Tool guys let’s talk about what I should do

[Hardartery]

If you had to get one tool for woodworking that is small and can more or less do a little bit of everything, what would it be?

A pocket knife.

[mouse]

If you had to get one tool for woodworking that is small and can more or less do a little bit of everything, what would it be?

A pocket knife.

OK I lied I guess there was an answer.

[mouse]

@Anaphase you don't get to drop questions like "what one tool would you buy for woodworking" or "why are we on this planet" and then bail out of the thread never expanding on the topic ever again.

Those of us who are occasionally bored during the work day are depending on this kind of discussion.

[alek]

Eh, I’d go with a tablesaw I guess.

[EggMcMuffin]

I really do find that the only thing I'm concerned with these days is "why are we on this planet". Perhaps it's so sort of religious trauma due to I Keep Calling But God Won't Answer but I always think to myself a line from a song I quite enjoy, from an album I also quite enjoy, that I also happen to own on tape after having it bought it from a young man of Caucasian persuasion who just happened to live down the street (quite the surprise given that I bought it online). It goes: "God never lived so why should I?"

So, why should I? I was watching Cuba and the Cameraman two nights ago and the make of the film John Alpert climaxes the film with a visit to his decade long friends at the Borregos Ranch. Unfortunately, he finds that all but one of the Borregos siblings has succumbed to old age. The last surviving member of the family notes: "La vida no es nada...empieza feliz, todos estan juntos, y luego con tiempo, todos se van. La vida is duro, muy duro."

Life is nothing. Famous Mexican songwriter Jose Alfredo Jimenez Sandoval has a line in his seminal mid 20th century hit Camino De Guanajuato that goes: "La vida no vale naaaaaadaaaaa...."

Our passage from eternal oblivion is marked by tears and will come to be shuttered with another curtain of tears. End cutscene. I have to unlock the table saw for another customer. 7399 is combo to the locks here, if you know that, you could make out like a bandit. Short staffing keeps profits sky high, and there is never any eyes in here but the robot ones, and who sees through those? Silicon is as dead I will be, Frederico Faggin and his mid life crisis did well enough to assure me of that.

Customer motions to grab the table saw. Greedy little arms, beady little eyes, little dreams but lots of money. It's a $449 DeWalt, hefty, if I were not built like the sturdy bueys of the Borregos family I would have relinquished it in a heartbeat, store policy be damned.

"Sir, I have to walk this up due to loss prevention policies"

The glimmer in his eyes becomes as opaque as the sky in the light pollution of the 10PM parking lots. The stalls look a lot like graves, waiting to be filled.

His little dreams become infinitesimally small, and he says nothing, body language denoting that the time for grabbing with greedy hands is over. It's something we all wish for, to grab and keep grabbing. Flesh sags, fruit rots, trees wither and winter becomes spring and spring becomes winter, all the time wishing that it was just a little more. Fate against your will, as Echo and the Bunnymen would say. Will I be laid up on the cooling board, in eternal repose, the last twitching of the muscles I have had a lifetime of bonding with eking out one little dream, one little expression that says: I did not want to comply with the loss prevention policies of Death, Inc. I want my complex interplay of dialectical biological processes back. From here on out I go into some other form. I was once a small bundle of cells that became a slightly larger bundle of cells. I deadlifted a few things, felt things that no neuroscientific paradigms could reduce to a few diagrams and wrote a few posts the bewildered other bundles of cells, words that only come alive when there is someone to see them, and the life they take is not of their own, but of the reader. Zombified text busting out at you through dead silicon. If I could read, I would have come out with something better, but my indolence precludes me from ever really knowing much about anything. Critique of Pure Reason looks interesting, but I simply Kant now.

Anyway, I want to build a thing to level my hillbilly deadlift platform and I need a way to quickly and easily cut wood in straight lines without too much fuss or taking up too much room

[mouse]

Anyway, I want to build a thing to level my hillbilly deadlift platform and I need a way to quickly and easily cut wood in straight lines without too much fuss or taking up too much room

Circular saw it is then... doesn't meet your original requirement of 'do a little of everything' but it's probably the tool most critical to the job you want to do right now. Up to you what you'd want to spend on it, no frills corded saws can be pretty affordable, but if you know you want to dive a bit deeper it might be worth investing a little up front in something that will either A) last longer, B) be part of system of tools, or C) both.

This is the method I'd probably use.




I started down the rabbit hole of looking at shed plans yesterday. Probably won't pull the trigger on it until next spring/summer because I need to finish this fence job and deck restoration first, but I'm thinking a 10'x16' gambrel shed... maybe with a little sitting/grilling/working area off the side door...

[Allentown]

Electric mowers. Very small yard, don't care too much about yard quality, willing to rake once in a while. Back yard often has sticks and junk in it that I usually just roll over with my gas mower, but the oldest kid is 5 and I can start pawning some jobs on him.
Anyways, would be nice to get a smaller electric so I can free up some space in both the shed where the mower is now, and a shelf in the gym mostly holding thinks for gas mower maintenance.

[alek]

Circular saw it is then...

I agree, and I'd opt for a plywood blade, too.

If I'm cutting down a full sheet, I lay it on a piece of cheap insulation foam board to cut it. Do you have one weird trick to break plywood down?

[alek]

Electric mowers. Very small yard, don't care too much about yard quality, willing to rake once in a while. Back yard often has sticks and junk in it that I usually just roll over with my gas mower, but the oldest kid is 5 and I can start pawning some jobs on him.
Anyways, would be nice to get a smaller electric so I can free up some space in both the shed where the mower is now, and a shelf in the gym mostly holding thinks for gas mower maintenance.

I've got a few of the battery yard tools from Harbor Freight--Atlas is the brand. I've been very pleased with their performance; the 80V chainsaw is a beast. They also have two variants of the battery powered lawnmower--self-drive and not. Each can take two of the 80V batteries, which gets about 80 minutes of cut time according to the box. When our gas mower goes out, that's what I'll be getting as a replacement.

[mouse]

Do you have one weird trick to break plywood down?

Nah, I only know the tricks everyone else knows... and most probably know more than me.

The foam insulation you mentioned is a good one. Clamping a box level/guide board/scrap piece of 2x4 is like a poor man's track saw for long cuts...

[5hout]

Do you have one weird trick to break plywood down?

Nah, I only know the tricks everyone else knows... and most probably know more than me.

The foam insulation you mentioned is a good one. Clamping a box level/guide board/scrap piece of 2x4 is like a poor man's track saw for long cuts...

I'm going to politely disagree. Clamping is the middle class man's track saw.

Poor man's track saw is to straight nail the guide board on. If you can get over the holes it works and is very fast/helps limit clamp needs if all of yours are in use.

Also, for those that haven't seen scraps to build cleats before:



It's not fancy, but it holds stuff and you can build pile of random scrap wood into a surface and move the fixed cleat around pretty easily.

[JonA]

Anyway, I want to build a thing to level my hillbilly deadlift platform and I need a way to quickly and easily cut wood in straight lines without too much fuss or taking up too much room

Maybe a pack of shims for about $2?

[JonA]

The foam insulation you mentioned is a good one.

Real men lay it down in the back of their pickup bed and cut between to corrugations.

[Hardartery]

I really do find that the only thing I'm concerned with these days is "why are we on this planet". Perhaps it's so sort of religious trauma due to I Keep Calling But God Won't Answer but I always think to myself a line from a song I quite enjoy, from an album I also quite enjoy, that I also happen to own on tape after having it bought it from a young man of Caucasian persuasion who just happened to live down the street (quite the surprise given that I bought it online). It goes: "God never lived so why should I?"

So, why should I? I was watching Cuba and the Cameraman two nights ago and the make of the film John Alpert climaxes the film with a visit to his decade long friends at the Borregos Ranch. Unfortunately, he finds that all but one of the Borregos siblings has succumbed to old age. The last surviving member of the family notes: "La vida no es nada...empieza feliz, todos estan juntos, y luego con tiempo, todos se van. La vida is duro, muy duro."

Life is nothing. Famous Mexican songwriter Jose Alfredo Jimenez Sandoval has a line in his seminal mid 20th century hit Camino De Guanajuato that goes: "La vida no vale naaaaaadaaaaa...."

Our passage from eternal oblivion is marked by tears and will come to be shuttered with another curtain of tears. End cutscene. I have to unlock the table saw for another customer. 7399 is combo to the locks here, if you know that, you could make out like a bandit. Short staffing keeps profits sky high, and there is never any eyes in here but the robot ones, and who sees through those? Silicon is as dead I will be, Frederico Faggin and his mid life crisis did well enough to assure me of that.

Customer motions to grab the table saw. Greedy little arms, beady little eyes, little dreams but lots of money. It's a $449 DeWalt, hefty, if I were not built like the sturdy bueys of the Borregos family I would have relinquished it in a heartbeat, store policy be damned.

"Sir, I have to walk this up due to loss prevention policies"

The glimmer in his eyes becomes as opaque as the sky in the light pollution of the 10PM parking lots. The stalls look a lot like graves, waiting to be filled.

His little dreams become infinitesimally small, and he says nothing, body language denoting that the time for grabbing with greedy hands is over. It's something we all wish for, to grab and keep grabbing. Flesh sags, fruit rots, trees wither and winter becomes spring and spring becomes winter, all the time wishing that it was just a little more. Fate against your will, as Echo and the Bunnymen would say. Will I be laid up on the cooling board, in eternal repose, the last twitching of the muscles I have had a lifetime of bonding with eking out one little dream, one little expression that says: I did not want to comply with the loss prevention policies of Death, Inc. I want my complex interplay of dialectical biological processes back. From here on out I go into some other form. I was once a small bundle of cells that became a slightly larger bundle of cells. I deadlifted a few things, felt things that no neuroscientific paradigms could reduce to a few diagrams and wrote a few posts the bewildered other bundles of cells, words that only come alive when there is someone to see them, and the life they take is not of their own, but of the reader. Zombified text busting out at you through dead silicon. If I could read, I would have come out with something better, but my indolence precludes me from ever really knowing much about anything. Critique of Pure Reason looks interesting, but I simply Kant now.

Anyway, I want to build a thing to level my hillbilly deadlift platform and I need a way to quickly and easily cut wood in straight lines without too much fuss or taking up too much room

A circular saw, and a chalk line. If you have a reasonably steady hand you can cut what you need, table saws are overkill for what you are doing. Of course, you could probably just use the panel saw where you work (I'm guessing it's a home center of some sort or hardware store). Or get someone to do it for you if you are buying the sheet of plywood at one of these places, they will cut the lumber for free. If you do it yourself with a circular saw, a Diablo or Avanti blade and get the 32 tooth if it's plywood. Don't buy a "Plywood" blade, they suck.
***Stop looking for meaning or fulfilment in music, especially Mexican drinking music (Yes, I know what Ranchera is and who Jimenez was). People who die of cirrhosis of the liver at a young age aren't really good sources of life direction or hope. Keep in mond that philosophers are dedicated to seeking an absolute truth that they equally don't believe exists, it's the definition of pointless. Try not to cut any fingers off with the saw.

[mouse]

Poor man's track saw is to straight nail the guide board on.

Touche

Real men lay it down in the back of their pickup bed and cut between to corrugations.

If the truck in this scenario is mine I should have more than enough empty space from rust/rot to provide clearance.

[Renascent]

I really do find that the only thing I'm concerned with these days is "why are we on this planet". Perhaps it's so sort of religious trauma due to I Keep Calling But God Won't Answer but I always think to myself a line from a song I quite enjoy, from an album I also quite enjoy, that I also happen to own on tape after having it bought it from a young man of Caucasian persuasion who just happened to live down the street (quite the surprise given that I bought it online). It goes: "God never lived so why should I?"

So, why should I? I was watching Cuba and the Cameraman two nights ago and the make of the film John Alpert climaxes the film with a visit to his decade long friends at the Borregos Ranch. Unfortunately, he finds that all but one of the Borregos siblings has succumbed to old age. The last surviving member of the family notes: "La vida no es nada...empieza feliz, todos estan juntos, y luego con tiempo, todos se van. La vida is duro, muy duro."

Life is nothing. Famous Mexican songwriter Jose Alfredo Jimenez Sandoval has a line in his seminal mid 20th century hit Camino De Guanajuato that goes: "La vida no vale naaaaaadaaaaa...."

Our passage from eternal oblivion is marked by tears and will come to be shuttered with another curtain of tears. End cutscene. I have to unlock the table saw for another customer. 7399 is combo to the locks here, if you know that, you could make out like a bandit. Short staffing keeps profits sky high, and there is never any eyes in here but the robot ones, and who sees through those? Silicon is as dead I will be, Frederico Faggin and his mid life crisis did well enough to assure me of that.

Customer motions to grab the table saw. Greedy little arms, beady little eyes, little dreams but lots of money. It's a $449 DeWalt, hefty, if I were not built like the sturdy bueys of the Borregos family I would have relinquished it in a heartbeat, store policy be damned.

"Sir, I have to walk this up due to loss prevention policies"

The glimmer in his eyes becomes as opaque as the sky in the light pollution of the 10PM parking lots. The stalls look a lot like graves, waiting to be filled.

His little dreams become infinitesimally small, and he says nothing, body language denoting that the time for grabbing with greedy hands is over. It's something we all wish for, to grab and keep grabbing. Flesh sags, fruit rots, trees wither and winter becomes spring and spring becomes winter, all the time wishing that it was just a little more. Fate against your will, as Echo and the Bunnymen would say. Will I be laid up on the cooling board, in eternal repose, the last twitching of the muscles I have had a lifetime of bonding with eking out one little dream, one little expression that says: I did not want to comply with the loss prevention policies of Death, Inc. I want my complex interplay of dialectical biological processes back. From here on out I go into some other form. I was once a small bundle of cells that became a slightly larger bundle of cells. I deadlifted a few things, felt things that no neuroscientific paradigms could reduce to a few diagrams and wrote a few posts the bewildered other bundles of cells, words that only come alive when there is someone to see them, and the life they take is not of their own, but of the reader. Zombified text busting out at you through dead silicon. If I could read, I would have come out with something better, but my indolence precludes me from ever really knowing much about anything. Critique of Pure Reason looks interesting, but I simply Kant now.

Anyway, I want to build a thing to level my hillbilly deadlift platform and I need a way to quickly and easily cut wood in straight lines without too much fuss or taking up too much room

I don't keep up with this thread much (I buy cheap Ryobi shit for one-off DIY projects that always leave a sour taste in my mouth when finished)...

But this is a beautiful piece of writing, I must say.

[mouse]

But this is a beautiful piece of writing, I must say.

I don't remember who pointed it out in one of his past threads but yes, if this dude could harness his powers and point them in a more productive direction than self-degradation he seems to have a hidden talent for the written word.

[EggMcMuffin]

But this is a beautiful piece of writing, I must say.

I don't remember who pointed it out in one of his past threads but yes, if this dude could harness his powers and point them in a more productive direction than self-degradation he seems to have a hidden talent for the written word.

It's weird because I'm genuinely kind of a clueless dude, like I keep realizing I'm close to 30 and actually have a decent amount of education (2 years of music undergrad and almost my third year of CompSci) but I don't do anything with anything I know. Everyone always tells me I'm good at writing. One of the teachers at my alternative highschool after I got my ass kicked out of highschool for being too depressed told me the prose I turned in as an exam to see where my English skills were at told me it was some of the best they'd ever gotten, and I was 17 and way dumber/brain damaged at that time. I find it kind of hard to believe.

Either way, I'm kind of in a position where I don't think I'd ever do anything with it. I'm almost done with college and as a STEMlord I don't have many opportunities to do what I actually appear to be good at (aka useless shit like music and writing), and most of my writing is pretty much of the top of my head and as a way to exclusively vent my existential preoccupations, and given that I'm pretty deeply immature for my age I don't think anything I have is worth much to anyone. I'd love to get paid to wordsmith shit but lol no English degree or connections.

Honestly if I just wish I was less lazy and neurotic, I've spent so much time fighting with myself I don't really have much energy for anything.

[Hardartery]

But this is a beautiful piece of writing, I must say.

I don't remember who pointed it out in one of his past threads but yes, if this dude could harness his powers and point them in a more productive direction than self-degradation he seems to have a hidden talent for the written word.

It's weird because I'm genuinely kind of a clueless dude, like I keep realizing I'm close to 30 and actually have a decent amount of education (2 years of music undergrad and almost my third year of CompSci) but I don't do anything with anything I know. Everyone always tells me I'm good at writing. One of the teachers at my alternative highschool after I got my ass kicked out of highschool for being too depressed told me the prose I turned in as an exam to see where my English skills were at told me it was some of the best they'd ever gotten, and I was 17 and way dumber/brain damaged at that time. I find it kind of hard to believe.

Either way, I'm kind of in a position where I don't think I'd ever do anything with it. I'm almost done with college and as a STEMlord I don't have many opportunities to do what I actually appear to be good at (aka useless shit like music and writing), and most of my writing is pretty much of the top of my head and as a way to exclusively vent my existential preoccupations, and given that I'm pretty deeply immature for my age I don't think anything I have is worth much to anyone. I'd love to get paid to wordsmith shit but lol no English degree or connections.

Honestly if I just wish I was less lazy and neurotic, I've spent so much time fighting with myself I don't really have much energy for anything.

An English degree is unnecessary. In fact, a degree of any kind is unnecessary for anything along that line. You can get a job as a Copy Editor on a freelance basis by simply doing the qualifying exam for a publishing company. No education required. You contact the company online, and ask to do the exam to be a Copy Editor. If you pass/do well enough, you get offered books to edit. You can build a CV and get practice by volunteering for stuff like the Gutenberg Project. There is also a great need for people to write manuals, or at least clean up the Engrish that they usually encompass. No degree required, apply as a freelancer. Do a sample to submit if you want to impress them. It doesn't pay fantastic, but it is flexible and probably pays better than what are doing now. The more you work the more you make, and you get faster with time. Seriously. The hardest part is getting up the nerve to contact the first company.

[broseph]

I’m building a deck. The palm nailer is the best kept secret in deck construction that I’m aware of.