While walking with my Father-in-Law in one of the few true Hardware stores left (Strausser’s in Kansas City) I happened to spy something on the ceiling. Two things that I have a Love for: Advertising items and Gorilla Glue.

Disembodied Awesomeness

After the weekend, I got onto Twitter and sent a shout out to Gorilla Glue, on a lark, to see if they happened to have any of those left… it couldn’t hurt to ask, right? Unfortunately the reply came back that they did not have those anymore, se la vie, I guess. But I just had to be a jerk and pry a little further… Nothing in the warehouse, c’mon… We’ll see….

Later that day they tweeted back… they HAD found something. They had found a Gorilla Hand holding a roll of Gorilla Tape…”it’s yours if you want it”. OF Course I do! So on it came to a new home in Dozer’s Workshop.

A few Excruciatingly long days later, a large padded envelope shows up on the front porch…. WOW…. This package is much bigger than I had imagined. Imagine my surprise when a two foot tall hand is immediately grabbed and claimed by my daughter. I was expecting something around the 18” tall range… I was wrong.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a tendency to “collect” things and enjoy engaging in internet shenanigans….and this has NOT gone unnoticed by my wife. And she sees yet another “Item” that has come to live at our house.

Only this time something clicked. She is determined to turn my evil abilities to good use. OK, you have a new challenge. Zach’s Birthday Party is coming up, and we need decorations. It is now YOUR job to make that happen.

Zach’s party has experienced a Theme shift. We were going to try something more along the lines of a Circus or Carnival theme….. B O R I N G!! and that has been done how many times before? Why not center a Party on something more fun and engaging, why not encourage the kids to get dirty and actually do something with their hands? How about a Theme featuring Tools and DIY activities?

So I have been spending some time reaching out to awesome companies that follow me on Twitter, and to others on the web that all seek to serve and preserve the way of life that keeps people productive. As of now, I have been able to get some fantastic assistance from the Great People at Gorilla Glue, Bessey Tools, Klockit, and Irwin Tools. I hope to add more to the list to really push this party over the top, but the support so far has been phenomenal. Sure there have been the “get lost” or “sorry we can’t help” Messages, but it doesn’t hurt to ask and no one owes me anything. No Harm, no foul.

Here’s Hoping we’ll get some more onboard, and we’ll be sure to post pictures of all of the activities as they occur.  Anyone have some good contacts that they are willing to share?  Activity ideas?

UPDATE!

Grizzly contacted me today and let me know that they are going to send me a Banner for Decoration!  Fantastic!!  I will be sure to share pictures once things start showing up at the door. 

Papa needs a new set of drills! I am in a bind and in a contest. I am trying to win one of three DeWalt tool sets worth either $600 or $280 from ToolSelect.com. I would love to just be able to go out and buy what I need, but it is just not in the budget. I need help to make it happen, and I want to make it worth your while…

I decided to make a pair of Bernoulli Spiral clamps that work with your bench dog holes, inspired by a much copied (but less often cited) post by Garage Woodworks. The spiral shape means that the harder you try to push something through, the harder they hold. I will be making mine from Richlite, a Phenolic Resin impregnated paper product that is used to make skateboard ramps and Pizza Hut’s pizza peils, among other things.

All I am asking is that you help me out by voting for my 2 videos HERE at Toolselect.com You do have to sign up, but all it takes is an email address and creating a password. After voting, leave a comment telling me you voted.

Click the link above, then click Like on the video.

You will need to sign in if you already have an account…

or create one if you haven’t been here before….

Its super easy!!

Make sure to like both videos!

On the 19th, I will randomly choose a helper to win the clamp set.

If you have already voted for me, let me know, and you will be in the running here as well.

On the other hand, Toolselect is a great site to sign up for anyway, with real reviews from real people. Even Matt Vanderlist provides reviews for them. If you have more than that minute to help me, get to know their site. You can earn rewards for reviewing tools yourself!

I have been needing to make more time for this project, but the only real time that I have is when I really should be sleeping.  Well the commitment has to be made to just steal a couple of hours of that sleep to donate to the shop.  It was an easy night to start, since sleep was a bit harder on a day where they cut 25 people loose at work.  10% layoffs are never fun, especially when your company really only has one Primary Client :-$

How Shall it Start:

Well for the purposes of this series, we can say that the shop has been both cleaner and dirtier, but it is still bad enough that this would be a good starting point.  Click on the picture below, it is a panorama by photosynth on my iPhone.  Not perfect, but you will get the idea.

Before:

After

A couple of hours in the shop (and YES that felt Great) here is where I ended my progress at 2:30 am.  What you don’t see is the actual clear spot on the floor by the left side of the garage door where the laminate flooring was.

You can almost see my Bandsaw over there!  the temperatures are not fun, the garage is insulated just right to keep it hotter than Hades from the day.  I put some items in the attic, and it was actually significantly cooer up there than it was in the garage.  Gotta dig that Bandsaw out!  I have a new Laguna Blade coming and I plan on using it to help me with the flooring install so I don’t have to use my scary Table Saw any more than necessary.

Oh Well, Keep moving forward.

Any thoughts are welcome, on anything from all the junk that I have, to tips about how to set up the shop to be a combo shop and family area.  Thanks for your time and hope you enjoy seeing the process.

I am trying to make the reading process a little easier by cleaning up how my blog appears on the homepage.  If you care to let me know, please do let me know what you think of my changes.   I have been doing a bit of learning about how the blog should appear, and what formatting actually does.

Any non shop or building related posts will now appear on my other blog site:

One of the problems that would have to deal with before the wall could really be all worked out was the wiring.  The existing switches for both rooms are now in what will be the new doorway and in the 3rd bedroom to boot.  How hard can it be to move a couple of switches around the corner.  Umm not quite as easy as I had hoped.

I am a smart guy, so I really wasn’t too concerned with burning down the house when doing the wiring (although my spine does get extremely rigid every time that I flip a breaker back on)  I am not an electrician, but I do have an engineer’s mind, though I work on the architecture side.  My challenge though is in updating an existing system to be in a different location and in reverse engineering exactly how they accomplished the original install.  Another big par of the challenge is that my house still has to be functional, and I am working amongst kids and a full time job. 

I took the opportunity while I was moving things to put in a little convenience feature.  Our wireless internet modem and router setup has lived on our dresser since we moved in.  We had to do this since we have to reset it manually about on a weekly basis… whatever… it works.  So I decided to add a cable outlet and a power outlet in the top of the new closet.  As an added bonus, I put a switch inline to the outlet as well… from the master bedroom.  Now the wireless router and modem can hide in our son’s closet, and we can reset it with a light switch in our room without getting into the closet.  That will be funny for whomever buys our house later on… there is a third switch for the master bedroom that controls a hidden outlet in another room, MWA HA HA!

One thing that I am really glad that I did, was to diagram out where the wiring was going to go.  wire takes up a LOT of stinkin space in an outlet box… and trying to reuse existing wiring is sometimes about the worst mistake you can make.  Trust me.  After many trips across the whole house in the attic, yanking on wires, and trying to figure out just what the original contractor was thinking, I finally got it worked out.  Mostly.

Our bedroom had only been without power for two days while I ran wire and drilled holes and wrangled copper.  when I turned it on for the first time, I had everything but the closet light and master bedroom fan working properly.  This is where I learned that mixing push-in connections and the screw posts does not always work.  I ended up putting all new wiring in the 3-Gang Master bedroom box.  Finally works like a charm, No fires yet   Oh and on light bulb baseplates, don’t listen to the words written  the terminal screws… just cut one wire and install it in-line.  Turns out the first time that I wired it directly to the breaker, and flipping the closet switch just shorted/ tripped the breaker.  Stupid.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but here is where I was at this point:

Here is my shop right now:

The funny thing is that this is actually in the process of being organized.  I have gotten to the point where everything just has to be boxed for he time being, so it will store neatly, then come back and unpack and organize.

We want it to become a combination shop and family space. A place where we all can come hang out, Like Izzie on our Chaise that my wife designed and we built back in college…

As hard as it is to believe, it has actually been cleaner, like in this panorama. I was even able to park a car in here for a whole stormy season as well.  But every tiem that we clean the house, where does it all go?  You guessed it, to the garage.

The Blogosphere to the rescue!  It has served as a good accountabiltiy tool so far in my weight loss goals (I am now down over 45 lbs) so it should be able to help me out here as well.

Just enjoy the ride with me as I get it all cleaned up and transformed into a functional shop and family space…and just thank your lucky stars that your shop/ garage doesn’t look like mine

Happy Friday!

What the WII thought of me…

Well this is interesting… since the first time that I stepped onto Wii fit, the meter marker just pegged off of the scale, presumably telling me that I was so morbidly obese that it wasn’t even worth creating a chart that my fat butt would fit on.  Thanks Nintendo…apparently this particular games’ designers’opinions of people are pretty low when a 5’6″ 218lbperson is just barely regestering under the tiptop of the scale.  Sheesh!

Dangit, an uptick…. This was the weigh-in I did right before Memorial weekend.  Well, I was a little worried about how I would do this time when travelling over a holiday weekend.

Phew!! Dodged

Say What, After abusing my self image for so long and telling me that I was essentially a Walrus who didn’t compare to any of the 600 anorexic game designers, NOW you are concerned about my health.  Um, Thanks.

And then you go and pull this on me.  I would be so UNHEALTHY if I weighed 137lbs, it would be able to blend in in Ethiopia.  I guess the Wii has no real clue what a real person is built like.  In Fact, the Dukan website that helps you set your goals from the beginning tells me that I should be trying to get down to 178 to be a good healthy weight.  Just a little discrepancy there, eh?  Whatever.

So its time to se the next goal…  I have actually decided to stop for now at 200lbs.  I have been putting the family in a holding pattern for a bit too long now.  Plus I have another plan…. I’ll clue you in in the next installment.

and I promise that I won’t make you wait so long.  (I’ll put a picture on that one… i figured people got tired of seeing the fatguy, so I thought that I woudl spare you for a while.)

I have the following items: Veneered sample board, Sheet Metal Flashing, Plastic Bag Clip, and an old calculator.  Tools:  Gorilla Glue, Crappy Chisel, Screwdriver, and pair of scissors.  Now what to do?  Cobble something together!

Gorrilla Glue is having a contest for user created projects using their glue.  I figured that I would use the opportunity to put myself soemthing together for this weekend.  My Dad has a booth at a craft fair in Cherryvale, KS for the Cherry Blossom Festival. http://www.lasr.net/travel/city.php?KS+cherryvale+cherry-blossom-festival&TravelTo=KS0611035&VE=Y&EventCategory=&Event_ID=KS0611035e001

I have been trying to tell him that it is time to start accepting Credit Card Payments, to help boost his business.  So I am gonig to do that for him.  I signed up for Square (who even sells the readers for your smartphone at Wally World) and now Ineed to set myself up a little pay station.

The first part, I formed some aluminum flashing (using my screwdriver ‘burnisher’ for folds, and cut to size with scissors) to act as a spring loaded holder for my iPhone in its Otterbox.  Nothing else like custom sized.   I think I threw away the belt clip holder a while ago after the clip broke… should’ve tried to fix it with Gorilla Glue… oh well, missed opportunities…  I will clip my phone to the board for a spot to enter transactions and have customers sign.

to make the calculator have good contact, I used my crappy ol chisel to shave off the feet… That’ll Do.  I used an old Fridge magnet clip that had lost its magnet to act as a receipt pad holder.  So once everything was properly Damped, Glued, and Clamped, see high tech clamping implements below, I let it sit for an hour to see how I did…

I managed to keep any glue off of my fingers….. since I used gloves….. liek the bottle says….. what a novel idea.  (just check @GorillaGlues Tweets for how often they have to tell people how to get it off…)  After the allotted time, I removed the clamps and, Viola!

I now have a nice little paystation with a freindly calculator to keep me from having to juggle too much junk this weekend.  Now that I can take Credit Cards easily… I might just have to have more Garage Sales   I still can’t wait for PayPal Here to finally go live for everyone.  I will likely switch to that and keep Square as a backup.