We had downspout connectors put in when we built the pool/patio & the PVC does look a lot nicer.

 

Jason, do you remember the days when we used to modify cars?

 

I do but also those days still exist. The ISF and TSX have a stockpile of parts waiting to go on as soon as this project wraps up. ISF will be up first since the plan is to get it finished and ready for the dragon trip this fall. Besides it is already running vs the TSX doesn't even start and is a nightmare.

I do remember though when we would get together at car meets and hang out. We should do that again sometime.

 

Man, I don't know how to tell you this but I think they gave your garage an overbite on install.

Looking good but that clay looks like it's going to create a massive mess for you, good luck!

 

When are the Govee Lights being installed?

 

Man, you have no idea. The clay is an absolute nightmare with the driveway ripped out. We have over 4in of rain in the last 5 days. They didn't bring any more gravel in so I can't get the cars in the driveway and they all need oil changes so either going to head to a friends to do them on his lift or do them in the street I guess. I have been driving the truck only since then and have made the neighborhood a mess.

No Govee lights for me. I like tradition icicle lights too much for Christmas.

 

I'm doing the Govee this spring. Going to just rent a boom lift and knock it all out lol.

 

Wow, the Govee is cheaper than I expected. I might look into that once it 'warms' up
Looks like roughly 300 ft to wrap the whole soffit around the house. <100ft if I do just the front

 

-18F, feels like -27F here this morning.

 

We're due to drop into the 20s this week. Sitting at 50* right now.

 

I love me some good winter weather but damn you guys can keep that shit.

 

Every time it's this cold I question why I still live here...but it is very nice 99% of the time and all of the upsides far outweigh the downsides.

 

Couple cold days a year isn't enough to move away from the beautiful weather that we get to enjoy 3/4 of the year.

 

I was able to get a few things done this past week.



Installed the deck speakers. This was the last set of wires hanging out of the soffits so it is nice to not look at that anymore.





With at least one section of the wall cabinets installed I wanted to see how easily the undercabinet lights I bought would install. These actually mount with some magnetic clips so there are no holes to drill. I still need to put the front trim panel on the lower part of the cabinets which will hide the lights then. My undercabinet outlets also showed up as well so once I install those I will actually mount the box for these lights. Questioning if I should paint the box black.













Wrapped up the network cabinet finally. Finally got the NAS switched to 10G fiber and moved into the cabinet.



I guess I am still waiting on two 3d printed color specific LC keystone jacks but otherwise this is the finished state minus replacing the 3 cables that go around the side right now.





No more open hole in the ceiling













I started laying out one row of tiles one evening last week to at least finalize my measurements for installation. Once the floor is cleaned once more then I can seal it and get the installation underway. I did finally get the Ghostshield 4500 & 8510 ordered. That will be the main project in March.

 

This past weekend I got around to buiding my first projects in the shop area. Got around to building my scrap lumber carts for pieces smaller than what would be stored on the wall racks. The shop area isn't complete but I have to say just the ability to walk away and come back and keep working on a project is so nice. Not something I have had in a while since I refused to park either car in the house garage outside overnight since I picked up the NSX.



Made myself a temporary door to try and keep the dust in the shop.





Decided it was also time to upgrade my good shop vac to try and make it a better dust collector. Added a Hepa filter and the exhaust port filter as well as picked up finally a dust separator for it. I did realize that my 20+ year old miter saw was never built to be good at dust collection. The vac port is so far from the blade. Thankfully there seem to be improvement for sale from people that have made them with a 3d printer. Sadly no one shares the files to have it printed so I will just buy one as well as finally make a zero tolerance plate for it.









All lumber sourced for this project is being recycled from the temporary garage door walls from earlier in the project. So was able to build these two wood carts for the cost of the casters and pocket screws.





Cut the first plywood baseplate with my circular saw using a tip I saw in a youtube video. I have to say it works really well and had never thought about it. With no dust collection for this saw I did it outside.

















Cart one complete.





In the process of trying to finish the loft I have not been able to find a media console like I want. I finally decided I will just make my own. I always use the cost of the one I was considering to buy as justification to buy some new tools to make the project easier as long as I come out with a savings.



So new tool day this past weekend. Picked up the M18 track saw. I went with the WEN tracks instead of the extremely expensive Milwaukee ones. WEN has done such a good job with these even making them work with the Milwaukee anti tip feature. They cost like 1/3 or 1/4 of what the 110in track set from Milwuakee.













Second cart completely. Will also work as a rolling work station. I do regret a bit making it 3ft x 3ft instead of 2ft x 3ft. It will have to survive in its current state for now but thankfully since put together with screws I can tear it down someday and make it smaller.





Still need to empty the box on the floor of scrap accent wall wood but it definitely helped clean up the shop. I got all of the remaining 2x4s left over off the ground after this as well. I think I will use them to build a farmhouse console table for our foyer at some point this year.

 

Awesome work. Hope you liked the track saw!

I have the 3D printed dust collection upgrade for my saw and it makes a huge difference. The guy does sell the files for you to DIY print but it's not really worth it since you also need to add in all the hardware and threaded inserts so I just bought the complete kit.

 

Track saw is great so far. Definitely is going to be a little bit of a learning curve. I am a righty but really had left-handed saws which is why my circular saw is opposite. I prefer the blade on my dominant eye side. I think I need to buy a second set of tracks as there is a slight dent in the outer accessory grove but the saw groove is straight.

Glad to hear it really helps. The kit for my saw is like $30 and like you said it included the hardware and I would waste more time tracking everything down after having a friend print it.

 

Awesome updates, this garage is so epic

 

mmmm tek nah loe geeez, alwayzz and foreverrr.

 

Jason, looks so so good!

I love the simplicity of Govee but you can't cut them so they always look kind of rough IMO. A few neighbors have them and they have extension cords everywhere and where the lights should end, they are just run along the roof to the next section: not a good look but maybe they have changed them.

 

You absolutely can cut and splice them, there are tons of people that do it all the time without issue. The people who do it a weird haphazard way are lazy and either don't want to or don't know how to cut/splice wires.

 

Interesting, I assumed you must be able to, as they are just LED strips but our neighbor swore you couldn't and our other neighbor's install looks horrid, due to no cutting.

 

My neighbor also installed them...and they also look like shit for the same reason. But there are a few YT videos showing you can cut/extend them however you want which is what I plan on doing. Just need a 3 wire cable and match up the wires, there's nothing that complex about it lol.

The Govee Pro lights also allow you to address specific light elements and not just entire strands so I intend to go with those. They also come with dedicated cool and warm white LED's so your house doesn't have to look like a Christmas tree year round.

 

Two weeks ago while I was gone they got started on the finally driveway drainage. They got the piping for the gutters and the center catch basin. They do still have to come back and set the two slot drains in front of the garage doors.







Last Tuesday, they came back and finished the piping to the back of the woods.








Thursday of last week they finally got the septic grinder pump installed. Just a slightly deep hole for the tank.


Went with a 7ft tall tank so that there was enough capacity so that the pump doesn't run all the time.






Trenched across for the pump line.




Tied into the existing house line just before the septic tank

 

 

Loving watching this come along.

 

This past weekend after they were gone I got some work done. While the plumber was here I had him trench one extra spot across the driveway for irrigation zone on the new garage side of the driveway. I needed to relocate it so that it didn't have a 90 under the future driveway.

I sleeved the new 1in line with some 2in schedule 40 just incase something causes it to burst and I would need to replace it.


There is a sprinkler head on that zone that is near the retaining wall that will need reconnected at some point. I left a stub on a T so I don't have to cut apart the existing connection as much to tie it back in later. Currently, it is covered in extra dirt and stuff that needs to go to the dump from this project.


Had to do a little metal work to fix this corner that came bent on the cabinets so it would sit flat on the wall. They are still sending me a replacement since I paid for non damaged cabinets but figured why not still put it to use. Now at least all the uppers on the work bench section of the garage are up.




I picked up some 3D printed single gang mounts for the last two camera installs in the garage bays. I hate how much I had to pay for these things so it definitely helped feed my desire that is ever growing for my own 3d printer later this year. I was impressed though that it came with 3D printed flexible gaskets as well. Didn't even realize that was something that could be done.






The garage floor project also got underway this weekend. Got the 4ft plastic up and then washed the floors with a Dawn degreaser and water mixture.






The area by the door didn't get as clean as I would like so I got the pressure washer out on after that. Only did about the first 6ft cause it was making too much of a mess even with the plastic in place and for the most case it didn't make enough of a difference to keep going on the rest of the floor.


Now just waiting for the concrete to dry enough to put the Ghostshield 4500 down this weekend. Hopefully a week with the heat on and the fans on is enough to dry out the floor before application.

 

I wish I had enough room to build just half of this! It looks so good already.

 

 

Dude, just shoot me a note next time. I'm happy to print and/or CNC whatever you want for the cost of shipping it to you.

Love the progress and I bet you're excited to have a driveway back haha.

 

I appreciate that. I didn't design it this time though so I guess part of the cost is the price of the design work. Will keep it in mind for next time, though.

 

Well, another week pretty much wasted. They came and filled in the trenches from the plumbing, dug one trench for one door trench drain, and compacted the soil they dug up for the main drainage runs on one day but the rest of the week unfortunately no one was here while it was a perfectly sunny day.

We did get a second contractor out for a paver work estimate this morning, so hopefully, we will have that back by late Monday or Tuesday next week. Maybe this one will be in the ballpark of what it should cost.

With no one here though today it allowed me to do some work I thought I was going to have to do late tonight or tomorrow morning.

Built a wall outside of the bay I am trying to seal to keep any dirt while they are working off the strip of exposed concrete in front of the door.


Then got on to putting down the Ghostshield 4500.

Went with the sprayer suggested for application


Made myself a transition point. I can't do the other half of the garage right now so this will be the stopping point for now.


It dried faster than I expected to be honest. I might have even went a little light on it early on as but with starting on the back area I am not too worried about that.




Now need to wait 7 days till I can put the 8510 down over top of it.

 

You can usually find printable models for things like this for free online via thingiverse, printables, or makerworld.

 

@SamDoe1 Do you have a 3D scanner? Or do you CAD the stuff you want to print?

 

I do not have a 3D scanner and don't even have one on my radar to get. I would say that I can find already made models for 95%+ of what I print on the websites I mentioned before, there are seriously solutions for so much out there. For everything else I can do the CAD work myself with a pair of calipers and some time as I have access to all the tools and knowledge (I'm an engineer) to do so.

 

Just future thinking for when I'm ready to pull the trigger on a printer.
Some niche/one-off things in my mind for the Midget.

The pre-75 Midgets have an access panel for the transmission, but the fill hole on the 75+ is on the opposite side, so no cover. Have to access from underneath. Thinking about possibly making a snap-on cover for an access hole that would work on the 75+ cars.

 

Just be mindful of how big that panel is and how complex it needs to be. 3D printing definitely has a learning curve when it comes to making models specifically designed for printed part applications as the process is very different from molding/casting/machining.

When it comes to a cover plate, it's probably better to just get a sheet of plastic and drill the holes out vs trying to print a flat sheet.

 

I second that. Depending on material flat objects like to pringle a little. (depending on thickness)

For anyone with a printer but no way to make models of things they need. I would be willing to make models and send .STL/.STEP files to you to print on your home printers. Just let me know!

 

Understood on those. I haven't really looked into it, but don't think it'll be a flat panel.
/threaddrift

 

Gotta fill 7 days while we wait!