stewart
Well-known member
"Why are we here?". The greatest philosophical question of all time. I think I can answer part of it or at least "The Garage Journal Forum, Why are we here?".
I found this site while googling for information about buying a bobcat type skid steer for a landscaping project. That amazes me, I went from landscape equipment to garage talk, you guys cover everything. My bobcat search was interrupted by my reading the various threads and looking at the different garages. In my neighborhood of 60,000 there are only a handful of us. No Cancun, Bahamas, Disney, or beach, my idea of vacation is being left alone in the garage with a project.
Garages! I saw pics of the old, new, small and large. Filled with cars, bikes, boats and planes. Some of the floors look too clean, no grease! What's going on here, is this the "garage ladies auxiliary forum?", but then I saw the projects you guys do, I thought, these are my people, we are all cut from the same cloth. I was happy to see hundreds of **** retentive perfectionists showing their hearts.
Please forgive my writing style as it may get choppy at times, watch the punctuation and beware of the run-ons. My brain has been damaged from untold hours of breathing lacquer thinner, gasoline, mek, toluene, muriatic acid reacting with steel, acetone, molten lead, brass, copper, zinc, burning plastic, tri chlor and methanol. My heart pumps the lead absorbed from the untold hours my hands soaked in gasoline as I cleaned countless parts in a torched off bottom third of a 55 gallon drum filled with the stuff. All the while smoking cigarettes and occasionally having some beers (now that I'm older it's always beers and occasionally smoking cigarettes). An interesting note is that a lit smoke fell into the drum and to my amazement it just made a puff off white smoke and went out.
You will not touch the fixtures in a public restroom but you can eat a ham sandwich with your hands covered in old chassis grease.
Its Saturday nite 1979 and the boys stopped by to get me to go to the usual bars for the night. I say nah! I'm elbow deep in gear lube working on a new process 435. I slip across the floor in the 90 wt and gasoline cocktail that covers it as I walk over to greet them at the door. They stand at the door and say Jesus! How can you breath in here, I say its not bad. A new comer say's Holy **** he's got a lit cigarette. The regulars say yeah that's Stew. I tell them I'll catch up with them later, sometimes I did and other times I'd be in there until sunrise when they might stop by again all hammered and laughing from the night of drinking on their way home.
You boys know how it is that you've gotta use that wildcat grinder to dress that weld at 11:00 pm, fire up that rebuilt and newly installed motor, squeeze that impact gun trigger, or run that circular saw hoping not to wake the house or annoy the neighbors.
You've never done it before but you'll do it, and do it well. You have "IT". Mechanical inclination, it's something you're born with. It can't be taught. From your first toy, bicycle, mini bike, motorcycle, car, house you'll know if you have IT.
On the stacking of projects or One thing leads to another.
You start out to rebuild a dana rear. First thing is that the gear lube gets spilled from the foot basin you got from your ma's laundry room. You're busy so you throw a shop rag on it. You're tracking it all over now so you throw some speedy dry on it. You need a case spreader so you call a few friends but nobody's got one (you even call people that aren't friends). It's too late to buy one and if anyplace was open at this hour they wouldn't have one anyway. You look around the garage. You look at the scrap steel you have. You look at the torch, then you look at the welder. Then you're at the drill press, then the lathe, then the grinder because you have to sharpen the cutting tool, but its carbide so now you've got to take off the aluminum oxide wheel and put on the silicon carbide one, but its got grooves in it because the last time you used it with HSS because you were too lazy to change it back to aluminum oxide. You've got the tapping fluid out! The torch hose is across the floor tangled in welding leads and the grinders extension cord that runs through the gear lube and speedy dry slurry that covers the floor. The case spreader is done. You've got every tool you own out and scattered all over the floor. You were just going to rebuild a rear.
You take off you're speedy dry encrusted work boots and wash with gojo! It's 3:00 am, I'm going to bed, I'll shower tomorrow, the sheets are black from last nite.
Nice meeting you guys, I'm Stewart!
I found this site while googling for information about buying a bobcat type skid steer for a landscaping project. That amazes me, I went from landscape equipment to garage talk, you guys cover everything. My bobcat search was interrupted by my reading the various threads and looking at the different garages. In my neighborhood of 60,000 there are only a handful of us. No Cancun, Bahamas, Disney, or beach, my idea of vacation is being left alone in the garage with a project.
Garages! I saw pics of the old, new, small and large. Filled with cars, bikes, boats and planes. Some of the floors look too clean, no grease! What's going on here, is this the "garage ladies auxiliary forum?", but then I saw the projects you guys do, I thought, these are my people, we are all cut from the same cloth. I was happy to see hundreds of **** retentive perfectionists showing their hearts.
Please forgive my writing style as it may get choppy at times, watch the punctuation and beware of the run-ons. My brain has been damaged from untold hours of breathing lacquer thinner, gasoline, mek, toluene, muriatic acid reacting with steel, acetone, molten lead, brass, copper, zinc, burning plastic, tri chlor and methanol. My heart pumps the lead absorbed from the untold hours my hands soaked in gasoline as I cleaned countless parts in a torched off bottom third of a 55 gallon drum filled with the stuff. All the while smoking cigarettes and occasionally having some beers (now that I'm older it's always beers and occasionally smoking cigarettes). An interesting note is that a lit smoke fell into the drum and to my amazement it just made a puff off white smoke and went out.
You will not touch the fixtures in a public restroom but you can eat a ham sandwich with your hands covered in old chassis grease.
Its Saturday nite 1979 and the boys stopped by to get me to go to the usual bars for the night. I say nah! I'm elbow deep in gear lube working on a new process 435. I slip across the floor in the 90 wt and gasoline cocktail that covers it as I walk over to greet them at the door. They stand at the door and say Jesus! How can you breath in here, I say its not bad. A new comer say's Holy **** he's got a lit cigarette. The regulars say yeah that's Stew. I tell them I'll catch up with them later, sometimes I did and other times I'd be in there until sunrise when they might stop by again all hammered and laughing from the night of drinking on their way home.
You boys know how it is that you've gotta use that wildcat grinder to dress that weld at 11:00 pm, fire up that rebuilt and newly installed motor, squeeze that impact gun trigger, or run that circular saw hoping not to wake the house or annoy the neighbors.
You've never done it before but you'll do it, and do it well. You have "IT". Mechanical inclination, it's something you're born with. It can't be taught. From your first toy, bicycle, mini bike, motorcycle, car, house you'll know if you have IT.
On the stacking of projects or One thing leads to another.
You start out to rebuild a dana rear. First thing is that the gear lube gets spilled from the foot basin you got from your ma's laundry room. You're busy so you throw a shop rag on it. You're tracking it all over now so you throw some speedy dry on it. You need a case spreader so you call a few friends but nobody's got one (you even call people that aren't friends). It's too late to buy one and if anyplace was open at this hour they wouldn't have one anyway. You look around the garage. You look at the scrap steel you have. You look at the torch, then you look at the welder. Then you're at the drill press, then the lathe, then the grinder because you have to sharpen the cutting tool, but its carbide so now you've got to take off the aluminum oxide wheel and put on the silicon carbide one, but its got grooves in it because the last time you used it with HSS because you were too lazy to change it back to aluminum oxide. You've got the tapping fluid out! The torch hose is across the floor tangled in welding leads and the grinders extension cord that runs through the gear lube and speedy dry slurry that covers the floor. The case spreader is done. You've got every tool you own out and scattered all over the floor. You were just going to rebuild a rear.
You take off you're speedy dry encrusted work boots and wash with gojo! It's 3:00 am, I'm going to bed, I'll shower tomorrow, the sheets are black from last nite.
Nice meeting you guys, I'm Stewart!
