(07/14/2016) Busy, but not in the shop...

It's been a busy month with lots of things going on - but not much progress happening in the shop.  I did finish painting the "keezer".

And I built a 2x4 collar for the taps.

And I rebuilt some taps for it as well...  but there is still a lot of work to be done before I can order a keg and enjoy the rewards of my labors.

The past two weekends have been very busy - with 4th of July family visiting and last weekend we had a cookout / LAN party in the shop.  So, it's been lots of fun, but not much work getting done in the shop - well other than the little jobs that don't get on the radar (vinyl for trucks, t-shirt designs, computer repair, etc...) for things that would go on the blog.

(06-12-2016) Keezer build begins

What do you do with a rusty chest freezer from 1973?  You use it to make a Keezer (Keg-Freezer) to keep your beer cold.

I didn't get a lot done on the first day - removed the lid and hinges, cleaned the interior of the freezer, wire brushed any rusty spots and then painted the interior.

(06-04-2016) A Tower of towers and new graphics for the bowling game...

Saturday was spent formatting and installing the OS on this tower of PCs.  Thanks Charles and Reggie for hooking me up!

While these were formatting I also created new graphics for the bowling machine.  I think these colors work much better than the previous graphics.

(05-29-2016) PC Build, Brakes and a PC teardown...

I built a new PC out of old parts - except for the case and power supply.  It has lots of space for being a file server, but most of the hard drives I have for it are bad - oh well.

Then Flash brought down the Porsche 914 and we installed front brakes onto it.  No pics...

Then Goose water-cooled his PC by dumping a bottle of water into the case.  He pulled the plug as fast as he could - but it's toast.  The power supply is good, the RAM is good, but we don't know about the rest.  Hoping the vid card and CPU are still okay - maybe we'll get lucky and just have to buy a motherboard.

(05-28-2016) CNC Mill update

Here is a CNC mill that a buddy saved from the trash and brought to the shop.  I've had it for a few years and never had it really working - I did build a new interface box using an Arduino running grbl and some motor controller, as well as installed new motors - but it always seemed to have a few issues.

Saturday I decided that I was finally going to get it working and focus on making happen.  It took quite a while and lots and lots of testing but it now works!

(05-27-2016) New kart graphics

I think this one turned out fairly well.  It's good to get a shot of it completed before it's hits the track.

(05-26-2016) New arcade project is finished!

It took a week or so to build it, but the new "Back Alley Bowling" machine is ready to play.  I was able to salvage the marquee light and speaker from the original game.  The finishing touch was to add a second monitor on top so that spectators could easily see the game from a distance.

I will probably add more graphics later, but for now it's done.

(05-18-2016) Play testing and new shirts!

Flash and I went through the process of making sure the Ultra-Secret Project is now fully playable and made sure the second monitor and sound are all working.  Everything works - and it's down to cleaning and finishing the cabinet.

Then we created some new shirts.  We used to visit a bar when we were kids called the "Here's Tuit Tavern" that had shirts like this.  It took some time to alter the font to get it working, but it definitely gets the point across...

..normal...

...and the reveal...

(05-16-2016) Ultra-secret project - day 2

The Ultra-Secret Project took another step forward last night.  Jody came over and helped me get the monitor fitted into the machine as well as the trackball and buttons in the control panel.  Almost everything is mocked up, but I'm still waiting on hardware to finalize the control panel.

(05/15/2016) - Ultra-secret project and other things...

I have been contemplating an "ultra-secret" project for quite a while now and yesterday I finally got busy making it happen.

I first started by doing all of the wiring and testing out all of the controls to make sure it was all working.  This took quite a while, and several different searches on the 'net to find the correct schematics for this particular piece of hardware - but it now works and it's really cool to see it working.

The next step was pulling out an old arcade game from storage and gutting all of the existing hardware from it.  I was able to rip out the old JAMMA harness, CRT, game board (1942) and controls in just a few minutes and vacuumed out all of the old crud that was inside of it.

Next (no picture of this), I installed the new "ultra-secret" system and a couple of boards required to make this system work and started figuring out how to mount the new LCD monitor and what changes are needed for the control panel.

Flash came over and helped me work on Jonathan's car a little bit more.  The front suspension now seems great, and has about a 2 inch drop from factory as well.

*Flash also saw the "ultra-secret" project in action and thought it looks cool.

I need to install the rear springs so that his car will sit level, and install a new temperature sensor because it's leaking coolant.

(04/13/2016) Goose's Car

A couple of weeks ago I bought this little car, it's 2002 VW Golf with 140,000 miles on the clock.  Doesn't look too bad, but it's definitely had a hard life and needs a lot of attention.

It wasn't running, so Flash and I tried to get it running - and eventually we did get it running, for about 20 seconds.  That small amount of time running let us know that the engine sounded good, but it wouldn't throttle up and then it wouldn't start again after that.  Further inspection revealed that the timing belt looked like a long-time meth addict - it was missing a lot of teeth and the few remaining were loose and easy to remove.

The next step was to put in a new timing belt, re-time the car and put in a new water pump.  We did all of this and the car seems to run very nicely now.

The test drive then showed that that the steering needed lots of help.  The lower control arms weren't connected properly and had lots of slack in them.

We were able to pull parts from salvage cars to repair the mounting of the lower control arm, and now it's driving much better.  We also repaired a coolant leak, shift linkage and a few other little things while we were at it.

The front end still needs to be tightened up some more (probably needs new bushings in a few spots) and the car needs a thorough cleaning inside and out - but I believe it's going to be a fairly nice car once we get everything sorted out.

(03-28-2016) An update on what's been happening

It's been a while since I posted an update and thought I would bring things up to date.

First, Jeremy and I built some benches for the office and installed them.

Then Rodney came over and we powder coated his shift levers for his cool 4x4 project.

Flash and I aligned the front end of the GTI and installed the new wheels and tires.

and finally this weekend we installed a new crank position sensor into his truck - so not a lot of updates have been happening, but the shop has been busy.

(03-12-2016) Powder coating some "Fat Five" wheels for the GTI

 

After spending many hours using aircraft stripper to remove the clear coat, it was finally time to powder coat the wheels this weekend.

Prepared for paint

Powder applied and ready for cooking

 and the wheel after it's finished being baked in the oven

here are all of the wheels - now to get some tires and an alignment on the GTI

(01-30-2016) - Powder coating a gun

Jim bought some of this cool Army Green powder to paint his gun, and last night we got down to business making that happen.  I really like the color and satin finish.

(01-10-2016) Work benches completed

Today, we finished the workbenches (except for filling them up with lots of stuff).

Also, we updated two of the racing simulators with better video cards and now we can play some much better racing games.  We did some playing on the sims with "Game Stock Car Extreme" (great name for a game) and it seems really great.

(01-03-2016) Heavy bench framed

Today the "heavy bench" was framed up and now it's on to finishing out the top and the shelf.  It was much quicker and easier to build than the first bench.  Partially because of experience making a bench, but also from having a bench to use for building it as well.

(01-02-2016) Mobile workbench is complete!

Today, Flash and I, finished up the mobile workbench.  It was mostly made with recovered wood that was destined for the scrap heap, and I believe it's going to be very sturdy and useful in the future.  Looking forward to putting it to use building the "heavy" bench in the next few weeks.

(11-15-2015) Bye Bye Beetle

The Beetle now has a new and better home.  I hope you enjoy it Michael!

(11-08-2015) Blacksmithing

Michael, my son's best friend, and I worked on making a knife out of a railroad spike.  It took a long time to shape it, and much of that may have been because the forge was so small  - but Michael kept working at it and I think the results were pretty good.

(10-26-2015) The SCAG Mower arrives...

I saw this on Craigslist and just had to bring it home.  It's an old beast, but seems like it will be a good mower for my small lawn.  Looking forward to refurbishing it a bit over the winter so that it's ready to go next spring.