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Harbor Freight today is wildly different from Harbor Freight of the 1990s. They have over a thousand stores now and opening more each month. Go Kart guys seem very happy with their gas motors. Apparently all the good gas motors (tillotson, etc) coming out of china come from two factories, and HF does business with both
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Feb 1, 2023 20:36
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Cyrano4747 posted:You OK man? This is salty even for you. I'm responding while I'm in a meeting sop maybe it's more terse than normal, but still baffled at how two people can be so focused on a small snippet of a post where the whole point was "you're giving super outdated and bad advice about this thing". skybolt_1 posted:What grease do you use for this? I have been using Stens "00" grease which I think is the modern equivalent of "corn head" grease i.e. a sort of slurry type stuff that flows even when cold. I have had decent luck with it but curious what you're using. Literally whatever is in my grease gun, which is typically a standard but high quality automotive grease like Mobil 1. And yeah, that's always gonna be something that flows well cold because of climate here. Motronic fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Feb 1, 2023 |
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Feb 1, 2023 20:39
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Motronic posted:You will with at least half of the harbor freight ones I've taken apart. It's literally a "run it for 5 minutes and it's already trashed" situation with some of them. The quality control is startlingly bad on those things in particular. The "aluminum racing jack" is so close to snap ons they got sued, but barely won I have one. Their jack stands were bad in a certain year range, last I heard, the ones I got were not in that range. I can weld and they seem fine to me, but I'll use some sort of backup dunnage/cribbing if I'm getting under anything deadly. Speaking of welders, some of the best I know like HF vulkan welders but I hear their rods are not the best.
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Feb 1, 2023 20:45
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Hadlock posted:Harbor Freight today is wildly different from Harbor Freight of the 1990s. They have over a thousand stores now and opening more each month. Go Kart guys seem very happy with their gas motors. Apparently all the good gas motors (tillotson, etc) coming out of china come from two factories, and HF does business with both True, and their prices on a lot of things have increased to match the higher quality. There's still some great prices on certain things (torque wrench, basic hand tools), but the closest one to me is 20 miles away, and the price difference between Home Depot or other stores closer don't always justify the trip anymore.
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Feb 1, 2023 20:47
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Quaint Quail Quilt posted:Speaking of welders, some of the best I know like HF vulkan welders but I hear their rods are not the best. I now generally avoid all HF consumables period. Grinding wheels, etc have been found to have some nasty stuff in them over the years and it's just not worth the risk. Especially since every consumable I've ever used from there has performed like junk anyway.
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Feb 1, 2023 21:00
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Quaint Quail Quilt posted:The "aluminum racing jack" is so close to snap ons they got sued, but barely won I have one. Is this still the same design https://www.harborfreight.com/15-ton-low-profile-aluminum-racing-floor-jack-with-rapid-pump-64545.html I'm about to buy a jack re: welders I bought their cheapest flux core welder and it's been doing ok, haven't welded anything more than 1/8" so far but inverter welders have really come down in price very accessible to casuals these days. I think I have $275 in my welding setup all in; auto darkening helmet gloves magnets wire Will have to look at the grease situation on the angle grinder, I just dropped $40 on an 8 amp Bauer with the rear trigger, about to do some significant grinding to clean up the spatter from my flux core  Edit: found the project farm floor jack review on YouTube, I guess it's the Daytona model not the Pittsburgh Hadlock fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Feb 1, 2023 |
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Feb 1, 2023 21:07
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Motronic posted:
Yeah I legit missed that and guilty as charged, I stopped reading 
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Feb 1, 2023 21:15
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Motronic posted:You will with at least half of the harbor freight ones I've taken apart. It's literally a "run it for 5 minutes and it's already trashed" situation with some of them. The quality control is startlingly bad on those things in particular. I agree on all points actually. I think most homeowners will never own one, of those that do if it fails within the first 10-15m of use they will bring it back, and past that anything else is gravy to them. The clever ones will hit up youtube and see if they can do what you described to ressurect it, probably with decent success as I imagine they make increasingly horrifying noises before being permanently toast. And the tool nerds will do as you described right out of the box - open it up, degrease and deburr the whole thing really quickly, slap some new grease in there and see where the day takes them. I didn't read it as salty "for Motronic" maybe because I was also shitposting between meetings.  Oh and never use a death wheel without brand name eye/face protection (bought at a real store not HF/Amazon), and if you value your sanity don't use hf wheels themselves because holy shrapnel batman.
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Feb 1, 2023 21:45
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Bobcats posted:Fun homeownership lesson - be REALLY careful when snaking a toilet unless you want to spend a thousand years polishing off a tiny layer of metal from porcelain. Is this even possible? I have these dark grey marks in my porcelain kitchen sink (from normal utensils) that I've been trying to remove but I haven't found a way to do it. When I'm redoing my kitchen in the near future, I'm going back to brushed metal for my sinks.
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Feb 2, 2023 12:09
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EricBauman posted:Is this even possible? Vinegar/window cleaner and a microfiber cloth got rid of snake metal marks in my bathroom sink
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Feb 2, 2023 12:14
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EricBauman posted:Is this even possible? Sure it's from utensils? Because aluminum pans will do that pretty bad. Barkeeper's Friend and a little elbow grease will take care of it (as well as other stains/discoloration that have built up).
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Feb 2, 2023 13:09
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My stainless steel sink is scratched up but I don’t get people who have the discipline to keep that stuff shiny and polished
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Feb 2, 2023 14:05
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Anyone have experience with the composite quartz kitchen sinks? We really like the Kohler enameled cast iron look, but they are $2200+. Wondering if anyone has long term experience with the lower cost alternative or if we should just stick with stainless.
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Feb 2, 2023 14:23
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an iksar marauder posted:My stainless steel sink is scratched up but I don’t get people who have the discipline to keep that stuff shiny and polished I have the same reaction to shiny stainless sinks as I do immaculate truck bed liners: You either never use it, are superhumanly careful, or you just spent money last week to get it cleaned up and haven't used it yet.
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Feb 2, 2023 15:38
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1 day in to home ownership: discovered that the place has tons of coax cables that don't seem to be connected to each other/the access point outside. Also the power just went out.
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Feb 2, 2023 23:18
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tubamortis posted:1 day in to home ownership: discovered that the place has tons of coax cables that don't seem to be connected to each other/the access point outside. This was a fun discovery for me, too. Had the Comcast guy come out and he had to reconnect cables in both the basement and attic before the internet would work. There are three different boxes on an outside wall with coax going into them, from three different providers. There's also a bonus severed mystery coax cable sticking out of the ground about 10 feet away from them all.
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Feb 2, 2023 23:26
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tubamortis posted:1 day in to home ownership: discovered that the place has tons of coax cables that don't seem to be connected to each other/the access point outside. Starts filling out new homeowner bingo card If you could get me a crazy neighbor and forgotten box in the attic I'll have bingo.
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Feb 3, 2023 00:07
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H110Hawk posted:Starts filling out new homeowner bingo card I found a strange mini-cleaver in the dishwasher (for charcuterie? for murdering pixies?) and the power company has turned off my neighbor's power several times in the attempt to get me back up and running, so we're getting there.
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Feb 3, 2023 01:37
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Probably a cheese knife! It's for harder cheeses. I guess I will fill in forgotten weapon and comical utility mixups but I'm not really getting closer to winning here.
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Feb 3, 2023 02:26
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tubamortis posted:I found a strange mini-cleaver in the dishwasher (for charcuterie? for murdering pixies?) and the power company has turned off my neighbor's power several times in the attempt to get me back up and running, so we're getting there. Ah they cleaned the poop knife for you, that was nice of them.
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Feb 3, 2023 02:27
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I found a spare key to a 2018 Subaru just sitting in an envelope on the shelf....17 months after I moved in.
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Feb 3, 2023 03:19
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until yall paid a plumber to pull an at least two year old dildo out of your plumbing i dont wanna hear it
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Feb 3, 2023 04:52
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Deviant posted:until yall paid a plumber to pull an at least two year old dildo out of your plumbing i dont wanna hear it What if I paid them to put it there? 
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Feb 3, 2023 04:54
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Deviant posted:until yall paid a plumber to pull an at least two year old dildo out of your plumbing i dont wanna hear it Are you sure it wasn't 1.5 years old? 
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Feb 3, 2023 05:03
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tubamortis posted:1 day in to home ownership: discovered that the place has tons of coax cables that don't seem to be connected to each other/the access point outside. I was in a rental at one point, ancient house by local standards Comcast put in a new set of coax every time they had a new renter came in At one point my upstairs neighbor moved in, they just ran coax across the back yard and up the side of the house There were, I poo poo you not, at least 1000' feet of coax in my crawl space, for a 1400 sq ft house Good luck
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Feb 3, 2023 06:13
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My house has useless coax lines coming from the useless satellite dish and drilled through the nice hardwood floors instead of terminating in a sane location.
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Feb 3, 2023 06:19
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How do I approach picking a type of flooring? We are going to replace what we have and I’m unsure about how to tell if the wood is quality or not. Do I trust that all white oak is the same from any supplier? Reviews of different types of flooring can be hard to find… Also interested in people’s opinions on solid vs. engineered (vs other?). Not overly concerned with price, I want to make sure whatever I put in is quality stuff and will last until I’m dead. Im looking for a nice hard floor that won’t dent easily like what we currently have, light color to keep space open, and able to stand up to wild swings in humidity our apartment gets because of the skylights.
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Feb 3, 2023 18:22
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Maybe this is me outing myself as a broke person (or at least a cheapskate) but “I’m not concerned with price” are some dangerous words in the world of flooring.
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Feb 3, 2023 18:23
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We went with engineered hardwood in our home, after considering solid and bamboo. Every flooring person we spoke to told us to not even consider solid as opposed to engineered, because it doesn’t hold up to humidity swings as well (the engineered hardwood plies running in perpendicular directions per layer do better at handling expansion/contraction than solid hardwood). We almost went with engineered bamboo flooring through Cali Bamboo. The price point was good (~$6 per square foot) and it seemed like it had good specs, then we discovered there’s a decent sized class action lawsuit in the works against them. The engineered hardwood ended up being around $11 per square foot. Not cheap, but it looks nice at least. There are less expensive options that will surely hold up well, too. We were just really picky about color, finish, and size of chamfer on the plank edges.
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Feb 3, 2023 18:37
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Just going to throw out there that the builder I worked for in 06 tried to save money by buying cheap unfinished wood and doing the finish himself He yelled at me for throwing out too many knotty pieces, but the pieces I culled were all so bad as to be unusable with multiple almost one inch holes. After he double checked he agreed with me, like 1/3 was unusable! The next house we went prefinished and had very little scrap.
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Feb 3, 2023 19:12
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Cyrano4747 posted:Maybe this is me outing myself as a broke person (or at least a cheapskate) but “I’m not concerned with price” are some dangerous words in the world of flooring. I live in nyc and our space isn’t very big, I’m assuming that labor + ancillary stuff will outstrip the difference in cost between the reasonable (not skimping on quality, but not extravagant) choices. Seems to for many things.
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Feb 3, 2023 19:25
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Pre-finished is also going to have a much harder/tougher finish than sanding a floor after install plus most floor finishes take several weeks to fully cure meaning no rugs or large dogs for about 2 weeks. All that said I can not stand the look of pre-finished floors with a micro bevel and shinny finish like you see on most production homes, if it were me I would go the engineered route and spend a little more money on a nicer product.
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Feb 3, 2023 19:50
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Engineered is great but you need to look into how thick the actual wear surface/veneer is if you plan on being in the house for long enough where a refinish would factor in. Lower-end engineered will be thin enough that you might not even be able to refinish once. Higher end stuff will be thick enough that you can get 2-3 refinishes out of them. Some of the high end companies like Mirage are now doing non-plywood engineered, though I think it's a new product and I don't know if there's a lot of field experience with longevity. At least around Chicago suburbs, you're looking at $9-11/sq ft for good quality non-exotic pre-finished 3/4" solid or engineered. Anything solid wider than iirc 4" will need to be both nailed and glued. Wider than 5" in solid is very rare. We've got some quotes for 3/4" solid hard maple prefinished that are right around $19-20/sq ft for demo, materials, installation, and new pre-painted baseboard and shoe. Demo cost will vary based on what's currently down (click-lock laminate is cheap, properly installed tile is expensive to tear up). For dents, pay attention to both janka hardness and wear layer thickness (for engineered). Harder > more dent resistant, though if the wear layer is too thin it'll still dent. Prefinished is likely to show white scratches when it does scratch since it's usually a hard aluminum oxide top coating. raggedphoto posted:Pre-finished is also going to have a much harder/tougher finish than sanding a floor after install plus most floor finishes take several weeks to fully cure meaning no rugs or large dogs for about 2 weeks. All that said I can not stand the look of pre-finished floors with a micro bevel and shinny finish like you see on most production homes, if it were me I would go the engineered route and spend a little more money on a nicer product. What a couple of flooring guys have told me is the bevels are to hide the natural uneveness of the floors. In a finish-in-place, that'd all get sanded flat. Matte finishes are definitely in for higher-end prefinished these days, though.
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Feb 3, 2023 20:07
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Installer is probably more important then flooring if it is from a reputable manufacturer. Traditional hardwood is refinish-able if the time ever comes. Typically you will be gone though. Floor transitions might be more important.
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Feb 4, 2023 01:51
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I did bamboo flooring when I moved in here 15 years ago and it has not held up well at all. It was a deal at the time from lumber liquidators at 2.99/sf so I guess I got what I paid for.
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Feb 4, 2023 15:35
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My house has flipper-grade engineered bamboo and it kind of sucks. It’s fine as the flooring itself, but the veneer is just this paper thin wafer that chips off if you miss a spill somewhere and is in no way refinishable. If I could choose anything (other than amazing real hardwood), I would probably actually just get those wood-feel tiles since they are waterproof and don’t chip or dent. But only in a warm climate or if you can also do underfloor heating. Also, don’t get a dark color. Ours just shows a stupid amount of dirt at all times unless you just cleaned it 5 minutes ago. And god help you if low angle sun rays shine in your windows. Elysium fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Feb 4, 2023 |
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Feb 4, 2023 17:27
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Appliance chat : it's a stupid and unnecessary design flaw that things can block the pump filter in a way that you can't remove the filter to clear the blockage. From what I can see of the dozens of YouTube tutorials this is a common issue on loads of washing machines. I called bosch to see if I was under warranty and the answer was no, that'll be a hundo just to come out and look at it, a week from now. At that point the pain in the rear end that is dismantling the washing machine starts to make sense. It's a relatively easy job but takes time and comes with the risk of breaking stuff. Ugh.
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Feb 4, 2023 19:02
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It's probably designed as 'service tech only.' It looks worse than it is, just keep doing what you're doing. Washer/dryer disassembly always looks like a yard sale. For me the biggest issue is space. In a perfect world I'd levitate the machine out into my driveway and have a parts-holding table next to me. Instead I'm working in our 16x8 laundry room, which has the washer, dryer, small chest freezer & a massive Samsung along with a 50s kitchen table, and is also the (default) main entry/exit to the house. I have to announce the dryer overhaul in advance since no one will be able to go in or through the room until I'm done. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Feb 4, 2023 |
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Feb 4, 2023 19:08
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Yeah you really need room to work on it. Especially when the front is screwed into the base.
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Feb 4, 2023 19:12
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StarkingBarfish posted:Appliance chat : On the bright side being brave enough to replace a bad water pump on the washer and drive belt/motor pulley on the dryer saved me hundreds if not thousands of dollars, and these machines have several wear parts that go bad over time so it’s worth learning how to do. Once you know how to get in there the next time it takes a fraction of the time as with most things. Your problem sounds like it could just continue to recur though and that sounds super annoying. Were appliance repairs ever a thing in like the halcyon days of the 50s/60s or was I just a delusional and naive child? When I get told it’s 100$+ to even come see it I feel like by the time we’re all said and done I’m halfway to a new one anyway, what’s the point. I’m sure it’s still a service for people for whom money is no object but the value proposition seems absurdly bad hobbez fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Feb 4, 2023 |
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Feb 4, 2023 19:14
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