Ive been wearing the Force Flex pull on boots for years and I just looked them up to reorder a new pair and apparently they are discontinued.
What do you guys recommend as an alternative? They were literally the most comfortable work boots ive ever worn. I like pull on or BOA laces and I work on concrete with lots of kneeling
Several months ago I started a shop remodel and I listed off the tools and whatnot I have in my shop and I asked for input on useful purchases to add during the remodel (big or small). One thing a couple of guys mentioned was a decent rolling cart for moving tools and material around the shop. At first I was like "yeah, whatever, its not that big of a deal to make a couple of trips occasionally" but awhile back I bought a harbor freight cart on a whim and let me tell you, TOTAL. GAME. CHANGER.
I use that stupid cart for everything and it has quickly become my most used item in the shop. I recently put HVAC in my shop and i've been making a real effort to keep it clean since the remodel and if I have parts to clean or whatever, i'll just toss them on the cart and wheel them outside and clean them. I dont have a big shop but its about 1000sqft and I have multiple different stations for different tasks (ex; chop saw does all of my 90 cuts, bandsaw does all of my 45, vertical bandsaw does odd angles, belt grinder deburrs, smooth top table for small part assembly, welding fixture table for heavy welding, etc) and its no big deal just to toss whatever I have on my cart and wheel from station to station. Hell, there's been plenty of times I do full assembly right on that stupid cart when my bench is 15 feet away.
Anyway, to whoever told me my shop needed a cart, thank you.
To those of you who dont have a cart, get one, itll change your life.
Hi all,
I have a thing for pneumatic tools, I love the sound, I love that they're lightweight, most of all, I love that they never get hot. I have my shop set up to easily use pneumatic tools everywhere but I feel like my collection is lacking!
Currently I have;
Thats it.
I have a lot of battery powered tools but id love some suggestions for pneumatic tools that are useful for metalworking.
Thanks!
Hi all,
I have a thing for pneumatic tools, I love the sound, I love that they're lightweight, most of all, I love that they never get hot. I have my shop set up to easily use pneumatic tools everywhere but I feel like my collection is lacking!
Currently I have;
Thats it.
I have a lot of battery powered tools but id love some suggestions for pneumatic tools that are useful for metalworking.
Thanks!
I have a bunch of nice and relatively flat 3/8 - 3/4 inch plate that ive accumulated over the years from the scrap yard and I can make really nice and sturdy tables quickly and easily and I want to use up some of this plate making tables and selling them on marketplace.
I made a test table the other day and I used a wire cup to get the heavy surface rust off and then used the Hercules 7in fiber discs in 30 and 60 grit to knock all of the scale off and get it down to shiny metal. Each pack is around $15 and I used 2 full packs and it took about 3 hours to process a 7.5ft by 3ft plate. The time investment isnt great but the biggest issue was that the fiber pads left a bunch of swirl marks in the plate randomly. Sometimes I could go a full pad and get no swirls and then sometimes it was swirl and swirl and I couldnt figure out why. If I wasnt going to sell these then I really wouldnt care and its going to be sold as a welding table, so its going to get used anyway but I want to put forth the most professional looking product I can.
TL;DR - What do you use to knock rust and mill scale off of large pieces of plate and leave a relatively nice finish. Thanks!
This isn't necessarily an "ask" post but some input would be good. I've installed a few mini splits in different buildings around my property. They're the units where refrigerant is already in the unit and the only thing that needs to be done is have a vacuum pulled on the freon line and the refrigerant released into the line. I have an AC guy that I normally use who lives down the road and works in my area a lot and he charges around $100 to pull a vacuum and leak test the fittings, and just take a quick look over the install, it takes him about 20 minutes but hes super busy right now and said cant get to it for a couple of weeks. I can not stress enough that the unit is completely installed, it just needs a vacuum and leak test.
Yesterday, I called around to a few places that are within a 5 mile radius of my property, I know its not a big job so I only called places nearby so they dont have to drive far and can just work me into their schedule when convenient for them. The average price was $500-600 and 2 guys wanted over $900 to pull a vacuum and leak test the fittings. They all prefaced their pricing with "we will have you sign a waiver that there is no warranty" (which is completely understandable) and then in the next breath "the cost is $500/$600/$950 because of the liability of working on a unit we didnt install". I mean, what is the waiver for if you're worried about the "liability" of working on a unit you didnt install?
Obviously my expectation of what this should cost is incorrect because if im averaging quotes of $500 then that must be the rate but I think its absolutely wild that HVAC guys are asking $500 to pull a vacuum on a preinstalled unit. I did find 2 guys who will do it for $200 but my AC guy called me this morning and said he should be able to fit me in later today or tomorrow.
Anyway, im still dumbfounded and more like "wtf?" than anything else. If i didn't have my normal AC guy, id just buy the stupid tool and do it myself but I also like having a HVAC guy take a look at the unit and just make sure everything is squared away.
Like I said, im not really "asking" anything besides, "what the hell are these guys thinking?".
Edit- i've been informed that "leak testing" means something different to you guys. Leak testing is filling the system with nitrogen. The system I buy ships full of nitrogen, when I say "leak test" I mean just testing the 2 brass fittings on the copper freon line for leaks after the refrigerant is released and snugging the fitting down if its leaking. My mistake for using the wrong vernacular
Let me start by saying this doesn't apply to everyone and I understand that we have gotten the financial short end of the stick for most of our lives, and this is a complex and nebulous issue, blah blah blah.
Let me start off by saying that I am fully willing to admit that I am probably a bit out-of-touch because more well-off than the vast majority of people, my net worth is in the low 8 figures, it wasn't always this way, but its Friday night and im doing what i've done the majority of my Friday nights my entire life, having a quiet night at home while my wife is at a baby shower, so im going to shitpost on reddit, lol. I'll also be the first to admit that im probably strange, im a middle-aged millennial but I didn't get a cellphone until around 2010, and despite my financial status, I live in a very modest home in a normal neighborhood and prior to a couple of years ago, drove the same vehicle for the last 10 years (that was well into "depreciated" territory when I bought it). Also, my wording may be a bit strange, this is a heavily moderated sub by the automod, im just trying to keep it from nuking my post.
I just started thinking about this because there are quite a few people in my life who I love dearly and who I help out financially from time to time and almost all of their issues stem from a love of convenience and instant gratification. Almost every person that I know that has problems financially almost can not help themselves when it comes to things like Starbucks, door dash, purchasing things when they're not on sale, or owning cars that are more than just 4 wheels and an engine to get you from point A to B. Let's not even get started on people vices like drugs and alcohol. Money short this month? Not too short to stop by the head shop and the bar on the way home on Friday night.
Maybe its just the times shifting and the advent of technology rewiring our brains but I feel like the previous generations did not have these issues in nearly the numbers that we do now. My mom was the coupon queen, she didn't buy ANYTHING unless it was on sale. While im not that bad, my TV in the living room died a couple of months ago... guess what? That motherfucker didn't get replaced until 4th of July weekend when BestBuy had a sale on TV's. Going out to eat? Forget about it, we went once a month, if that. My Grandma? Lived like it was still the Great Depression until the early 00's.
Times are definitely different now, convenience is so ingrained into our lives that we don't even think about it anymore. Groceries? Push a button and they appear at your doorstep (for a fee). Want to see the newest release? Push a button on your tv and you can (for a fee). Hungry but dont feel like cooking? Drive 5 minutes to the local McDonald's and eat "food" for 4x what it would cost to eat at home. Going on a road trip? Buy everything from a gas station (for a markup) instead of packing a cooler with snacks from Costco or Sam's.
Even when I was making $6.25/hr stocking shelves in my 20's or when I worked 80+ hours a week for like 10 years straight, I still meal prepped every sunday. I rarely went out partying (like 2x a year), when I did, never more than 1 drink. I ate fast food like once every 2 months and went on a date night with my wife like 1-2x a month to a restaurant. Hell, im wearing jeans right now that could drink if they were a person and they have been patched more times than I can count but they still work just fine. I have a friend who thinks im crazy for always getting my stuff patched up instead of throwing them out.
Admittedly, I don't know a lot of people but the biggest difference that i've noticed with my (small) group of financially stable friends vs the (larger) group that isnt? The ones that are the most financially stable almost never pay for convenience and the ones that have money problems love their conveniences. Financial stability is independent of income in this case . I have a friend that makes $200k/yr and barely has 2 nickels to rub together (door dash and starbucks everyday) and I have other friends that are very blue collar, $50k/yr type guys who sack lunch it everyday and are doing just fine.
As I said, the financial issue isnt black and white, but I do think a big part of it is a millennial and gen Z culture issue, we are the most convenience addicted people i've ever met and companies are capitalizing on it and we don't even notice (or care, usually). I definitely think the previous generations have a point when they say "if you'd stop it with the $8 coffee and $20 lunches everyday, you'd have a lot more money than you do now"
This is a nothing post, its just to bitch about my first world problems. I have a small welding shop of roughly 1500sqft, one half of the shop is where all of my cutting is and a big open space for working on trailers or whatever Im working on that is large and already build and just in need of repair, it has 15ft high ceilings.
My shop is old and im currently on the back end of a full remodel, i've replaced most things that needed repair (roof, walls, insulation, doors, added hvac, new lighting, new fridge that actually works, lol, etc.)
My shop is divided into 2 large bays, 1 bay has 15 ft ceilings, 1 bay has 10 ft ceilings, the bay that has my fixture table has 10ft ceilings and making that side have matching 15ft ceilings was a lot more money and way more city inspections than I was willing to fuck with.
Well, I have all of this nice HVAC and 68 degree air and I need fume extraction over my fixture table because I cant just open the bay doors anymore. Finding something for the 15ft ceilings was no problem whatsoever. finding something for the 10ft ceilings has been a month-long exercise in frustration because nothing I find works *perfectly* or theres just not enough information out there to determine if its better than the other option that has like 3 pictures and a website description to go off of.
I think I've found something that will work, its just double the cost that I was expecting and im still not 100% sure about it.
Anyway, if you read this far, thanks. Its just always the little stuff that hangs you up and causes problems lol
Hi all,
I post here periodically when im doing shop upgrades and I've received some fantastic advice but I have a pretty obscure one that I need help with now.
I recently did a full renovation to my shop, new roof, interior/exterior walls, insulation, HVAC, lighting, paint, the works. I used to weld with the doors open but now I have that sweet sweet 68* air to keep inside and im installing a fume extractor to extract the weld smoke.
I just need an articulating arm, not one of those full systems that sends the smoke through filters or whatever, im going to mount the arm above my 8.5x4.5 fixture table and another one in my grinding/cutting room. They will each have their own fans and just do a straight run of 8" metal ductwork and vent out of the exterior wall.
I've been using chatGPT to help narrow down my choices, so far it looks like the basic FumeDogg model (not the premium) is the most bang for my buck but I am definitely open to suggestions. Im not trying to break the bank but i've already spent a couple of dozen monies on this remodel and I dont want to cheap out and get an inferior product.
Any input on this would be helpful but as I said, I also know a lot of people dont have extractors and this is kind of an obscure subject
Hi all,
I post here periodically when im doing shop upgrades and I've received some fantastic advice but I have a pretty obscure one that I need help with now.
I recently did a full renovation to my shop, new roof, interior/exterior walls, insulation, HVAC, lighting, paint, the works. I used to weld with the doors open but now I have that sweet sweet 68* air to keep inside and im installing a fume extractor to extract the weld smoke.
I just need an articulating arm, not one of those full systems that sends the smoke through filters or whatever, im going to mount the arm above my 8.5x4.5 fixture table and another one in my grinding/cutting room. They will each have their own fans and just do a straight run of 8" metal ductwork and vent out of the exterior wall.
I've been using chatGPT to help narrow down my choices, so far it looks like the basic FumeDogg model (not the premium) is the most bang for my buck but I am definitely open to suggestions. Im not trying to break the bank but i've already spent a couple of dozen monies on this remodel and I dont want to cheap out and get an inferior product.
Any input on this would be helpful but as I said, I also know a lot of people dont have extractors and this is kind of an obscure subject
Let me preface this by saying that I spend 2-4 months a year in my RV but i've never used it during summer. I've always avoided summer because I dont like bugs, I dont like crowds, and I dont like children. I always camp in the western states and finished the last leg of the trip in Colorado
I recently got back from a trip that was scheduled for 2 months but ran a little long and into went into June. Camping during the summer is SO much worse than I imagined. I had to run the generator/AC almost all the time because it was so warm, which was a huge pain in the ass. I couldn't leave the RV and go on long hikes because I was afraid something might happen and the generator might die or the AC might shut off and it was wayyy too warm for my bunny and I was afraid she might overheat and die. The crowds are so bad, everywhere. But the absolute worst part of it all was my bathroom smelled like ass, I guess when its 90+ outside the black tank just stews in its own disgusting juices and it absolutely REEKED.
I dont know how you people that RV during "camping season" do it... it sucks so bad and is like 1/10th the fun of camping during any other season
Good. Fuck him.
Or are people just not as shocked as I am with the Mr. Beast pics getting released? He went from looking like a handsome dude in his late 30's to a slightly above average 50 year old.
My mind was blown
A few days ago, I posted some of my gear on the hikinggear sub and a lot of the ultralight people were absolutely crucifying my stuff.
I have tried a mountain of different packs and gear setups and ultimately, I found that a 4.5lb 85L pack is super comfortable for large camping trips (I dont ever fill it up but the 85L and 70L are the same weight so I bought the bigger one) and for day hikes I use a 3.5Lb 30L pack. Both of my packs are made by the same company and they use an big thick cushioned 1.5lb kidney belt that can interchange between the two packs.
I've tried a lot of ultralight packs and they just arent very comfortable for me... I guess what im wondering is, do you people who are actually super into ultralight gear find it to be just as or more comfortable than heaver/studier/more cushioned stuff or does your satisfaction come from the fact that your pack just doesnt weigh much and you can move faster?
Im strongly considering getting a SXS for me and my wife to take on trails when we go out west.
Currently, I have a RV, which I use as a "basecamp" and then I take my motorcycle out on day rides or the very occasional overnight but my wife cant go with me because im not a skilled enough rider to 2 up down trails or even on paved roads, for that matter, lol.
I've been curious how the SXS camping is? I would imagine its a lot like moto camping and the only issue would be that some areas are more accessible with 2 wheels instead of 4 but do you guys have any tips/tricks/ or gear recommendations?
Im planning on mainly just using the same gear we use backpacking but I might take a couple of luxuries like a cot
I was in Moab recently and I kept seeing these super small SXS's around. They look like a large go-cart, smaller than one of those baja buggy's and smaller than most SXS's that I see. They basically only have 2 seats and a small back area for coolers and whatnot.
I've tried googling them and Im not finding much info, any help would be appreciated. Thanks
edit- I should also say that theyre obviously not custom built and arent those crazy looking rock crawler things. The best way I can put it is like the go-cart I had when I was a kid on steroids and made for offroad
Let me preface this by saying that I dont normally hike in national parks or anywhere where theres people (usually). My day hiking pack is a hill people gear conner backpack this with a prarie belt here and a chest rig here THE BELT VELCRO'S TO THE BAG AND BECOMES LOAD BEARING, ITS NOT A SEPARATE BELT/BAG .
My bear spray and knife just live on my belt, my chest rig holds my 2 phones (one for pics and the other for audiobooks/backup) and earbuds and inReach and my pack always has a wind breaker, puffy vest, and fire kit, medical kit, and usually trek poles but I didnt take them this time.
I recently went hiking in one of the national parks in utah, its been quite awhile since i've been hiking in a NP, but I was in the area. I just put 3 liters of water and a couple of snacks in my bag and threw on my gear, as usual. my whole pack, including water was probably 18lbs.
I hiked about 10 miles, none of it really remote but there were a few places where I didnt see another person for awhile but when I passed people I can not tell you how many people looked at me all crazy-eyed. I had several people say shit like "oh, there sure are a lot of BEARS AROUND HERE" and other stupid shit like that about the gear I had on, "are you out here on a day hike or going into the wilderness for a week?"
I politely, but firmly, told people that I normally hike in more remote areas and im not changing my gear out to come hike in a NP because my gear is quite comfortable
I also wear full-coverage clothing and I saw countless people who were burnt to a crisp wearing shorts and a t-shirt, no hat, carrying a tiny bottle of water.
There's no real point to this post other than to vent a little bit about people being shitty for the gear I was wearing, I wanted to tell a couple of the "OH THE BEARS" people to go fuck themselves, but I didnt.
Im also a little jealous of the people that live in ignorance about how quickly disaster can happen in the bush. I have passed several people on long day hikes in remote areas that have virtually nothing with them and they're just boppin along without a care in the world and somehow they're fine. It makes me wonder if I overdo the gear but I really think I only bring, what I consider the essentials on day hikes. Water, warmth, wind protection, fire, medical, satellite, bear spray (for people and animals), and a good knife
Reading back over this before I post it, I see that it can be a bit confusing. The way I get my final numbers is taking the total cost and dividing it by the average number of days that I actually use my setup (90) and compare that to the same amount of days spent in a hotel. The true cost of an RV isnt what it cost to own each year, its what it cost vs how much time per year you actually use it
Let me start off by saying that i've invested a lot of money upfront in my rig, im also a welder/fabricator so I've custom built a trailer for my needs and I know not everyone can do that. I'm also just killing time while my bunny gets some playtime before we get on the road and do a big driving day.
My rig is a 2022 f-450 king ranch ultimate edition, a northern lite 10-2 limited, a custom built trailer that holds a motorcycle, 2 kayaks, a small gym, a honda 3000 generator in a custom built security box that has intake/exhaust and is baffled to reduce noise, 30 gallons of spare fuel/water, and a toolbox that holds enough tools for most minor to moderate repairs and some misc stuff like recovery gear.
I bought everything new, the truck gets roughly 11-12mpg and I do most of the maintenance myself, including oil changes and it has a 10 year bumper to bumper warranty.
I've also done some small upgrades to the camper, including upgrading the batteries to lithium, I only run the generator for prolonged periods when running the AC or charging up my big power banks for my truck fridge or gaming.
I have roughly $175,000 invested into my rig, the only time any of this moves is when its going on a trip, otherwise, it stays parked at home. We travel for 2-4 months per year, all over the western U.S. (I saw "we", my wife joins me for usually 3-4 weeks at a time and then flies home and then it's just me and the bun). Trips are usually not longer than 8 weeks in a stretch.
We eat out maybe once per week (or 10 days), its usually a hamburger, the rest of the time I plan our trips to line up with Costco's every couple of weeks so we can restock, but, we do buy fresh produce about once or twice a week.
We boondock pretty much 100% of the time and maybe pay for RV dumps/water once a month if we stayed somewhere for a few days and want to say "thank you" or if it would cost more in fuel to find a dump station but most of the time we dump/fill for free and we are still able to maintain pretty strict hygiene standards, full showers every other day and a whore bath after a hike if it doesnt line up on shower days.
What i'm getting at is that we do not experience an increase cost for anything other than fuel and accompanying vehicle maintenance and laundromats 2x a month, no gym membership, no extra eating out, no renting a kayak or atv to go explore, no campgrounds, nothing. Full-coverage insurance for the rv, truck, motorcycle averages about $2500/yr, fuel cost averages about $200/wk, maintenance is around $250/mo (calculated for every month vs just 3 months/yr for the hotel calculation) for everything.
So, over a 10 year period (which is about how long im planning on keeping this setup), initial investment + montly maintenance + yearly insurance + $200/wk fuel for 3 months a year, its about $254k over 10 years, lets add an additional $21k to that because im sure im forgetting some things, grand total of my (very comfortable) setup is around $275k of investment over 10 years of ownership. Using it on average of 3 months a year, it cost me roughly $9,000 a month for each month of usage.
Compare that to staying in a hotel for 90 days a year — say the average hotel is $200/day (I dont stay in crappy hotels and i've taken a couple of trips to the midwest in the last couple of years and hotels averaged higher than $200 each night but im lowballing it a bit), thats roughly $180k over 10 years, I did $40/day for me and my wife to eat out, in the RV, it costs roughly $15-$20/day for us to eat but when we traveled in a hotel it cost around $50-70 each day for us to eat (im a giant, just fyi), so for easy numbers I just used $40 as our average daily food budget, which comes out to $36k over 10 years, $100/wk for fuel is $12k, I just used my daily driver (2025 ford maverick AWD hybrid) as the travel vehicle and factored in $150/mo for increased maintenance for 3 months a year, is $4500.
So, $180k for hotel + $36k food + $12k fuel + $4500 maintenance = $232,500 is $7750/mo BUT I added an additional $20000 for rentals of kayaks, atv's and just misc added cost that im sure I forgot about = $8400 for each month of staying in a hotel and driving my own vehicle and renting other peoples equipment.
Conclusion — If I use my RV for 90 days a year and boondock virtually that whole time, the increased cost of the RV and all of my toys that I take with me everywhere is only about $600/mo for each month of usage more than it would be staying in a hotel and using my daily driver. I get to cook my own food, crap in my own toilet, sleep in my own bed, and stay out in nature as long as I want, etc.
ALL OF THAT BEING SAID — IF YOU DONT PLAN ON USING YOUR RV FOR SEVERAL MONTHS A YEAR OR KEEPING IT FOR SEVERAL DECADES, DO NOT SPEND A LOT OF MONEY ON ONE BECAUSE YOU ARE JUST ABSOLUTELY SCREWING YOURSELF OVER FINANCIALLY
Im not a big social media guy anymore, honestly, the vast majority of my internet usage nowadays is Reddit, Youtube, Snapchat (that has like 20 people on it) and email and I think that about it.
I put my FB to sleep about 10 years ago and I decided to log in and see what people were up to and ho-lee-shit, what a dumpster fire.
So, first off, the majority of my facebook friends have either died, shut their FB down, or removed my inactive profile so my feed was pretty silent. After about a week of my profile being back in the algorithm I started getting friend request from people I used to work with, went to school with, or friends of old acquaintances (which is terrifying that facebook knows about random people I used to work with 12 years ago who I had a passing "hi, hows your day" relationship with) and I started getting friend requested and I was like "fuck it" and just started accepting them.
Fuck man, whenever I see all the hate for this or that group and all the political bullshit that gets posted on reddit, I just brush it off as bots trained to sow dissent but the stuff that gets posted by real living, breathing human beings who I once knew well enough to be friends with or have polite conversation with is WILD. I mean, like so much hate and vitriol started coming across my feed about a wide array of subjects that it made me genuinely uncomfortable and I started removing people that just added me. Maybe it's what "normal" passes for on the internet and im pretty numb to a lot of the more unhinged opinions and shit-stirring because of so many years on Reddit, but a lot of what was being posted really opened my eyes that a lot of the "unhinged" stuff that I see online isnt just bot farms, its real people who truly believe this wild shit.
Anyway - maybe its a sign of my age... but unless what I consider "normal" people start coming across my FB feed soon, I dont think im going to be logging in for much longer
Let me start off by saying that I LOVE my KLR, its a beautiful bike, I get compliments on it often, I have a lot of customization to fit my large frame comfortably, its my first bike and I feel like its super beginner friendly.
Now on to the bad — when I got the bike, I had grand ideas of taking the bike on semi-touring adventures where I do a lot of highway riding and a lot of forest service roads, covering miles and miles and camping under the stars.
In reality, the bike does a TON of touring, just on a trailer thats attached to the back of my RV. I use my RV as a "home base" and take the bike out on day adventures and come "home" at night pretty much 100% of the time. I invested a lot into bike camping and have used it precisely zero times.
In the same vein of "day adventures", im a lot more aggressive with going offroad than I ever thought id be, I do a lot of 2 track trails and very few graded forest service roads, if something looks interesting, I ride it because im not worried about being delayed because im never more than 20-30 miles from home base.
Im a large and fit individual, picking the bike up off the side of the trail, no problem. Recently i've had 2 instances that really make me really regret my KLR, I dropped my bike on a FS road that had about a foot of ice covered snow on it. Idk if any of you have picked this fat pig up on ice, its about as fun as it sounds.
The second is that i've been riding in Nevada lately, the sandy soil is extremely tiring to ride on and I fucked up and got my bike stuck in a semi dry creek bed, if the bike was smaller I could have pulled it out of the mud but the KLR was just too big and heavy to get out by myself. It turned into a two day ordeal and several hundred dollars to get it out.
I also find the bike hard to control on steep descents sometimes, its just so heavy that its hard to maneuver quickly.
As I was riding my mud/muck covered bike back to the truck tonight, I couldn't help but think maybe motorcycles arent for me and I should sell it and get a SXS (then I could go out with the wife) or that maybe the KLR isnt for me. I dont know