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January
18, 2004 9.0 Hours Shop Remodel, Part IIII'm back. I'm sorry that I was away so long, but between doing shows with work and the frigid weather here in Cleveland, it's been hard to get into the garage. Add to that a broken garage door (stuck halfway open) and some tool problems with the buffer I bought to polish stainless trim (the first one arrived broken, and attempts to get another one got me a customer service manager who told me "tough sh*t"), and, well, you can see why not much has happened recently. Frustrated that I wasn't working on the car (more frustrated than my readers, I'm sure!), I took action: I bought a new overhead door and a garage heater. The overhead door was installed last Friday, and it is truly a luxury having an electric garage door opener--Julia loves it.
My 18,000 BTU electric heater came from Northern Tool, and it arrived on Thursday. I had it wired up and mounted by noon Saturday. Though I was skeptical that such a small electric unit could heat my entire garage, it really works. It took my 22 degree garage up to 60+ degrees in a matter of about an hour, and has no problem maintaining a comfortable 50 degrees no matter what the temperature outside. I finished insulating the garage with R19 fiberglass in the top of the roof rafters, and I was good to go. I'm back in business and can work in the garage any time now.
I also decided to remodel the work area slightly to accommodate my new roll-around tool chest and welder/welding cart. You may recall that I had a shelf unit next to my workbench, but it seemed to just turn into a collection point for junk and stuff I didn't know what to do with. So I moved the shelf unit up into the loft to store parts, and moved the tool chest and welding cart into its place.
Then I rearranged the shop area. What a difference!
A friend of mine at work, James, is going to give me a few lessons on MIG welding sheetmetal so I can get busy patching the floors of the Buick. I've done a lot of TIG welding and fabricating roll cages, but MIG is new to me and sheetmetal is something I've never tackled before. He's going to give me a lesson or two and hopefully it will help my results. I also picked up a small sandblaster unit from Eastwood, and i'm going to use it to blast the body in sections, starting with the areas that I'm going to patch. That way I don't have to spend a lot of time sandblasting nor make a mess for my neighbors to deal with. Once the floor is patched, I can yank the body off the frame and send it to the powdercoater. Later this week, I'll show you how to make a buffing stand. Not only does Mustang Dynamometer make the best dynos in the world, but we also have A LOT of steel lying around that I can use to make a stand. It will be a great opportunity to practice with my new welder. I'll be building a rotisserie, too, but that will be in a few months. One bad thing did happen though--I was looking through a tool catalog at work and realized that I don't need any more tools! Well, a few, but I have all the biggies now. What a terrible thing to happen! Thanks for staying tuned. I hope to have more regular updates from now on. Previous
Restoration Day E-mail me at toolman8@sbcglobal.net This page accessed Thanks, Fidget! |
