I wanted some space and a bit of a nice grassy area right of of our lower deck. I got 3 estimates and almost “choked” with their proposed pricing. Even though I’ve never built a stacked boulder wall before, I own a big skidsteer, so why not give it a shot. It’s just 3000# boulders, so if I screw something up, I can just pull them down and try again. Luckily it all went better than I could have hoped! No levels or strings, simply “eye-balled” it until the top course. I still need to do the final layer before winter, but all back-filled and compacted. In the end and after buying all of the boulders from a local quarry, I’m somewhere between $25-$35k ahead of the estimates and now have the experience and know how to do more.
Been struggling with finding motivation lately.
Working on cars for a living has made working on my own cars / bikes one of the last things I want to do when I get home.
Never been much good at wooodworking but took a hand-tool joinery course last year to see if I could hack it. I discovered Japanese hand tools while taking the course and everything started to make more sense.
Last month I cleaned out my shed and rebuilt my old tablesaw and started making some jigs.
Finished my first Kumiko piece tonight. It's going to be a long road to master this stuff but I find it very meditative, hours just seem to disappear.
Asa-no-ha pattern:
A golf cart.
Got the electronic lead screw project running on my old Takasawa TSL-800 lathe. It's not my design but still has to be adapted to my particular lathe. Still a lot to do in terms of packaging and wiring, but it's all working. 13 TPI threading, here I come.
I made this (the frame and fork)...
My daughter made these for me...
Did custom paint jobs on our race helmets... my wife wanted Star Wars themes, sooo....
My wife likes boxes, so I built this one for her. Started out as part of a 4' x 8' sheet of 20-gauge steel and a cedar board.
For me it was a typical project in the garage. Weld spatter gets on my woodworking projects and sawdust settles on my metal projects. 
In reply to Slippery :
Dang it, now I'm hungry. And I bet you ate the evidence so you can't prove you made it.
A gallery show of some of my paintings at Blend in Bath PA.
In reply to Rodan :
Any way you do one for payment? You can pick the type of barter! (Cash, booze, parts etc)
Justjim75 said:In reply to Rodan :
Any way you do one for payment? You can pick the type of barter! (Cash, booze, parts etc)
I took me over two years to get around to doing our own helmets... no way I'm taking one on commission!
In reply to Rodan :
Dangit! Those look great too.
Japanese toolbox. White maple, wedged tenon construction with oak wedges.
Valentines present for my wife a couple years ago.
Shoji lamp, Christmas present for my father.
Old stuff:
ShawnG said:Been struggling with finding motivation lately.
Working on cars for a living has made working on my own cars / bikes one of the last things I want to do when I get home.
I've been down that road. I got out. Now it doesn't feel like work and I don't feel like I'm in a time crunch and rush things for no reason. It's way more rewarding to see progress on my own cars than it was to work on other people's.
In reply to Patientzero :
I love what I do and I don't want to change, just needed to find a hobby that wasn't the same thing I do for 8 hours a day.
This is my work in progress. Once the plans are drawn up, it’ll transform into a 17’ sea kayak with a sub-40lb weight.
Recon1342 said:
This is my work in progress. Once the plans are drawn up, it’ll transform into a 17’ sea kayak with a sub-40lb weight.
Cool. I used to build stitch-and-glue kayaks. It's such an amazing metamophosis from flat sheet to functional boat.
In reply to freetors :
Skylight for my bathroom transom 
Steel workbench that uses otherwise wasted space above the play car:
custom exhaust for my 70s era generator is complete.
all mocked up before the welding start, made a trick bracket. 
all done and painted, needs header wrap and some heat tape to be 100%, the heavily modified flap was the most frustrating part.
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