I have about 3000 square feet, but since it's a single-story home I also have 3000 square feet of basement, which is more important. Plus another 3520 in the barn.
I'm not sure it's going to work for me; I built this house based on some ironclad assurances from management about my job that turned out to be worthless. Good news is I have a choice of commuting to Cleveland OR Columbus!
There are five of us in my house (or at least on our half of the duplex we rent) and we all share the same bathroom. My wife and I would love to share a sink in our own bathroom away from the kids!
A friend of mine has been in the apartment building business for 25 years now. As bad as you think they are... they are even worse when you see behind the scenes. The most evil part about it is that every dollar you can squeeze out of a unit is half a grand in the big developments, so you have every incentive to cheap out EVERYWHERE.
I know what you meant but I don't think "doesn't skimp on anything" extends past the surface. Sure there is marble and that kind of thing but the construction quality is usually crap. My buddy sadly had to redo an small ranch in the midwest and the framing was oak. That is quality.
We had ours built by the Amish with 2x6 rather than 2x4. Drawbacks of Amish framing: they do it almost by eye so the house isn't totally square IMO. Good parts: there was no obvious skimping anywhere, the house is dead quiet and doesn't make noise in the kind of high winds that break 75-foot maples.
Billboards in my area seen declaiming "New Homes Starting in the Low 6s". Are you fucking kidding me? A postage stamp plot, an overbearing HOA (I have one! I hate it), and the opportunity to stay in debt for life.
For most non-rural areas both the land use regulations and builder economics work strongly against construction of starter homes. Can't build a $100k starter home when the land under it costs $150k.
My first house was a 900 sq. ft. 1927 Bungalow in North Portland (with an awesome 24'x30' detached garage) that I purchased for ~$120k in 2000. In 2019 it sold for $650k to a developer who planned to bulldoze it in order to build a four story 55 unit apartment complex with no off-street parking. COVID and "Urban Difficulties" seem to have pressed pause on the project, but similar things happened to the other three corner lots on that intersection.
This is one area where you're experiencing the real-world effects of not enough capitalism. We've NIMBY'd our way into a cumulative shortage of a couple million homes between all the places with worthwhile jobs, not really alleviated much by a million or so near-worthless teardowns in places with no jobs. The industry would be happy to build more but draconian land-use restrictions prevent much of it. So anyone lucky enough to have either buildable land near jobs or a habitable home (that they don't live in) can pretty much ask whatever they want and get it.
As soon as our final issues are resolved and I won't be shooting myself in the foot by talking about it, I will go through the process. Cliffs notes: we basically paid $200 a square foot plus the property and $75k in barn improvements to live in the middle of nowhere, and I'm glad we did.
One of my business associates had to cancel his prefab home when they raised his /ft from $350 to $425. $200 is a dream. He his getting killed paying rent on his condo and mortgage on his lot.
Ryan Homes is definitely dreck! I’m in a Ryan condo three blocks from my folks’ Ryan colonial. There’s not one wall that is plumb, and the basements leak like sieves and cost a metric shit-ton to correct!
I use a much more expensive screw driver these days. It's called a 'screw gun' :-)
Seriously I use a dewalt screw gun / drill (portable) for damn near everything. I've built shops with them, I use them to build guitars. I rarely touch a screwdriver anymore by comparison. I'd say this is due to age (I'm in my 60's now) but I started using one in my early 50's and just never went back.
Nowadays I have one in the shop and one in the house.
Before the dewalt B&D used to make a smaller rechargeable one that looked a lot like the snap-on you're showing in this article. Oh how I miss THAT! It was small, powerful, reliable and rebuilt two Fieros and I can't remember how many motorcycles. I should've had a funeral for it when it died because they don't make 'em like that anymore and all of the other 'small' rechargeable screw guns suck by comparison. All of them have a hinge in the middle instead of being just a straight solid hand grip.
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.
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 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.
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'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.
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.
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.
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’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.
As someone who was shooting HK in the Nineties I don't think they hate their customers... I think the German side of it is genuinely confused at the idea of a massive civvy market. It's like the way the Japanese race Dodge vans or something. The USA dudes are sharp and switched on to the point where they are openly recommending TommyBuilt rifles on social media.
Also as a multiple customer for both Porsche and HK I will say that HK stuff keeps getting better while Porsche just keeps getting more fake and lame.
Porsche has two customers nowadays; women and bitch-made men who think their SUV is a "sports car", and dudes who are absolutely obsessed with racetracks and racing but who have little to no experience and therefore just want to be see owning the best...
...the same way I want a full rack of Snap-On tools so I can botch a idle air control adjuster install on my Grand Marquis!
Heck- I’d be willing to pay the ridiculous ask for the UMP 45 if they’d put a real stock on it instead of that thumb hole p.o.s. It’s like the assault weapons ban never ended.
According to my brother-in-law, the guy in the Snap-On truck he occasionally bought from would always say, "This tool saves you money by saving you time!" He never could explain just how a $100 Snap-On tool saved more time than, say, a $30 Icon tool, but there it is.
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 .
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!"
Honest question though: given the amount of, ahem, screwing you're doing lately, why not use a drill driver? I concede that I'm lazy and usually reach for the 12-volt Milwaukee with a bit driver.
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.
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.
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.
! "Poppers" ?! I've not heard about those since the 1970's jack ~ are they still party favors for hippies or only gay folks now ? .
This tool makes me think of my 70 year old American made "Yankee Screwdriver" .
I'm not fond of ratcheting screwdrivers but I'll keep an eye out for one of these or a Williams used, I'm sure to find one sans bits making it worthless to the average tool seller .
You're so right about getting old and repetitive motions being painful .
I can't wait to read your article about tool boxes, I have three rollaways jammed full plus a Craftsman two drawer traveling box that had almost every tool I ever needed to fix air cooled VW's in it .
My best rollaway is an old Kennedy I bought for $125 in 1984 .
I'm laughing in the coffee shop, folks are looking at me but I have some really weird memories of poppers, parties and assorted miscreants .
I actually, ah, just saw a video where a six foot tall redhead has to use poppers to comfortably accommodate her boyfriend the way he wants to be accommodated. I had to freeze and rewind. IS THAT BROAD USING POPPERS?
Apropos of this discussion - I became familiar with the history of poppers in the gay scene thanks to Niccolo Soldo's exploration of the early HIV years and it's not for the faint of heart.
The scary thing about the intersection of drugs and perversion/kink is that you're never really too old to enjoy it. So it's not like the scene will make the decision on your behalf. You have to make the conscious decision to walk away. At which point the whole world looks like a television signal dropped back down to black and white.
I have some grudging respect for the PnP crowd, both gay and straight. They're pursuing the strongest possible sensations with no shame. I was always too much of a housecat to really make it work. Brother Bark on the other hand is basically Christine McVie in 1978.
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.
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 .
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.
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.
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 .
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.
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 about 3000 square feet, but since it's a single-story home I also have 3000 square feet of basement, which is more important. Plus another 3520 in the barn.
I'm not sure it's going to work for me; I built this house based on some ironclad assurances from management about my job that turned out to be worthless. Good news is I have a choice of commuting to Cleveland OR Columbus!
There are five of us in my house (or at least on our half of the duplex we rent) and we all share the same bathroom. My wife and I would love to share a sink in our own bathroom away from the kids!
A friend of mine has been in the apartment building business for 25 years now. As bad as you think they are... they are even worse when you see behind the scenes. The most evil part about it is that every dollar you can squeeze out of a unit is half a grand in the big developments, so you have every incentive to cheap out EVERYWHERE.
Truer words never spoken.
Just like China.
Yay!
I know what you meant but I don't think "doesn't skimp on anything" extends past the surface. Sure there is marble and that kind of thing but the construction quality is usually crap. My buddy sadly had to redo an small ranch in the midwest and the framing was oak. That is quality.
We had ours built by the Amish with 2x6 rather than 2x4. Drawbacks of Amish framing: they do it almost by eye so the house isn't totally square IMO. Good parts: there was no obvious skimping anywhere, the house is dead quiet and doesn't make noise in the kind of high winds that break 75-foot maples.
How many maples did you lose?
When was the last time you saw a new subdivision full of hundred-thousand-dollar starter homes?
Yeah, I can't remember either.
Billboards in my area seen declaiming "New Homes Starting in the Low 6s". Are you fucking kidding me? A postage stamp plot, an overbearing HOA (I have one! I hate it), and the opportunity to stay in debt for life.
And of course, there's the implication that there's something wrong with you if you don't jump at that deal.
For most non-rural areas both the land use regulations and builder economics work strongly against construction of starter homes. Can't build a $100k starter home when the land under it costs $150k.
My first house was a 900 sq. ft. 1927 Bungalow in North Portland (with an awesome 24'x30' detached garage) that I purchased for ~$120k in 2000. In 2019 it sold for $650k to a developer who planned to bulldoze it in order to build a four story 55 unit apartment complex with no off-street parking. COVID and "Urban Difficulties" seem to have pressed pause on the project, but similar things happened to the other three corner lots on that intersection.
This is one area where you're experiencing the real-world effects of not enough capitalism. We've NIMBY'd our way into a cumulative shortage of a couple million homes between all the places with worthwhile jobs, not really alleviated much by a million or so near-worthless teardowns in places with no jobs. The industry would be happy to build more but draconian land-use restrictions prevent much of it. So anyone lucky enough to have either buildable land near jobs or a habitable home (that they don't live in) can pretty much ask whatever they want and get it.
As soon as our final issues are resolved and I won't be shooting myself in the foot by talking about it, I will go through the process. Cliffs notes: we basically paid $200 a square foot plus the property and $75k in barn improvements to live in the middle of nowhere, and I'm glad we did.
Damn... $200 a square foot. I'm paying nearly twice that to rebuild in the central city, and I bet your finishes are probably nicer than mine.
As you know I'm just not a "middle of nowhere" guy but that makes you think.
My 2001 home cost me $242k including the lot. 2600 square feet, solid surfaces, wood floors, 9 foot ceilings. Those were the days!
One of my business associates had to cancel his prefab home when they raised his /ft from $350 to $425. $200 is a dream. He his getting killed paying rent on his condo and mortgage on his lot.
Ryan Homes is definitely dreck! I’m in a Ryan condo three blocks from my folks’ Ryan colonial. There’s not one wall that is plumb, and the basements leak like sieves and cost a metric shit-ton to correct!
I use a much more expensive screw driver these days. It's called a 'screw gun' :-)
Seriously I use a dewalt screw gun / drill (portable) for damn near everything. I've built shops with them, I use them to build guitars. I rarely touch a screwdriver anymore by comparison. I'd say this is due to age (I'm in my 60's now) but I started using one in my early 50's and just never went back.
Nowadays I have one in the shop and one in the house.
Before the dewalt B&D used to make a smaller rechargeable one that looked a lot like the snap-on you're showing in this article. Oh how I miss THAT! It was small, powerful, reliable and rebuilt two Fieros and I can't remember how many motorcycles. I should've had a funeral for it when it died because they don't make 'em like that anymore and all of the other 'small' rechargeable screw guns suck by comparison. All of them have a hinge in the middle instead of being just a straight solid hand grip.
Yeah the hinge doesn't make any sense if your wrist is strong enough to resist what is a modest torque at best.
Off topic... I finished Wolf Killer last night. Thoroughly enjoyable book, thanks.
Thanks!
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.
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.
Jonny Sins? Say it ain’t so!
For all I know, he helped gobble the knobs!
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.
I keep hearing the joke about buying a rental car...
"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.
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'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.
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?
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.
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’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.
Snap-On must be using the same pricing guide as Porsche and H&K.
As someone who was shooting HK in the Nineties I don't think they hate their customers... I think the German side of it is genuinely confused at the idea of a massive civvy market. It's like the way the Japanese race Dodge vans or something. The USA dudes are sharp and switched on to the point where they are openly recommending TommyBuilt rifles on social media.
Also as a multiple customer for both Porsche and HK I will say that HK stuff keeps getting better while Porsche just keeps getting more fake and lame.
I'm under 65, but I bought my 993 before prices went stratospheric. I couldn't buy one these days... and I'm not sure I'd want to if I could.
Porsche has two customers nowadays; women and bitch-made men who think their SUV is a "sports car", and dudes who are absolutely obsessed with racetracks and racing but who have little to no experience and therefore just want to be see owning the best...
...the same way I want a full rack of Snap-On tools so I can botch a idle air control adjuster install on my Grand Marquis!
HK's C-Suite is smoking crack. Do you have any idea how many semiauto G36s they could sell here every year?
I just want to blow ten grand on semi-auto versions of HKs to satisfy my childhood self and his obsession with HK and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six.
And how!
You can do what my son does... airsoft with a select fire MP7!
Heck- I’d be willing to pay the ridiculous ask for the UMP 45 if they’d put a real stock on it instead of that thumb hole p.o.s. It’s like the assault weapons ban never ended.
According to my brother-in-law, the guy in the Snap-On truck he occasionally bought from would always say, "This tool saves you money by saving you time!" He never could explain just how a $100 Snap-On tool saved more time than, say, a $30 Icon tool, but there it is.
"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.
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.
Hmm. I did not know I need this. Dammit, Jack...
Honest question though: given the amount of, ahem, screwing you're doing lately, why not use a drill driver? I concede that I'm lazy and usually reach for the 12-volt Milwaukee with a bit driver.
That's what Danger Girl does, but I am always wary of damaging a part.
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.
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.
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.
! "Poppers" ?! I've not heard about those since the 1970's jack ~ are they still party favors for hippies or only gay folks now ? .
This tool makes me think of my 70 year old American made "Yankee Screwdriver" .
I'm not fond of ratcheting screwdrivers but I'll keep an eye out for one of these or a Williams used, I'm sure to find one sans bits making it worthless to the average tool seller .
You're so right about getting old and repetitive motions being painful .
I can't wait to read your article about tool boxes, I have three rollaways jammed full plus a Craftsman two drawer traveling box that had almost every tool I ever needed to fix air cooled VW's in it .
My best rollaway is an old Kennedy I bought for $125 in 1984 .
I'm laughing in the coffee shop, folks are looking at me but I have some really weird memories of poppers, parties and assorted miscreants .
-Nate
I actually, ah, just saw a video where a six foot tall redhead has to use poppers to comfortably accommodate her boyfriend the way he wants to be accommodated. I had to freeze and rewind. IS THAT BROAD USING POPPERS?
Apropos of this discussion - I became familiar with the history of poppers in the gay scene thanks to Niccolo Soldo's exploration of the early HIV years and it's not for the faint of heart.
Fisted by Foucault, indeed.
The scary thing about the intersection of drugs and perversion/kink is that you're never really too old to enjoy it. So it's not like the scene will make the decision on your behalf. You have to make the conscious decision to walk away. At which point the whole world looks like a television signal dropped back down to black and white.
I have some grudging respect for the PnP crowd, both gay and straight. They're pursuing the strongest possible sensations with no shame. I was always too much of a housecat to really make it work. Brother Bark on the other hand is basically Christine McVie in 1978.
Yeah, but wasn't that what got people in trouble in the Hellraiser movies?
I never saw them!
O-kay then .
I'm way behind the times, never really enjoyed watching what I can't have .
Easier to get what one needs locally .
6' tall ! wow, I prefer my ladies short & sweet .
Sassy too .
-Nate
I had a six-foot redhead when I met my current wife, and couldn't keep them both.
My ex is a 5'11" redhead and I couldn't keep her.
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.
I have one or two of these laying around somewhere, it is the most precise ratcheting screwdriver I own, and worth it
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
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.
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.
Bucking _FRILLIANT_ ! .
I keep telling you alls this is like FREE TRADE SCHOOL .
-Nate
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
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/
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 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.
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 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.
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 :)
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!