What's Been Happening At Chez Fromage

[cheesy]

Busy doin's at the House of Cheese the past few weeks. Things started happening when a young man knocked on my door and asked if I'd be willing to sell him my Jeep. The Jeep is an 05 LJ, the Unlimited before the Unlimited had 4 doors.

I've had it for almost 16 years. I don't switch vehicles often. It was rusty, probably spending 10 days total in the garage in all the time I've owned it. Because it was a two year only model, it's popular with Jeep guys. I told him to make an offer. He did and I accepted it. As ugly as it is, it was a good runner. It worked out well for me as I was planning on buying new tires and start doing some serious work on it the next week. Also, one less vehicle to license and insure.

With the extra cash in hand, I've been able to do some other things I've been putting off. First was to replace the 30 year old Craftsman air compressor in my garage. TSC had a Dewalt 60 gallon unit on sale.

That was a bear to get out of the truck and I had to reconfigure the air system in the garage because this was going on the opposite side of where the old compressor was located. That took a day or so to do. Basically tying into the existing system and turning the driers and regulators to allow flow in the opposite direction. It's loud, but no louder than the old Craftsman. Now my sand blast cabinet will have the flow it needs. With the new compressor in place, I got serious about getting the garage back in shape, too. I kind of let it go. I just about have that dialed back in. Also stopping taking on new projects before I finish the ones staring at me; Herter's Mini Bike, Diesel motorcycle, fixed gear DeSoto tricycle...I may throw in the towel on the tricycle.

 

Next up was probably more important than the compressor but took a bit more thinking and that was new shoes on the DeSoto.

When I got the car from my Dad in 2017, it had Coker H78-15 wide white walls on it. The tires were old then. I tried to go with the radial equivalent of the 6.70-15 tires speed for the car but it looked like a Space Saver spare tire in the those wheel wells, so I sprang for the closest equivalent to the H78-15 on hand at the tire shop and that was a 235/75R15. The ride is so much nicer and the tires are a lot quieter. They also stop on a wet road, something that was lacking in the Cokers. The guys at the tire shop fell all over themselves to look at it and the manager had his best guy do the swap.

 

I scored a deal on both a Ryobi Pressure Washer and Ryobi Speed Bench.

The pressure washer is to replace my dead Karcher, which I grew to despise before it packed it in. The Speed Bench was just because. It's already proved handy. Kind of nice to be able to stand up to fuel the chainsaw. In its folded configuration, it was easier to use than my hand truck for moving the old washer out and the new washer in. Yeah, the washing machine went toes up, too. Another $800.00.

 

Now Just waiting for the weather to warm up.

[Plymouthy Adams]

used to be money talked....now is just goes without saying....!👍

[cheesy]

After reconfiguring the garage layout, I needed to come up with an elbow for the vacuum side of my sand blast cabinet. Enter our SIL and his new hobby of 3D printing.

He printed both the elbow and adapter and did it a heck of a lot faster than I could cut, weld, and machine a similar set up. There was fiddling to get the two parts to play well together as two different 'dot whatever' file types were used to print the two parts.

I gotta say that I'm kind of impressed with the set up the guy has and what he can do with it. I don't need another hobby but I do find 3D printing interesting.

[Plymouthy Adams]

got to be good at something.....I am at this point not been introduced up close and personal to a 3D printer....I have seen a good number of folks post on various forum small bits made that has pulled the fat out of the fire as they say.