Thoughts about powered screwdrivers ~ DON'T if you work on vehicles ! .
I know they allow you to cut the labor time in half but they also do irreparable damage to the plastic / ABS / whatever the fuck they use these days and sheet metal .
No B.S. here : every time I get roped into doing dashboard repairs I find mangled plastics that can no longer hold self tapping screws to the thing rattles, squeaks or both .
Few 'Mechanics' ever seem to grasp that you're supposed to turn a self tapping screw _backwards_ when reinstalling it until you feel the threads line up with a slight 'click' .
This simple thing will improve the quality of your works and also allow you to reuse 50 year old plastic things without fear .
Any advice on best practice for fixing those problems? The interior bits and inside of the dash on my '94 Bronco is a mess from what I believe to be from exactly what you described.
I don't mind leaving things apart for a few days while various things set.
It can be tricky ~ I like to hunt junkyards for un damaged bits and bobs, usually the worst looking and filthiest vehicles will have the most virgin parts because slobs don't like to get dirty nor touch anything under the hood .
I don't know mid 1990's Ford plastics but maybe look into what typ of glue (HINT : it'll be some sort of _solvent_) works best on your dash plastic parts and glue up the cracks, I often find the broken off tubular bits under the seats, behind the heater cores (groan) or other bad places then glue them back together and here it depends on how much you trust the job you're doing : if you're damnsure it'll never come apart again go ahead and glue in the broken off bits and the screw(s) but you'd better be DAMNSURE because if you try to tale it apart again it'll be destroyed .
If you can find the plastic part don't sweat the color, after a good cleaning you can buy "Mar-Hyde" plastic color spray paint, if you cleaned it properly it'll ever flake off .
Apparently I can't add pictures, I saved one of a mangled Mazda B2300 I was able to source pristine plastic bits and bobs from ~ the junkyards I deal with all know I pay ca$h and never ask for a receipt, no guaranty of any sort, they often watch in amazement when I crawl into some junker and comment "Nate, _NO_ONE_ buys the crap you buy !" .
I just want it to look nice and run at least as well as it did when new .
Try some UV curing CA glue, like the 'miracle glue' they pitch on tv. Then drill and tap (or screw in the self tapping screws. You can get it and the lights at Michael's or JoAnn or online (UV curing lamps are also available at beauty supplies as they are used with nail paints). That way you won't have to wait for it to cure and it's not as fraught with the possibility of gluing your fingers together. Make sure that the hole and surrounding surfaces are clean and free of debris for best adhesion.
I'll add a caveat since my Bosch PS21 pistol-grip driver has become one of my favorte tools.
Don't use a powered screwdriver on things if you don't understand torque, particularly if your powered driver does not have adjustable torque settings.
I use my Bosch driver to put screws into wood and plastic all the time. I just set it to an appropriate level of torque.
Also, your trick with sheet metal screws applies to any threaded fastener. To avoid crossthreading, rotate the screw or not backwards to find the thread.
Mostly it's a matter of time : the less you actually spend doing the job, the more $ you make .
Shops / dealers etc. have a thing called "flat rating" wherein one does a particular job within a specified time .
If you can shave any time off you can do more jobs in the same time space and "flag" far more work than is expected .
The down side of this of course is sloppy and shoddy works that don't do everything like disassemble the threaded brake adjusters, clean and re lubricate them or clean and re pack the wheel bearings...... on and on it goes .
E.G. : VW Beetles you're supposed to remove the engine (a fairly simple job to replace the generator, I don't, I can change the generator in half an hour and not scratch the paint .
Power tools -can- be great but not if / when used mindlessly, you have to work in a dealership to grasp just how little the average Line Mechanic gives a shyte about anything other than $ and pounding beers after work .
How are you defining a powered screwdriver? I use the Metabo/HPT 3.6v cordless screwdriver (a knock off of the Panasonic driver) set at low torque settings and haven't had an issue. Usually I start screws manually, but run them in with the driver.
Well, time to use the cheapie ratcheting screwdrivers I have on hand as pry-bars instead of my one off machinist made (high school acquaintenace) titanium pocket prybar.
"Gee, honey, I don't why they don't work, but I know where I can get a good replacement!"
Yes but so is the $1 Chinese one I bought some years ago at the .99 CENTS ONLY store, I bought it for a difficult junkyard job fully expecting to bend or break it, instead it's still doing yeoman duty and hasn't been stolen yet .
Plus, a 2' crowbar makes a dandy weapon in a pinch .
I honestly don't know if you're serious or joking with the DEGREE to which everything we do is mapped (viewed through a lens into) to MANHOOD, but I had to chuckle when I read this:
"(Naturally, this does not apply to ACF readers, at least two of whom own Rivians and are presumably using them to rescue untamed horses from wildfires or something similarly masculinadmirable.)"
Here is how I typically deal with the use cases for needing a precision ratcheting screwdriver, or the IKEA problem. a combo pack of (medium-low torque) Bosch 18V drill driver kit, with DELIBERATELY cheap driver bits for being rough with fasteners that don't have to cycle (be taken apart without replacement) 100x times. Throw out said disposable bits when they round out. I'm all about saving time, and nothing saves time like power tools. The last crank is always by hand, or with a torque wrench.
"I honestly don't know if you're serious or joking with the DEGREE to which everything we do is mapped (viewed through a lens into) to MANHOOD"
It's too serious a topic to be entirely serious about, if you catch my drift.
As I recall, you're not what Bill The Butcher would call a NATIVE AMERICAN, so I suspect you have a more natural grounding in a home culture that doesn't hate you just for existing, and therefore find all of this very self-conscious manhood discussion a bit bewildering. I could be wrong about that; if so, I apologize.
American men from Gen X forward -- not just white men, even, to a lesser extent it's ALL of us with even a pretense towards being straight and conventional -- are the most despised people in this country. They've grown up surrounded by a narrative in which they are always the villains, always the problem -- and yet always somehow necessary to build a bridge or change a tire or catch a bullet for BP.
Robert Bly may have been a bit of a weirdo and hippie but he recognized the problem early. We hate men here. We hate boys even more because they might become the "wrong" kind of men. And yet we've double-bluffed ourselves into believing that anyone who honestly confronts these issues is a sad sack who can't get laid. It's oddly reminiscent of bullying in school; you're not supposed to snitch, but who made that "rule"? The bullies, that's who.
Our popular culture celebrates every "struggle" women have, from tampons to the travails of stuffing their size 18 asses into a size 16 set of slacks, but men are supposed to be effortless and naturally cool and perfectly irresistible to women. We are expected to pay all the bills -- but also to step aside so women can have the high-paying jobs. We are supposed to give up half of the jobs we want but keep all the jobs that will kill or cripple us.
And if you talk about this stuff out loud, women and male "allies" will come out of the woodwork to call you an incel, creep, rapist, whatever.
Prior to 2010 I didn't give a shit about any of this stuff, really. I always had multiple partners, everything I wanted from women, and I felt like if you couldn't game the system properly you really deserved to be "incel punished" or whatever. Then I became a father to a son and I realized just how hard the deck is stacked against him.
Sorry for the long response here; it is a topic on which I am concerned and passionate. To some degree, I view every American man who is younger than I am as just a microscopic bit my responsibility; I'm here to help.
I'm raising three daughters and their future options do not look good. I'm hoping arranged marriages make a comeback because at the current rate it looks like the other option is "Harems"
Mark my words, there will be a big tradwife market in the years to come. Big enough to accommodate everyone who wants to be in it on the female side, anyway. Any 23-year-old woman with a low/no body count, no tattoos, no HPV, no nudes floating around on Reddit, height/weight proportionate, college degree in a genuinely useful subject OR no college at all, interested in having children... she will have her pick of everything from 45-year-old billionaires to NASCAR winners. The normies are JUST starting to figure out the risks to potential children that accompany multiple STD infections, multiple abortions, being 38 years old at age of first pregnancy, unfreezing eggs, and... fuck, I hate to even mention it, but... FETAL MICROCHIMERISM. Having children is enough of an expense and risk; men aren't going to want to stack the odds any more against them.
The problem is that it is astoundingly hard for a young woman to maintain that level of self-respect and self-control in modern society. Women work so hard to bring each other down and try to degrade their "friends" beneath them. I've been exceptionally lucky in having two spouses, and a few potential spouses, who never let the boys at Sigma Chi or their restaurant jobs play choo-choo with them.
I'm convinced Women get married when they want to get married right up until the point where no one wants to marry them. It's honestly cruel and will hopefully be a life lesson I can impart to my kids. "I'm 27 and have a bf, time to get married"
I've mentioned elsewhere: women in my cohort are going to be in for a rude awakening.
Men who put off (or were forced to put off) marriage aren't going to marry them, they're going to marry the gal in the early 20s. Reference chart of age men find most attractive: it's always women in their most fertile years.
I'm old, boring, and fat now but 5-6 years ago I was Tall, fit, fairly good looking, had a motorcycle and was cleaning up on tinder. Maybe the winds have shifted but the young women were all about "the career" and "travelling". So while young women will absolutely sleep with older men, they don't want to get married and start having kids yet. Eventually, the men age out too and the young women don't want to date them anymore. If you're a man that's made it to 35 without kids and you want a family, start at 27, not 22. Or maybe I should've gone to Church instead of tinder.
Sooner or later, women will acknowledge what their biology has been screaming at them: That they don't really want to be VP or CEO, they want to be MRS and MOM.
Unfortunately, they'll hear that alarm just as it's becoming too late.
Not going to hold a few nudes floating around against anyone...
However, have you talked to a 23 year old woman(girl) recently? Regardless of hotness, I am having trouble imagining, other than the procreation part, being married to one.
I don't think this is a problem that I will ever have to confront however.
You're a better man than I am. I spent the weekend hanging out with my little brother and his buddies and I never wanted to see another 19 year old girl again by about 130am Sunday morning.
My son's three boys are being raised as orthodox Jews, so they understand that the general uberkultur can be hostile. They are also in a culture that embraces traditional male and female roles. At the same time, though, a lot of their male role models are physically soft rabbis and the culture stresses being a compassionate person and scholasticism, not being the winning quarterback. Because of the stricutures of their religion, though, they learn that many times in life no very much means no, something boys must learn to become men. While there's an ancient warrior tradition in Judaism, which has reared its head in the forests of eastern Europe and in the Middle East, for the most part, that aspect of masculinity isn't exactly emphasized in contemporary orthodox Judaism. To balance that, my son and daughter-in-law very much encourage the boys to be boys.
I get the distinct sense that the perceived lack of masculinity in Jewish men is an American Ashkenazi thing. Look at pop culture. Israelis are IDF pilots and soldiers. Russian Jews are tough and scary. But invoke American Jews and it's all Woody Allen, all the time.
I wasn't talking about secular Jews and the Woody Allen stereotype, I was talking about Yeshivish orthodox Jewish men. The culture emphasizes ruchinut, spirituality, and tends to denigrate gashmiut, usually translated as physicality or materialism. Bookishness is encouraged and most mainstream yeshivas don't have any kind of sports teams, as playing sports might be considered "bitul z'man" a waste of time that could be devoted to Torah study.
Now as it happens I do know a number of orthodox men who work with their hands (besides Rabbi Ellis, my neighbor who is a sofer, a ritual scribe), plumbers, electricians, and for some reason a bunch of guys who do HVAC.
For what it's worth, that Woody Allen stereotype really didn't play here in Detroit. People still revere Hank Greenberg around here and the rabbi who officiated at the recent funeral of a relative told me almost proudly that his grandfather was an enforcer for the Purple Gang. Speaking of Jewish gangsters, Robert Rockaway is a native Detroiter on the history faculty at Tel Aviv University and he's written a couple of books on Jewish mobsters, “The Notorious Purple Gang: Detroit’s All Jewish Prohibition Era Mob", and "But He Was Good to His Mother: The Lives and Crimes of Jewish Gangsters". My favorite Jewish gangster was a guy named Sam "Red" Levine, who worked for Lucky Luciano in Murder Inc. and was known at the "shomer shabbas hitman". Supposedly he wore a yarmulke under his fedora, his wife kept a kosher home, and you were safe if you saw him on the Sabbath or Jewish holidays. He never went to jail, didn't get killed like most of his associates and later made his living as a newspaper union thug.
I have an image of Red Levine standing before the Throne of Glory as God judged him.
"You know, my son, you repeatedly violated one of the big ten, thou shall not commit murder."
I understand. I've been on the receiving end of what you're describing at times in my life.
I'm just a LITTLE surprised at your desire to view almost anything through that lens and that lens alone.
On the subject: I used to be more bitter than I am now, excessively sarcastic and thought I was making witty jokes all the time that only I'd get, but since becoming a father have somewhat chilled out, and more pragmatic. You can only coach John into a real man the way you see as necessary to live in this world, not the other way around. Its incredibly frustrating, but the most we can do is stand on principle.
A Rivian is a toy (nothing more), and a better engineered one (than a Tesla) at that. Some will use it to carry around a tube of man scented hand cream and some others will try and do things with it, but I'd rather not paint with a broad brush to include everyone in one group or the other. As a truck, its pretty, but from a practical standpoint, its an utter joke. When in the business you don't really care if all your consumers are necessarily transvestites, as long as they have money. I don't think anyone picks out these demographics; they just sort themselves like liquids of varying densities.
The attacking men (or specifically white men) is the same sort of stupid self immolating problem society has allowed to fester like weening off carbon fuels cold turkey because a bunch of academics and femboys said so. Letting it come to pass involves a lot of pain for the people pushing for it, some of it existential.
I'm picking up what you're putting down -- and my Rivian joke was largely just that. As you point out, it's only marginally truckish anyway, but it's useful from a socio-critical perspective because it unwittingly reflects what many coastal opinion-makers think trucks are: largely decorative, astoundingly heavy, overpowered to a fault.
Lighting design aside, the sheet metal is very well proportioned and doesn't take up 99% of a lane like a semi. Too bad it weighs as much as one though.
I’ve pursued the same strategy for furniture assembly. I put my 18V drill on the low torque setting and go to work. So much easier. The only thing that would make it the perfect cakewalk is if I had a small 12V right-angle screwdriver.
Well I used mine (my company's actually so I guess I can keep my hair) to tow some light towers this week and I think they weigh more than a jar of Vaseline. Although I can't say I would complain if my wife had a burlesque show, any time of the day.
A significant percentage of "burlesque boyfriends" or stripper boyfriends are more accurately characterized as pimps. They will drive the girl to and from the club. They'll hang around to keep an eye on things and maybe offer the customers a little something extra. I have always believed, but have no proof, that a certain autowriter with a burlesque wife played an active part in her sex work.
Yup, and they WILL complain right up to the point where the dude snaps his fingers and they come running.
A wise man told me a long time ago that "women don't love you more for the effort you put into them... they love you more for they effort THEY put into YOU". After a year or so of rubbing 300-pound men to orgasm through their fat pads in champagne rooms, and bringing home every penny to a dude who is playing Call of Duty all day, they are DEVOTED.
A good friend of mine has dating a burlesque dancer (in the style of the girl from American pickers) for years. Definitely not a pimp. She is also a strong 6'2" and wears a lot of makeup. I haven't seen the show and he has never introduced me because of "COVID". Feel free to draw conclusions.
I'm not sure if anyone makes the tool I want. At work I support several thousand Chromebooks, usually several a day are failing or getting smashed, and its rush hour during September or before a major test. "Opening the hood" is 9 screws, and these Chromebooks are no vintage Mercedes, they have the most disposable plasticky design the OEM's have to offer, so I'm not too concerned if I slightly warp or damage them by speeding things up. I use a Ryobi HP53L that I found buried in a desk years ago. It's a completely scaled down power drill. It has a swappable battery, 2 speeds, and most importantly, a torque adjustment. On the high speed but minimum torque, its perfect for aggressively finger tightening tiny screws that should not be torqued. The battery and charger is still available at any Home Depot, but as far as I can tell, nobody makes an electric screwdriver you can semi-mindlessly bang screws into a laptop with. A used HP53L is now worth more than a new HP54L.
I've got a DeWalt 920 that's comparable to the 53L. Picked it up used - my then girlfriend brought it home from work after using it constantly for years - had it for almost a decade, apparently unkillable.
I mentioned the Panasonic driver elsewhere in here, but I've found the Metabo/HPT version to be comparable at half of the price. It's at least better than the similar offerings from Milwaukee and Dewalt in my experience.
There's supposedly a Proto electric driver floating around that's about the side of the Snap On ratcheting driver, but I have yet to see one in the wild.
Kobalt is supposed to be releasing a small cordless diver that looks to be powered by a single 18650 cell and uses a USB charger. I believe it's going to be one of those Christmas stocking stuffers.
I did a lot of desktop support from 1995 to 2010 or thereabouts. It's astounding how stout the Pentium-era computers were, whether you're talking about a 50-pound Gateway 2000 desktop or my "butterfly" IBM 701. A lot of hobbyists ran the same cases for a decade or more; the everyday users had to swap out their welded-frame desktops every 18 months or so in order to keep up.
In 2022 we have a situation where you can get away with using the same system for 5 years or more BUT it's made of tissue paper.
I just spent 2500 bucks a piece on 2 dell latitude computers. History suggests they'll last 3-4 years for business use. Basically disposable. We do get rid of them at the first sign of decay. Our labor costs are too high to risk them shutting down in tax season. I take the old ones home or give them to friends.
My mom is still using an E6420 for web browsing, its a heavy metal beast with all the ports you could ever want, but no battery life. You now have to buy Precision if you want something approaching that. Vendors I've worked with come in with 5 year old beat up Precisions, and they're still truckin, as long as the GPU doesn't go. The XPS 15/Precision 5550 are basically the peak of the industry as far as x86 goes, but they still have an ultra thin bezel, the E6420 has an inch of plastic surrounded by more metal.
Ha, I know cause I also have one of those at my house. Had to put linux on in because it will not run windows 10 and I've long since lost my windows 7 install.
Mom's running Windows 10 21H2 on an SSD, plays Youtube and ad ridden web pages just fine, the drivers are all there. You can use the Heidoc tool to download the Windows 7 iso from Microsoft. Install it with no license key, then download the Media Creation Tool and select "I want to upgrade this PC", after it goes through the long process you will have a legally licensed Windows 10. 11 should work too, but the looming TPM requirement will put an end to that someday.
Today the goal is to fit more stuff on shipping containers and in smaller boxes so OEM towers look stumpy and top heavy, with paper thin metal, and front case controls and lights all reduced down to the edge of the motherboard. (Unless of course, you go workstation or gamer, and you get a minifridge sized monolith of steel glass and leds, almost pickup truck like.) But towers never had to be durable anyways, they always lived stationary indoors. Apple made the most brittle plastic cases in the 90's, but it never really made a difference to their perception. Laptops though, oh man, those things are rough. Metal plates over battery to prevent them getting punctured by the flexing metal case. Flexing memory sockets. From the factory, out of the box loose screws, half connected LCD and keyboard cables, missing stickers and adhesive. Thunderbolt is doing nobody any favors and still doesn't work reliably. And now, the worst trend of all, screens attached with adhesive. Can't remove it without destroying it. Bad LCD cable? Sorry. And the worst offenders are gaming laptops. The plastic structure just disintegrates.
Shame on me but I’ve had the same Stanley ratcheting screwdriver for 15 years. I’m almost certain it was made in China, but it’s the first tool I purchased after loading my wife of one year and child of (nearly) two months into the car and hauling us 600 miles away from our family to start our own life elsewhere, and when I think about replacing it the sentimental value exceeds the reach of my principles.
Plus it still works, and I don’t think I’ve ever replaced something that still works.
Somehow I know both the owner of Megapro AND Picquic, long time family friends and both Canadian, actually. Grew up next door to the Picquic family and even still work with one of the kids to this day. Both are excellent products. Picquic is still made in Vancouver in a small family run factory that’s been there for decades. It may not ratchet but I’ve tried to kill a few over the years and they just don’t let up. I was going to reply to yesterday’s ask-the-audience but here will do since we’re on the topic.
Such a great screwdriver, but as time passes I seem to reaching for mine less and less and using the Snap On CTS861DB cordless screwdriver in any location it will fit. Say what you will about Snap On cordless tools, but I like them (mostly). The adjustable torque settings make it so I’m never concerned about stripping a screw when I’m reassembling, and it makes disassembly a breeze.
Jack, excellent tool to highlight!!! It is by far my favorite and most used Snap On tool. Most importantly, I can vouch for durability. Mine has not been a tool box queen, it has ben used extensively for over 40 years and it still works great with no rebuild. I only remember black and yellow as options back in the day and I chose the yellow.
I'm not sure if the Megapro is still made in the U.S.A. All the reviews that I could find online say that the ChannelLock 13in1 is the same tool, made by Megapro, but the ChannelLock version that I ordered arrived today and the packaging is printed: "Driver Made in Canada".
I actually own one of these that I certainly did not buy. It must have come from my father’s collection after he died. It’s yellow.
There was a blogger once who went by the name of Weapons Man. He had been the small arms expert on his Special Forces A Team. He’s been dead for a few years now, God rest his soul. He was engaged in building an RV home built airplane in his spare time.
He used and recommended a Black and Decker cordless screwdriver that seems to have been discontinued. It was T shaped, to fit into one’s palm. It had no trigger, using the motion of one’s wrist to infer which direction to turn. Twist it to the right and it would tighten screws. Twist it a little further and it would increase the torque used.
I bought one, and it’s magical. I should have bought two. It’s a pain in that it uses a proprietary charging cord.
Every time I use it, I think of that guy.
Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure he would have agreed with me that the Smith and Wesson Model 1917 is the truly appropriate revolver to use when firing 45ACP.
The Model 25 is just a hammer-blocked 1917 with polished components and better finish. Given that I saw more guns dropped in pin matches than in all other aspects of my entire life, it's worth getting the fancy civvy gun!
It was done during the war for reasons of logistics and getting as many pistols out there using the available tooling and skill. Afterwards they acquired a sort of cachet because it's a faster reload and you could use surplus ammo. In the Nineties there was some nice +P ammo for the .45 ACP that worked well for pins.
You could accomplish about the same ballistics with handloads in a .44 Special case. I had a Smith 629 with a six inch full lug barrel and I used to shoot Special in it to protect the timing. The only double axtion pistol out there that can swallow .44Mag full loads indefinitely is the unloved Ruger Super Redhawk.
I have love for the Alaska variant chambered in .454 Casull, but the other barrel lengths offered are too damned long and heavy for any practical purpose.
This seems like a totally reasonable expenditure for the occasional small engine repair and general home ownership tasks I have to do, right? Guys? Truly though, as pointed out above, I am not entirely sure why I would need this in place of any of the 4 Bosch screwguns/drills I have. I'm pretty sure my 12v impact driver might even fit in a smaller space. I love the idea of the tool set totally made in countries that care about craftsmanship, but even in my head it's tough to justify some pricing, especially when they are pricing a warranty in that I am extremely unlikely to actually use.
In your endeavors to promote American made products and with your copious free time as an unemployed bum could you provide alternatives to Amazon? Bezos may as well be Chinese for all I want to support him.
The current trend in the accounting profession is to offshore to Indians instead of hiring associates all so the partners can make 1mm a year instead of 800k. Queue the articles 2 years later "Why can't we find any employees" FYI. I'm a partner at a small firm and when this came up "There is no way we're doing this. When have you had any experience with offshored people that has been positive?" No one left in the states who can do audit and tax work? Not their problem because the boomer partners are about to retire with 3 lake houses instead of 2.
I'd literally rather do without than do business with that Lex Luthor-looking scumbag. It's been nearly 15 years since I've used Amazon for anything but product reviews. Really hasn't been that hard to find most of what I want in a brick and mortar store or direct from the manufacturer/vendor.
Unfortunately, I seem to be mostly alone in my principles. Everybody else, from supposedly anti-capitalist shitlibs to "ultra MAGA Republicans" doesn't want give up the convenience of having their junk delivered same day by some gig worker who will get fired for taking a bathroom break.
Amen. I got "accidentally" signed up for prime about a year before the pandemic. At the time, he was already rich as hell, but not like Croesus rich. I was like meh, I'll watch some shows and buy some tools with free shipping or whatever. Then he basically stole every last square of toilet paper from every bodega in what used to be Brooklyn and I will never never do business with him again if I can help it. I will go back to mufuckin corncobs before I buy shit from that dude.
Thoughts about powered screwdrivers ~ DON'T if you work on vehicles ! .
I know they allow you to cut the labor time in half but they also do irreparable damage to the plastic / ABS / whatever the fuck they use these days and sheet metal .
No B.S. here : every time I get roped into doing dashboard repairs I find mangled plastics that can no longer hold self tapping screws to the thing rattles, squeaks or both .
Few 'Mechanics' ever seem to grasp that you're supposed to turn a self tapping screw _backwards_ when reinstalling it until you feel the threads line up with a slight 'click' .
This simple thing will improve the quality of your works and also allow you to reuse 50 year old plastic things without fear .
-Nate
Any advice on best practice for fixing those problems? The interior bits and inside of the dash on my '94 Bronco is a mess from what I believe to be from exactly what you described.
I don't mind leaving things apart for a few days while various things set.
It can be tricky ~ I like to hunt junkyards for un damaged bits and bobs, usually the worst looking and filthiest vehicles will have the most virgin parts because slobs don't like to get dirty nor touch anything under the hood .
I don't know mid 1990's Ford plastics but maybe look into what typ of glue (HINT : it'll be some sort of _solvent_) works best on your dash plastic parts and glue up the cracks, I often find the broken off tubular bits under the seats, behind the heater cores (groan) or other bad places then glue them back together and here it depends on how much you trust the job you're doing : if you're damnsure it'll never come apart again go ahead and glue in the broken off bits and the screw(s) but you'd better be DAMNSURE because if you try to tale it apart again it'll be destroyed .
If you can find the plastic part don't sweat the color, after a good cleaning you can buy "Mar-Hyde" plastic color spray paint, if you cleaned it properly it'll ever flake off .
-Nate
Thursday 11.10.22
Apparently I can't add pictures, I saved one of a mangled Mazda B2300 I was able to source pristine plastic bits and bobs from ~ the junkyards I deal with all know I pay ca$h and never ask for a receipt, no guaranty of any sort, they often watch in amazement when I crawl into some junker and comment "Nate, _NO_ONE_ buys the crap you buy !" .
I just want it to look nice and run at least as well as it did when new .
I'm hoping Jack will add it .
I can't seem to edit this post....
-Nate
I don't think I can put it up either...
WAH ! =8-( .
I thought list owners could do anything .
-Nate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP3xJIJ-TbU
You could try this
Bucking _FRILLIANT_ ! .
I keep telling you alls this is like FREE TRADE SCHOOL .
-Nate
Try some UV curing CA glue, like the 'miracle glue' they pitch on tv. Then drill and tap (or screw in the self tapping screws. You can get it and the lights at Michael's or JoAnn or online (UV curing lamps are also available at beauty supplies as they are used with nail paints). That way you won't have to wait for it to cure and it's not as fraught with the possibility of gluing your fingers together. Make sure that the hole and surrounding surfaces are clean and free of debris for best adhesion.
On R/C cars, we'd put a few drops of CA down a stripped (plastic) hole and let it dry. I assume that this method would also work on interior bits.
Try putting the CA on the screw and then screwing it in. Ready made threads, usually.
Thank you both ! .
? What is "CA" ? .
-Nate
Cyanoacrylate glue, ref Mr. Schreiber's post a little bit below this one.
https://thehomewoodworker.com/what-is-ca-glue/
I'll add a caveat since my Bosch PS21 pistol-grip driver has become one of my favorte tools.
Don't use a powered screwdriver on things if you don't understand torque, particularly if your powered driver does not have adjustable torque settings.
I use my Bosch driver to put screws into wood and plastic all the time. I just set it to an appropriate level of torque.
Also, your trick with sheet metal screws applies to any threaded fastener. To avoid crossthreading, rotate the screw or not backwards to find the thread.
There you go Ronnie : Only a very select few will make this small effort and it shows in the finished jobs .
I still have Customers who were happy that I *finally* put paid to some problem in 1972 long after they'd given up on their local $tealer .
To me, it's a matter of pride and self respect .
-Nate
I have a friend who gleefully uses power tools when manual ones would make more sense. Drives me nuts at times.
Mostly it's a matter of time : the less you actually spend doing the job, the more $ you make .
Shops / dealers etc. have a thing called "flat rating" wherein one does a particular job within a specified time .
If you can shave any time off you can do more jobs in the same time space and "flag" far more work than is expected .
The down side of this of course is sloppy and shoddy works that don't do everything like disassemble the threaded brake adjusters, clean and re lubricate them or clean and re pack the wheel bearings...... on and on it goes .
E.G. : VW Beetles you're supposed to remove the engine (a fairly simple job to replace the generator, I don't, I can change the generator in half an hour and not scratch the paint .
Power tools -can- be great but not if / when used mindlessly, you have to work in a dealership to grasp just how little the average Line Mechanic gives a shyte about anything other than $ and pounding beers after work .
-Nate
No, he just prefers power tools.
How are you defining a powered screwdriver? I use the Metabo/HPT 3.6v cordless screwdriver (a knock off of the Panasonic driver) set at low torque settings and haven't had an issue. Usually I start screws manually, but run them in with the driver.
Thank you for mentioning the Panasonic screwdriver, just bought it.
Well, time to use the cheapie ratcheting screwdrivers I have on hand as pry-bars instead of my one off machinist made (high school acquaintenace) titanium pocket prybar.
"Gee, honey, I don't why they don't work, but I know where I can get a good replacement!"
EXACTLY.
"but aren’t you already carrying a titanium prybar from LynchNW"
I hate you.
It's astounding how useful they are, and how strong.
Yes but so is the $1 Chinese one I bought some years ago at the .99 CENTS ONLY store, I bought it for a difficult junkyard job fully expecting to bend or break it, instead it's still doing yeoman duty and hasn't been stolen yet .
Plus, a 2' crowbar makes a dandy weapon in a pinch .
I no longer am willing to carry firearms .
-Nate
That reminds me, I wonder where my blue Wonder Bar is.
I honestly don't know if you're serious or joking with the DEGREE to which everything we do is mapped (viewed through a lens into) to MANHOOD, but I had to chuckle when I read this:
"(Naturally, this does not apply to ACF readers, at least two of whom own Rivians and are presumably using them to rescue untamed horses from wildfires or something similarly masculinadmirable.)"
Here is how I typically deal with the use cases for needing a precision ratcheting screwdriver, or the IKEA problem. a combo pack of (medium-low torque) Bosch 18V drill driver kit, with DELIBERATELY cheap driver bits for being rough with fasteners that don't have to cycle (be taken apart without replacement) 100x times. Throw out said disposable bits when they round out. I'm all about saving time, and nothing saves time like power tools. The last crank is always by hand, or with a torque wrench.
"I honestly don't know if you're serious or joking with the DEGREE to which everything we do is mapped (viewed through a lens into) to MANHOOD"
It's too serious a topic to be entirely serious about, if you catch my drift.
As I recall, you're not what Bill The Butcher would call a NATIVE AMERICAN, so I suspect you have a more natural grounding in a home culture that doesn't hate you just for existing, and therefore find all of this very self-conscious manhood discussion a bit bewildering. I could be wrong about that; if so, I apologize.
American men from Gen X forward -- not just white men, even, to a lesser extent it's ALL of us with even a pretense towards being straight and conventional -- are the most despised people in this country. They've grown up surrounded by a narrative in which they are always the villains, always the problem -- and yet always somehow necessary to build a bridge or change a tire or catch a bullet for BP.
Robert Bly may have been a bit of a weirdo and hippie but he recognized the problem early. We hate men here. We hate boys even more because they might become the "wrong" kind of men. And yet we've double-bluffed ourselves into believing that anyone who honestly confronts these issues is a sad sack who can't get laid. It's oddly reminiscent of bullying in school; you're not supposed to snitch, but who made that "rule"? The bullies, that's who.
Our popular culture celebrates every "struggle" women have, from tampons to the travails of stuffing their size 18 asses into a size 16 set of slacks, but men are supposed to be effortless and naturally cool and perfectly irresistible to women. We are expected to pay all the bills -- but also to step aside so women can have the high-paying jobs. We are supposed to give up half of the jobs we want but keep all the jobs that will kill or cripple us.
And if you talk about this stuff out loud, women and male "allies" will come out of the woodwork to call you an incel, creep, rapist, whatever.
Prior to 2010 I didn't give a shit about any of this stuff, really. I always had multiple partners, everything I wanted from women, and I felt like if you couldn't game the system properly you really deserved to be "incel punished" or whatever. Then I became a father to a son and I realized just how hard the deck is stacked against him.
Sorry for the long response here; it is a topic on which I am concerned and passionate. To some degree, I view every American man who is younger than I am as just a microscopic bit my responsibility; I'm here to help.
I'm raising three daughters and their future options do not look good. I'm hoping arranged marriages make a comeback because at the current rate it looks like the other option is "Harems"
Mark my words, there will be a big tradwife market in the years to come. Big enough to accommodate everyone who wants to be in it on the female side, anyway. Any 23-year-old woman with a low/no body count, no tattoos, no HPV, no nudes floating around on Reddit, height/weight proportionate, college degree in a genuinely useful subject OR no college at all, interested in having children... she will have her pick of everything from 45-year-old billionaires to NASCAR winners. The normies are JUST starting to figure out the risks to potential children that accompany multiple STD infections, multiple abortions, being 38 years old at age of first pregnancy, unfreezing eggs, and... fuck, I hate to even mention it, but... FETAL MICROCHIMERISM. Having children is enough of an expense and risk; men aren't going to want to stack the odds any more against them.
The problem is that it is astoundingly hard for a young woman to maintain that level of self-respect and self-control in modern society. Women work so hard to bring each other down and try to degrade their "friends" beneath them. I've been exceptionally lucky in having two spouses, and a few potential spouses, who never let the boys at Sigma Chi or their restaurant jobs play choo-choo with them.
I'm convinced Women get married when they want to get married right up until the point where no one wants to marry them. It's honestly cruel and will hopefully be a life lesson I can impart to my kids. "I'm 27 and have a bf, time to get married"
I've mentioned elsewhere: women in my cohort are going to be in for a rude awakening.
Men who put off (or were forced to put off) marriage aren't going to marry them, they're going to marry the gal in the early 20s. Reference chart of age men find most attractive: it's always women in their most fertile years.
I'm old, boring, and fat now but 5-6 years ago I was Tall, fit, fairly good looking, had a motorcycle and was cleaning up on tinder. Maybe the winds have shifted but the young women were all about "the career" and "travelling". So while young women will absolutely sleep with older men, they don't want to get married and start having kids yet. Eventually, the men age out too and the young women don't want to date them anymore. If you're a man that's made it to 35 without kids and you want a family, start at 27, not 22. Or maybe I should've gone to Church instead of tinder.
Sooner or later, women will acknowledge what their biology has been screaming at them: That they don't really want to be VP or CEO, they want to be MRS and MOM.
Unfortunately, they'll hear that alarm just as it's becoming too late.
Not going to hold a few nudes floating around against anyone...
However, have you talked to a 23 year old woman(girl) recently? Regardless of hotness, I am having trouble imagining, other than the procreation part, being married to one.
I don't think this is a problem that I will ever have to confront however.
I repeatedly hooked up with a pair of Toronto girls from the time they were 19 and 20 to when they were both 23. You have to power through it.
You're a better man than I am. I spent the weekend hanging out with my little brother and his buddies and I never wanted to see another 19 year old girl again by about 130am Sunday morning.
I can't remember who said it, but for most women, the worst thing a man can be is boring.
Isn't that the same psychological profile as a child?
My son's three boys are being raised as orthodox Jews, so they understand that the general uberkultur can be hostile. They are also in a culture that embraces traditional male and female roles. At the same time, though, a lot of their male role models are physically soft rabbis and the culture stresses being a compassionate person and scholasticism, not being the winning quarterback. Because of the stricutures of their religion, though, they learn that many times in life no very much means no, something boys must learn to become men. While there's an ancient warrior tradition in Judaism, which has reared its head in the forests of eastern Europe and in the Middle East, for the most part, that aspect of masculinity isn't exactly emphasized in contemporary orthodox Judaism. To balance that, my son and daughter-in-law very much encourage the boys to be boys.
I get the distinct sense that the perceived lack of masculinity in Jewish men is an American Ashkenazi thing. Look at pop culture. Israelis are IDF pilots and soldiers. Russian Jews are tough and scary. But invoke American Jews and it's all Woody Allen, all the time.
I wasn't talking about secular Jews and the Woody Allen stereotype, I was talking about Yeshivish orthodox Jewish men. The culture emphasizes ruchinut, spirituality, and tends to denigrate gashmiut, usually translated as physicality or materialism. Bookishness is encouraged and most mainstream yeshivas don't have any kind of sports teams, as playing sports might be considered "bitul z'man" a waste of time that could be devoted to Torah study.
Now as it happens I do know a number of orthodox men who work with their hands (besides Rabbi Ellis, my neighbor who is a sofer, a ritual scribe), plumbers, electricians, and for some reason a bunch of guys who do HVAC.
For what it's worth, that Woody Allen stereotype really didn't play here in Detroit. People still revere Hank Greenberg around here and the rabbi who officiated at the recent funeral of a relative told me almost proudly that his grandfather was an enforcer for the Purple Gang. Speaking of Jewish gangsters, Robert Rockaway is a native Detroiter on the history faculty at Tel Aviv University and he's written a couple of books on Jewish mobsters, “The Notorious Purple Gang: Detroit’s All Jewish Prohibition Era Mob", and "But He Was Good to His Mother: The Lives and Crimes of Jewish Gangsters". My favorite Jewish gangster was a guy named Sam "Red" Levine, who worked for Lucky Luciano in Murder Inc. and was known at the "shomer shabbas hitman". Supposedly he wore a yarmulke under his fedora, his wife kept a kosher home, and you were safe if you saw him on the Sabbath or Jewish holidays. He never went to jail, didn't get killed like most of his associates and later made his living as a newspaper union thug.
I have an image of Red Levine standing before the Throne of Glory as God judged him.
"You know, my son, you repeatedly violated one of the big ten, thou shall not commit murder."
"That's true, but I never worked on Shabbas."
I understand. I've been on the receiving end of what you're describing at times in my life.
I'm just a LITTLE surprised at your desire to view almost anything through that lens and that lens alone.
On the subject: I used to be more bitter than I am now, excessively sarcastic and thought I was making witty jokes all the time that only I'd get, but since becoming a father have somewhat chilled out, and more pragmatic. You can only coach John into a real man the way you see as necessary to live in this world, not the other way around. Its incredibly frustrating, but the most we can do is stand on principle.
A Rivian is a toy (nothing more), and a better engineered one (than a Tesla) at that. Some will use it to carry around a tube of man scented hand cream and some others will try and do things with it, but I'd rather not paint with a broad brush to include everyone in one group or the other. As a truck, its pretty, but from a practical standpoint, its an utter joke. When in the business you don't really care if all your consumers are necessarily transvestites, as long as they have money. I don't think anyone picks out these demographics; they just sort themselves like liquids of varying densities.
The attacking men (or specifically white men) is the same sort of stupid self immolating problem society has allowed to fester like weening off carbon fuels cold turkey because a bunch of academics and femboys said so. Letting it come to pass involves a lot of pain for the people pushing for it, some of it existential.
I'm picking up what you're putting down -- and my Rivian joke was largely just that. As you point out, it's only marginally truckish anyway, but it's useful from a socio-critical perspective because it unwittingly reflects what many coastal opinion-makers think trucks are: largely decorative, astoundingly heavy, overpowered to a fault.
YMMV but I think the front end of the Rivian looks like the Michelin man, particularly when the lights are on.
Lighting design aside, the sheet metal is very well proportioned and doesn't take up 99% of a lane like a semi. Too bad it weighs as much as one though.
I’ve pursued the same strategy for furniture assembly. I put my 18V drill on the low torque setting and go to work. So much easier. The only thing that would make it the perfect cakewalk is if I had a small 12V right-angle screwdriver.
Well I used mine (my company's actually so I guess I can keep my hair) to tow some light towers this week and I think they weigh more than a jar of Vaseline. Although I can't say I would complain if my wife had a burlesque show, any time of the day.
As someone who used to date a former Spearmint Rhino headliner let me assure you that the appeal wears off almost instantly.
Fair enough. Grass is always greener and all that.
Damn ~ I still enjoy looking at my Sweet.....
-Nate
How do you put on a good show with your husband sitting in the audience?
A significant percentage of "burlesque boyfriends" or stripper boyfriends are more accurately characterized as pimps. They will drive the girl to and from the club. They'll hang around to keep an eye on things and maybe offer the customers a little something extra. I have always believed, but have no proof, that a certain autowriter with a burlesque wife played an active part in her sex work.
So when they complain about their boyfriend, they're really complaining about their boss.
Yup, and they WILL complain right up to the point where the dude snaps his fingers and they come running.
A wise man told me a long time ago that "women don't love you more for the effort you put into them... they love you more for they effort THEY put into YOU". After a year or so of rubbing 300-pound men to orgasm through their fat pads in champagne rooms, and bringing home every penny to a dude who is playing Call of Duty all day, they are DEVOTED.
A good friend of mine has dating a burlesque dancer (in the style of the girl from American pickers) for years. Definitely not a pimp. She is also a strong 6'2" and wears a lot of makeup. I haven't seen the show and he has never introduced me because of "COVID". Feel free to draw conclusions.
Jonny Sins? Say it ain’t so!
For all I know, he helped gobble the knobs!
I keep hearing the joke about buying a rental car...
I'm not sure if anyone makes the tool I want. At work I support several thousand Chromebooks, usually several a day are failing or getting smashed, and its rush hour during September or before a major test. "Opening the hood" is 9 screws, and these Chromebooks are no vintage Mercedes, they have the most disposable plasticky design the OEM's have to offer, so I'm not too concerned if I slightly warp or damage them by speeding things up. I use a Ryobi HP53L that I found buried in a desk years ago. It's a completely scaled down power drill. It has a swappable battery, 2 speeds, and most importantly, a torque adjustment. On the high speed but minimum torque, its perfect for aggressively finger tightening tiny screws that should not be torqued. The battery and charger is still available at any Home Depot, but as far as I can tell, nobody makes an electric screwdriver you can semi-mindlessly bang screws into a laptop with. A used HP53L is now worth more than a new HP54L.
Edit, there's this:
https://www.grainger.com/product/PANASONIC-Screwdriver-Kit-27-in-lb-to-22EC14
I've got a DeWalt 920 that's comparable to the 53L. Picked it up used - my then girlfriend brought it home from work after using it constantly for years - had it for almost a decade, apparently unkillable.
So theyre new Mercedes 😂
I mentioned the Panasonic driver elsewhere in here, but I've found the Metabo/HPT version to be comparable at half of the price. It's at least better than the similar offerings from Milwaukee and Dewalt in my experience.
There's supposedly a Proto electric driver floating around that's about the side of the Snap On ratcheting driver, but I have yet to see one in the wild.
Kobalt is supposed to be releasing a small cordless diver that looks to be powered by a single 18650 cell and uses a USB charger. I believe it's going to be one of those Christmas stocking stuffers.
I did a lot of desktop support from 1995 to 2010 or thereabouts. It's astounding how stout the Pentium-era computers were, whether you're talking about a 50-pound Gateway 2000 desktop or my "butterfly" IBM 701. A lot of hobbyists ran the same cases for a decade or more; the everyday users had to swap out their welded-frame desktops every 18 months or so in order to keep up.
In 2022 we have a situation where you can get away with using the same system for 5 years or more BUT it's made of tissue paper.
I just spent 2500 bucks a piece on 2 dell latitude computers. History suggests they'll last 3-4 years for business use. Basically disposable. We do get rid of them at the first sign of decay. Our labor costs are too high to risk them shutting down in tax season. I take the old ones home or give them to friends.
My mom is still using an E6420 for web browsing, its a heavy metal beast with all the ports you could ever want, but no battery life. You now have to buy Precision if you want something approaching that. Vendors I've worked with come in with 5 year old beat up Precisions, and they're still truckin, as long as the GPU doesn't go. The XPS 15/Precision 5550 are basically the peak of the industry as far as x86 goes, but they still have an ultra thin bezel, the E6420 has an inch of plastic surrounded by more metal.
Ha, I know cause I also have one of those at my house. Had to put linux on in because it will not run windows 10 and I've long since lost my windows 7 install.
Mom's running Windows 10 21H2 on an SSD, plays Youtube and ad ridden web pages just fine, the drivers are all there. You can use the Heidoc tool to download the Windows 7 iso from Microsoft. Install it with no license key, then download the Media Creation Tool and select "I want to upgrade this PC", after it goes through the long process you will have a legally licensed Windows 10. 11 should work too, but the looming TPM requirement will put an end to that someday.
I have 3-4 extra computers at work right now i can take home. 0 more effort will be put into that old dell
Today the goal is to fit more stuff on shipping containers and in smaller boxes so OEM towers look stumpy and top heavy, with paper thin metal, and front case controls and lights all reduced down to the edge of the motherboard. (Unless of course, you go workstation or gamer, and you get a minifridge sized monolith of steel glass and leds, almost pickup truck like.) But towers never had to be durable anyways, they always lived stationary indoors. Apple made the most brittle plastic cases in the 90's, but it never really made a difference to their perception. Laptops though, oh man, those things are rough. Metal plates over battery to prevent them getting punctured by the flexing metal case. Flexing memory sockets. From the factory, out of the box loose screws, half connected LCD and keyboard cables, missing stickers and adhesive. Thunderbolt is doing nobody any favors and still doesn't work reliably. And now, the worst trend of all, screens attached with adhesive. Can't remove it without destroying it. Bad LCD cable? Sorry. And the worst offenders are gaming laptops. The plastic structure just disintegrates.
Shame on me but I’ve had the same Stanley ratcheting screwdriver for 15 years. I’m almost certain it was made in China, but it’s the first tool I purchased after loading my wife of one year and child of (nearly) two months into the car and hauling us 600 miles away from our family to start our own life elsewhere, and when I think about replacing it the sentimental value exceeds the reach of my principles.
Plus it still works, and I don’t think I’ve ever replaced something that still works.
Now, about some ratcheting wrenches…
And we thought it was you looking for tools!
Thanks for the tip on the Williams screwdriver. Early Christmas!
Maybe the real tool was the tools we found along the way!
Somehow I know both the owner of Megapro AND Picquic, long time family friends and both Canadian, actually. Grew up next door to the Picquic family and even still work with one of the kids to this day. Both are excellent products. Picquic is still made in Vancouver in a small family run factory that’s been there for decades. It may not ratchet but I’ve tried to kill a few over the years and they just don’t let up. I was going to reply to yesterday’s ask-the-audience but here will do since we’re on the topic.
Such a great screwdriver, but as time passes I seem to reaching for mine less and less and using the Snap On CTS861DB cordless screwdriver in any location it will fit. Say what you will about Snap On cordless tools, but I like them (mostly). The adjustable torque settings make it so I’m never concerned about stripping a screw when I’m reassembling, and it makes disassembly a breeze.
And now I’m titanium pry bar shopping.
Jack, excellent tool to highlight!!! It is by far my favorite and most used Snap On tool. Most importantly, I can vouch for durability. Mine has not been a tool box queen, it has ben used extensively for over 40 years and it still works great with no rebuild. I only remember black and yellow as options back in the day and I chose the yellow.
Smart choice... easier to see, right? I'm happy to hear this thing will outlive me. I think.
I'm not sure if the Megapro is still made in the U.S.A. All the reviews that I could find online say that the ChannelLock 13in1 is the same tool, made by Megapro, but the ChannelLock version that I ordered arrived today and the packaging is printed: "Driver Made in Canada".
I'll report on that shortly
I have one or two of these laying around somewhere, it is the most precise ratcheting screwdriver I own, and worth it
Quick run to best seller!
I actually own one of these that I certainly did not buy. It must have come from my father’s collection after he died. It’s yellow.
There was a blogger once who went by the name of Weapons Man. He had been the small arms expert on his Special Forces A Team. He’s been dead for a few years now, God rest his soul. He was engaged in building an RV home built airplane in his spare time.
He used and recommended a Black and Decker cordless screwdriver that seems to have been discontinued. It was T shaped, to fit into one’s palm. It had no trigger, using the motion of one’s wrist to infer which direction to turn. Twist it to the right and it would tighten screws. Twist it a little further and it would increase the torque used.
I bought one, and it’s magical. I should have bought two. It’s a pain in that it uses a proprietary charging cord.
Every time I use it, I think of that guy.
Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure he would have agreed with me that the Smith and Wesson Model 1917 is the truly appropriate revolver to use when firing 45ACP.
The Model 25 is just a hammer-blocked 1917 with polished components and better finish. Given that I saw more guns dropped in pin matches than in all other aspects of my entire life, it's worth getting the fancy civvy gun!
I don't want to start a caliber war, but why ACP in a wheelgun? Cost/availability?
It was done during the war for reasons of logistics and getting as many pistols out there using the available tooling and skill. Afterwards they acquired a sort of cachet because it's a faster reload and you could use surplus ammo. In the Nineties there was some nice +P ammo for the .45 ACP that worked well for pins.
You could accomplish about the same ballistics with handloads in a .44 Special case. I had a Smith 629 with a six inch full lug barrel and I used to shoot Special in it to protect the timing. The only double axtion pistol out there that can swallow .44Mag full loads indefinitely is the unloved Ruger Super Redhawk.
I have love for the Alaska variant chambered in .454 Casull, but the other barrel lengths offered are too damned long and heavy for any practical purpose.
Edit: It’s called the Black and Decker 4volt Max Gyro.
Okay, I just paid $23 for the 4-volt successor tool which is clearly dumbed down quite a bit.
What’s the successor? I’ve been trying to find a backup for when this one goes tits up.
https://amzn.to/3tfHYOl
Thats the affiliate link, feel free to use it just to get to the tool then copy and paste the full URL into an incognito window so I don't get paid :)
This seems like a totally reasonable expenditure for the occasional small engine repair and general home ownership tasks I have to do, right? Guys? Truly though, as pointed out above, I am not entirely sure why I would need this in place of any of the 4 Bosch screwguns/drills I have. I'm pretty sure my 12v impact driver might even fit in a smaller space. I love the idea of the tool set totally made in countries that care about craftsmanship, but even in my head it's tough to justify some pricing, especially when they are pricing a warranty in that I am extremely unlikely to actually use.
In your endeavors to promote American made products and with your copious free time as an unemployed bum could you provide alternatives to Amazon? Bezos may as well be Chinese for all I want to support him.
Good call. I'll work on that going forward.
The current trend in the accounting profession is to offshore to Indians instead of hiring associates all so the partners can make 1mm a year instead of 800k. Queue the articles 2 years later "Why can't we find any employees" FYI. I'm a partner at a small firm and when this came up "There is no way we're doing this. When have you had any experience with offshored people that has been positive?" No one left in the states who can do audit and tax work? Not their problem because the boomer partners are about to retire with 3 lake houses instead of 2.
I'd literally rather do without than do business with that Lex Luthor-looking scumbag. It's been nearly 15 years since I've used Amazon for anything but product reviews. Really hasn't been that hard to find most of what I want in a brick and mortar store or direct from the manufacturer/vendor.
Unfortunately, I seem to be mostly alone in my principles. Everybody else, from supposedly anti-capitalist shitlibs to "ultra MAGA Republicans" doesn't want give up the convenience of having their junk delivered same day by some gig worker who will get fired for taking a bathroom break.
Amen. I got "accidentally" signed up for prime about a year before the pandemic. At the time, he was already rich as hell, but not like Croesus rich. I was like meh, I'll watch some shows and buy some tools with free shipping or whatever. Then he basically stole every last square of toilet paper from every bodega in what used to be Brooklyn and I will never never do business with him again if I can help it. I will go back to mufuckin corncobs before I buy shit from that dude.
I have been going out of my way to buy direct or local as much as I can.
Despite indicating to my wife that she do the same, I'm afraid I still see an awful lot of "AMAZON" charges on the ol' CC for run of the mill items.
And that's how the fight started.