Jack, I spent 45 years working in new car dealerships doing everything from washing cars to service manager, often on the same day. I’d love to read some stories from others.
I know what you mean about scoring the top. I offer a very low cost First Scratch Service; I will come over and deliberately ding the top so you are relieved of the anxiety and apprehension of when it will happen. You will enjoy a much more relaxed state of mind when you are working at the bench. Cheers!
There was a tangle of rose bushes outside a bike shop I used to run. We told customers who were worried about the finish on their new bikes to toss it into the bramble to solve the problem!
I have a 14 year old 335i that's sitting in my backyard like I'm a redneck because it needs a couple grand of work that life's timing will take me 6 months to a year to be comfortable spending but I'm holding onto it because 1. It's my favorite car I've ever owned and 2. It's a manual transmission and my wife will never be able to drive it. How bad of a money pit is this going to be?
I cant even fix the leaking coolant issue. It also leaks oil the bmw dealer wanted 5k for. Can buy a lot of oil for 5k. I guess i could try. You tubes pretty good these days
If you actually like how it drives and it's not rusty, go for it .
Bimmers are made to empty your wallet whilst keeping a big grin on your face .
They're complicated but not unbearably so (says the man who loved BMW Motocycles but never owned a BMW car) so if you're reasonably handy with tools, enjoy .
If it has rust holes anywhere, clean it up and get it detailed, sell it on now whilst you still can .
I used to tell my service customers that maybe they should just kick one of the doors on their new car just to get it over with. Got some pretty strange looks from that statement.
my father sold reda pump company to trw a bit over a half-century ago. dad said 'they'll bring in some engineers to re-engineer parts of the pumps to give them the feeling it's really theirs; and in a year or 2 they'll ask me to consult on how to make stuff better by putting it back the way it was.' and that's what happened!
Just a suggestion, if you have the time to do it. I applied 5 heavy coats of oil based clear Minwax Oil Based Poly on mine. I scuffed the original finish with 3M pad and again between 3rd and 4th coats. Small can of Minwax will be more then enough. I think it really made a difference with durability.
Might want to coat the bottom too. I've seen kitchen island tops curve like a banana. Flip them over and coat the bottom a couple of times and they flatten out in a few days
“There’s no reason to think it won’t outlast me.” That line just opened my eyes. Is anything made now with that thought in mind? Also, I never thought of Ross Perot as a prophet, but now I do. Thanks for a great read!
Wow, when I think of Burroughs, I think of a maker of mechanical adding machines and one of the losers (to IBM) of American-designed-and-made computers, when they were all large boxes. Is it still the same company? What a pivot. I am still an unpaid subscriber -- still determining whether your substack is a sad little internet silo full of resentful men. But you yourself are still an endless fount of interesting cogent iconoclastic (even, dare I say) counter-cultural information; I especially liked the entry on English and the ability (and interest) to use it correctly. I'm a little surprised I'm allowed to comment this time, so I'm taking the opportunity before the privilege is revoked.
I made the same Burroughs/Borroughs connection, but it ain't so. Wiki tells us:
"Borroughs was established in 1938 under the name Probar Company. The company began as a contract fabricator, producing saw cabinets. It soon branched out and began producing fluorescent strip lighting fixtures as well as continuing contract work for automotive accessory firms. In 1939, the founder, Walter L. Borroughs, changed the name to Borroughs Manufacturing Company."
As to whether we are a sad little internet silo full of resentful men -- is that so bad? The vast majority of even slightly educated men turn towards the past as they age, with a concomitant insistence that things used to be better, but as Robert Downey says in Tropic Thunder, "Just because its the lyrics to a song don't mean it ain't true."
The unfortunate truth is that we have become so filter-bubbled as a society that we have become easily shocked by any opinion that does not align with ours. I've had about a dozen "unsubs" due to difference of opinion. As I continue to write on various topics, the probability of me writing something to annoy each individual subscriber approaches 1, so I have to rely on them being open-minded and intellectually flexible. There are at least two people on there who pay real money just to criticize me in every post; I cherish this.
I think the majority of people on here know you well enough through your writing that they won't be driven off simply because they disagree with you. Those that can't deal with it I think the community is better off without. I've disagreed with you multiple times, but never seriously enough to comment. Having said that, what kind of man pays to have his new S5 custom painted by the factory and then chooses Lime Green over Speed Yellow? Bizarre.
Well I was in the middle of a serious personal disagreement with Rene von Richtofen so I was styling myself THE GREEN BARON to make fun of him. Thus the color.
Do you plan on writing about this? I seem to recall you writing something about it once before, but I don't recall many details. Hopefully the incident had something to do with what he considers "art", and could also be called 'Violence against innocent matchbox cars.'
My daughters favorite color is orange so every orange car gets pointed out to me. We bought her an orange mcclaren for her birthday. The little tikes variety
As always, I am honoured by your prompt personal reply. I am also grateful you did the research I should have done before posting my comment. If I was as smart as I think I am, I would have noticed the difference between "Bo" and "Bu". I have no problem with most any position that can be cogently defended. I think of you in your rural Ohio compound as a less-drug-addled Hunter S. Thompson (with, hopefully, a better outcome). I admire you and even read Airframe specifically because of an oblique mention you made of it. I generally don't prefer such a public forum, since I am decidedly in the second half of my life. You and your substack help me answer my existential question: Is what I see around me the depressing devolution of a once-great society or am I just another old fart wistfully maundering about the good ole days. (Available evidence supports the former). I am old enough to know that change does not necessarily imply improvement. So, for now, I will continue to be the voyeur, even if it means I miss the second half of the provocative Rodney story. I am not perverse enough to subscribe simply to criticize. However, Christmas is coming up, and my wife always has trouble buying presents for me...
Thanks for taking the time to respond and for the invitation. It would be better if, when you partially quote someone, you add ellipsis to the beginning so it's obvious the quotation is an extract and the meaning isn't distorted. The missing piece is "...still determining whether...". I am still undecided; the tenor of comments is a big factor.
I meant no offense, as I liked your description and felt it was true for me -- the sad silo, resentment, etc. But there's so much more going on here, in addition to that. Any article (or comment) I read that helps me think just a bit differently than I did before, or adds perspective I didn't have is a huge win, and adds to my enjoyment of the richness and variety the world offers.
There's a lot of positive provocation going on here, in my opinion.
I also feel that - and this is a much bigger discussion - men have a right to be sad. In particular, the Euro heritage middle class men who have operated America through its greatest moments have a right to be sad. This country was once more than it is now. It was never perfect. Never morally impeccable. And never without shocking inequities. But it was a country on the way to better things. I believe we will eventually return to being that country. It just might not be with all fifty states attached.
Yes there are some men like you're concerned but the ratio of intelligence is so high it got this broke old man ('poor' is in your head) to pony up the $, hopefully you can afford it too .
I'm a few years older than you, so I got to watch that disintegration first hand. I got to see the culture change around me as we were told to 'take that down, or some gal will file a harassment suit' and all of the behavior that went with it. Suddenly only women were entitled to the awards, rewards, and bonuses, because anything else would be sexist.
Fun times.
I built a nice 4'x4' workbench earlier this year in my shop. I love to make stuff, when I can, and I've built a few guitars and basses (strictly a hobbyist - I make things for my own sanity) and I've decided I'm going to start building the necks and bodies from scratch, (instead of buying them) mainly because it will take -longer-. That's what hobbies are supposed to be about, right? I'd debated buying a CNC router to cut things, but then I might as well go back to buying them pre-cut. Sure I'll end up just giving them away, but sometimes it's about the journey, about the making, more than the destination or the finished product.
Back to the original point - I do miss when we were a nation that BUILT things, but we let our enemies rule us and they know the quickest way to destroy a society is to take away their ability to create, as well as to provide for themselves. Maybe after the collapse it'll come back one day. But there were so many industries in which we, America, were the leaders. Now all that stuff is third rate chinese crap.
Very cool. This is where mine was made. I got mine for 80 bucks from a scrapper that takes crap from my plant for scrap. Flipped the top to hide the worn part. Found a bunch of tanks and mixers I never remembered decommissioning. Which led into the negotiated price.
I think my dad has a smaller one of these as a loading bench. That or a ULINE but the top looks the same in terms of finish and fit and one definitely had to drill it oneself for construction.
I can attest that it's a great bench. His is dented and has had a variety of materials spilled on its top; it's a work bench and shows it which is better than a pristine one!
Well, damn. I'd been PLANNING on building myself a new workbench over the winter - as all horizontal space is filled with detritus, I need to make or acquire new horizontal space so I can accumulate more, nicer, less-dusty detritus.
I buy these tables for work. In the last year or so there have been two changes to the basic design. One, the feet have gotten an upgrade to a larger diameter design. Two, the back support has been shortened and now only attaches by four bolts instead of eight. This has greatly decreased the horizontal stability. The solution is to buy the privacy panel that replaces the stabilizer bar
The stainless top version is a few hundred dollars more than the painted steel top version but is worth the money. To be fair we are a chemistry lab and none of the chemicals we use have marred the panted top tables.
Pro Tip: To avoid the shipping costs buy through Home Depot. They don’t stock them, but it is faster to order them through Home Depot and pick them up yourself than it is to have them delivered. Delivery is slow, really slow. I think the problem is local delivery. The package is awkward and heavy. Too heavy for one delivery person and too light for the freight truck. The factory doesn’t send them out on a pallet, so using a fork lift or pallet jack is out. Two people can lift them just fine.
I was looking at a 25k+ custom racking expense for this winter, made in Austria IIRC, so not USA. Its a great design because of how it can be knocked down for shipping and adjust for different applications. Mine will be in one place for the forseable future and I only have one application.
I bought a harbor freight mig welder and glued one together myself with steel tubing and gate rollers and tracking, inspired by a video Adam Savage did about his workshops.
It was a lot of weld area, not critical in strength, and after a week of it my welds didn't even look that ugly. A welding table would be a similar project to gain experience on.
I think I am all in under 3k for steel, the welder and accessories, and some helper labor.
My first job out of college for a year was nominally engineering work, but in actuality it was much more satisfying. I was working at Cornell University's Synchrotron as a sort of support/tech which boiled down to being a sort of jack of all trades with a good bit of manual labor. And it was some heavy stuff. Since a lot of the work was with high-radiation environments, we were making walls out of literal bricks of lead (same profile as a normal brick... just entirely made of lead), along with drywall profile sheets made of, you guessed it, lead (sandwiched between sheet aluminum). I remember one day in particular spent drilling concrete "red head" anchors into high density concrete. I also had the privilege of driving our shop trucks: a 1994 vintage half ton Chevy W/T with a door that would sometimes fly open on the road, and a similar vintage and equally rotten F250 HD. The Chevy was much more comfortable than the ox-cart Ford, but the Ford's door wouldn't fly open while driving. I only stayed there a year but enjoyed hanging out with some of the "lifers" that on a slow day would sit around drinking crappy coffee cracking jokes. Easy to look back on that with rose tinted glasses I suppose and I still get to do hands on stuff at my current job, but it was just different in my early 20s.
A few years back, while debating the purchase of a pair of pricey, but otherwise optimal, boots, I got the advice that I could “cry now and save later, or [buy a less expensive pair of boots and] save now and cry later”. That nugget of wisdom was initially framed around sustaining a state of comfort and endurance at the end of long projects, but has since morphed into a mantra for how I consume. Always heartening to witness people heeding similar advice.
Fast, cheap, or good: Time and again, I’ll find that you can’t ever get more than two of those things happening at once. Time and again, I’ll find myself happier in the long run when prioritizing the good in that bargain
I'm skeptical of libertarian economists who have never operated businesses. I'd challenge Posen to demonstrate that his life's work has any economic value.
When the Russian tanks roll into Poland or Germany next, we'll see how much of a fetish domestic manufacturing is. Those dumb hicks in flyover country deserve what we do to them.
I enjoyed this, both for the nostalgia and because I've been thinking a lot lately about where things are made and how they are made.
First, the nostalgia. My first several jobs were in restaurants, starting as a busboy before climbing the back-of-house ranks. I remember punching a mechanical time clock and putting the timecard in a stamped-steel rack on the wall. Later, at my first journalism job, I had a phone with a dozen backlit extension buttons and one of those foam blocks on the handset to cradle it on your shoulder. I typed away on a mechanical keyboard while stating at a CRT monitor with exactly one color: green. (We also had two laptops - a pair of Tandy TRS-80s - for the sports writers.) I sat at a steel desk with a wood-veneered particleboard top that was probably made in USA, scribbled notes on a spiral notebook that was probably made in USA, and looked up phone numbers in a phone book. At 1030 pm each night the floor would begin to vibrate ever so slightly as the enormous printing press - run by hard-working and cynical men with union cards and lunchboxes - would rumble to life. I always enjoyed watching the press run. It was always rewarding to watch something big and heavy and not a little dangerous churning out something you'd had a hand in creating.
That all seems so long ago.
As to where and how things are made, I've always preferred buying things made in the USA, but it wasn't until several years ago that I actively sought out American-made items and was willing to pay more for them. Lately, I've come to, wherever possible, seek out things that are made by hand by people who love what they do. Putting aside the obviously superior quality of such an item, the item means more to me if I know who made it, and even more if I've talked to them (or at least exchanged emails). It makes that item more personal by giving it a story, and makes you appreciate the effort that went into creating it.
Don't suppose those laptops were the infamous Model 100?
There is a sympathetic magic to the massive undertaking, to the hard thing done not just well but routinely, to the plainspoken mastery of man over his environment, to the airplane designed and drawn with slide ruler and protractor. I love handmade things and seek them out whenever possible but I would also just once like to hear something like a printing press waking up in the building next door.
Fellow readers , how much interest is there in Made in the USA articles? I may have one which which is car related.
I like them and have used them to locate Made in the USA items and buy them.
For that matter, I can probably steer folks in the general direction of hardware store items which are truly Made in America.
INTO MY VEINS
Mine as well.
I'll start to put something together. Might take me a bit, but will send it your way eventually! (in the meantime, happy to answer on specific items)
I appreciate it.
I’m all ears, tires of chinese crap at the big box stores.
I would love to see more Made in the USA articles. If Jack will tolerate/moderate guest contributors that’s great by me.
I will. I am sitting on a half dozen GREAT guest contributions that I'll be putting up soon.
Jack, I spent 45 years working in new car dealerships doing everything from washing cars to service manager, often on the same day. I’d love to read some stories from others.
Yes sir!
And I as well, mine was a similar work arc and I raced shitbox SCCA sports cars in the middle of all that.
I got some Grado SR80X headphones, maybe I should spew a wall of text if anyone cares.
Someone will care.
i certainly will care
I would love to see some car-related articles, but my thoughts are if they’re on “made in the USA” they’ll be pretty short. 😬😬
I’m in. Would love to learn more.
I know what you mean about scoring the top. I offer a very low cost First Scratch Service; I will come over and deliberately ding the top so you are relieved of the anxiety and apprehension of when it will happen. You will enjoy a much more relaxed state of mind when you are working at the bench. Cheers!
Tools not jewels!
There was a tangle of rose bushes outside a bike shop I used to run. We told customers who were worried about the finish on their new bikes to toss it into the bramble to solve the problem!
The little rocks chips in my new gravel bike bug me
Ride your gravel bike on pavement (or singletrack) instead of gravel. fewer chips.
Thats what the road bikes for. I like riding and not worrying about karen in her unnecessary amg running me over on the gravel
you could offer the same service for the wheels on a new (or new-to-you) car.
That's why God made wives
I have a 14 year old 335i that's sitting in my backyard like I'm a redneck because it needs a couple grand of work that life's timing will take me 6 months to a year to be comfortable spending but I'm holding onto it because 1. It's my favorite car I've ever owned and 2. It's a manual transmission and my wife will never be able to drive it. How bad of a money pit is this going to be?
Depends. How fast can you change a turbo?
I cant even fix the leaking coolant issue. It also leaks oil the bmw dealer wanted 5k for. Can buy a lot of oil for 5k. I guess i could try. You tubes pretty good these days
bad but keep it anyhow
I recently bought a car with a N54 (135i). Maintenance is $$$$, deferred maintenance even more. But OMG, what a motor!
If you actually like how it drives and it's not rusty, go for it .
Bimmers are made to empty your wallet whilst keeping a big grin on your face .
They're complicated but not unbearably so (says the man who loved BMW Motocycles but never owned a BMW car) so if you're reasonably handy with tools, enjoy .
If it has rust holes anywhere, clean it up and get it detailed, sell it on now whilst you still can .
-Nate
Hey-oh!
I used to tell my service customers that maybe they should just kick one of the doors on their new car just to get it over with. Got some pretty strange looks from that statement.
Primae noctis but for workbenches?
Well I was gonna do it until YOU PUT IT THAT WAY
my father sold reda pump company to trw a bit over a half-century ago. dad said 'they'll bring in some engineers to re-engineer parts of the pumps to give them the feeling it's really theirs; and in a year or 2 they'll ask me to consult on how to make stuff better by putting it back the way it was.' and that's what happened!
That process, minus the part of getting it right eventually, is the product development of every modern American tech company.
Just a suggestion, if you have the time to do it. I applied 5 heavy coats of oil based clear Minwax Oil Based Poly on mine. I scuffed the original finish with 3M pad and again between 3rd and 4th coats. Small can of Minwax will be more then enough. I think it really made a difference with durability.
Might want to coat the bottom too. I've seen kitchen island tops curve like a banana. Flip them over and coat the bottom a couple of times and they flatten out in a few days
This is a GREAT suggestion.
Thank you
“There’s no reason to think it won’t outlast me.” That line just opened my eyes. Is anything made now with that thought in mind? Also, I never thought of Ross Perot as a prophet, but now I do. Thanks for a great read!
Wow, when I think of Burroughs, I think of a maker of mechanical adding machines and one of the losers (to IBM) of American-designed-and-made computers, when they were all large boxes. Is it still the same company? What a pivot. I am still an unpaid subscriber -- still determining whether your substack is a sad little internet silo full of resentful men. But you yourself are still an endless fount of interesting cogent iconoclastic (even, dare I say) counter-cultural information; I especially liked the entry on English and the ability (and interest) to use it correctly. I'm a little surprised I'm allowed to comment this time, so I'm taking the opportunity before the privilege is revoked.
I made the same Burroughs/Borroughs connection, but it ain't so. Wiki tells us:
"Borroughs was established in 1938 under the name Probar Company. The company began as a contract fabricator, producing saw cabinets. It soon branched out and began producing fluorescent strip lighting fixtures as well as continuing contract work for automotive accessory firms. In 1939, the founder, Walter L. Borroughs, changed the name to Borroughs Manufacturing Company."
As to whether we are a sad little internet silo full of resentful men -- is that so bad? The vast majority of even slightly educated men turn towards the past as they age, with a concomitant insistence that things used to be better, but as Robert Downey says in Tropic Thunder, "Just because its the lyrics to a song don't mean it ain't true."
The unfortunate truth is that we have become so filter-bubbled as a society that we have become easily shocked by any opinion that does not align with ours. I've had about a dozen "unsubs" due to difference of opinion. As I continue to write on various topics, the probability of me writing something to annoy each individual subscriber approaches 1, so I have to rely on them being open-minded and intellectually flexible. There are at least two people on there who pay real money just to criticize me in every post; I cherish this.
I think the majority of people on here know you well enough through your writing that they won't be driven off simply because they disagree with you. Those that can't deal with it I think the community is better off without. I've disagreed with you multiple times, but never seriously enough to comment. Having said that, what kind of man pays to have his new S5 custom painted by the factory and then chooses Lime Green over Speed Yellow? Bizarre.
Well I was in the middle of a serious personal disagreement with Rene von Richtofen so I was styling myself THE GREEN BARON to make fun of him. Thus the color.
Do you plan on writing about this? I seem to recall you writing something about it once before, but I don't recall many details. Hopefully the incident had something to do with what he considers "art", and could also be called 'Violence against innocent matchbox cars.'
Sadly no but it might be just as funny
Hell Jack ;
I disagree on a regular bias, if I were to let that drive me away I'd be like a trump supporter .
-Nate
Shouldve gone with orange
Nick Salvatore did orange for his S5 the following year. Nobody even noticed. It really frosted his wheat.
My daughters favorite color is orange so every orange car gets pointed out to me. We bought her an orange mcclaren for her birthday. The little tikes variety
As always, I am honoured by your prompt personal reply. I am also grateful you did the research I should have done before posting my comment. If I was as smart as I think I am, I would have noticed the difference between "Bo" and "Bu". I have no problem with most any position that can be cogently defended. I think of you in your rural Ohio compound as a less-drug-addled Hunter S. Thompson (with, hopefully, a better outcome). I admire you and even read Airframe specifically because of an oblique mention you made of it. I generally don't prefer such a public forum, since I am decidedly in the second half of my life. You and your substack help me answer my existential question: Is what I see around me the depressing devolution of a once-great society or am I just another old fart wistfully maundering about the good ole days. (Available evidence supports the former). I am old enough to know that change does not necessarily imply improvement. So, for now, I will continue to be the voyeur, even if it means I miss the second half of the provocative Rodney story. I am not perverse enough to subscribe simply to criticize. However, Christmas is coming up, and my wife always has trouble buying presents for me...
"your substack is a sad little internet silo full of resentful men"
Yes, and it's wonderful. Come, join us.
Thanks for taking the time to respond and for the invitation. It would be better if, when you partially quote someone, you add ellipsis to the beginning so it's obvious the quotation is an extract and the meaning isn't distorted. The missing piece is "...still determining whether...". I am still undecided; the tenor of comments is a big factor.
I meant no offense, as I liked your description and felt it was true for me -- the sad silo, resentment, etc. But there's so much more going on here, in addition to that. Any article (or comment) I read that helps me think just a bit differently than I did before, or adds perspective I didn't have is a huge win, and adds to my enjoyment of the richness and variety the world offers.
There's a lot of positive provocation going on here, in my opinion.
I also feel that - and this is a much bigger discussion - men have a right to be sad. In particular, the Euro heritage middle class men who have operated America through its greatest moments have a right to be sad. This country was once more than it is now. It was never perfect. Never morally impeccable. And never without shocking inequities. But it was a country on the way to better things. I believe we will eventually return to being that country. It just might not be with all fifty states attached.
No offense taken.
No, no, we’re a resentful man silo through and through!
A towering, rock hard man silo of resentment.
(I’m embarrassed but) I laughed out loud at this retort. Well played, Sir!
Resentful of whom?
Seems he will fit right in.
Michael ;
Yes there are some men like you're concerned but the ratio of intelligence is so high it got this broke old man ('poor' is in your head) to pony up the $, hopefully you can afford it too .
-Nate
I'm a few years older than you, so I got to watch that disintegration first hand. I got to see the culture change around me as we were told to 'take that down, or some gal will file a harassment suit' and all of the behavior that went with it. Suddenly only women were entitled to the awards, rewards, and bonuses, because anything else would be sexist.
Fun times.
I built a nice 4'x4' workbench earlier this year in my shop. I love to make stuff, when I can, and I've built a few guitars and basses (strictly a hobbyist - I make things for my own sanity) and I've decided I'm going to start building the necks and bodies from scratch, (instead of buying them) mainly because it will take -longer-. That's what hobbies are supposed to be about, right? I'd debated buying a CNC router to cut things, but then I might as well go back to buying them pre-cut. Sure I'll end up just giving them away, but sometimes it's about the journey, about the making, more than the destination or the finished product.
Back to the original point - I do miss when we were a nation that BUILT things, but we let our enemies rule us and they know the quickest way to destroy a society is to take away their ability to create, as well as to provide for themselves. Maybe after the collapse it'll come back one day. But there were so many industries in which we, America, were the leaders. Now all that stuff is third rate chinese crap.
I know the impulse. I built a shelf for my barn stereo by cutting a birch ply board with a hand saw. Wasn't exact, but it was exactly mine.
I'll never understand why RCA or GE never even tried to copy the Trinitron.
Very cool. This is where mine was made. I got mine for 80 bucks from a scrapper that takes crap from my plant for scrap. Flipped the top to hide the worn part. Found a bunch of tanks and mixers I never remembered decommissioning. Which led into the negotiated price.
I think my dad has a smaller one of these as a loading bench. That or a ULINE but the top looks the same in terms of finish and fit and one definitely had to drill it oneself for construction.
I can attest that it's a great bench. His is dented and has had a variety of materials spilled on its top; it's a work bench and shows it which is better than a pristine one!
Well, damn. I'd been PLANNING on building myself a new workbench over the winter - as all horizontal space is filled with detritus, I need to make or acquire new horizontal space so I can accumulate more, nicer, less-dusty detritus.
I might need a Burroughs, instead.
Sir, you also need to call me about a storage unit, which is about to be empty.
are you emptying it, or the thieves?
Whoever gets there first will be the owner of a Neon
I buy these tables for work. In the last year or so there have been two changes to the basic design. One, the feet have gotten an upgrade to a larger diameter design. Two, the back support has been shortened and now only attaches by four bolts instead of eight. This has greatly decreased the horizontal stability. The solution is to buy the privacy panel that replaces the stabilizer bar
The stainless top version is a few hundred dollars more than the painted steel top version but is worth the money. To be fair we are a chemistry lab and none of the chemicals we use have marred the panted top tables.
Pro Tip: To avoid the shipping costs buy through Home Depot. They don’t stock them, but it is faster to order them through Home Depot and pick them up yourself than it is to have them delivered. Delivery is slow, really slow. I think the problem is local delivery. The package is awkward and heavy. Too heavy for one delivery person and too light for the freight truck. The factory doesn’t send them out on a pallet, so using a fork lift or pallet jack is out. Two people can lift them just fine.
At some point soon I will need a table to weld with. I'd wondered about that privacy panel.
Make your own welding table!
I was looking at a 25k+ custom racking expense for this winter, made in Austria IIRC, so not USA. Its a great design because of how it can be knocked down for shipping and adjust for different applications. Mine will be in one place for the forseable future and I only have one application.
I bought a harbor freight mig welder and glued one together myself with steel tubing and gate rollers and tracking, inspired by a video Adam Savage did about his workshops.
It was a lot of weld area, not critical in strength, and after a week of it my welds didn't even look that ugly. A welding table would be a similar project to gain experience on.
I think I am all in under 3k for steel, the welder and accessories, and some helper labor.
My first job out of college for a year was nominally engineering work, but in actuality it was much more satisfying. I was working at Cornell University's Synchrotron as a sort of support/tech which boiled down to being a sort of jack of all trades with a good bit of manual labor. And it was some heavy stuff. Since a lot of the work was with high-radiation environments, we were making walls out of literal bricks of lead (same profile as a normal brick... just entirely made of lead), along with drywall profile sheets made of, you guessed it, lead (sandwiched between sheet aluminum). I remember one day in particular spent drilling concrete "red head" anchors into high density concrete. I also had the privilege of driving our shop trucks: a 1994 vintage half ton Chevy W/T with a door that would sometimes fly open on the road, and a similar vintage and equally rotten F250 HD. The Chevy was much more comfortable than the ox-cart Ford, but the Ford's door wouldn't fly open while driving. I only stayed there a year but enjoyed hanging out with some of the "lifers" that on a slow day would sit around drinking crappy coffee cracking jokes. Easy to look back on that with rose tinted glasses I suppose and I still get to do hands on stuff at my current job, but it was just different in my early 20s.
A few years back, while debating the purchase of a pair of pricey, but otherwise optimal, boots, I got the advice that I could “cry now and save later, or [buy a less expensive pair of boots and] save now and cry later”. That nugget of wisdom was initially framed around sustaining a state of comfort and endurance at the end of long projects, but has since morphed into a mantra for how I consume. Always heartening to witness people heeding similar advice.
Fast, cheap, or good: Time and again, I’ll find that you can’t ever get more than two of those things happening at once. Time and again, I’ll find myself happier in the long run when prioritizing the good in that bargain
and i thought borroughs was a computer company :)
Borroughs vs Burroughs. You made me look that up, because I had the same thought.
Jack, did you see this? When I saw it I wondered what you would have to say about it. https://dailycaller.com/2022/10/07/egghead-adam-posen-cato-institute-manufacturing/
Someone should scalp that fellow.
I'm skeptical of libertarian economists who have never operated businesses. I'd challenge Posen to demonstrate that his life's work has any economic value.
When the Russian tanks roll into Poland or Germany next, we'll see how much of a fetish domestic manufacturing is. Those dumb hicks in flyover country deserve what we do to them.
I'm not fond of stereo typing middle America Citizens as 'dumb hicks' simply because of where they live .
-Nate
I agree. My comment was tongue in cheek. I vastly prefer the people who makes stuff vs the “designed in california” crew
I enjoyed this, both for the nostalgia and because I've been thinking a lot lately about where things are made and how they are made.
First, the nostalgia. My first several jobs were in restaurants, starting as a busboy before climbing the back-of-house ranks. I remember punching a mechanical time clock and putting the timecard in a stamped-steel rack on the wall. Later, at my first journalism job, I had a phone with a dozen backlit extension buttons and one of those foam blocks on the handset to cradle it on your shoulder. I typed away on a mechanical keyboard while stating at a CRT monitor with exactly one color: green. (We also had two laptops - a pair of Tandy TRS-80s - for the sports writers.) I sat at a steel desk with a wood-veneered particleboard top that was probably made in USA, scribbled notes on a spiral notebook that was probably made in USA, and looked up phone numbers in a phone book. At 1030 pm each night the floor would begin to vibrate ever so slightly as the enormous printing press - run by hard-working and cynical men with union cards and lunchboxes - would rumble to life. I always enjoyed watching the press run. It was always rewarding to watch something big and heavy and not a little dangerous churning out something you'd had a hand in creating.
That all seems so long ago.
As to where and how things are made, I've always preferred buying things made in the USA, but it wasn't until several years ago that I actively sought out American-made items and was willing to pay more for them. Lately, I've come to, wherever possible, seek out things that are made by hand by people who love what they do. Putting aside the obviously superior quality of such an item, the item means more to me if I know who made it, and even more if I've talked to them (or at least exchanged emails). It makes that item more personal by giving it a story, and makes you appreciate the effort that went into creating it.
Don't suppose those laptops were the infamous Model 100?
There is a sympathetic magic to the massive undertaking, to the hard thing done not just well but routinely, to the plainspoken mastery of man over his environment, to the airplane designed and drawn with slide ruler and protractor. I love handmade things and seek them out whenever possible but I would also just once like to hear something like a printing press waking up in the building next door.