16 December 2010

Got more stuff done

Got the rest of the shelves hung. Annoyingly, Home Depot sells 8" shelf brackets but no 8" deep shelves. What's up with that? Thankfully I now have a moderately equipped workbench, so I was able to cut 2" off some 10" shelves without much drama. Actually I'm a bit ashamed I'm even buying premade shelves instead of cutting my own from plywood and painting them, but really, I am very very motivated to get the Jetta done (have I mentioned that before?) and it's faster this way.

As you can see, there are shelves above and shelves below. And that's not all the shelves -- those white wire racks you see are going to be additional shelving above the black shelves. And the side wall to the right? It, too, will eventually hold more shelves. Seriously, we have a lot of stuff, and only some of it will go away once I finish this Jetta.

Speaking of the Jetta, I went to assemble my pistons and connecting rods the other night and discovered the rod bolts I ordered years ago were the wrong size... ugh. So it's back to the dealership for me. :( And I used my fancy new work bench to try to adjust the valves on the cylinder head, only to realize I was lacking a ton of shims in my set and had to order a bunch more online. So now I am waiting on two batches of parts!

Anyway, if you looked closely or clicked the pic, you may have noticed the 5 shelves stacked mere inches apart on the far right. These have a kind of rubber non-slip grid on them so they can be used to hold lathe tooling -- as the lathe is on the right side of the bench, the tools will be in easy reach there. The cost of the tooling will easily exceed the cost of the lathe once I get going with it, and will no doubt fill those shelves and then some. A person can spend just as much time making tools to make things, as he does actually making things. Not only that, this cheap lathe has a lot of warts from the factory so there are a bunch of parts to machine for the lathe before it ever starts making actual products! Indeed, I expect to have just as much fun polishing and accessorizing this little lathe as I will making flashlights -- I already have a list of enhancements to make to it as soon as the Jetta is done.

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