What did you do in your shop today?

JR Custom Calls said:
Cold hands, wrong tools, accident waiting to happen.
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I can relate to that, I'm a pretty fair mechanic but not when my hands are cold. Repairs that I normally would do I take in for service in the winter, unless I have a heated place to work.
 
I never had a problem with drum brakes - but hated every brake job I ever did. I still do ours but the daily drivers are all disc all around. I have a 1977 C10 but don't drive it enough to ever do another brake job on it I bet. Rotors have gotten cheaper but drum parts are still a lot cheaper I think and last longer. I just changed all four rotors and pads and kits on my F350 last year and not only was it a breeze, it was cheaper than what one single rotor used to cost for that thing when it was new, and I didn't buy the cheapest grade they offered.

But remember there's reasons drum brakes are still around and it's not just because they are cheaper. The drum brakes of today provide better stopping than the disc brakes of the 80s. Drum brakes today can provide the same stopping power using less space than the bigger disc brake setups. Drum brakes have less friction (=less heat =less wear) than disc brakes when driving down the road with no brake applied. Drum brakes stay dry even during rain. Drum brakes won't dirty up your $3000 wheels.

There's probably more but this is all I remember from a conversation I had 2 years ago with a retired mechanic who works at our O'Reilly store. I have no idea if all or any of it is accurate but he a good mechanic and knows a lot more about it than me. YMMV YBMV.
 
There has to be something to it. Chevy switched to rotors in the rear of their 1500 series back in 03/04 I think... Then switched back to drums the next model year. I think the 14's have discs, but the HD series still uses drums.
 
I was in a bind using vicegrips too. I guess the moral of this story is do not use vicegrips to do drum brakes when the dedicated tool is so cheap and you have to go to the parts store anyway.
 
JR Custom Calls said:
There has to be something to it. Chevy switched to rotors in the rear of their 1500 series back in 03/04 I think... Then switched back to drums the next model year. I think the 14's have discs, but the HD series still uses drums.
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My 2013 gmc 1500 4x4 has drums in the rear.
 
It's what I'm about to do in the shop.

First off will be a bit of organizing. I left space under one of the benches to put in drawers. But ended up with plastic tubs and shelves which really isn't as convenient as you might think. Last night my order of drawer slides came in so I'll be building 10 drawers for that. Last night I finally bought some clamps and a vacuum system for the dust collector so that will help with the straightening as well. No more getting down on my knees to clean up the floor.

Once the plastic tubs are freed up I'll be working on filling them up. This September there's a local craft 'show' (Harvest Fest in Thornton) that I'm going to try selling stuff at for the first time and I need to build up inventory for that. I'll have to be careful how I do that though as I brought in the first two things I made using the oak burl I received from WindyRidgeBowman - and sold them both. That's not entirely bad, selling your stuff, but it does make it difficult to build inventory :)

Oh, and I finally need to put that old TS out and reclaim that spot in the garage.
 
Yesterday evening, I cut up a few pieces of wood for a trade... then had a gentleman come over who I had got in touch with on craigslist. He was wanting to get in to woodturning, so I offered to let him take a spin in my shop to make sure he thought he would enjoy it before he started sinking endless amounts of money in to stuff. He ended up making a mallet, buying my old lathe, and seemed to enjoy himself. First woodturner (or soon to be at least) that I've connected with on a local level.
 
I was able to turn stuff! Made another bag of curlies/chips! The came from the very top of a chunk I threw on the mill this morning....thinking back, it took four hours for this one to goes from huge chunk to turned bowl. Neat!






Scott (and it was fun!) B
 
Show season has started for me so I was at a weekly show I do in Rochester, MN instead of in the shop. It's a good venue for me and usually accounts for about 15k in sales each year but it means that I have to spend weekends replenishing stock, shucks, forced to spend time in the shop making shavings :saw::sarcastic:
 
I turned a piece of curly olive. First time I'd turned olive. Gonna end up having to buy some now, aside from the nasty smell, it turned so nice.
 
JR Custom Calls said:
I turned a piece of curly olive. First time I'd turned olive. Gonna end up having to buy some now, aside from the nasty smell, it turned so nice.
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Yeah, Smell isn't the most pleasant but the finished product is always beautiful!
 
This morning I spent a few minutes doing final packaging of a few boxes I'm sending out in trades.

Tonight I swept the floor and moved a few things around...

I had been hoping to get some shop time in the last week and a half, but it just didn't happen. Wanted to make a few small items like bottle stoppers and bottle openers to take as some small gifts for when we're on vacation next week visiting family. But this week I burned the candle at both ends - and then some. And, even if I could have found time, I hurt my shoulder pretty bad on Tuesday night. It is, thankfully, getting better each day, but I still can't do a whole lot with it.

So, today, since I'm so burnt out and pretty much useless from such a long and busy week, I decided I at least needed to make sure my shop was still there, so I went out and swept up and moved a few things around. Am hoping that by doing some clean up before vacation, that I'll be able to quickly get into the swing of things once we get back and get some real work done out there, like spend some time dialing in my tools and getting a workbench built, along with a few other shop projects to get me back into building mode - I've got an ever growing list of projects I need to build this summer.

First up once I get the shop going is a standing desk for my office that I've been trying to build for over a year now, without ever really being able to get started on it. I've now got everything I need to build and finish it, minus some dry 8/4 or 10/4 Red Oak for the legs... Am having a hard time sourcing some locally...
 
Didn't get anything turned. I did get some handle blanks and pepper mill blanks cut and marked. Most of the time was spent in working on my router table and putting drawers under the workbench. That drawer thing took a lot longer than I thought it would - using 2x4 construction isn't the most accurate thing and I finally ended up cutting a couple of spacers so once the first set of drawer slides was in and the test drawer built then the rest of them could be done much quicker.
 
Well darn it! I have a pretty nice chunk of She-oak Lowell sent me away with awhile ago. I finally had a little time where I thought I was going to process it down to future staves. Went over to the neighbors where I do most of my big work opened up his shop and it looked like he was in the middle of a finishing project. Scratch that plan, I'm not about to mess up his hard work.
So I go back to pull out some finishing work I could do and the sky drops big old drops of rain seemingly out of nowhere. Guess I will have to take a break today.
 
I was planning to spend some time out in the shop this afternoon, and temperature wise it's not too bad. It's been overcast, so the sun hasn't been beating down on the garage making it an oven.

However, the humidity is just crazy... If there's one thing I can't take more than heat it's humidity... There was an old window AC unit sitting in the garage when we moved it. I've moved it to the shed. I'm starting to think that it might be nice to see if it works, then put it in the window if it does. Because with a whole lot of summer left, I'd like to get some shop time in without cooking myself to death in the shop!
 
I slipped on a piece of plastic and put a cricket in my neck, and hobbling around a little gimpy. A gimpy leprechaun with a cricket in his neck is a sad sack.
 
I broke a band on my WoodMizer. Not as high in 'pucker value' as I thought it would be?
Didn't hit anything inside the ERC I was milling, I think it was just "it's time"?!?!?


Scott (bummer) B
 
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