Killing time in a small "2 car" garage

[BoilermakerFan]

I had planned to buy the HF 5-dr rolling tool cart when my local store stocked them in the blue...

But my needs/wants have changed a bit... I picked up a Lincoln SW TIG 200 and since I'm really limited on floor space; I need a cart/chest to do double duty now. I'm going to go with a longer tool chest from Kobalt, Husky, or Milwaukee and add a ZTFab kit to it to hold the gas bottle. If I go with a 41"/46" base cart I will have room to add a 26"/27"/30" chest on top and still have room for the welder next to it. That gives me enough storage for all of my tools and welding peripherals while also condensing down my two smaller tool chests between the garage and basement workshop.


EDIT:

The Milwaukee 46" chest from H-D:

The Milwaukee is such a nicer and better constructed tool chest for the money... and it happens to match the colors of the Lincoln. Unfortunately, H-D only offers the 30" top chest as a complete combo; however, it's still the best way to buy it so I'll just use the bottom cabinet in my basement hobby area:

I'll just have to tell myself it's red to match the Lincoln welder or it's Team Honda racing red... red is one of my least favorite colors... but I bleed Black&Gold.


EDIT: After checking out all of the local tool chests in person, the Milwaukee is hands down the best quality and features for the cost. So I deleted the others from the post since they aren't even in the running anymore.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Well, shipping for just the 30" Milwaukee top chest would be $118!

So I could buy the complete combo and basically get the lower rolling chest for $100... and just put it in my basement shop. So that's what I will do when I have the funds to add it...

 

[rodpoa]

The cobalt one looks neat! I like the black model. If it was up to me, it could’ve been matte black! Stealth version.


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[rodpoa]

The cobalt one looks neat! I like the black model. If it was up to me, it could’ve been matte black! Stealth version.


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By the way, the tools don’t come with the package right?

 

[BoilermakerFan]

The cobalt one looks neat! I like the black model. If it was up to me, it could’ve been matte black! Stealth version.

Home Depot had a smaller 27" wide chest in a matte black finish... But the Milwaukee stuff is an amazing value. Really nice quality for the money with features the others don't have.

By the way, the tools don’t come with the package right?

Nope, it's just showing that the little bottom drawer is set up to hold cordless tools and a charger. Two chargers can also be mounted under the pull handle on the right hand side. I'll put my Makita cordless drill and impact drivers in that drawer.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

I'll be using ZTFab's Tool Box Welding Cart Kit for the tool chest. It checks all of the boxes for me and he offers it for a single 9" bottle versus dual 7" bottles. My LWS leases the 9" bottles for less than the 7" and there is very little cost difference on the refill, so the bigger bottle is probably what I will end up with. The LWS is less than 2 miles from my house too so it's not a big deal to run down the street and swap a bottle when it finally runs low.

ZTFab Tool Box Welding Cart Kit

Paul, the owner of ZTFab said he could easily modify the kit to work with the Milwaukee boxes.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

We finally got some winter precipitation!

Yesterday evening it was 61degF and raining. The school system closed school for Friday since the system was going to hit and it was just a question of how much ice would be under the snow.

By 8pm it was 37degF and raining. Around 9pm it was just sprinkling so I pre-treated our driveway and patio with ice melt. Around 11pm the freezing rain started and by 12:30am it was sleet. Lots of sleet. I went out at 2am and put more salt down since my driveway was getting covered in sleet build up. It was mid-morning before it finally changed over to snow. We did get lucky, we didn't have much freezing rain so we didn't lose power and not many tree branches fell.

Well, I had to go out in the mess because my son didn't tell me or my wife that he used the last of the dog food last night... or I would have just picked it up on my way back from teaching. So I went outside in the afternoon and cleared a path to the car and got it started.

I love driving in snow in the proper vehicle. I had a 2012 Ford Focus. Great car in everything except snow. The car would get stuck on the slightest incline and just spin it's tires. The Focus is now my daughter's car and it's parked in our driveway while she's at Purdue... I have a 2017 Subaru Forester now and I specifically bought it for it's AWD. We've lived in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Minnesota and I've traveled all over the US in the winter in previous jobs so I know how to drive in the snow and ice. Most residents in this area... not so much.

Any RWD or FWD vehicle was having problems in this wintery mix. The only vehicles traveling without issues were AWD or 4x4s.

With the traction control on the Subbie just goes. But, I discovered my car came with a special button that turns the fun up to 11:

After I left the store with the dog food, I drove out to the empty part of the parking lot and turned off the TC. Instant 4WD drift donuts! Wow, that little Forester is a blast to flick around, and the CVT made it so easy to just maintain and control the slides and drifts. Even better than my old '04 Audi A4 Quattro.

When I got home my wife asked if I had fun playing in the parking lot as soon as I came in the door.

 

[rodpoa]

Cars without TC off aren’t proper drivers cars. Mine came without it. I fixed the problem immediately. I agree with your definition. I will start calling it the fun level 12 button.


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[BoilermakerFan]

So it's been a while since I've posted any updates because I just haven't gotten anything done. Last weekend and most of this weekend is dedicated to helping my son with his science fair project that is due on Monday.

The weather has still been **** and I'm also back to teaching on Tuesday/Thursday nights at a local university.

Therefore, no plywood has been hung, no room for the tool chest, no ZTFab kit, and the Squarewave TIG 200 is just sitting in it's box.

But I did score another Linak electric actuator lift. This one is a beast:

It weighs 30lbs and is rated for 1500N lift which is 337lbs. It's standing upside down in the pics. The black plate is actually the top.

I have the massive 3/8" steel base plate it screws onto that weighs 90lbs:

The plate has nice little 1.5" angle mounts for a trim cover so I will be having an aluminum extrusion frame made from T-Slots material. T-Slots is similar to the other guys extrusions, but I sell T-Slots as one of my lines at work, so those guys will cut everything for me to my design. I'll be using the TS15-15 (1.5"x1.5" so it aligns perfectly with the angle supports) smooth material along with quarter round material to build a really nice, clean "skirt" to go around the lift column. I'll wrap the underside of the upper table top with a welding blanket so it deflects any dust, chips, burrs, or slag down away from the lift column to keep it cleaner.

A customer of mine does custom machine tooling and custom equipment so they have a large bed HAAS CNC milling machine. I'll have them CNC mill the holes in the base plate to accept the heavy duty leveling casters.

Then I'll mount a 24" x 36" steel fabrication top on it. CERTIFLAT PRO Top Kit

I may go with the CertiFlat FB2430 fabBlock kit so I can get the tapped holes option. That option alternates the 16mm holes with 3/8" or 1/2" tapped holes that would make it easier for me to make jigs to hold my engines. However it's 2.5X more expensive and it weighs almost 150lbs versus 84lbs for just the table top. I'll probably call CeriFlat and see if they can make a custom top for me with the alternating holes to save some money and weight. The 65lbs of extra weight is 65lbs less that I can put on the finished table and still lift with the column.

I was going to use it for my welding, assembly, and engine rebuild table, but I haven't figured out how to electrically isolate the fab top from the rest of the table since I have to bolt it down. If I can find Teflon of HDPE washers with a 600V/300A dielectric resistance rating that might work, but I don't want to risk shorting out the PSU or actuator. In theory the grounded table top shouldn't pass electrical current down through the base, but weird stuff happens...

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Our "new" printer was a Canon Inkjet MP530 AIO that I received as a Christmas party door prize in 2007. All I currently used it for was the scanner because the ink dries out way too fast and we had a B&W laser printer. Our laser printer was from 2003'ish... a Brother HL-1440. A very good printer back in the day that still served our printing needs, but it was a parallel port unit that I had to get an adapter cable to print via USB. It's 14-15 years old now and I'm only on my third toner cartridge including the little "starter" cartridge that ships with the new printer. However, the drum has been going out plus it was taking longer and longer to wake up from sleep mode.

So I'd been starting to look at new WiFi B&W laser AIOs for the last 8 months or so. Then today my son needed to print his science fair papers for his display board and the prints just looked like ****. I knew it wasn't worth the effort or cost to find a replacement drum for the 1440. A quick search and I found a new Brother model HL-L2390DW that got great reviews and it's WiFi, WiFi-Direct, or App enabled. It has a flatbed scanner so it can copy/scan. I didn't need a fax or ethernet so it was perfect. It was normally $150 and on sale for $100 at both Best Buy and Staples online, but only our local Staples had one in stock so my son and I headed over there to grab it.

The price was right and it was a 4.8/5.0 star review model, but the best part is that it uses the same exact toner cartridge as our old HL-1440! So my high capacity cartridge that's at 70% full in the 1440 can go right into the new one! That made the deal so much sweeter!

Out with the old... in with the new. Two old printers out; one new, faster WiFi printer in. Easy setup once I figured out how to enter the network password on the printer. Now all of our laptops and devices print wirelessly. Finally.


Then this afternoon I helped my neighbor pick up a butcher block top from Menards. He's building a new computer desk at his wife's encouragement. One of his buddies just had 3 pieces of a butcher block custom built and made into a T-shaped computer/work desk. My neighbor didn't want anything that big and we found a 30"x72'x1.5" top at Menards. I needed to go there anyway so I drove the Pilot so we could haul his top home. He's been coming over and helping me lift or flip my big bench when I need to move it so he has seen the build progress over the past year. He asked me how to finish his desk top and what I would do. Well, you that meant Danish Oil. I asked if he had rags, chip brushes, gloves, etc... So I loaded up his cart with everything he needed except sand paper.*

I helped him carry the top down into his basement and he asked me the best way to layout the legs and make sure it was square. I asked if he had a framers square or a T-square ruler. Nope. Then I thought to ask if he had a sanding block and sand paper. I assumed he would at least have sand paper.

We give each other a hard time about everything, so I asked for his Man Card. Told him he was on probation and would get it back after he bought some more tools and finished the desk.

I'll let him borrow one of my sanding blocks, T-square rulers, and my 48" long ruler (I need a new one anyway, I gouged one edge with a Japanese pull saw so I might just let him keep that one) so he can get every aligned and marked correctly. I'll use my chop saw to cut a couple of trim pieces for him and I'll router the edges with the round-over bit he bought today, but I told him that the sanding is all on him. I bet his first power tool purchase will be a RO sander.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if he even has a cordless drill/driver. If not, attaching the legs he has into the butcher block top is going to ****. I may have to help him out with that too.

He thanked me several times and said that he owes me one. I laughed and reminded him that the beast workbench in the garage belongs in my basement when it's finished. It's actually too heavy for just the two of us to carry now, but even with four guys, it's still going to **** to carry it from the garage down into the basement. Fortunately I have two other friends that work for beer and pizza so we'll get it done.

 

[jon72vega]

BoilermakerFan,
The new printer sounds like just what I need.
Do you know if it will it print via WiFi from a phone?

 

[BoilermakerFan]

BoilermakerFan,
The new printer sounds like just what I need.
Do you know if it will it print via WiFi from a phone?

Yes it does! There's an app for Android or iOS.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Oh, the printer also has an auto duplexing option too. My daughter used it to print of a physics practice test before I drove her back to Purdue today and she set it to duplex print. Worked great!

I'm really happy with this printer for $100.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

I finally remembered to order the heavy duty T-Track pieces for my basement workbench build from Peachtree Woodworking. I went with the heavy duty track because it takes 3/8" hex bolts instead of the 1/4". Each 48" piece comes with two sets of bolts and handle nuts, but I also ordered four female threaded ratchet handles. Once it arrives I'm taking them out to the university to put under a mill so I can machine pocket openings into the tracks where I can drop the bolts down into the track. This way I can keep my side trim solid. I'll put one pocket towards each end, probably 3"-4" in from the ends so that I can have solid track at each end incase I need to mount a 48" wide sub-base on the top.

Peachtree also carries Bessey toggle clamps and a De-Sta-Co clone that is attached to UHMW block. I think I'm just going to buy the UHMW material and mount the Bessey toggles the same way, then upgrade them to the Large Swivel Toggle Foot Pads to give me enough length after the clamps are mounted on the UHMW blocks. The Bessey clamps are rated for 450lbs or 700lbs nominal clamping force which is much higher than the others I've seen. That will be plenty of clamping force to hold my reloading presses in place on their sub-base even when reloading my 7mm Rem Mag brass or forming 6mm/6.5mm/6.8mm/7mm brass from .30cal donors.


In other news, I did confirm that my neighbor did not have a cordless drill. BUT, he is going out this weekend to buy one.


EDIT: Found the Besey clamps cheaper on Zoro and reclaimed UHMW in 1' thickness cut to my desired width and length at Interstate Plastics. I can basically get 2.5X the material at 1" thick vs. buying 3/4"x4"x48" pieces from Peachtree.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

My T-Track order arrived at the office today but I was up in Indy with a customer working on a system. I didn't get back in town until after 7pm and my wife was home sick today so I didn't have time to swing by and pick it up...

But this weekend I'm planning to clear the wall plywood paneling off the bench and layout the locations to cut the grooves with the router so I can install the T-Track. That should be the last of the major dust and chips in the garage for the bench for a while. Woohoo!

I still need to sand the back side frame to allow the trim to fit flush against the top too. Then get back to finishing it with the Danish Oil.

I can't wait to have it out of the garage and in the basement where it belongs.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Ordered my new Lenovo P51 mobile workstation laptop Friday afternoon. Stoked, but the wait is going to be awful. Ten to twelve days to build it and another three to five days in transit. Seriously, it might kill me.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

I have a question for you guys while I'm thinking of it:

My sill plates are 2x6 and the stud walls are 2x4. I'm thinking about putting ripped 2x4s (1x2 nominal) horizontally across the studs to bring the wall out, but I'm not sure it's worth the time and added expense in this garage. I know it will allow me to blow in more insulation, but that also adds cost and I'm trying to keep this as low cost as possible.

The question is, assuming I'm only in this house for another year to 3 years, is it worth it? The ROI is there to insulate the 2x4 walls, ceiling, and part of the roof that will be left exposed as a cathedral ceiling; but would taking it out to the equivalent of 2x6 walls in a USDA Zone 6B give me a ROI in less than 3 years? I've also thought about just doing the bottom 3' of the walls to break them up a bit and build in a "wainscoting" look. Of course, the ledge is just another surface for dust to gather, so that is con to this option too.

Or to phrase it another way: Would you spend the time and money to build out the walls in a short term garage which extends the start of the ROI for the insulation; or would you put that money into a thermal underlayment and vinyl plank flooring on top of the concrete floor? I don't have to put down the underlayment layer with the vinyl plank flooring, but I think it would be beneficial towards making the floor feel a little warmer and help control moisture in the garage better at the same time.

I'm leaning towards the 2x4 walls and vinyl flooring, but I don't know if that is the best decision. Assume the invest for either option is $500 or less. Building out the walls and blowing in more insulation is probably a little cheaper by $100 at the most, but the time investment will be much higher while leaving me with an ugly, stained floor.

 

[bj383ss]

I wouldn't add any more expense to the garage if it were me. Unless you are going to spend alot of time in there before you move are you really going to get anything out of the extra insulation? Plus if the ceiling is open all your heat in the winter will just go out the top.

When we built our house I snuck in insulation in the garage walls before they dry walled it. I still need to do the attic. I definitely helps but I will really tell a difference when I get the ceiling insulated and the mini split installed. I plan on being here forever though so my ROI is no brainer.

Bret

 

[BoilermakerFan]

I wouldn't add any more expense to the garage if it were me. Unless you are going to spend alot of time in there before you move are you really going to get anything out of the extra insulation? Plus if the ceiling is open all your heat in the winter will just go out the top.

When we built our house I snuck in insulation in the garage walls before they dry walled it. I still need to do the attic. I definitely helps but I will really tell a difference when I get the ceiling insulated and the mini split installed. I plan on being here forever though so my ROI is no brainer.

Bret

Thanks Bret. The ceiling is getting finished and insulated except for a 4' span in the middle, which will be insulated and built out to a cathedral ceiling to add a little flair to the garage and allow me to install a ceiling vent fan to recirculate the heat back down to the main area of the garage.

I am planning to send a lot more time out there, especially in the winter, once it's insulated and finished so I can crank the heat up to 60-62 degrees while I'm out there and lower it to 50deg when I'm not. But I don't think the extra time and expense to build it out is worth it.

I think the floor would be the better money spent and now I'm kind of considering one or the snap-together modular floors since I could pull it all out, clean it, and take it with us when we move, then just add more to fill out the next garage... I could take the vinyl plank too, but it would be a riskier proposition since I may or may not be able to get matching material later.


If this was our forever home I would have built the biggest garage I could afford or get away with within zoning restrictions. It would have 2x6 walls with 2" spray foam backed by blown cellulose or rockwool batts (for noise towards the house), a mini-split, a bathroom, and a really nice floor.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

I only had a little bit of time in the garage today and it was to help my neighbor with his new computer desk build. We cut his 1x maple trim for the tops of the legs on the chop saw and I routed a 3/16" round over on the top side. Then clamped the trim to the steel piece that the legs and feet mount to so I could drill the 4 holes in the maple for the leg bolts to pass through. While I was at it, I went ahead and marked, then drilled pilot holes for the screws that attach the trim to the steel sub-plate. Knocked it out in about an hour including the time I spent looking for the router wrenches and chop saw clamp.

He's an appraiser and he agreed that building out the walls wouldn't add any value and the small difference in R-value probably wouldn't pay me back in 3 years... but a vinyl floor in the garage would add a ton of "curb appeal" to the finished garage. Again, it wouldn't add anything to an appraised value, but it would definitely make the garage more enjoyable to work in and make it more like a finished exterior room than a garage.

I kicked around a couple other ideas with him and I like what we vetted out. I am going to "build out" one portion of my side wall where the man door is because my dart board is mounted on that wall. I'm going to add a small 4' section of fold down shelving next to the dart board that I can flip up to hold beverages and snacks when I have guys over to play darts. The build out is to recess the dart board area to give it a more built in and finished look. The next owner can then mount a 40"+ TV in that recess if they want to.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Before the Foolsball game I spent a little time in the garage sanding down the front edge of my bench to bring the trim closer to the top, then I realized I didn't have too because the T-Track would fill the small gap.

So I laid out the T-Track to see how it would look:

And here is the view from the front:

The T-Track will be countersunk into the top into grooves cut with the router. The front and rear tracks will be flush to the trim. The two middle tracks will be spaced evenly from the front and rear with a little larger gap between them in the middle. This arrangement lets me use the front and second track for most of my smaller sub-plate mounts. For my reloading press setup I will use the front and third track with additional side clamps mounted in the second track. When I need to cover the entire top or the main work side I will mount a sacrificial cover board with the front and rear tracks.

Tomorrow evening I will mark the centers for the two milled recesses on each piece. There will be one at each end about 3" from the end. On Tuesday I will take them out to the university with my and hopefully mill the 8 recesses. I'm hoping to get the channel grooves cut into the top next weekend.

I'm not thrilled with the look of the clear aluminum on the hickory top so I may have the 4 pieces of T-Track coated in Burnt Bronze Cerokote or KG Guncoat. I really wish I had a place that could Type III Hard Anodize them. That finish would be perfect for the tracks.

I have a little bit of filing to do on the left side trim piece at the front to bring the front trim in a little on that corner. Then a little more sanding and I'll round over the top edges with the 3/16" radius router bit before the final coats of Danish oil.

Once that's done I have to flip the table back over onto it's top so I can layout the location and drill pilot holes for the drawer chest that will be built later to install underneath. The last step is to clean up the wiring and mount a few wire clamps before I remove the legs, power supply, and control switch so everything can be hauled into my basement.

Which made me realize that I have to removed everything from my little hobby shop / storage area... again... so I can put up some wall panels and lay down the rest of the wood flooring I have leftover from the finished side of the basement. That's going to ****, but I really need to do it to properly finish off my little hobby space. I may just put down the flooring under the workbench area for now, then finish the rest over spring break when my wife and son are gone or over the summer if they don't go to Florida over spring break.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

I spent time looking at vinyl plank flooring and other options...

All were really more than I wanted to spend except G-Floor so I did a little GJ research on it... And it's not going to work for me. I'll end up tearing it up. I'd probably end up scratching/damaging vinyl plank too.

So I'm back to just scuff grinding the floor and sealing it as my top option. I may lay down some porcelain tiles since I have a few boxes left over. A buddy has a bunch or 1'x2' quartz looking tiles that he would give me for what he paid for them which was pennies on the dollar. I'd still need to scuff and etch the concrete to make that work so either way i'll have to address the floor.

It's crazy warm here today, 56degF so I was hoping it might carry through the weekend. Nope. Tomorrow I'm basically running all day long between lacrosse and archery, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow anyway. Then Sunday the high drops back down to a more normal 32degF. Grrrr. So I can't really get anything done on the ceiling or walls.


I'll take some pics later, but I decided I am going to frame out my one wall by my man door in order to recess the 4' section where the dart board is. The main reasons I'm going to frame out that wall are to make finishing it easier since my conduit for the sub panel is there and allow me to put rockwool in just that wall since it faces the house and our bedroom is the closet room to the garage. That will keep noise down better. Happy wife, happy wife.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Got a little time out in the garage tonight.

I put my big 3-bulb ceiling box light on my work bench so I could figure out how to mount it over my steel work bench. It's not going to be the easiest light to install and it's rather heavy. I'm going to have to install cross bracing and additional supports to give me something to screw it to on the ceiling. While I had it on the bench I checked to see if the electronic ballast would be compatible with direct replacement LED bulbs. It's not, so I went ahead and removed the existing ballast. I'll pick up a new ballast at Menards tomorrow.

Then I started to really look at my walls and rafters to determine how much work it's going to be to hang the plywood. Jeez, this garage is so cheaply built and the garage door is even more cheaply installed. The exterior has the perforated soffit cover but there isn't a ridge vent or gable vents. I'm going to install the "ducts" on the bottom of the roof decking so I can put more insulation in the sides where the space isn't usable as storage. I wanted to blow in cellulose insulation in the walls and in between the ceiling, but it will be a pain to install a vapor barrier on most of the wall area so I think I'm just going to use backed fiberglass batts on those areas. I'll use the backed batts under my storage decking above the ceiling too, but most of the sections are 4' wide so I have to figure out a solution to hold two 2' wide sections in place until the plywood is up.

I have a lot of wiring that needs to be cleaned up if I want to be able to keep the very center sections of the garage open to the roof as a cathedral ceiling look. And then there are several 240V surface mounted receptacles that will need to be removed until I can drill new holes in the attached ceiling for the conduit. I'm going to add a few more wall and ceiling receptacles as well.

I know in the end the work will be worth it to have an insulated garage that will be cleaner looking and much brighter after I paint the walls/ceiling; but holy cow, I have so much stuff in the garage it's going to be a lot more work than I originally thought it would be.

I'm going to try to get the ceiling up at the front of the garage for the first 4' and then finish the little bit of wall around the garage door. I think I can get enough floor space cleared to do this without having to put anything outside. After that is done, I really have to purge as much stuff from the garage as I can including the storage above the ceiling. Hopefully having that first section done will be the motivation I need to tackle the rest of it back the very last 4' section at the back of the garage. That last section needs a lot of framing and rearranging of things, but it's also where the bulk of my storage shelving is now.

Maybe I'll get lucky this spring and a wind storm will knock a couple big limbs out of my neighbor's tree down on this garage. Then their insurance can pay for us to build a proper 1-1/2+ car garage on the other side of my backyard where the garage really should be and I can have everything done right the first time.

 

[wingnutthehutt]

Maybe I'll get lucky this spring and a wind storm will knock a couple big limbs out of my neighbor's tree down on this garage. Then their insurance can pay for us to build a proper 1-1/2+ car garage on the other side of my backyard where the garage really should be and I can have everything done right the first time.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

I found out from the old neighbors that that is exactly what happened in 1998. The ORIGINAL carriage house from 1939 was still in the backyard up until 1998 when a limb from the oak tree fell and imploded the carriage house. The previous owners being the idiots they were elected to build the "2 car" garage on part of the existing foundation to avoid a minor inconvenience of having to submit to the review board to move the garage to the top of the concrete driveway. And then the idiot POs elected to build the absolutely smallest 2 car garage they could because they only had an SWB Dodge van. We bought the house in March of 2000 before I even knew about the GJ and my wife and I loved the neighborhood. No other houses in the area really even had 2 car garages so we bought this place. In my defense it was our first house and we only planned to be in it for 5-7 years. So now I'm hoping for a repeat from the oak tree.


My new Lenovo P51 mobile workstation was supposed to ship today...

When I logged in to see if it did, I found this:

Dammit. They pushed out the ship date by 2 weeks. Man, the wait is killing me!


Sunday I did pick up a new ballast for my big 3-bulb ceiling light. The footprint size and mounting was exactly the same so it was easy to mount in the light. I had to Google the wiring instructions for 3 bulbs instead of 4. I wasn't sure which wire wasn't used, but I have it sorted now so tomorrow I can wire it in:

I have a new ballast for my shop light down in my basement hobby area too that I need to install as well so I can run LED direct replacement tubes in that light as well.

 

[rodpoa]

Killing time in a small "2 car" garage

Question:
Why this Lenovo? Isn’t it gigantic?

I always think that you should go for the smallest and lightest when going for mobile or maybe a desktop if you’re going to be stationary.

By the way, I also have a Lenovo as my daily machine. Actually, for 10 years now.

My company experimented with macs and hps but for people on the go nothing is as durable as lenovos. They are hard nuts to crack.

Mine is a t470 with unfortunately only 8GB. That’s not enough because while I keep Win as guest OS to access company data, I run a Lubuntu in a VMWare for personal browsing, another win 7 for financial accessing and Tails for shady research.

I can’t max out my VMs specs because my corporate windows image is so heavy and stuffed with all sorts of security customizations that it draws a lot of memory already. At least I sometimes feel safe even when using windows because my image does not have superuser privileges, registry access, authorization to report errors to vendors, it has company issued antimalware, company issued antivirus, company issued firewall and it is very quarantine happy. If it does not like something that touches the machine, it locks it down in quarantine.

That been said, my lubuntu has nothing. Only my vpn client, a veracrypt container to store my password database and that’s it. It is so light that it flights like a charm [emoji4]

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Re: Killing time in a small "2 car" garage

Question:
Why this Lenovo? Isn’t it gigantic?

I always think that you should go for the smallest and lightest when going for mobile or maybe a desktop if you’re going to be stationary.

By the way, I also have a Lenovo as my daily machine. Actually, for 10 years now.

My company experimented with macs and hps but for people on the go nothing is as durable as lenovos. They are hard nuts to crack.

Mine is a t470 with unfortunately only 8GB. That’s not enough because while I keep Win as guest OS to access company data, I run a Lubuntu in a VMWare for personal browsing, another win 7 for financial accessing and Tails for shady research.

I can’t max out my VMs specs because my corporate windows image is so heavy and stuffed with all sorts of security customizations that it draws a lot of memory already. At least I sometimes feel safe even when using windows because my image does not have superuser privileges, registry access, authorization to report errors to vendors, it has company issued antimalware, company issued antivirus, company issued firewall and it is very quarantine happy. If it does not like something that touches the machine, it locks it down in quarantine.

That been said, my lubuntu has nothing. Only my vpn client, a veracrypt container to store my password database and that’s it. It is so light that it flights like a charm [emoji4]

I shared the Lenovo P51 specs in post #256

It's a 15" machine with a touchscreen. I didn't want a 17" machine. I went with a Lenovo ThinkPad for several reasons. First, price; my wife gets a nice discount through the NEA since she is a teacher and belongs to the teachers union. This machine is heavily optioned out (still have 2 RAM slots and a PCIe SSD slots open) and is at the very upper end of my budget. I get a monthly stipend from work for 36 months and this machine is only $100 over that stipend. Second, durability as you mentioned. Third, it was one of the few 15" mobile workstations with a touchscreen option. Fourth, it was also one of the few 15" workstation models that had a better dedicated graphics card and it is field upgradable to several higher end nVidia cards from the P-series line so I could get a much higher end card from Lenovo from their P71 series if I really wanted to blow that kind of money later.

My wife has a mid-spec t470 for her personal laptop and loves it.

I've been running VMware Fusion on my 2011 MacBook Pro since 2011 so I have Win7 Pro running in it. I have no plans to run anything else but Win10 Pro on the new machine. Once it's here I will blow away the Win7 Pro VM and restore the MCB to just running OSx. My Mac has been an amazing machine over the years. I've had 3 issues in 6-1/2 years where upgrading the OS didn't go as planned. Two were with the big jumps in OSx 10 and I just upgraded too soon so now I wait a few weeks to a month before upgrading. One OSx upgrade caused my MS Office for Mac to stop working. So I had to restore back to the older OS and wait a little longer for Apple to get it patched. The Mac Time Machine backups have worked on all but one occasion where the latest backup would not restore so I lost a few documents in my Windows side, but they were in my email sent folder so easy to recover those...

I had Linux machines (SuSe and Ubuntu) for about 6 years total, 8-14 years ago. Now I'm older and running all legit software so I have no interest in messing with Linux anymore.

 

[rodpoa]

Re: Killing time in a small "2 car" garage

I shared the Lenovo P51 specs in post #256

It's a 15" machine with a touchscreen. I didn't want a 17" machine. I went with a Lenovo ThinkPad for several reasons. First, price; my wife gets a nice discount through the NEA since she is a teacher and belongs to the teachers union. This machine is heavily optioned out (still have 2 RAM slots and a PCIe SSD slots open) and is at the very upper end of my budget. I get a monthly stipend from work for 36 months and this machine is only $100 over that stipend. Second, durability as you mentioned. Third, it was one of the few 15" mobile workstations with a touchscreen option. Fourth, it was also one of the few 15" workstation models that had a better dedicated graphics card and it is field upgradable to several higher end nVidia cards from the P-series line so I could get a much higher end card from Lenovo from their P71 series if I really wanted to blow that kind of money later.

My wife has a mid-spec t470 for her personal laptop and loves it.

I've been running VMware Fusion on my 2011 MacBook Pro since 2011 so I have Win7 Pro running in it. I have no plans to run anything else but Win10 Pro on the new machine. Once it's here I will blow away the Win7 Pro VM and restore the MCB to just running OSx. My Mac has been an amazing machine over the years. I've had 3 issues in 6-1/2 years where upgrading the OS didn't go as planned. Two were with the big jumps in OSx 10 and I just upgraded too soon so now I wait a few weeks to a month before upgrading. One OSx upgrade caused my MS Office for Mac to stop working. So I had to restore back to the older OS and wait a little longer for Apple to get it patched. The Mac Time Machine backups have worked on all but one occasion where the latest backup would not restore so I lost a few documents in my Windows side, but they were in my email sent folder so easy to recover those...

I had Linux machines (SuSe and Ubuntu) for about 6 years total, 8-14 years ago. Now I'm older and running all legit software so I have no interest in messing with Linux anymore.

I hear about macs. My wife has the new 12” one and can’t live without it.

Mine is - believe it or not - a 2007 MacBook white!! Some years ago it stopped getting upgrades and was stuck with Snow Leopard. I said f... it, I’m still gonna be able to do what I’ve always done with it, right?

The internet evolved and more complex script languages are now supported by browsers. The safari I had with snow leopard does not support everything anymore and can’t be upgraded. Tried chrome but my Mac was too old to accept the new one.

Took me 2 painful weeks trying to get Ubuntu to run in my Mac. When I figured it out, Ubuntu seemed to heavy for the old hardware. Retried again with lubuntu and there you go.

My 10 year old machine is to this day my main machine at home. Totally usable.

Apple hardware was impeccable once. Nothing compared to that.

I unfortunately am not sure it still is. We all miss Steve.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Re: Killing time in a small "2 car" garage

I hear about macs. My wife has the new 12” one and can’t live without it.

Mine is - believe it or not - a 2007 MacBook white!! Some years ago it stopped getting upgrades and was stuck with Snow Leopard. I said f... it, I’m still gonna be able to do what I’ve always done with it, right?

The internet evolved and more complex script languages are now supported by browsers. The safari I had with snow leopard does not support everything anymore and can’t be upgraded. Tried chrome but my Mac was too old to accept the new one.

Took me 2 painful weeks trying to get Ubuntu to run in my Mac. When I figured it out, Ubuntu seemed to heavy for the old hardware. Retried again with lubuntu and there you go.

My 10 year old machine is to this day my main machine at home. Totally usable.

Apple hardware was impeccable once. Nothing compared to that.

I unfortunately am not sure it still is. We all miss Steve.

Man, that's *********! I'm not sure I could wipe OSx and go Lubuntu... I guess if it's no longer updating and no web browsers will work on it. I suspect I have one more major OSx upgrade --> OSx 11.*** left in this ol' girl. But by then it will be pushing 8 years old. I may take it from 8Gig to 16Gig of RAM, but I'll wait and see how it does after the VMware is wiped off the machine and I gut Office for Mac and a few other programs off it. I will probably just sell it when it can no longer be upgraded to the latest OSx. I'll just put the original 320Gig HDD back in it and keep my 750Gig HDD for an external portable.

I received an email from Lenovo this morning that my order has been delayed. The expected ship date has changed 4 or 5 times today. So it will now ship sometime this month...

 

[BoilermakerFan]

I have no intentions of moving within the area where we live in SW Indiana. If we're going to move, I want to move out of Indiana... I will just say that again now before I finish this post.


Tonight after teaching class I was just goofing around on the Realtor.com app to see how much a house was that I passed today while out on calls. It wasn't horribly overpriced for where it was and it had almost 6 acres close to the city. But no attached garage and the 3-bay garage/shop in the backyard was a pretty good distance from the house. So I would have to build a second garage next to the house for my wife which put it way out of our budget. Again, not wanting to move, but I was curious so I checked it out through the app.




Then I saw that a little house my wife loved was back on the market. The new listing agent posted much better pictures of the inside of the house. The previous owner converted the 3rd bedroom to a formal dining room and added a rear door out onto a raised deck. It's not a horrible renovation as it does work for the house, but I'd want the 3rd bedroom back. The basement in this house is completely unfinished and it's a walkout with just a single man door out but nice big windows. HUGE potential for the basement and it had a partial block wall around a shower. Great bones to make a killer master suite and den. Probably still enough room for a hobby space down there too, but I would have to do some serious noise abatement if we put a master suite down there.

But here is the deal breaker:

Only a one car garage and a narrow driveway. I'd have no issues parking my car in the driveway if my wife could easily get around it, but we would have to rip out the driveway and really work the lot line angles to make it work. What I thought was really cool is that at least a portion of the garage goes over the basement. And the one car garage just has awesome style. (see below) Alas, there is no room to even add a single lane driveway down the side into the HUGE backyard that has plenty of room for a 30'x40' detached garage/shop. The house next to it is right up against the easement on the lot to the right as you face the house.

I actually drove by the house the first time it was for sale because it is in a cool location and we could seriously drop our mortgage by half buying this house while only giving up 200sq/ft on paper while gaining a much better basement. It desperately needs landscaping and the trim around the garage would be replaced with HardiBoard. The roof is the wrong color for the house too, but it's in great shape so I wouldn't be chomping at the bit to replace it with a proper architectural shingle in a dark grey or brown to match the limestone.

I tried to look to see if there was enough room on the left hand side of the house to fit a second driveway to go down the side of the house into the backyard for the detached garage. If there is then I would have no problem pouring a nice single width driveway down to it. I'd park my daughter's car in the first bay of the garage and have at least 2 real, full bays for my stuff. My car would just be parked at the very top by the street in the second driveway.


But here are the pics I snagged off the app of the inside of the garage:

I love the way it looks! I'd paint over the green, put in LED can lights, paint the ceiling, and tile the floor. But there is no way to insulate it without covering the fantastic limestone so I wouldn't even try, nor would I even bother replacing the old steel casement windows. I'd just restore them so they all opened and paint them. Then I'd replace the garage door with a new insulated door with similar windows. I think that the garage was originally a carport that was partially enclosed and they enclosed it with all those windows. I've never seen a garage like it before. If it was a 2 car carport converted into a garage the same way we would have bought the house the first time it was on the market.

 

[wingnutthehutt]

Dang, that new place looks like it's pretty cool. Cool ceiling and lots of great natural light. I'm guessing the garage used to be a carport? Hmm, you could just dig a ramp through the floor and out to the back yard. Then you'd have a CONCEALED driveway.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Dang, that new place looks like it's pretty cool. Cool ceiling and lots of great natural light. I'm guessing the garage used to be a carport? Hmm, you could just dig a ramp through the floor and out to the back yard. Then you'd have a CONCEALED driveway.

That would be crazy! And in theory it could possibly work, but that would be a STEEP drive! 10' drop over 25'. I thought is was previously a carport too, but it's actually over the basement so I'm not sure why you would want a open carport over the basement since that would be a major loss of heat in the winter. I'm sure it's already not the best at keeping heat in as it is.

Looking at it again, the beaded ceiling is a very common ceiling in sunrooms around here. I think that was a huge sunroom that they converted into the garage...

It's not our new place... just a house my wife really likes that is for sale. I just loved the attached garage. Unfortunately, the house is practically on the lot lines. I would have to buy 25'-30' of the neighbors property down the property line to make room for a 10' wide driveway to the back yard. That neighbor has almost 8 acres at the end of the street, so they could easily give up the 25'-30' by 120' of land.

If the house already had the room on left side to easily put in a driveway to a detached garage in the back, I would probably be busting my **** to get our house ready to go back on the market again so we could put an offer in on the house. If we put $40K-$50K into the place we could easily get it back when we moved out of Indiana.

Here are pics of the unfinished basement. In the first pic the area under the garage is the open door at the very top of the pic. Behind and to the right of the stairs is simple block wall shower:

And here is the space under the garage itself:

In this pic the area under the garage is in the upper right corner, at least the door is:

Here is the other pic of the shower down there that would be so easy to convert into a kicking two person glass and tile shower:

The basement is a single man door walkout so it would be very easy to build in a killer master suite and den in the main part of the basement, then the W/D would be in the area under the garage with our storage and my hobby shop area.

 

[rodpoa]

I see so much potencial... this place could become ridiculously cool. This basement man... so many possibilities!!

 

[Squashfest81]

It’s a cool building. Rare to see a basement so unmolested.
If you were staying, I’d say go for it, but if the plan is to leave... find the sweet spot in the place you’re going.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

I see so much potencial... this place could become ridiculously cool. This basement man... so many possibilities!!

Yes, it is a really cool house with HUGE potential, with a HUGE problem of no room for a second driveway. If I loved this area and wanted to stay, it would be worth the effort to buy land from the neighbor to make room for a driveway to a new garage/barn in the backyard. But we don't want to stay any longer than we have to. 3-1/2 more years MAX. I was tempted if we committed to the 3-1/2 years, I could easily invest $30K-$40K and get it all back selling in 3-4 years because of the basement potential.

It’s a cool building. Rare to see a basement so unmolested.
If you were staying, I’d say go for it, but if the plan is to leave... find the sweet spot in the place you’re going.

It is rare to find a walk-out basement unmolested. The house needs a little updating, but nothing major. And I agree, we'll sit tight where we are for now

 

[BoilermakerFan]

I found out that the 3D printer my buddy is giving me is a Geeetech i3:

Not the best i3 clone out there, but the price is right and I can use it to print out upgraded carriers, bearing holders, and a nicer shuttle for it to make it better.

 

[wingnutthehutt]

Wow, that basement is massive! Out here in CA most basements don't even have floors.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Wow, that basement is massive! Out here in CA most basements don't even have floors.

It's a really cool house. The house has HUGE potential and great bones to reinvent it. It's just too bad it's in a city we don't to live in long term.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

It's home!

Now to get the software loaded and see if it works.

EDIT: I decided to backup my MacBook Pro before installing the latest update and running the software. Still waiting for it to finish backing up.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

I was able to get the Repetier-Host Mac software to connect to the GeeeTECH i3 printer, but it doesn't see it as a Prusa i3, just as a "DEFAULT" printer. So I'm trying to figure out how to import an .ini parameters file into the Repetier program.

And in other news:

IT FINALLY SHIPPED! WOOHOO! My ThinkPad P51 Mobile Workstation is finally on it's way to me. It should be here Monday or Tuesday. This has been the longest 20+ days I've experienced in a long time.