Ned Harr

John F Dean wrote:Any input on Performax tools?   That is the house brand sold by Menards.  Menards is largely in the upper Midwest with a few outlying stores.

If these are power tools, I would recommend against only because that locks you into a very localized ecosystem. While I like shopping at menards and have found many good products there, i don’t have a sense that their house brands are especially good quality. Some Menards materials I’ve bought have been especially low-quality.

I thought nanotechnology is a system that can be viewed in its entirety on the nanometer scale, just as microtechnology (e.g. a MEMS gyroscope) is a system that can be viewed on the micron scale.

Wikipedia tells me Forget-me-nots have the smallest pollen, with each grain just a few micrometers across—but that would be thousands of nanometers. So that is an example, at least, of microbiology rather than nano biology.

I have made this recommendation before, and it’s worth making again here: if Earthships have captured your imagination then also check out the book “Hacking the Earthship”, which critiques the Earthship but brings its concepts back down to, uh, earth, and offers ideas for better ways to apply them.

Eric Hanson wrote:Lots of helpful opinions & information here.  Here is a basic list of 18v tools I want to acquire:

Compact Drill/Driver (NOT hammer drill)
Impact/oil impulse driver
Circular saw
Sawzall
Maybe a Torque Wrench

Other Goodies:
Lighting
Holzall
16” Chainsaw (might bump this up)



Eric

In my experience an oscillating saw is way more useful & effective, and adaptable to different situations, than a sawzall (reciprocating saw). I’d recommend that instead, unless maybe you have some good reason to the contrary.

Steve Zoma wrote:

Ned Harr wrote:I had a bad experience with a Dewalt cordless drill in my young days (batteries stopped taking a charge after less than a year) so I swore off cordless for years. Apparently in the interim the technology improved.

Funny story Ned… I jumped started the grid on a Milwaukee M-18 battery about a year ago. True story as crazy as it sounds…

I was working at a hydroelectric station when one of the units kicked off-line and got a call to go in and fix it. Everything was fine, so I restarted the unit but the jenny would not go online. The Motor Operated Potentiometer on the auto-sync was acting up. Voltage swings were so high that it would not allow the auto-sync to phase in with the grid. It being early Saturday and with no help, and nothing to lose, not to mention high power prices; I took a M-18 Milwaukee battery, connected a wire to the outlet lugs of the battery and dialed the MOP to where I was getting 4160 volts out of the auto-sync.

Bang…and I mean BANG!

It shook the whole dam, all 88,000 cubic yards of dam as the phasing was not quite right when she dropped in with the grid, but it went, did not throw the protective relays to my utter surprise and jacked the grid by another 8 megawatts for the weekend.

It was fine as long as it was running and not trying to sync, but for whatever reason it would not motor the MOP to the right voltage. Using the battery (18 volts on a 24 volt control circuit) you could dial it in using the ohms reading on a fluke meter to get it to where it would drop in with the grid. I no longer work there but the last I know they were still doing that to put the unit number two online.

Crazy times, but one tale to tell the grandchildren someday.

Wow, that’s nuts!

Kinda reminds me, these past several days I’ve been working in an office building, pulling wire over a high (20-30’) drop ceiling. I have to navigate my hydraulic lift around chairs and cubicles and other furniture, as well as lights and speakers and acoustic baffles and stuff hanging from the ceiling, and around office workers because this is an actively used space!

And I’m doing it mostly on my own, and the space above the ceiling is full of obstacles like ducts and beams and sprinkler pipes and tons of old existing wiring. So my wires get caught and I have to go back and forth, back and forth, untangling, pulling a little more, going back, untangling…

Each time I move my lift I have to watch out for the aforementioned obstacles. It is brutally slow and very stressful.

Still, looking down at the office workers I’m reminded of my previous career which was very much like theirs. Sitting at a computer doing mostly nothing (they scroll on their phones most of the day—I’ve watched them!), strolling over to someone else’s cubicle for a chat, wandering over to a table to do a bit of a jigsaw puzzle…and it makes me realize what an unfulfilling waste of time that job mostly felt like, and especially what it looks like now from the outside.

In the middle of our day yesterday, a coworker asked which career I prefer: my previous one (UX researcher) or this one (electrician). I said, “this one and it’s not even close!” It’s so much more fulfilling, and even after a long stressful, physically taxing day, once those wires are in place I go home with joy and the feeling of having really accomplished something.

I had a bad experience with a Dewalt cordless drill in my young days (batteries stopped taking a charge after less than a year) so I swore off cordless for years. Apparently in the interim the technology improved.

Now my boss uses all “yellow” so that’s what I use too, and I like them a lot. They are tough (survive much abuse), the batteries hold up and keep recharging, and the tools themselves work great and are well designed.

But I am not a brand loyalist. I have no emotional attachment to Dewalt and I’m sure Milwaukee or Bosch or whomever else have technology that is competitive.

From just glancing around it seems like Milwaukee makes a wider variety of power tools—like, a gadget to do this, a gadget to do that—but I could be wrong, and Dewalt makes all the gadgets to do all the things I need to do at least.

It does seem like most serious professionals use either red or yellow power tools. Blue, orange, and lime green are for home DIYers. Bosch is for hobbyists. Possibly other brands are more popular in other trade niches like framing or plumbing that I’m less in contact with, but electricians, HVAC, and elevator guys all seem to coalesce around Dewalt or Milwaukee. I presume that’s because the wisdom of crowds has determined these are the best/most durable/etc. brands for that type of work, but then again crowds can be wrong. Who knows.

And then of course when it comes to non-power tools or corded tools, yeah go with whatever. My pouch of pliers, screwdrivers, and cutters is a mix of Klein, Ideal, Knipex, and Channellock.

Depends on the instrument. For example a cello has a much taller bridge than a violin, and under higher string tension, and so bridge warping is more of an issue to look out for on cellos than on violins. With mandolins and guitars you have frets to deal with—are they cut properly, are they worn, etc. Tuners on a classical guitar operate differently and may have different issues from tuners on a folk guitar.

So in the absence of more detailed information, I would say play the instrument, making sure your left hand is feeling up and down the neck, paying attention to how it sounds and feels. Consider things like whether it’s intonated properly, whether there are any “dead” notes, and whether it ever feels awkward or like your hand is getting scratched by something, etc.

Also keep in mind—this is more true for electric string instruments but still mostly true of acoustic instruments—everything is fixable.

I have successfully talked my HOA into transforming the two communally-owned lots at the entrance of our neighborhood into native/perennial/pollinator gardens, instead of the grass treated with weedkillers and planted with decorative-who-knows-what that they are right now. Ideally it would become something requiring zero or almost-zero maintenance.

So, I am looking for bids. Deadline for bids is mid-March! Work would be done in the spring of course. Please PM me if you are interested, or leave a comment if you have further questions or want to tell me something you think I should know.

The budget is probably going to be in the neighborhood of $1000 but could be a bit higher; basically right now we pay $3000 a year for someone to mow, mulch, weed, and spray chemicals on these two lots plus a much bigger football-field-sized one elsewhere in the neighborhood, so I'm hoping $1000 can take care of just these two small lots for starters. I have pitched this to the HOA as a cost-saving measure even though I mainly have environmental motivations.

Based on Google maps I estimate the total area of these lots is 5,000 sqft minus the area taken up by signs, the curved edges of the lots, etc. (See image below; I have roughly outlined very approximately where I believe the boundaries are; note scale at bottom right.)

larry kidd wrote:Also be sure to checkout the earthship designs.

And then check out the book “Hacking the Earthship” which contains a thoughtful critique of those designs as well as how its ideas can be more practically and effectively applied.