Joel Bercardin

A local guy was moving, he had a lot of tools he was letting go of. This NAPA 6v/12v auto-battery charger was one. I believe he was hanging onto another similar one. Anyhow, with this charger he'd cut the clamps off, and put a wood-engraving tool end on it instead. He'd just been using it as a DC power source. He gave it to me at no charge.

I brought it home, tested it for output, and it was fine. All I've needed to do was remove the wood-engraver tool, and put new clamps on the output wires. It's still a little dusty, but hey that can be dealt with. LOL

A new one, same make and capacity, sells for $90 or more in my region!

This is a score my partner made, actually. We were driving  90-minutes out of a city we'd had to visit,  through a "middle of nowhere" stretch — British Columbia has a lot of those, through which some fairly major & well-kept highways run. There are a lot of pine forests along this one, some of them burned over by wildfires if recent summers.

There's a little second-had store in one spot, and they manage to collect a lot of things from an extensive but thinly populated area. For the most part it's knick-knacks, old junky paperback novels, overly common kitchen tools of a poorer quality, etc. But my partner has a keen eye. She spotted a tied bundle of fabric, about the size of an old-fashioned bread box. She asked the lone deskminder what it was, and the reply was flannel sheets. How much? $10.

She pawed at it a bit, and the sheets' fabric looked good. So she paid the $10. When we unfolded the bundle at home, it turned out to be fitted double-bed size sheets, in perfect condition... L.L. Bean brand. Online, the Canadian price was $200. (For10 bucks!)

Jesse Glessner wrote:These posts got me to thinking about my Shop and my storage problem.
I'm thinking that a 12 ft X 16 ft shed would just fix the problem.
I'm sure that if I do have it built that it won't be enough storage space!!!

I think you could have a pretty good shop i that space. Not sure what you mean by "shed". For instance, I can imagine a roof atop an open-sided frame. Depending on your climate, an enclosure is usually a good idea. And I'd think electricity would be essential, too.

What do you want to do in a shop? Carpentry related? Fine woodworking? Any metal work & welding? and/or?

I'd love to have one enclosed shop of the dimensions you mention. I could probably do most (maybe not all) of what I need to do in it. I have three work spaces for "shop" type functions, and I wish I had one. No single one of my three offers that floor area. And only one of mine (the smallest) is the only one that I can keep warm in winter. I wind up walking swiftly from one to another to grab or use certain tools.

Show us the inside, when you get it set up, Brian.

On the topic of the Brown Recluse... Two years ago I found an unfamiliar spider in our house, and I remembered images of the Brown Recluse.  I'm not an entomologist, and we don't have a specialist like that in our neighborhood or friendship circle. So I didn't capture, I just killed the spider.

Checking out photos on the internet, that spider definitely resembled a Brown Recluse. Coloring, form, and size range. Then I did a web search for our general region -- not just southern-interior British Columbia, but Washington state that lies just south of the national border. Well, turned out BRs are not common, but not unknown.

So when I spotted a second spider resembling the first, a few days later, I killed it too. Habitat? Most of us live in clearings in the forest around here, with substantial gardens. I made a point of mentioning the spiders I'd found in our home to friends, because of the fact that the BR bite can cause more than pain: it can result in flesh necrosis. I haven't come across any others yet. Hoping they're not proliferating.

Hi. I've been asked by a woman with a small homestead to consider whether I can modify a small C-can that she's acquired for use as a utility building. I'd need to drill holes for fasteners in the can's walls. I have a corded half-inch-drive drill (powerful)... also, for higher rpm, I've got a Makita 18-v cordless.

I'd be using 1/4' carriage bolts. I'm guessing the steel on these cans is pretty tough material. My question is how easy or difficult will the metal be for driving a 5/16" cobalt-steel bit through?  Along with all the materials for the modification, the woman would pay for bits for the task, as beyond 1/4" my cobalts are various random sizes.

Have experience?  Please answer. Thanks.

This may be an unfinished story. Hope so.

Had a single-cylinder, OHV, 7hp Briggs & Stratton rototiller engine breakdown. A friend & I tore the motor down. It was determined, by calling around, that the required crankshaft, connecting rod, seals & gasket would cost $500 (including tax) in our region. I asked about a short-block, but the local shops could not obtain it.

With a short-block, I'd have all the other parts in good condition already, with the exception of new seals & gasket. Started searching online, and found that there are companies in the U.S. that claim to have a service specializing in buying up short-blocks. A kink is, the engine model has been discontinued by Briggs.  

But I found one supplier, Small Engine Surplus, which is probably a division of some larger company. They do business through smallenginesurplus.com. They provide a very lengthy list for Briggs short-blocks that you can search through, using your engine's manufacturing serial number (not .the engine's model number). I found my engine listed, with a price for the short block (under $190 U.S.). They enable you to order & pay online.

But they don't list a phone number. I wanted to make sure they actually had the specific unit in stock, and I wanted to learn where they are geographically located, so that I could get a good idea of the shipping cost. They have a handy little email form you fill out to communicate with their Sales department. So I provided pertinent particulars, and asked for confirmation of availability of the unit, plus the company's location info I wanted, and pressed send. I received an immediate automatic-reply email saying their Sales division got my message.

Well, it's now two weeks later, I sent the Sales dept another email ('cause I had that 'reply' from them, with the email addy)... No communication of substance coming back from this company!

Frustrating!! As we all know, there are way too many scams & empty promises on the internet. So if anybody reading this knows where I can actually get a price on availability & price for that short-block, please do let me know.

Ted Abbey wrote:.. when you pull discarded wheelbarrows out of the dump for spare parts!

Coincidentally, three days ago a neighbour woman brought over a junkyard wheelbarrow (contractor's style) to upgrade, for which she'd taken certain parts from another barrow. She wants help disassembling certain things on the better one, so it can be fitted with the good stuff. It's in the works right now, I've got rust-buster spray on four bolts, plus a plan for reinforcing the frame. Worth doing.

thomas rubino wrote:
My question is the fact they do not mention the file size, one would guess they are 7/32

See those four bits at the top of the pic? To me, they look like they're diamond-coated. The selected bit is spun by a crank, and gradually moves in to the depth of the abrasive. Probably the four bits coincide with the common range of needed "file" diameters.

For decades, I've used a fairly simple file jig for sharpening my chains. Clamps onto the bar. Theres a nut which you trickily adjust with a pair of pliers to switch the file angle for sharpening one row of teeth, then for the other.

I saw a very short video about this gadget, which would eliminate the step of adjusting that nut for the correct angle of approach for the two rows. Looks like an interesting system. One trade name this gadget is sold under is Emery, but there's more than one trade name. It appears simple to use, and the precise sharpening angle (for cross-cutting) appears to be ensured for absolute precision.

In Canada, Amazon is currently selling the kit for $40.  61% of purchaser feedback either 4 or 5-star, with 53% being 5-star.

But has anyone here used one? if so, what do you think of it?