses which I will be restoring and documenting the process here.

Stay Tuned!

 

[drivesitfar]

Brick: welcome and happy to have you and your wisdom join our group. post pictures if you wish of anything you mentioned or want to so you can add a little color to your thread. looking forward to seeing you post in the old tools sections and i tend to hang in the vise threads and grinders a lot if you might have questions or wisdom to share in one of those.

take care

 

[ShadowRuleZ]

:wave:

 

[bczygan]

Hello from Detroit's NE corner.

Which suburb?

 

[holt2ton]

Welcome!
I too live in SE Michigan! Although closer to Toledo.....I love this site. I don't post much but I sure do check it everyday. I'm a toolmaker and just registered to start my classes towards my way to an engineering degree....LOTS of wisdom on this site.

 

[cp64]

Howdy all! Working on various (too many) projects around the house and garage and google kept leading me to the one and only Garage Journal. Figured I would finally join so I can start contributing my projects to the many others on the forumn.

I'm an engineer and live in the Detroit suburbs, can you guess what industry? In the past I've designed and built race cars from the ground up, rewired my 1930's home, built my own acoustic guitar, designed and built home theater speakers, and many small welding projects. I plan on sharing some of these in the coming months.

My most recent tool purchases have been vintage drill presses which I will be restoring and documenting the process here.

Stay Tuned!

Also a Michigander here. Based in Ann Arbor.

 

[iceman510]

Welcome neighbor. I am in Howell.

More old tool competition!

 

[oldtinsmith]

Brick Smart, a welcome to you from the Tri-cities (Bay County) area of Michigan.

Doug

 

[1/2 Cup]

Hello and welcome to the forum Brick Smart, looking forward to seeing what you get up to in your garage, meanwhile, enjoy..

 

[rburke65]

Hello and welcome from Ohio! Keep moving South and pretty soon you will be a Buckeye!

 

[Brick_Smart]

Thanks for the warm welcome all!

I'm up in Royal Oak for the near future. Not so sure about that Ohio thing...it is Ohio afterall.
Pictures to follow I promise, just need to eek out some free time at home this week to upload.

 

[Brick_Smart]

Pictures as promised! I'll start with a few pictures from major projects to wet your appetite and expand from there with separate threads for each as time and interest permits.

The Guitar:
I bought this guitar "kit" as a factory second Martin guitar, essentially the sides had been formed and the neck was complete but the rest of the guitar was in pieces (they messed up the rim at the factory and I had to repair). This project was completed at my parents house on breaks from college freshman year.

I started by gluing up bookmatched front and back panels and then shaping braces before also gluing those. Guitar backs are arched during the glueup, I used weights to achieve this.

Side glued to the top, this was a tricky step.

I used a router attachment on my dremel tool to route the channel for the binding and then glued that in place.

I taped over the areas where neck and bridge would attach and used a hand brushed "gun stock" finish.

The back of the finished guitar, definitely the "pretty" side.

And the front:

 

[Brick_Smart]

I've always enjoyed music, as evidenced by my guitar build in the above post. That guitar was built my freshman year of college, by the time senior year rolled around I was ready for my next musical project, new speakers!

Because its possible to build speakers instead of buying, I obviously needed to build my own

My father manages a sawmill so the lumber for this project meant a trip home for Easter that spring. I did some research and ordered parts for my return to school after the holiday. While home my father and I processed the lumber and did a test fit of the speaker cabinets.

For the driver cutouts I had to fabricate a quick and dirty jig for the router to cut circles, seemed to work decent for the job:

Test fit of the cabinet:

Everything laid out and ready for glueup:

Crossover network assembled:

Finished project with one of the 944's in the background

 

[Brick_Smart]

Welcome!
I too live in SE Michigan! Although closer to Toledo.....I love this site. I don't post much but I sure do check it everyday. I'm a toolmaker and just registered to start my classes towards my way to an engineering degree....LOTS of wisdom on this site.

You'll have a huge leg up on many classmates with your experience, you'll find that many are purely "book smart" and are otherwise dumb as a rock (hence Brick_Smart ). Best of luck on your future endeavors!

 

[Brick_Smart]

Welcome neighbor. I am in Howell.

More old tool competition!

No worries, my little Ford Ranger can only handle the "small" tools and equipment that catches my eye, that and the lady wants to use the garage for parking...

 

[fourmotioneer]

Brick has been known to grace SE with the presence of his 944 V8 from time to time