Kate's MG, Part 11... Sold!

Well, this is the last post of the thread for Kate's MG, because it has sold! Tomorrow, it will become "Brian's MG." The saga of that sale has been quite interesting. In Part 10 I linked to a for-sale ad I had done with a ton of detail, and then I created a Craigslist ad that had lots of good pictures, and referenced that blog post.

I'll tell all about that in a minute, but I'll get to the good part first. Today was a gorgeous afternoon, with bright sun and perfect temperature, so I was very happy to drive the MG to the outskirts of Lancaster to meet Brian. I took a picture of the car in the Giant parking lot on Centerville Road where we met, grateful that the car is now running well.

Kate's MG, Part 10

Kate's MG has had its visit to John's garage, and greatly benefited from it! John is passionate about auto detailing, and has a couple of shelving units crammed with products from Griot's Garage and other purveyors of fine auto finishes. Since he was so instrumental in helping with the fuel system problems, I offered to help with the detailing, even though I HATE washing and polishing cars.

We started with the trunk and interior. I was happy to see that the trunk was totally solid, with no rust:

Kate's MG, Part 9

At the end of Part 8, I was impatiently waiting for carburetor parts from Virginia-based Moss Motors. In actuality it only took a week, and most of that was not Moss' fault. I ordered the parts on a Saturday, and they shipped Monday morning, via USPS. Not UPS, but the post office. According to the post office tracking site, the parts sat in the Richmond, VA postal facility for about four days! But finally they were delivered yesterday, and today after church I got right to work. This little pile of stuff is what $100 worth of MG carburetor parts looks like:

Kate's MG, Part 8

In Part 7, I ran out of time after building a nifty carburetor stand for the SU carbs on Kate's MG. The next day I went back to the shop to try to figure out why the front carb was running a steady stream of gasoline out of the overflow vent - the open brass pipe in the picture below. I suspected it had to do with some binding in the float, and sure enough, with a bit more cleaning and adjusting, I was able to get the float to hang normally:

Kate's MG, Part 7

In Part 6, we learned that the front carburetor had an incontinence problem - it wanted to run gas out the front! That's almost always a problem with the float or needle valve, so I pulled the carbs one more time:

Kate's MG, Part 6

Today's post is a mixed bag, but heavily biased to the positive! Let's call it 10 steps forward, and only two back.

As promised in Part 5, today's work was to get a real mechanic involved to assess the basic safety of this MG. I just didn't feel qualified to give it a clean bill of structural health, even though my investigations made me very hopeful. John Zimmerman and I had lunch, and then he agreed to follow me to Lancaster Mitsubishi, my local garage of choice. That seemed like overkill, but during the 2-mile trip, the MG started running very poorly and smelled very strongly of raw gas. I was glad to have the insurance of a rescue wagon behind me!

Kate's MG, Part 5

In Part 4, it was obvious that we were close to having a driveable MG.  Without further ado...

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Kate's MG, Part 4

At the end of Part 3, I said the next task was the brakes. It was, but I didn't go nearly as deep as I thought I might. I was able to free up the stuck pad without removing the caliper, and called it good for now. I have been obsessing about the elephant in the room - the rusted sills on the MG. There were pictures from the outside in Part 1, but without further inspection, I can't know if the car is even safe to drive. There is visible rust from the front wheel well to the rear wheel well on both sides, and in the area called the "dog leg" right in front of the rear tire, there's a good-sized hole on each side. Here's the driver's side:

Kate's MG, Part 3

Just a quick post, with more good news! I ended Part 2 with a list of work to do next, and the very first thing was to installed the roller wheels on my EZCarlift so I could rotate the MG 180 degrees. John Zimmerman was once again available and willing to help, so off we went. You have to remove the wheels and tires from the car, which required a BIG breaker bar - some garage monkey had really hammered the front wheels on. But eventually, the car was ready to rotate:

Kate's MG, Part 2

Part 1 got the car to the Grant St. Garage and gave some initial impressions. Now, it's time to dive in. I'll start with the good news: it runs! Here's the video:

Kate's MG, Part 1

My good friend Kate has owned a 1974 MGB for many years. It was her fun driver in grad school in Washington, DC, and for some time thereafter. But, in a typical "ran when parked" story, it gradually became unused, and for the past 5+ years has sat in the corner of the barn like this:

Bob's Friend's Fan

Bob Zimmerman is no stranger to the Grant St. Garage - he's the Master Electrician who wired the entire garage, adding a dozen 6-bulb fluorescent fixtures, a quad electrical outlet every 4 feet, two breaker boxes, 220V wiring for big equipment, and more. He's also been involved in some automotive projects, and there was this crazy project to rebuild a barn-find cabinet for his wife, Sharon (link).

The other day, Bob sent me this picture, and asked if I could fix that worn, out-of-round hole in the fan:

The Taming of the Screw, Part 2

In Part 1 of this saga (link) I detailed a great online resource called Clickspring, and the "Screwhead Holding Tool" I decided to make. Well, it's done, and I learned a lot of new techniques getting there! Since in the last post I had a picture from the Clickspring site of what it "would" look like, now I'll show that picture (left) vs. my version (right):

The Taming of the Screw, Part 1

Apologies to Shakespeare for the pun in the title - couldn't resist! As I am progressing from beginner to not-quite-beginner in this machinist stuff, I've had two major mentors to follow. The first is my friend Phil Oles, a model engineer whom I have mentioned many times in this blog. The second is a craftsman I'm unlikely to ever meet, since he lives in a remote part of Australia. His name is Chris, and he has a YouTube channel called Clickspring (that's part of a clock) where he demonstrates the most exquisite machine work on clocks and other mechanisms.

Chris has a website as well (www.clickspringprojects.com) and a Patreon channel where I help support Chris' work and as a result gain access to videos and tips not available to the general public. You can do it for as little as a dollar a month - quite a deal.

I decided that a project on Chris' website called a "Screwhead Holding Tool" would be a nice one to have, and push my skill level that tiny notch forward. Chris didn't post a detailed plan, just photos, so part of the exercise is figuring out how to make it. Since mine is still in progress, I'll borrow a finished picture from Chris' site to show what it should look like:

Dealing With Drawer Slides

In my recent second post about my new rolling drill press table (link), I stated that there would be a part three, in which I added a drawer base to the table. I made the base, but it's just a bit boring and straightforward to actually write about. But during that process, I decided that I would figure out once and for all how to space drawer slides without a lot of trial and error. This photo from the rolling cart (link) for small parts and fasteners that I made for Make717 will show the issues involved:

Going Digital, Part 2

In Part 1 of this saga, I installed iGaging digital readouts (DROs) on the Y (in-out) and Z (up-down) axes on my mini-mill. I saved the X axis (left-right) for last, because it's the most complicated. Phil Oles and I had decided that the best place to install the track was on the front of the mill, to avoid compromising the already-limited travel in the Y direction. But that adds a lot of complications, because there is already a lot in the way there. Here's a photo of the mill table - the DRO track needed to be mounted along the length of the table.

Going Digital, Part 1

I have the great good fortune to be the choir director for two really good church choirs at Lancaster Church of the Brethren - the Chancel Choir and the Carillon Bell Choir. These folks are talented, hard-working, good-natured, caring and generous! And their generosity evidenced itself this Christmas with an extravagant gift of cash to me. I was humbled and deeply appreciative. I told them that I would spend the money at the Grant St. Garage.

Part of the money went to upgrade my table saw dado set to a much better one (this one), and the rest went toward this: a set of three iGaging Digital Readouts for my milling machine. Digital Readouts are universally abbreviated DRO, and pronounced "dee-are-oh", not "dro."

Drill Press Table, Part 2

In Part 1 of this saga, I detailed how I had spent hours milling quarter-sawn lumber from 2 X 12 framing lumber for a bottom-weighted rolling table for my drill press, and the pluses and minuses of the technique I chose. Now, let's use that stock to build the table, starting with the legs. They have open mortises at top and bottom to create what is called a bridle joint. This one is unusual because the joint is so wide - six and a half inches. Here are two legs done, and two more in clamps after gluing:

Drill Press Table, Part 1

I've had a multi-year goal of getting all the equipment at the Grant St. Garage on wheels. It just makes it so much easier to rearrange and clean up. I've made good progress, probably averaging one piece of equipment per year, but I've always dragged my feet about doing it for my drill press. The reason is that it's so top-heavy. It would be very easy to make a dangerous situation while trying to move it.

Recently, I noticed a plan from ShopNotes magazine that solves the problem in a way that's obvious in retrospect:  add a lot of weight at the bottom to counteract the heavy drill press head at the top. Here's a photo from their plan (from Issue 38, apparently now available only on DVD):

Santa Shops on Craigslist!

In my previous post, I told of making a special cabinet for the Make717 maker's group, to hold accessories for their new Sherline lathe. I had spent a good bit of time using that small, precise lathe and was very impressed with it - so much so, I thought about buying one for myself. However, they are rather expensive, and I talked myself out of it.

But then... I "accidentally" typed Sherline in a Craigslist search, and there was one, just a few miles from our house! I went right over and found this:

Make717 Lathe Cabinet

I've written several posts previously about the Make717 makerspace, a local group of which I'm a member. The makerspace, in space donated by Thaddeus Stevens College, brings together a lot of different equipment that would be expensive to purchase for a home shop: metalworking lathe and mill, 3D printers, laser cutters, CAD workstations, an extensive electronics bench, and more. I've been involved with the group since almost the beginning, and have made a few pieces of shop furniture for them (a workbench and a pair of hardware cabinets that took four blog posts: 1, 2, 3, 4).

Now, I've taken on a project involving a tiny Sherline lathe. It's a fine piece of equipment!

Yoda, the Z3 Coupe, Finds a New Home!

This blog has reported on a lot of projects at the Grant St. Garage, but it actually began before we ever found and purchased the Garage on the next-to-last day of 2011. It started (on another blog site, now defunct) as a project log for a car I bought in September of 2011, my 1999 BMW Z3 Coupe.

A Temporary Fix?

Recently, I blogged about learning to knurl reliably on my lathe (link). In that post, I mentioned that the first problem to solve was a stripped bolt - here's the photo again for reference:

The Un-Vise

I recently blogged about a small band saw I was given after it was removed from service in another shop (link). I was able to repair its broken vise for holding the stock to be cut, but even in that post, I mentioned that I had plans to improve it. In fact, the inadequacies of the stock vise was the main reason it was replaced by the other shop. This photo of it trying to hold round stock makes it all clear - it is sort of a piece of junk:

Learning by Doing

Look what I made - it's a small (about 3" long) machinist's clamp in solid brass:

Learning by doing is the only justification for making your own clamps like this. I probably have eight hours tied up in this one, and you can buy one in much more durable steel for around 20 bucks. But learning was my goal, and I did learn!

The project's genesis was a perfectly knurled thumbscrew I made for my finger plate clamp tool (link). I'll repeat that photo here:

A Work-Holding Thingamajig

This thingamajig actually has a real name, but I didn't put it in the title because nobody would know what it is. The official name is a "finger plate," and its mission in life is to hold small and awkwardly-shaped things for drilling or shaping. In the staged photo below of my completed plate, it's holding a scrap of aluminum I picked specifically because it is not square (parallel) in any plane. Holding it in a vise would be hopeless, holding it in your hand would be dangerous, but holding it in the finger plate just works:

A Big Step

This summer at Lancaster Church of the Brethren, we undertook a big project. We just didn't know how big it was going to become when we started! In conjunction with having professionals replace the carpet in the sanctuary, our project was to extend the depth of a few steps in the Chancel area up front, and remove one row of pews from the front of the sanctuary in order to improve space.

We were very fortunate that Wayne Stauffer, a retired contractor and new member of our congregation, agreed to be the project manager for the step modifications. His plan, which worked perfectly, was to extend each step by adding carefully cut construction lumber in sufficient quantity to extend the tread depth from 10.5 inches to 15 inches. Those modified steps would then be carpeted along with the rest of the sanctuary.

Reclaiming a Saw

I was recently gifted a nice little band saw that had been taken out of service because the work-holding vise had literally broken off during use. I immediately set out to restore it to rude health and put it to work! Here it is ready to rock:

Of course, it wasn't quite like this when I got it.

A Yard-Sale Find

Today, I stopped by a yard sale near the church. I'm not usually one for such, but this one had a white Karmann Ghia in the yard, and I stopped to take a look. The car wasn't for sale, but while there my eyes fell on this BMW-logo'd bag in apparently unused condition, and for 12 bucks I just had to have it!

Kitchen Science and the "Land Blender"

We have guests from out of town visiting, so of course we wanted to show them the very best local attractions. High on the list is the AACA Museum in Hershey. Mary Ellen and I are members, so we can go anytime we want for "free." We were there with Marty and Teresa yesterday, and saw the off-road vehicle show currently in session. One of the most impressive vehicles was this beautifully restored, fully equipped Land Rover, complete with side tent:

But wait! What is that on the front bumper - a blender?

Stopping and Measuring

I've just completed a fun project - my first machinist project in steel instead of the softer, easier-to-work metals like aluminum or brass:

You're looking at a fixture I made for my metalworking lathe. However, if you don't know much about lathes, it's hard to tell where the lathe ends and the new part begins! It's a removable, adjustable fixture (1 in the photo is the body and clamp knob) with a carriage stop (2) and a dial indicator (3), which measures the movement of the carriage at (4), and the indicator is removable using the thumbscrew at (5). That nice Ames dial indicator was a gift from Kelly Williams. (Thanks, Kelly!)

Not Another Dash!

How is it that I keep getting into this situation??? This time the subject is the 1999 Z3 Coupe - the car that was the genesis for this blog:

Boxing the Seats

In my last post, I detailed how I changed the seats in Ebony, the new-to-us 2007 BMW Z4 Coupe. That means I had a set of valuable and easy-to-damage sport seats sitting on the workbench at the Grant St. Garage! Clearly, the next project had to be protecting them from harm.

In that last post, I mentioned that I planned to reinstall the sport seats in Ebony some years from now when I was ready to sell it, or at least give the buyer the option of choosing between the installed standard seats (which I'm calling "touring seats") or the more aggressive sport seats. My plan was to build very sturdy boxes to store the sport seats, and when I was done with them, use those same boxes as shipping crates for an eBay sale. And that's exactly what I did!

Ahhhh.....

First things first: It's "Ebony." The car's name is Ebony. First suggested by Sydne Fredrickson, and later by Matt Sware (although he suggested the German version, Ebenholz), this name appears to have stuck. Here's a recent beauty shot, taken in front of John and Dee Zimmerman's house. Look how the early morning light plays over the complex surfaces of the body:

Make717 Hardware Caddy Part 4: Done!

The Make717 Hardware Caddies are done! All the heavy lifting of design and prototyping have been documented in part 1 (initial prototyping), part 2 (detailed instructions for mounting drawer slides on the plastic boxes) and part 3 (building the case), so now all that's left to do is celebrate the completion. Here are both caddies in the Make717 Innovation Center:

Welcome to the Fleet!

In my last couple of posts, I've been hinting at a new car in the fleet. I've been waiting for all the paperwork to be done before making it official on the blog, but today the title and registration paperwork was completed, and it's really ours: a 2007 BMW Z4 3.0si Coupe!

John and Emery Drive a Rocket

John Zimmerman and I had a very rare treat last Sunday - the chance to drive the brand-new, rare as hen's teeth Tesla Model X. Of course, Tesla is much in the news these days for making a success of selling vehicles that are electric only - no gas engine at all. The nephew of one of my choristers had managed to get his hands on one, and had kindly offered to let John and me drive it. It's a very nice ride, and driving it was a real treat!

POST 100: The GSG Story

Hard to believe that this modest blog has achieved the milestone of 100 posts! When it began, this was to be a log for a single project: my 1999 BMW Z3 Coupe. There are plenty of posts about that car, but after a while I began adding other projects, to the point that car-related posts are in a distinct minority.

But it occurred to me that I had never really done a post about the Grant St. Garage (the GSG among its friends and admirers). It has come a long way in a little over four years! So let me indulge myself by going down memory lane, and creating a single place to go for pictures that tell the story.

Upgrading an iPod

This little device is the iPod Mini, made in 2004 and 2005, with the huge-for-the-time capacity of 4 Gigabytes of storage. It has remained a popular model in part because it, among all the iPod variations, is the easiest to repair and upgrade. There were two "generations" of the Mini, and the second generation is preferable for its much longer battery life.

If you click that photo to enlarge it, it's easier to see on the screen that this is no longer a 4 GB Mini - now it has 128 GB!

Z4 Roadster For Sale

I'll have something new in the garage to talk about soon, but I'll wait until it's actually here before I post about it. It's in Atlanta now, and I'll be flying down and driving it back next week. An adventure!

But for now... please check out my post offering the 2005 BMW Z4 2.5i Roadster for sale! I put it on a different blog since this one is my project log. UPDATE: The ad is gone now, and so is the Roadster!

Make717 Hardware Caddy Part 3: One More Prototype

In Part 2, I detailed how to mount those drawer slides on the thin plastic sides of a Stanley hardware organizer. Now, it was time to make one more prototype to check that everything is going to work right. I made it out of cheap MDF (medium density fiberboard), but I used the same joinery techniques I plan to use on the real thing. Here's the finished prototype:

Thanks, Ox!

The Cabin Fever Expo is one of the premiere gathering of model engineers in the US, and since I've gotten interested in this machining hobby, I've attended the expo each year. Fortunately, it's  really close by. It was in York the first two times I went, and this year, in nearby Lebanon. It's a great place to be inspired by some really fine craftsmanship, and also to pick up some bargains on tools and materials. It's where I found the welding equipment mentioned in a previous post.

I went with a short list of things I was looking for, including some better "tap handles" than I had previously. A tap is the tool bit used to cut threads into material, and of course, the handle is what holds it. I was rooting through a box of old tools and scrap, and came across just what I was looking for:

Make717 Hardware Caddy Part 2: Mounting Drawer Slides on a Plastic Organizer

In the first post in this series, I detailed how we used an iterative design process for a set of cabinets for plastic organizer bins. The chosen design mounts drawer slides directly to the bin, which requires several components and some modifications. This second post details how to do it in a step-by-step fashion. It's not easy reading, but I hope it will help someone else duplicate our work.

The final result looks like this:

I Need a Teacher!

At the recent Cabin Fever Expo in Lebanon, I found a bargain - an almost new, portable oxyacetylene welding rig. I paid about a hundred bucks for it:

Make717 Hardware Caddy Part 1: The Power of Prototypes

My friends at our local Makerspace, Make717, asked me to help with an organization project. Among the assets of the group, we have a number of these Stanley hardware organizers in two different heights. They are super useful for storing hardware, small electronic components, and more. This stock photo is from this link on Amazon:

Every Shop Needs a Milling Machine

The Grant St. Garage has a rather complete set of woodworking tools, but they are usually the cheaper version, often bought used, and that sometimes makes for compromises. My Delta 12" planer is a good example. This little benchtop machine has planed thousands of feet of lumber without complaint, and it works great. But when it was designed, chip collection was not a big part of the equation. Delta did offer a bent sheet metal attachment, and I bought it to hook to my dust collector. It works more or less adequately, but its design is poor compared to more modern equipment like the Dewalt 13" benchtop planer.

Anyway, today I noticed that the duct had pulled loose on one side. The thin metal, held by a pair of tiny wing nuts, was just not up to the task.

An Expensive Lesson

I violated a rule a couple of weeks ago. I didn't even know it was a rule until after the fact, when Phil Oles acquainted me with it. It's called the "Three Tooth Rule," and it basically says, "when cutting, make sure you have at least three saw teeth in the material at any time."

I found out that if you violate the rule, you are liable to have two simultaneous outcomes:

1. A loud bang.
2. Broken parts.

Sadly, the broken parts were on one of my most prized tools, my Bosch compound miter saw:

An Experiment in Frugality

I just saved $4.13! That's the cost of 30 ea. #6-32 x 3/4" screws at Home Depot. Of course, it took me two and a half hours to do it, so that comes out to $1.65 an hour. Makes McDonalds' wages look like the 1% by comparison.

When I wrote about my recycled 14-drawer cabinet from Radio Shack, I mentioned that I was going to use part of it to store hardware - screws, nuts, bolts, etc. I recently took stock of what I had on hand, and found a pretty motley collection. But of #6-32 machine screws, for some reason I had 70 screws of 1-1/2" length. No other lengths, just that one, which is actually sort of long for such a small screw.

I got the bright idea that I'd make several fixtures to hold the screws, to allow them to be shortened to a standard length.

A Vise for Cutting

First off: yes, it's "vise." The other word, "vice," is something different, as in "Miami Vice." But if you're looking for a big metal holding thingy on Craigslist, it pays to search for both spellings!

Part of my modest collection of machine tools is a small metal-cutting band saw. I had been using it with varying degrees of success with a homemade sliding table, but I wanted better. Specifically, I wanted a vise that could hold the material very near the blade, while keeping my fingers a very safe distance away. After pondering a bit, I bought this at Harbor Freight - on sale and with a 20% discount coupon, it was only about $15:

My First Engine

My first automotive engine rebuild was actually decades ago, but this is something different - my first engine built from scratch! Not very big, and not really able to do useful work, but it's an engine, and I made it from a small pile of aluminum, brass and steel. It's powered by air:

New Tunes for Ringo, and New Boots too

Ringo has some new tunes. No, not Ringo the Beatle, it's Ringo the Beetle! This photo was taken just before the center dash went back in the car:

Yet Another Interior...

When John Zimmerman and I finished changing the carpet in Ben and Cindy's minivan about a month ago, I confidently stated, "That's the last interior I'll disassemble for a while!" Well, as the old saying goes, Man plans, God laughs! I've already disassembled the next one...

Yes, that's Ringo the Beetle's interior.

Excessive Organization, Part 2

In the first Excessive Organization post a few months ago, I detailed buying and filling a new tool cabinet for my automotive tools. That turned out to be a satisfying experience, and the value of having all those tools in one place has proved itself over and over since done. I think it also sort of started the ball rolling to do some more shop organization. A lot more!

The Better Part of Valor

Referring to the title: it's "Discretion," in case you've forgotten that saying. Discretion is the better part of valor. Like so many of our idioms, this one came from Shakespeare. Falstaff says it, more or less, after playing dead on the battlefield in Henry IV, Part I. Anyway, after a frustrating day in the shop, I have shown some discretion! Read on...

Faithful readers will remember the story of Ringo, the 1998 Beetle that I bought for short money from my friends Lynn and Lynne. In the initial installment, Bob Zimmerman and I replaced the catalytic converter and the temperature sensor and cleaned the throttle body, successfully correcting a check engine light and a stinky exhaust. At the end of that post (dated August 15), I promised that "soon" I would replace the timing belt and other parts, rendering Ringo ready for winter duty.

A Bench for the Makerspace

A few months ago, Bruce Schreiner of the Make717 group asked me if I'd make a small workbench for the group's Innovation Center makerspace. I agreed, and over the past couple of months worked on the bench. It's done! Here's the finished product:

Deferred Maintenance

I have read of woodworkers who spend the first 30 minutes of each shop session on tool maintenance. Predictably, their chisels and planes are always sharp, everything is always put away, and their major machines are in perfect adjustment. But the rest of us... well, we use things until they work so poorly that we have no choice but to take time to maintain them. My jointer was like that:

Minivans are BIG

The Grant St. Garage has been occupied of late by a real labor of love. My dear friend and trusted colleague Cindy gave birth to twin boys in September, bringing the household count to five, plus Pete the dog. Cindy's husband Ben bit the bullet and went out looking for a "Mommy-van." I offered him my sincere condolences.

Ben found a 2008 Toyota Sienna in fine mechanical shape, but well under book price because of the state of the interior. Frankly, I think a family of incontinent warthogs lived there - ones that often rolled in grease. Ben asked John Zimmerman to do one of his uber-detailing jobs on the van, but it quickly became obvious that the carpet was just done. Ben ordered an inexpensive replacement from the web, and John recruited me to help change it. Little did we know...

A New Old New Beetle

As the title says, a New Old New Beetle. That is to say:

NEW - to me.
OLD - 1998 model, the first year of the...
NEW BEETLE - that's what VW called it at first, although now it's just the "Beetle."

So, here we are with a fifth member of the fleet.

The 2015 Hemming Sports and Exotic Car Show

Mary Ellen and I recently spent a week in Lake George, NY on a wonderful vacation trip. Very relaxing, and lots of good food and interesting top-down drives in the BMW Z4 on the shaded mountain roads. And of course, no vacation would be complete without a car show. On Saturday we drove about 45 minutes to Saratoga Springs, NY for the Hemmings Sports and Exotic Car Show, on the grounds of Saratoga Spa State Park, adjacent to the Saratoga Automobile Museum. It was a hot, clear day, so we enjoyed alternating between the show field and the air-conditioned comfort of the museum! Here's an example of the quality of car that was there - a gorgeous Jaguar XK120:

Excessive Organization?

An imaginary conversation...

Me: You know, I think I have that obsessive/compulsive thing going about a place for everything and everything in its place.

Everybody else: We have seen your shop, and you definitely do not.

Me: Right...

Dissecting a Disaster

I think all of the regular readers of this blog already know that I had a serious accident in the workshop recently. Don't worry - I'm not about to show you medical-grade photos of my hand. But for the sake of completeness for those who stumble across this post, here's the outline of the damage:

Truth in Advertising

On a recent vacation, we took a modest side trip to the town of Leonardtown, MD, for the sole purpose of visiting a book store:

Sadly, the guide we were reading failed to mention that Fenwick St. Used Books and Music is closed on Mondays. But since we were there, we walked around a bit.

A Nice Gift

The other day, when Kelly Williams and I had our adventure with his Stanley Steamer, he presented me with a nice gift! Look:

No clue, huh? How about if you see the business end:

Well, if you know that the bar is an inch wide (very exactly: 1.000) and half an inch tall (ditto: 0.500), you at least have a sense of scale. Yes, they are letters, and yes, they are both reversed and upside-down. So, if you hold your monitor upside down in front of a mirror, you'll see it says, "GSG". It's a Grant Street Garage stamp!