Tools – Life En Route

Lawn Mower Update

Tools

by James on May 4, 2017 Comment(s)

After a ton of research, I ended up buying a Honda HRX217HYA mower. It’s an expensive mower, but the basic design has been around since 2004 and many people report that they are still using their original models. It’s had a few improvements and tweaks over the years, but parts are readily available and it seems to be a favorite among contractors, even though it’s sold as a residential unit. It has a composite deck that won’t rust, optional replaceable steel bumpers, a 190cc engine, Versamow, blade brake clutch, and a hydrostatic transmission.

Versamow is a neat feature that allows you to set a ratio of mulching:bagging. Since I’m bagging for compost, but still want to mulch my lawn, I think it will be useful. I set it yesterday for the trial run and was able to mow our front lawn with a single bag, while providing plenty of mulch that did not clump. The brake blade clutch makes it so that, by default, the mower will run without the blade spinning. You don’t have to hold down a lever to keep it running – just walk away, and when you let go of the handle, the blade stops. Useful for safely walking away from the mower to collect dog toys and branches that are in the path.

I’ve never had a self-propelled lawn mower, and it took some getting used to. I didn’t like it at first, but by the time I finished the lawn, had the hang of it, and rather enjoy using it. I can definitely see it being advantageous in the hot summer. I mowed both the front and back yard yesterday, then ran over the edges with my Makita string trimmer.

Overview of the back lawn.

The mower has a 5 year warranty and should have parts availability for much longer – so my justification for spending what I did is not having to buy again for at least five years, and hopefully more like twenty. I was able to use my last mower for about three years, and granted, it died due to blade impact, but the deck was not going to last much longer. At around $300, that was $100 per year of use. To get the same rate of return from the Honda, I need it to last just two years outside of warranty, and anything more is a benefit. I bought the Makita string trimmer a while back, since I already use several Makita power tools and it uses the same batteries, and I highly recommend it. Battery powered trimmers have come a long way. This one employs two 18v batteries in series for 36v. As for lawn mowers, I opted not to get one battery powered, because of having to rebuild the battery packs after a few years, and worries about parts availability.

I haven’t decided whether to keep it in the locked garage, or the shed. Garage for now.

I also bought a pressure washer recently. To get decent pressure you have to go with gasoline models – our 110v/15-20A lines in the US just don’t provide enough current to run good PSI/GPM pumps. I wanted to buy a commercial one so that I wouldn’t have to worry about parts availability in the future, but ended up buying a cheap Ryobi from Home Depot with a Honda engine. I’m thrilled with it so far, as it does a great job, and has a three year warranty. It cost me around half what I would have spent on a commercial one.

New Workshop

by James on March 19, 2017 Comment(s)

I finished up the last of the renovations to the house yesterday, when I completed the replacement of all shower valves, trim, shower heads, drain piping and covers. I’ll start posting more often now that it is done, going back and discussing the changes we made and the thought that went into the decisions we came to.

Of those renovations, one of the most exciting things for me was the build out of a proper workshop. I’m always working on projects, but have never had the room or organizational abilities to best utilize my time. That’s made projects run over budget, over schedule, and generally be a lot more stressful than they needed to be. I decided to resolve that with a proper workshop (which, in itself, ran way over budget. Go figure).

We have an 18.5′ x 20.5′ two car garage (379.25 sq ft) with a water heater in the corner. The floor was coated with layers and layers of paint, varnish, stain, bedliner, and other finishes. I started by pouring a gallon of muriatic acid over part of the floor, which is commonly used to clean and etch concrete floors like ours. Ultimately, after seeing the results, and doing more research online, I decided to go a different route for the flooring and am very glad I did. I found a company called GarageTrac that sells a heavy duty plastic interconnecting tile that you lay over the floor, that is designed specifically for garages and workshops. I purchased 400 sq ft of it, half in “Alloy” and half in “Graphite”, and after cutting to allow for edges, around doors, trim, etc, ended up with about 8 sq. ft of entire tiles left over (and a lot of scraps that I tossed).

I didn’t want to spend the time to fix the drywall, which had peeling tape, destroyed texture, lines running in every direction from various past mounting devices, and holes all over from nails and screws, but I wanted to improve it, so I sprayed the walls with two gallons of Behr Ocean Storm. I had the paint on hand because we used Valspar Ocean Storm inside the house, but for the most part actually used Sherman William’s paint, and Sherman William’s matched the wrong big box store color code giving us the blue sold under that name at Home Depot instead of the grey under that name that Lowes sells. I didn’t have enough to cover the wall with the door, so I threw the Valspar color on that wall. The sprayer I used is my Graco Magnum X7, which made the entire process take about twenty minutes since I didn’t care about overspray on the floor.

After painting, I installed the new floor, then brought in a new shop table. The table is a 84″ x 42″ Little Giant WW-4284, which is 461lb beast that is rated to hold 10,000lbs. Finally, about a month later, I received my New Age Pro 3.0 cabinets and mounted them on the wall. One of the wall cabinets had a reddish finish, so I called New Age about it and they sent a replacement out the very next day, telling me to dispose of the old one. Instead, I allocated it to another wall. Can’t beat a free spare cabinet like this.

I’m still working on organizing everything, but so far it is really nice knowing where all my tools are at. I love my new work table and the tools I bought to flesh out my collection. I’m still getting accustomed to TIG welding but that’s going to facilitate a lot of neat projects in the future. In the next few days, I’m going to start planning an outdoor bar for the back porch that uses metal framing with cedar planks. It will double as a herb planter (inspired by this design):

Finally, without further ado, here are the photos of the garage:

From the doorway leading into the house. Notice the LED lighting on the ceiling which makes it feel like daylight throughout the entire garage.

From the corner near the water heater.

Over by the left side of the garage door, from the outside of the house. Notice the electrical on the backside of the table. Also, this wall (far right side) is where I mounted the extra wall cabinet.

From the right side of the garage door. That refrigerator was inside the house, but when we replaced the kitchen fridge we shuffled this one into the garage. I ran water to it from the water softener hookups for ice and water. Also, notice the security camera on the back wall. It’s one of a few I’ve put around the house as a roll your own security system and theft deterrent. It’s part of a system made by Lorex and came highly recommended by a coworker. I should have bought a four camera system, as I’m using five currently and could have gotten by with four. Instead, I have a sixteen camera system with eight cameras on hand, so I need to find places to install the others. Could have saved some money on the lower end system, but then I might have had some regrets and wanted to upgrade later on. We’ll see. The camera on the back wall is less about security and more about being able to verify the garage door is closed. I’ll often wonder when I left the house if I forgot to close the door, and with the Lorex system I can just pull it up on my cell phone and look. The system is completely locally hosted (not cloud) but I am able to backup the footage to the colo facility I lease.

Another shot from the same spot. You can see a small screen on wall under the wall cabinets, that rotates through the security camera footage.

Toolbox Replacement

by James on December 7, 2016 Comment(s)

As mentuoned in my last post, I opted to use tool bags in the rear floor board instead of a toolbox for now. They arrived and I packed them up today. The overflow that wouldn’t fit in them fit in the toolbox above the transfer tank.

Dropped 5’er…

by James on November 13, 2016 Comment(s)

Well, I hear it happens to everyone at some point, but I dropped the 5’er yesterday. We are using a Hensley BD3 hitch. Here is what it looks like.

You can see that at the top left of the hitch, there is a copper bar jutting out. It has three positions: 10 o’clock is unlocked, 9 o’clock is auto-lock, and 8 o’clock is locked. I store the hitch in auto-lock, and check it every time I’m in the truck bed for whatever reason. When it is in auto-lock, when you back into the trailer, you hear it pop into the locked position with a fairly loud bang, and it forces the jaws to remain closed. The king pin on the trailer itself is what actuates the jaws into the locked position so that what is effectively a metal block connected to the lever can slip between them. You can put a padlock through there for extra security. I usually do and double check the bar position when doing this, but since we were only going to drive around the block to test the brakes I didn’t bother with the padlock.

When I hooked up, I heard what I thought was the auto-lock pop, and got out, verified that the jaws were closed, even did a pull test! before pulling up the jacks, but did not check that it was in the locked position. I assumed, based on the other criteria, it was good. Going about 10mph, about 50′ later, I heard a loud bang. The trailer had pulled out of the hitch and the king pin was resting on my toolbox, and underbelly of the fiver resting on the side of the truck bed and the tailgate. When I looked at the hitch, it was in the 10 o’clock (unlocked) position!

I put down the landing jacks and pulled out from under it so I could survey the damage. I was very lucky – aside from the tailgate, the truck was fine. The toolbox was also sacrificed. But the trailer didn’t have any visible damage that I could see. It could have been a whole lot worse.

Looking online, there are tons of takeoffs for tailgates, but none in black that have lift assist (which is required to directly replace mine) to be found. I found some white ones with the same features as my OEM tailgate for close to $1,000, but they’ll still require painting. I don’t want to file an insurance claim on this but want to keep my out of pocket costs reasonable. I decided to take a look at aftermarket options. Most of the louvered tailgates out there do not preserve the OEM backup camera, but I use mine a lot and really want to keep it. I thought about retrofitting and aftermarket camera that mounts on the license plate frame to the OEM harness, but when I found a Husky aluminum tailgate that preserves it, I decided to go that route. The only issue is that the tailgate only comes in silver, but it is a “paintable” finish, so I picked up four cans of Dupli-Color Perfect Match automotive acrylic spray paint to match it to the truck. That paint is ridiculous at $12 per 8oz can, but cheaper than a professional job and on a louvered tailgate, should come acceptably nice.

The tailgate itself is fully featured, and retains lift assist and the backup camera. It uses a different locking mechanism, so the electric tailgate lock won’t work, but since it is a fifth wheel tailgate that won’t be an issue. The fifth wheel tailgates have a slot in them for the king pin to flow through, so you don’t have to open and close it when hooking up. It uses a toolbox keying cylinder, so once I get everything in I’ll rekey both of my toolboxes and tailgate to use the same key based on the keys used in the second toolbox I’m buying, since it has three cylinders.

I really liked my custom toolbox, but have been having issues with organization. In a huge chest like that, small items tend to get lost. Since I had to redo it, I decided to look at other options. I found a Brute fifth wheel toolbox fits all the needs nicely.

The Brute toolbox will sit right below the tonneau rails on my truck, actually underneath them, but does not open upward, so it can be a bit longer. In fact, it goes almost from one side of the truck to the other. It will block off the umbilical cord attachment point, so I bought a 2′ right-angle extension to run the plug up closer to the hitch. It is pictured above in polished aluminum, but I purchased it in black. There are a couple things, mainly my socket set and 1/2″ torque wrench, that won’t fit into the box so I will be storing them in the small compartment in the top of my RDS fuel tank. The drawer will be great for storing gloves, tape, and other small items I keep losing in my toolbox now. And it maintains the pass through area so that it won’t interfere with the trailer.

This was an expensive mistake, but could have been a lot worse since I’m getting out of it for around $1,300.

Preliminary Tool Reviews

Tools

by James on September 21, 2016 Comment(s)

I have not received the Dewalt 192pc socket set I ordered yet, but I was so impressed with the Makita gear and certain aspects of the Dewalt gear that I wanted to post a quick review.

Coming from Ryobi gear that I really loved, I feel the Makita is a big step up. The actions of the tools are very smooth, they’re light, but manage to feel solid and have a lot more power. I actually broke skin on the palm of my hand opening the chuck on the Makita when it hit the end, where I could always just stop it with my palm on the Ryobi. I didn’t try the driver, but the impact wrench is amazing. I always verify the the lug nuts on my truck are 140-150ft-lbs using a torque wrench before any trip, and picked a random lug to try the impact on. It broke the lug effortlessly and had it completely off in less than two seconds. I threw it back on and didn’t measure the exact spec, but it was over 150# with, once again, minimal effort. The chainsaw made quick work of a random branch I decided to test it on, and is just impressive with its build. Compared to my corded Greenworks chainsaw, which I consider pretty good despite the fact that I’ve had issues finding replacement parts, it seems much better thought out and at least as powerful. The entire bar assembly is far superior. The bits and whatnot look nice, though I haven’t tried them.

The Dewalt tools I ordered are nice, but nothing to write home about. They are all manufactured in Taiwan, which I was pretty happy about as the factories over there are known for producing some of the best non-American hand tools. The fit and finish is really top notch, and though the screwdriver bit case had a few things out of place, I have to really give Dewalt credit for the case designs. Each of the individual units (three in the below photo, one for metric wrenches, one for SAE wrenches, and one for screwdriver + bits) snap together to form a fairly solid little cluster. They have inserts that you can pull out to put in a tool drawer and keep everything organized. Someone put some real thought into them and it shows. I’ll only have the three boxes, but they have other items that come in the same series that I opted out of, like 1/4″, 3/8″, and 1/2″ ratchet sets. I chose one of the Dewalt’s larger sets for those, which will come in its own style of case.

Tools, Telescope, Ham Radio and Lights

by James on September 20, 2016 Comment(s)

This post is really parallel to this post about finances, and the conclusion of our travel/build spending spree.

I’ve been using consumer grade tools for years. I have a ton of Ryobi gear that has served me very well, Harbor Freight, Husky, and Stanley hand tools that have done the same. The problem with the Ryobi gear is that my two most often used tools, the drill and the driver, have been slowing down. They don’t feel like they have the power that they used to, and the chuck on the drill imploded into many little pieces the other day when I was drilling 1/2″ holes for my antenna mounts. And while all my hand tools have served me well, I have a better idea of what I need now and wanted to buy new tools for the new toolbox. I’ve broken a lot of pieces over the years, and haven’t bothered pursuing warranty services on cheap tools, leaving holes in all my sets.

Some of the newer tools use brushless motors, which are a lot more efficient and last a lot longer than the tools that were offered when I started collecting my many pieces of Ryobi gear. I wanted to go with a contractor grade brand, known for quality brushless tools, to last me at minimum a decade or more of service, and after a lot of research decided to go with Makita. I picked up a brushless 5.0ah drill/driver combo set, which included two batteries, and a promo deal offered two more 4.0ah batteries with purchase. And because I’ve been doing a lot of work on the truck and trailer with very stubborn, large bolts, decided to opt for a dream tool of mine, a 1/2″ Impact. After reading a lot of reviews it looks like they have one that beats many of the air impacts out there in terms of performance. Makita had another promo where if you purchased two bare tools you would get two 4.0ah batteries as well, so I looked around for another tool I’d use. I finally settled on a battery powered chainsaw, because my dad has one he really likes (a Ryobi, I think) and I could use one. It might even come in useful on trips for dealing with firewood and branches preventing us from parking. That gives me four total Makita tools: a drill, driver, 1/2″ impact, and chainsaw, and six batteries. Tools I’ll actually use rather than what they throw into the package sets, and plenty of batteries. I’ve had my Ryobi tools about five years and they’ve seen a ton of abuse; I hope to have these for at least twice as long. In addition to the batteries, I was able to get a flashlight/lantern that uses the same batteries thrown into the deal and picked up a matching 70pc impact bit kit.

As for hand tools, I went Dewalt. It wasn’t so much the brand that sold me, but the set. Most of the socket sets you find have both 6 and 12 point sockets (resulting in lots of duplicates), a useless selection of wrenches, and lots of small tools you’ll never actually use just to inflate the piece count. I found a Dewalt 192 piece set that contained all 6 point sockets, 1/4″, 3/8″, and 1/2″ ratchets, a useful array of extensions, and a small set of hex keys. No wrenches, no useless screwdriver and bits. No fluff. The price was reasonable, especially compared to the other brands I was looking at (Blue Point, Gearwrench, SK) and it comes with a lifetime warranty. I also bought separate metric and SAE wrenches, pliers, screwdriver set, and deep socket impact set by them.

I’ve also collected a lot of specialty tools for working on the truck and trailer. 32-46mm wrenches, for instance. And Tekton torque wrenches I’ve had for a while, and am really happy with. Those will be going in the box as well.

For the telescope section of our list, we wanted something that would be small enough to fit in the RV, large enough to see DSOs, and have a good enough mount to take some amateur photographs of stars, clusters, and galaxies. We decided to get a ES AR-152 and EXOS2-GT mount, Bresser 70 deg 6pc eyepiece kit, Celestron filters, Meade 2x barlow, Pentax K-mount adapter, Hotech Astro Aimer G3, and a ES carrying case for it all. We’ve had trouble getting it shipped out (Never buy from Adorama) and will do a detailed review once we receive all the gear.

I mentioned in this post that I was looking at the Kenwood TM-D710GA ham radio, and that’s the one I ultimately decided to go with, mainly for APRS support. APRS is a tracking technology so that people with our call sign can locate us on a map, such as aprs.fi. Since neither of us are licensed yet, I ordered flash cards for the Technician and General exams, as well as my antenna hardware from HamRadio. The antenna will be a Larsen NMO-2/70B, a 34.5″ tall antenna, mounted on a Comet CV2ANTNCG fender mount on the driver’s side fender just opposite the factory AM/FM radio antenna, and use a Larsen NMO-K NMO cabling kit. I picked up a relay and relay socket off Amazon to wire it in with, and a Lido 22″ seat-bolt radio mount that I’m going to retrofit for a hopefully factory quality install (meaning no wires where they shouldn’t be!).

Finally, at the very end of our list was lighting. I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do here, but we’ve had two occasions where we arrived at remote sites at night and the lack of visibility either resulted in us almost getting stuck, or sustaining damage to the RV. I wanted to remedy this if possible. I found a 50″ curved light bar with good reviews on Amazon for a reasonable price, and a RoughCountry mounting kit for it that places it at the top of the windshield. Some of the light bars they are coming out with are insanely bright, and this thing full of Cree 3w LEDs (288w total) should be no exception. The mount requires some minor drilling into the A pillar, but comes with everything you need except for a rivet gun, which is required for the pop rivets they send. I’ve never used one before, but picked one up for around $10 on Amazon. It doesn’t directly address backing up, but should give us a much better idea of what is in front of us before we start backing in. And should be useful in general. It also came with two six Cree 3w LED lights which I may mount on one of the bumpers.

That’s truly the end of our wish list. We’ve bought everything we dreamed up for the truck/RV build over the last several months, and most of it is in transit. I have a long road ahead of me getting these and all the other things we have installed, and getting licensed for the radio. I’ve been able to pass the online Technician practice tests with minimal effort put into learning, but will do a lot more studying before taking the actual test and the General, on the same day. So far I’ve been using hamstudy.org, which is making me wonder if I wasted money on the flash cards. But they’ll be nice to have.

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