When I was a kid, something happened to our leach bed that kept the septic tank from draining and backed everything up. Fixing it right would have cost ~$8k. Fixing it our way cost a Saturday of digging and a $50 sump pump to dump our sewage into the neighbor's creek. We lived like that for 4 years.
60 feet of picket fence up. Nail gun fun was fine. So was the angle grinder sharpening all my tools (and axes while I was at it, yes I have multiple). Even forged a new tip on one of my pick axes in the charcoal forge I built. Thus far, no injuries. I think I'm tempting fate.
You need to go make all-metal lawn darts now so you can play with the kids. Be sure to set up the GoPro! In other news, I love it when people who are "faking it until they make it" get caught... http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/09/sign_language_interpreter_used.html
Re-watching "Watchmen"....this is not as bad as everyone said it was. Also, I have an opportunity to work in Houston on the recovery....or make six figures selling security software. Going to be an interesting weekend.
If it isn't dangerous, you aren't having fun. I'm an adrenaline junkie. Unmedicated ADD (my choice, I've tried the medication route and fuck that). Even basic stuff like digging up the ground for the posts for the picket fence, gotta get my machete out with a face shield and make those pieces of rocks go flying. Isn't fun until you see sparks from things that don't normally produce sparks. And while I'm waiting on the concrete to set I'll sharpen my hatchet to where I can shave my chest with it. Gotta have a thrill somewhere, even from seemingly basic tasks. Calculated risks though. Nothing deadly, but it has to be dangerous otherwise I'm bored with it. I've bandaged up enough cuts I know about where the line is. As long as I'm pushing that line, I'm cool as a cucumber. That's where my happy place is. Riding that edge.
What a day... didn't really have any plans and then I thought, "why not head out to the local sawmill and see what they have?" I'm looking at picking up a whack of lumber for a few projects that I have coming up (like an indoor herb garden centre with auto grow lights and watering, etc), so I headed out there to see what the availability and prices were like. Little did I know that it was the weekend they were doing an old-school steam milling demonstration, so I got to sit around for 2 hours and watch them spin a 12' blade with belts and a steam engine while slicing up some big logs. Of course I forgot my cell phone at home so didn't get any pics or videos, but it was very cool. Ended up coming home with 40, 10'x1"x8" rough cut planks for about $200. That's about $0.75 a board foot. What a fucking deal! Soooo much cheaper than any big box or other lumber supply yard. They also have 2 really nice slabs of walnut that I'll be picking up next week (they were too long for my truck, so need to take out my trailer). Ended up coming home, cleaning out the garage, dry-stacking the planks, and am now sitting down with a very strong gin and tonic that tastes like about 3 more. Should be a good night.
Building the gate for our fence. Made the mistake of taking my son to Home Depot with me. He got so many high fives from Mexicans I'm afraid he's on trump's deport list now. Of course he picked out the most expensive gate hardware there, but that's what he wanted (and it does look kickass).
Meanwhile I went to Home Depot for some 1x1" strappting and ended up buying the Ryobi portable bluetooth powered radios that was on a big special ($60) so could not say no even though I was there for a cordless grinder. Works very well, and uses one of the ryobi bayteries that I have about 10 of, so I'm pretty happy with it.
Ryobi, because I have a ton of Ryobi stuff and about 8 batteries. I also have a Dewalt and Metabo wired grinder so am not worried about having a quality grinder available. Just wanted something quick and convenient.
Yeah I love my ryobi wired one. It's the only ryobi tool I've had anything positive to say about though unfortunately. I use the shit outta my angle grinders and somehow this one has lasted longer and performed better than the more expensive brands. Black n decker is normally my go to for cordless. Have a ton of batteries. I got everything from a B&D chainsaw to a weed eater to obviously drills and the like too. A cordless chainsaw is shockingly useful. Especially around Halloween.
Dewalt's grinder is possibly the toughest there is. It will outlast just about anything. Federated Tool here in town has large bins filled with out-of-box Dewalt tools for under $50. And they have Bessey clamps there. I'm blood in, blood out: Milwaukee for cordless and powered. I like-a-the wrist breakers and they are tough as hell, perfect for work.
That's what I'm gonna ultimately transition to. You joke about Milwaukee being wrist breakers though but that shit isn't a joke. At least it wasn't at the time. My father in law owns a local hot rod shop, those fuckers thought it was cool to play a prank on me when they tack welded a bolt into the frame of a 69 Camero and had me hit it with a Milwaukee driver. We may or may not have been highly intoxicated at the time, the owner of the shop/car was there, and apparently the damage to my hand was worth the un-fucking of the joke. Which is why I don't work on cars. I'll stick to large scale construction and welding when it is convenient for me. Nothing like a hard day's work, nice wine, great cigar, and lighting the fire pit with the acetylene torch.
Count me in the Milwaukee camp as well. I probably have $2000 of Milwaukee cordless tools from what I owned and what I inherited from my dad. I've never had a tool fail, but I've had to replace batteries and chargers. For me, batteries are what set Milwaukee and upper end brands like Dewalt apart from cheaper tools. I can remember putting up boards on my parents' house for a hurricane like 20 years ago and I brought a Black and Decker drill; my dad had a Milwaukee. His battery lasted the whole time, and I had to charge each of my batteries. From then on, I've bought better tools. Like we said recently though, how much you spend on it depends on what your expectations are for the tool and how often you will use it. For most folks, Ryobi is a great value for the money as you can get the tools inexpensively to begin with, and when your batteries start to get old, you can replace them for $30 each or something like that. Milwaukee is like $139 for the extended 18v battery.
Ryobi is made by Milwaukee. Ryobi-One is one of the best at-home cordless lines. My main reason for loving Milwaukee is because it has the most cordless innovation going on, they are making everything cordless: including concrete rotary hammers, large saws and right angle drills, which make my day easier. And every kind of worklight, cordless. All powered by their terrific batteries that charge in less than two hours. My complaint about Milwaukee is it isn't sold everywhere. Dewalt is fucking EVERYWHERE. In all the big stores and mom-and-pop. It's not hard to replace.
They sell hugely upgraded batteries (I bought 4 of them) and they are night and day difference from the standard small batteries that come with the tool. When I was screwing in the boards on my deck, it didn't even chew through one of them... lasted all day. So yeah, I'm all-in for Ryobi, until one of their tools breaks, then I'll replace that one. So far, none of their cordless tools have busted on me, only their cheap corded orbital sander, so I upgraded that one. I'm going on 5 years of fairly hard and regular use with all my Ryobi stuff, and have no regrets.
I would have thought they just have the same parent company, Techtronics, but this article seems to show some cooperation between the brands: http://toolguyd.com/milwaukee-ridgid-ryobi-coordinations/ Spoilered for size, a breakdown of who owns which tool manufacturers: Spoiler