CLtotheTL32

iTrader: (3)

You ate half of the food and then immediately left...there was no time to review the plans.

Punk.

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

fuckin dinner for schmucks!

CCColtsicehockey

CCColtsicehockey

Did some tree work this weekend. Have a good amount of dead pine trees throughout my fenced in area. My dogs have free roam of this area during the day so I don't like allowing dead trees around for too long in fear of branches or trees falling when they are out there.

Took down 7 this weekend and probably have about another 5-6 to go still. Most only 7-8in across so not huge trees. I have two massive ones that need to come down in the next year but they are above my comfort level. 18-24in across at the base and 60ft+ tall.

Got to play with the grapple though. Definitely the best help for cutting rounds.







Some were really dead






Not a huge fan of cutting pine or burning it but for wood for the firepit anything that burns and is free is good enough. Man does it make a mess of my saw though.

CCColtsicehockey

I have skipped a lot of updates here but I will catch it up a little. Last fall we had a pretty big storm come down and it took down a huge pine tree in my woods. Of course, I was out of town when it happened. It took out a section of my fence and my neighbor's fence. They were cool about it and didn't even ask me to fix their fence.

I was gone but my girlfriend was home and she heard the tree come down from inside the house. She sent me these the next day. I was in for a good fun project.








Was definitely one of the largest trees I have ever dealt with. The way it was laying I had to secure it to another tree with a tie down so that I didn't have it fall on me while I was cutting it up.








Had to then use the loader to hold up the section on my fence and my neighbors fence while I cut it up.


Saved this piece to make a new bench for the fire pit area

CCColtsicehockey

The garage planning is still on going. I found out in October as well that the architect/builder I was working with was moving. Apparently the company he had created was really just a stepping stone for him to something bigger. He was taking a job across the country at a large architectural firm in Seattle Washington. At that point with the holidays coming up I just put the entire project on hold rather than trying to find a new builder during that period. I waited till late January to start getting quotes from various builders I had been researching online over the holiday months. I think I ended up with 5 or 6 quotes and was about to call it quits honestly. The estimates were just so damn high. The even crazier part was no one could pin point a similar price so I never felt I was in a correct range. I ended up getting 3 more after that as well including one from a neighbor of mine. I finally was getting some quotes in a similar range which at least told me the project was going to cost X amount and there wasn't much I could do about it. The variation in the quotes I did receive had 40% variation which seems just insane to me when you are asking for the same thing from all of them.

Along the way I have kept working on my renderings and layout myself.

I have finished essentially my entire renderings here. I think I am going to only go with a single light over the garage door like the house already has vs trying to redo the exterior of the house with 2 lights. I also think with 3 lights over the area it should be more than enough light in the driveway. Garage door prices are also through the roof. I know everything is up but they are almost 2-3x up from pre pandemic prices from various companies I have talked to. I originally wanted synthetic wood multi layer doors. However, not only the cost but the the short length of warranty for the price at current prices have turned me off from those now. I am now looking at CHI Wood Accent metal doors to get my wood look with a much longer warranty while still being fairly decently insulated since I am heating and cooling the space.I am also considering increasing the driveway and adding a space of parking/turn around in front of the garage addition. You can see this outlined in the latest renderings.










I have also begun working on a rough electrical layout. I will eventually turn it into more of a true electrical layout on many more pages by breaking it down into lights, outlets, media, and what not so the pages are not as busy and you can see what is going on.






With all that though. I have finally selected a builder in the last week and we are moving forward on getting a final set of plans drawn up so that we can get permits, stake out the site, and begin land clearing in the next month. It is finally going to get underway after several years of planning.

SamDoe1

Looks awesome man, that's amazing! One thing to consider doing is getting a 240V/60A or two in the garage area for future EV use. If this is going to be your forever home, you'll probably need it eventually.

Another thing that a friend told me to do is to add a bathroom exhaust fan in the workshop area to vent fumes from finishing/painting so consider that as well. You'll need the electrical and ducting for it at rough in stage. Also make sure to put in a TV outlet in the shop at whatever height you want to mount the TV at along with somewhere to run a cable to a computer.

Lastly, not sure if you're going to install dust collection or not, but make sure you think about where/how your tools will get placed and how to run the ducts/hoses for that as well. You can also consider just exhausting the fine dust outside as well rather than into a filter/bag.

CCColtsicehockey

Thanks. Yeah building this garage basically makes it a forever home short of some major unforeseen event. I am not sure where I would want EV power. It is a good call that I should do it even if I don't plan on one. If I had one it would most likely be for a daily driver which would mean it would be better placed in the house garage but that wouldn't be ideal to wire up right now. Maybe the first bay by the entry door in the new garage would be the next best place.

That exhaust fan is definitely a good idea. Never thought of that one. Need to get that on the plans for sure.

I do plan for dust collection. I have always loved the idea of putting PVC in the walls for it except the idea of getting something clogged. Right now the plan is just to hang hose across the ceiling for it instead now with drops down to the various tool stations. I am planning a big table in the middle of the room for the table saw, router, and planer station with flips for the router and planer. Going to put power in the floor for that but likely will deal with a drop down hose for dust collection as I don't know of a better way. In your last statement, are you just saying to vent the dust straight out the side of the building? Would that not create a huge mess on the side of the building and also potentially clog due to moisture building in the piping?

CLtotheTL32

iTrader: (3)

This is going to be absolutely epic

SamDoe1

For the EV thing, just get a NEMA 14-50 outlet put in (with the wiring, 6ga THHN, for a 60A breaker in the future) and you can plug whatever you want into it in the mean time. Better to have the option now rather than have to deal with retrofitting it in the future. EV is coming even if you don't plan on it in the near future.

For the dust collection, if you're planning on stringing stuff across the ceiling, I'd do basic PVC pipe over hose for those longer runs. Better performance and cheaper too. Definitely don't go into the wall lol, that's a recipe for disaster with clogs, splits, leaks, etc. For venting outside, yeah it can make a mess but if you have a two stage collector it only vents the small particles outside in a relatively small volume. For example, my two stage goes into a drum for the big stuff and a filter bag for the small stuff. I can empty the drum 10 times before even noticing there's dust in the filter bag. Will it make a mess, probably, but you can just hose it down. Have a flapper on the end to deal with moisture and you should be good. The air flow from the exhaust should dry out any moisture pretty quick.

CCColtsicehockey

This weekend I tackled a project I have needed to tackle for a good while. I have plans for a better looking more permanent solution but it will be made out of cedar and is going to be costly. I needed a temporary solution for now.

Almost 6 year ago from this week installed these lights around my firepit. Over time two of the trees around the fire pit have died. They were the two smallest trees that I put hooks into. I regret the most putting the hook into the dogwood tree as they are tempermental and I think that I killed it unfortunately which sucks because I love dogwood trees and they take forever to grow naturally if they even do at all.



Well, the dogwood finally had rotted through the root base enough that I had been holding it up with a rope to keep the lights and speakers up for the last few months.


Speakers and lights down. Rope removed. I pushed the tree over with one arm.




I had a bunch of these green garden fence posts and bought some pressure treated 2x4s. Fence posts are 26in into the ground. I drilled 4 holes in the fence posts and attached the 2x4s with lag screws.






I knew it wasn't going to be perfect with the lights pulling from the other side so I attached a support string to the back for now. I need to get more cable clamps to make one out of steel cable I use for the lights.


A little over 3 years for the TV setup and the speakers are filthy.


The speakers being mounted to the wood takes a ton of weight off the cable for the lights.




Kenzi approves


Just in time for late night playoff hockey watching outside.

SamDoe1

Awesome, great work!

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

I love your home.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Bad ass man, nice work

CCColtsicehockey

The garage project is moving along still but slowly. Finalizing the plans this week hopefully. I have also met with several tree companies to do the land clearing and selected one last week to do that work as soon as the plans are approved. I don't want to cut down any more trees than I have to on my lot. The township has already informally approved the plans but the county technically has to approve them first and until they have engineering drawings they can't go for the county approval.

In the meantime, I have been looking into the redesign of my fence gate on the opposite side of my house.

This section of the fence here will all be replaced so I will lose my large access gate for the tractor and other vehicles to my backyard during construction and after construction. I will have a small gate in my breezeway to the backward for the tractor but other larger things will have to be brought through the other side.

This gate currently with two 57.5in gate panels is my primary access right now for the tractor. Without the mower deck on I only have to open one of these to get out but with the mower on I still have to open the second part a little bit.




All of this will be removed before construction starts.


This is the current fence on the other side of the house. Currently, it only has a single person gate on that side. I don't really want to mow my lawn with just the push mower the rest of the year or be limited to not using the tractor for anything else on the rest of the property until construction is finished. In a perfect world that project takes 4-6 months but lets be real that building conditions are less than perfect these days.


I had previously planned to replace this entire section of fence with a split rail fence like I have on the rest of the property. This would alleviate some irrigation issues I have on that side of the backyard since the sprinkler could hit somewhat through the fence and over it. However, last night while outside it occurred to me that would come at the cost of a lot of privacy to my backyard that I was not sure I want to give up. So here I am not thinking maybe the best solution is to keep the current design and figure out a larger gate on this side. Long term I was not worried about the width of the gate opening as long as it was wide enough to get the mower deck through. Anything larger I could use the loader to lift over the height of the fence while driving through the gate. If I keep the privacy fence I will long term want a gate opening that is 9 or 10ft wide. The current driveway gate is 9.5ft wide when both parts are open. To support this the gate posts are 6x6.

Here is the back of the current fence. Not the hose that runs along the bottom connected to a sprinkler and a hose timer that I use to fix some of my irrigation shortcomings.


While taking these pictures I noticed something I had not for some reason taken note of before. There is a small section to the left of my current gate. I am not sure if this was done purposely to add a second support close to the gate to help hold up that fence post with the weight of the gate hanging off it. Or was it done so that it could be turned into a future double gate. In the below picture, the hinges are on the right side of the gate.


I am thinking the simple short term solution is just to remove that post and move the existing gate down to that post and build a new gate section to attach to the other post. Now I would have two 46in gates. It would be smaller than I want in the future but right now it would work just fine. That said I will have two 6x6 post I will be removing from the other side I could just build it correctly the first time with two 5ft gates.

SamDoe1

Crazy idea but why not have asymmetrical fence doors? Leave the opening the same size but just make one door bigger than the other so you only have to open one to drive your tractor through it.

CCColtsicehockey

As a long term solution that is definitely on the table. Something like a 50in door for one and a 70in door for the other. 50in would allow the tractor without the mower deck to get through for certain tasks. I could also help support the weight of that larger door with a wheel on the end of it.

SamDoe1

Yep, or you can even have a higher post on the one side and support with a steel cable as well. Wheel is probably cheaper, better, and easier though.

CCColtsicehockey

Looked at the fence idea this morning while drinking my coffee. I think going with one larger gate section like Sam suggested right away. I also was a bit concerned that I would only have two fence posts holding up the section on the right side of the gate if I went and made a gate out of that smaller section in the existing fence. This way it will stay 3 posts on one side and 4 posts on the other. The one section will just be really short though now with this design.





Essentially the new post will go somewhere around where the bird feeder is right now. This will allow me to use the already existing gate as one of the two pieces of gate still. It should give me almost the same size nine and a half foot wide gate opening with both sections open. and it will allow me to only have to open one gate section, the larger one when I use the mower.

I will likely go and buy two new 6x6 to support the gate sections. Just makes more sense to make those parts overkill. The land is a bit on a slope though so hopefully I don't have to make the gap at the bottom too big so that it swings open easily that the dogs can get under.

CCColtsicehockey

Not sure why I let this go this long but two reasons finally got me to finish this project. I finally got around to installing my new smart oven/convection oven combo from when I ordered the rest of my new appliances. This was the last of them to show up but it was in my garage for 50 weeks before I actually began the install. I think it was more the warranty was going to expire before I got to test it than anything else that got me to install it finally.

Moving an oven was more of an issue than any of the other work involved in the process. I ordered a set of those shoulder strap dollies you use with two people and got my neighbor to help with the lifting.

Yes I put up with this in my garage for 11 months


Turns out it was 2 boxes inside the larger box as the unit didn't come together.


Old oven out. Have to love the quality work by the electricians.




The floor that held the old oven. This would need to be strengthened as the info I could find put the new oven at over 100lbs heavier than the old one.




First up though the opening needed to be enlarged by 7in. Took some out of the top and the bottom.


Used a jigsaw to do this and the blade broke for who knows what reason as it never seemed to bind and left me these lovely marks.




Making sure the floor was going to be level was a bit time consuming


New floor in


​​​​​​​

And we are in. To bad we are not done.


Sliding it in I realized I didn't have enough space. The outer part of the cabinet is plenty big. However, the back of the cabinet sits recessed in from those sides. So the back of the oven was flush against the back. That won't work, the air intakes are on the back.


For the next part, I was going to need a tool to be able to cut an opening in the back of the cabinet. After some research it seemed the best tool for this job would be an oscillating multi-tool. I didn't own one. My over-analyzing self couldn't just buy one of these quickly though. I had to research them for about 2 weeks before I finally made a decision and bought a Milwaukee M12 Fuel after watching countless YouTube videos. I would have consulted Reddit too but this was during the wonderful Reddit blackout.

So back out it comes


I made a template


Marked the template on the cabinet and made it a little bigger.


Then cut it out
​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Then my brain said you can't have that much of the oven still sitting against a piece of wood so make it bigger.


So bigger it was made...so much for the fancy template shape anymore


I also decided to add a center support on the back support as well.


Finally, it was done. Here is a before and after.

SamDoe1

Looks awesome man, great work!

If that jagged edge on the face frame you cut out bothers you, grab a straight piece of MDF/plywood, clamp it on there, and use a template bit on a palm router to clean it up real nice.

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

Thanks Sam.
He was on the cusp of being able to get a full night's sleep without overthinking shit. You saved him from it.

SamDoe1

^ lol, I know I sure as shit would be in the same boat.

CCColtsicehockey

The problem is I don't own a palm router yet just two full size ones. I had actually thought of buying one of those instead of the multi-tool to cut the back of the cabinet out with.

For once knowing how jagged the opening of the cabinet was didn't really bother me. Especially since the opening was mostly already there from someone else.

SamDoe1

IMO a palm router is WAY more useful than a full size. I have two full size routers and they get used maybe 15% of the time, the other 85% is palm router.

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

little tiny one, huh

SamDoe1

It's not the size of the tool, it's how you use it.

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

Preach!

CCColtsicehockey

My full-size only gets used in a router table. I can't say I have used a router for much hand held.

SamDoe1

Not yet, because you don't have a palm router

They are cheap and effective, would recommend you grab one. Bonus points for cordless ones, just buy whatever you already have batteries for and it's a < $100 tool.

CCColtsicehockey

I was watching a review on the new Flex one and it looks really good. The DeWalt and Bosch seem to be the gold standards though and I do have one DeWalt tool already. Once the garage is built and I get to have a space to do woodworking whenever I want without always having to tear things down the tool collection will surely grow.

SamDoe1

Make sure you pick a battery system and stick with it. Really anything is good as long as it's not Ryobi lol.

00TL-P3.2

What's wrong with Ryobi?

CCColtsicehockey

That ship sailed long ago, unfortunately. I had bought a Makita 18v lithium drill in college and then their hammer drill when I need to insert some concrete anchors in my garage. Then both my batteries died. Then my pops which likes to just give random gifts bought my a set of 18v lithium Porter Cable drill and driver. I bought a DeWalt deal just for the battery-powered fan a couple years back. Most recent I got into the Milwaukee 12v line with the Multi Tool. The 12v line though opens up the way for the ratchets so I don't mind having added that batter setup.

I really like some of the guides that Flex is including with their tools. The one for their multitool almost swayed me to buy it over the Milwaukee but the ratchets from Milwaukee ended up making the battery system worth the investment.

Need to research the trim routers someday. Likely in a way to much overthought capacity as always.

SamDoe1

Nothing...provided you don't mind weak sauce tools that don't last very long.

lol.

Depending on how old your stuff is I would stick with Milwaukee and just add to it. Upgrade to the M18 line though.

The Dewalt trim router is considered to be the best around. I have the Ridgid one, because I have their batteries, in both cord and cordless versions and like them a lot.

00TL-P3.2

Mine are all Bosch for light power tools. No complaints.
My lawn equip is all Ryobi, though. 2nd season, we'll see how they are come winter.

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

Incredibly small sample size, but my neighbors Ryobi mower failed twice. First time was the battery tray and the second time was the handle - both failures due to broken plastic parts. They've fixed it both times (I think he has the extended warranty).

Fun fact - Ryobi, Rigid (the orange ones, not red) and Milwaukee are all made by the same company, TTI.

00TL-P3.2

My only issue so far, is I have 1 battery [6ah I think], that shows empty on the mower, but has a full charge. Runs fine, just the 'fuel gauge' is inaccurate.
Actually, not sure if it's the battery, or that slow on the mower

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

I had a ryobi 40v for my trimmer/edger and battery eventually got hot and killed itself. It lasted probably 3 years though...so I bought another off ebay.
Just bought a cheap blower for it too...

SamDoe1

My blower and trimmer are also Ryobi and so far so good but I wouldn't get them for woodworking tools. Not enough quality, repeatability, or performance for what I want them to do.

Bentley is made by VW so there's that.

I get your point but if you compare a Ryobi to a Ridgid or Milwaukee the differences are abundant and apparently. All the Ryobi stuff I've tried (mostly other people's stuff) has been trash. The drills/drivers feel cheap and flimsy, the routers and drill presses have a lot of runout in the drive shaft, the saws are vastly underpowered, and the larger tools like table saws are laughable.