Been working a bit here and there between driving kids around and hanging out with Mrs. Deuce. I think I'm pretty much done for now other than adding a few shelves to the insides of the cabinets, and cleaning. I also need to bolt the vice down. I've owned it for 10 years and it hasn't been bolted to anything yet. I'm excited.
Looks great - more than a bit jealous about all that as yet unused space! On my old workbench, I drilled two sets of holes for the vice, one in a corner where it "lived" most of the time, and a second set more towards the middle so I could have it centered if I was going to be focused on whatever was in the vice for awhile, or needed better access.
Another option would be to get 1 or two trailer hitches bolted under the bench top. Vise, grinder, etc. could be attached via the hitch. Saves worktop space when not in use.
Something like this
Along with
https://m.harborfreight.com/hitch-mount-vise-plate-66260.html
I'm still delaying making the hard decisions on the cabover by working on other projects. Weather has been good, and my in-laws are visiting, so hard labor in the yard is the way to go.
Yesterday was stump grinding. No pictures because we were trying to get done in less than four hours and save $100. 12 stumps are no more, including the ones that were messing with parking the truck. Here is my father in law smoothing out the lumps of former stump.
I spent a few minutes with the spare piece of plastic drainage pipe that I have laying around, and it occurred to me that I didn't want a bigger driveway, I wanted a parking lot. Six yards of crushed limestone showed up this morning (as much as they can fit on the truck that can fit down my driveway) and we spent a couple of hours spreading it. Mrs. Deuce kept mentioning something about "If I wanted to shovel rocks I wouldn't have gone to college" but it turns out I was right and she actually does have more character than when we started.
It's going to rain tonight and tomorrow so the next load will have to wait. I expect 4-6 truck loads before I'm happy. Should keep me busy for a while.
I wish I'd seen this earlier...the JD4410 is sitting idle as we speak with the front end loader and the backhoe eagerly awaiting the next THRASH......you bring truck/trailer (i'm currently PU/trailer poor) and the rest is easypeasy...PM if you want....late
How deep did you grind the stumps? I wasn't happy with the time I had it professionally done, they only went about an inch below ground level even after I complained. It's taken years to finally start to be truly level--ish.
In reply to Adrian_Thompson :
we tried to take them down 4-6 inches below the surface. No matter what you do stump grinding causes problems as the ground around the stump behaves differently than over the stump. Given enough time, what's left of the stump is going to rot anyway and make a hole that needs to be filled. In my yard I find that as long as I can run the lawn mower over them it's about as good as I can expect. In parking areas I just keep an eye on the ground sinking and fill it in as it happens. I would be VERY cautious about paving over any ground stumps.
In reply to 759NRNG :
I appreciate the offer and my in-laws probably would have taken you up on it. As for me, I kind of like spreading gravel by hand. Not in the "I want to get a job shoveling gravel" way, but more like "spending an hour spreading gravel in the morning is a good way to get some exercise and have a sense of accomplishment for the day" way.
Hi Seth,
I was wondering if you could point me to which thread has your MaxJax installation nuggets of wisdom. I see some here and some in the R 63 thread. I picked up my MaxJax last Sunday and am doing my layout this weekend.
Pssst......backhoe/stumps.........boom outa there.....one and done.......just sayin my stump pile is up to eight plus and counting
In reply to wawazat :
I don't have too much to say wisdom wise. It looks like I didn't post a picture of the drawings that I did to figure out column width but I can walk you through that if you want. You need to figure out what width fits your cars. The arms make arcs all the way in and all the way out. You need to make sure that the lift points of all your vehicles fit within those arcs at the column width you choose. As far as drilling the holes, get a big punch so you can make sure the drill bit doesn't walk, and rent the proper drill. I think the rental place called it a 45 pound hammer drill. Worth every penny. My fittings still leak a bit. I need to disassemble the columns to tighten them so that's why I haven't done it.
There are a couple of people on the board who have installed them now (Woody gives the best advice) so making a thread in the main forum should get you some better, more wide ranging, advice.
Not looking to hijack your thread but.....what's up with the name change? Is there more than one mazdeuce out there so you need the differentiation? Is this a Prince-like method of messing with your record company? Or does "mazdeuce" simply not say enough about The Man and His Grosh?
In reply to Jerry From LA :
Mostly because I went to the Challenge and met a whole bunch of people. I'm moving from being an anonymous internet person to a real person.
Thanks Seth. I'm laying things out this weekend while waiting on the epoxy anchors to arrive.
So my productivity at work this week definitely went down as I have spent the past several days going through this thread. Kudos to you good sir and you have one hell of a wife.
This gives me motivation to get back out in the garage, clean things up and work on the CRX.
In reply to andyb72 :
I'm glad you enjoyed the thread and yes, I do have an amazing wife.
I was talking to Deucekid#1 the other day about support from family/spouses and said that I'm at the point where helping others achieve their dreams is my most significant driving force. She asked me "but don't you have an dreams any more?" and I explained that I only really ever had two goals. The first is the whole love of my life family thing. It's an ongoing experiment, but I'm happy with is so far. The second was to build something. At various times I've wanted to build a boat or a car or a business or a castle with a moat filled with alligators. It's a moving target through time and I don't think I'm done building yet, but if the most significant thing I ever build is the Grosh, I'm very content with that.
For some reason I hate buying tools. I'm not sure if it's the commitment to housing them and learning to use them, or if it's something in my dark past, but for the most part I'd rather make do with what I have than drag something else home. I'm trying to break that part of my personality in an effort to make myself more efficient and able to do better work. New tool #1 is a sandblast cabinet. I started by asking for opinions in this thread, and got a lot of good advice. Then it was off to Harbor Freight to bring home a box of parts.
Turns out there are a lot of pieces to a blasting cabinet and it took me most of my free time today to get it together. Usual HF quality. A bit of bend sheet metal, fasteners good for one tightening, and some thickness of paint on the majority of the parts. No real drama other than it would have been nice to have a spare pair of hands or longer arms.
It's light enough to carry it outside (getting wheels anyway) so I did that, hooked up the compressor and the shop vac, and blew the breaker. Turns out I need to run them on separate circuits. Time to throw in some glass beads and test!
That was one side of the battery box from the cabover. I'm very impressed with what the glass beads were doing at 60psi. I need to play with nozzles and pressures to see how that affects things. The crappy bucket head shop vac was able to keep negative pressure on the cabinet at 60psi sucking through a dirty filter. Prior to asking about cabinets it didn't even occur to me that if you're filling a cabinet with air from a compressor then it has to go somewhere. Also, that air will be dusty, so setting up a vacuum system capable of offsetting your air input is kid of necessary if you want to keep anything clean. Tomorrow I'm going to build a water bath pre-filter and see if I can improve the efficiency of the system. Once I get that set up I'll make a cart for the whole thing. This is going to take up some floor space inside, but I think it will be worth it.
And now its time to start figuring out what you are going to coat these freshly un-rusted pats with to keep them un-rusted.
mazdeuce - Seth said:In reply to andyb72 :
...She asked me "but don't you have an dreams any more?"...
That's an impressively thoughtful question for a person of Deucekid#1's age. I'm impressed. You and Mrs. Deuce must be doing something right on the kid raising front.
On the blast cabinet. That's a piece of equipment that I don't begrudge floor space for. When you need one there's really no good alternative. I recommend that you figure out what you're using for viewing pane protection or replacement sooner rather than later. They're a consumable. I buy large sheets of plexiglass and cut my own complete replacements.
In reply to APEowner :
She's an interesting kid. We'll see how far that gets her in life. Certainly makes parenting fun when you can have significant conversations with your kid at a young age.
The blast cabinet came with four stick on glass protectors. I'll see how those do and then go from there.
In reply to stafford1500 :
Turns out 110V electric smokers will get up to 400 F and can fit reasonably sized parts. 
Hands down my favorite tool in the toolbox!
Smart on the bigger unit. Im constantly wishing I went with the bigger one.
With regard to the window viewing pain, you'll go through those protectors pretty quick, but they do work. I ended up going to my local Ace Hardware where they stock 12x24" single pane, which fits in the smaller HF unit. They are cheaper than the replacement protectors
I used to work at a place that used a very fine abrasive in a small sandblaster. They would cover the window in cling wrap. It worked surprisingly well actually, lasted two or three months between changes. It probably wouldn't work as well with something like this, but it might help.
I experimented with a bit more blasting this morning. It didn't take long before I could fee that the negative pressure on the gloves was almost gone. It was also getting hard to see in the cabinet. I pulled the top off the shop vac and the filter was not well.
Time to make a water bath filter. Start with a lid, some connectors, and a drill/dremel.
A bit of that absurdly expensive sealant from the R63 sealed the parts in and all that was left to do was fill the bucket and snap it together.
This big filtration complex is going to need a home.
I think I overfilled the bucket. At least half the water ended up in the shop vac after about 10 minutes. I'm wondering if I don't need to build a splash shield for the outflow. Anyway, the water did catch pretty much everything, so.....victory!
As to the performance of the blasting cabinet. I don't have enough air. Not really. It's working but it's pretty clear that a bigger compressor would be better. Going to have to think about that. I still don't have 220V. I could manifold a couple of them together.
Also, the glass beads I'm using are not great removing rust. They leave a great surface finish, and they strip paint like nobody's business, but the rust is tough. They will get the rust off eventually, but a little light reading tells me that aluminum oxide is sharper and harder and should work better.
I also did some experimenting with pre-wirebrushing parts.
I think the main benefit to doing that is less loose rust ending up in the water bucket. Not sure that's an advantage really, as it then ends up on me when I'm wire wheeling. I can't feel any difference going back and forth between the sides with the blaster.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
What am I missing? Shouldn't the stick-on glass protectors be applied inside the cabinet where the beads fly around? Willis' pic shows on outside.
Tell me you always take "free with purchase" and "20% off single item" HF coupons.
I think the tape you see is the "please god don't let the dust get out" tape and not something holding the protector on. I could be wrong.
I do make liberal use of coupons. I cut the 20% and the free flashlight out of the GRM I got in the mail today and used them. The magazine hasn't even been in the house yet.
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